BLOCKED FROM POSTING LINKS TO THIS VERY NEWS SITE ON FACEBOOK (its executives involved in case since 1996/1997 - far before one even existed... Jiangnan at CIIE: How beauty tech is improving the way we look People's Daily Online) 11:57, November 07, 2021 Personalized lip color device, hair building fiber, beauty devices A bunch of beauty products with elements of mind-boggling technology dazzle at the Consumer Goods exhibition area of the 4th China International Import Expo (CIIE) scheduled from Nov. 5 to 10 in Shanghai, east China. With a number of Fortune 500 companies and leading companies in the beauty industry gathering at the event, new opportunities are being shared for the booming "beauty economy" in the Chinese market. Lets join a reporter from Peoples Daily Online to explore how the beauty tech industry is improving the way we look. (Web editor: Xian Jiangnan, Liang Jun) Chinese business community donates food, household items to Kenyan children's home Xinhua) 13:20, November 07, 2021 [File photo by Pixabay] The Chinese business community in Kenya on Saturday donated 600,000 shillings (5,400 U.S. dollars) worth of assorted food and household items to the Mama Ngina Children's Home. Miriam Muange, branch administrator, Mama Ngina Children's Home said in Nairobi the contributions came at a time when their stock of essential commodities have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are thankful for the well-wishers who have brought donations to our children during this difficult time," Muange said. Mama Ngina Children's Home currently hosts 304 children of both primary and secondary school-going age. Muange observed that the support demonstrates that the Chinese business community is a true friend of Kenya and will go a long way in helping the children meet their daily needs. Aaron Sze, vice president of Kenya China Chamber of Commerce said that the donations that included cooking oil, maize meal, tissue paper and beverages are aimed at improving the living conditions of the less fortunate members of Kenya's society. "We believe that all children should live hopeful lives regardless of their current circumstances," Sze said. Meanwhile, the Kenya China Chamber of Commerce also donated face masks and sanitizers worth 14,000 dollars to the Kilimani police station in Kenya's capital city Nairobi. Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Rephrase Rephrase current sentence Edit in Ginger Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Rephrase Rephrase current sentence Edit in Ginger (Web editor: Kou Jie, Bianji) CIIE offers excellent platform for trade, investment: Rwandan official Xinhua) 14:23, November 07, 2021 The ongoing China International Import Expo (CIIE) offers market access to the world's second-largest economy and creates investment opportunities, a Rwandan official has said. In an interview with Xinhua Friday, Diane Sayinzoga, head of the Exports Department at the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) said CIIE offers an excellent platform for exhibitions, trade, and investment. During the 4th CIIE, running from November 5 to 10 in Shanghai, four Rwandan companies are taking part, represented by their Chinese partners with a virtual country pavilion. In this expo, the central African nation has brought to the Chinese consumers some of the best products from Rwanda, including coffee, tea, chilli, avocado oil, among others, the official said. This is the fourth time that Rwanda participates in the CIIE. Previous participation in the CIIE has increased the visibility of Rwandan products in the Chinese market, according to Sayinzoga, adding that Rwanda is planning to host a coffee cupping event to be live-streamed. Sayinzoga said the expo will help Rwandan companies know which other products would be of interest to the Chinese market apart from the country's traditional exports of tea and coffee. "The CIIE will also assist to raise brand recognition for Rwandan products, and we aim to secure important business partnerships with Chinese buyers," she said. "For the exhibitors, accessing a bigger market like China offers a big opportunity to do business. We may see new businesses coming out of these connections," Teddy Kaberuka, a Rwanda-based economist said. "China is both a big supplier of different types of goods globally but also a big buyer of raw materials and other industrial inputs," he said. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Rwanda. The two countries have a framework of cooperation that officials say is based on mutual trust. Rwandan coffee has continued to gain popularity in China. Last year, over 3,000 bags of coffee were sold out in less than a minute at an online live streaming event held through the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP). The eWTP was first launched in Rwanda by the government of Rwanda and Chinese e-commerce giant, Alibaba in October 2018 to offer African businesses easier access to new markets through simple and straightforward procedures. Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Rephrase Rephrase current sentence Edit in Ginger (Web editor: Kou Jie, Bianji) Colombia catches suspected organizer of attack on president Xinhua) 14:40, November 07, 2021 Colombian authorities have captured the suspected organizer of the attack on President Ivan Duque's helicopter in June, Defense Minister Diego Molano said on Saturday. "We tracked him down and captured him. Alias 'Aurelio', the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attack on the helicopter of President @IvanDuque on June 25 in Cucuta," Molano tweeted. A helicopter with the president, several ministers and local officials on board was shot at from the ground when they were travelling in the northeastern Norte de Santander department. No injuries were reported. Aurelio is alleged to be a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The guerrilla group was demobilized in 2016 and became a political opposition party, but a small faction of FARC leaders announced a return to armed activity later. Molano said the FARC dissidents want to increase their influence in the region, but the government "will dismantle (them) and regain tranquility and security for Norte de Santander." Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Rephrase Rephrase current sentence Edit in Ginger (Web editor: Kou Jie, Bianji) Practicing true multilateralism, China speeds opening-up toward high level Xinhua) 15:14, November 07, 2021 Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of global exhibitors at the ongoing China International Import Expo (CIIE) exceeded that of the previous edition -- a vote of confidence for the Chinese market and a message of business opportunities from it. The annual global import-themed trade fair, the first of its kind worldwide, is an emblem of China's high-level opening-up and concrete practice of maintaining true multilateralism. It has become a major platform for enterprises from either developed, developing, or underdeveloped countries to boost exports to the market with a population of over 1.4 billion. The fair attracted nearly 3,000 companies from 127 countries and regions this year, including 33 least developed countries. The number of U.S. companies attending this year's CIIE reached a record high compared with their presence at the previous three editions. In his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the fourth CIIE on Thursday, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed that China will firmly safeguard true multilateralism. It will also firmly share market opportunities with the rest of the world, promote high-standard opening-up, and uphold the common interests of the world. Chinese have traditionally valued the quality of honesty and integrity in interpersonal relationships and business. China also honors its words with actions, delivering on its commitments to expanding overall opening-up through legislation, policies and measures. In the past decade, through the establishment of free trade zones and the Hainan free trade port, the relaxation of restrictions on foreign investment, the hosting of the CIIE since 2018 and the first China International Consumer Products Expo in May, as well as the domestic ratification of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, China has accelerated its overall opening-up, bringing real and remarkable benefits to people and enterprises both at home and abroad. In the first three quarters of 2021, China's imports totaled nearly two trillion U.S. dollars, up 32.6 percent year on year and a record high. According to the latest World Trade Organization (WTO) data, in the first half of the year, China's international market share of imports increased by 0.7 percentage points year on year to 12 percent, contributing 15 percent of the global import increment. The Belt and Road Initiative, for win-win results amid economic globalization, has also become a popular international public good that enhances connectivity, creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in participating countries and pushes common development. Since its accession to the WTO 20 years ago, China has been promoting, defending and leading international cooperation. The country itself is a beneficiary of economic globalization, achieving historic progress such as eliminating absolute poverty. Yet, the downturn trend of global openness deserves close attention. The World Openness Report issued at the CIIE showed an overall decline of the World Openness Index over the past decade, especially the openness of certain developed countries. Global consensus on opening up needs to be strengthened and widened to pull the global economy out of a sluggish recovery as soon as possible. Collective wisdom and actions are urgently needed to steer economic globalization toward a more open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial direction for all to tackle the development deficit worldwide. And the "countercurrents" of protectionism, unilateralism, economic hegemony and bullying, must be firmly rejected. The global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has made the concept of a community with a shared future for humanity increasingly recognized. China will continue to firmly advance its opening-up and strive for the common prosperity of humankind. And all nations should stand on the right path of history and jointly build an open world economy for a better future. Enable Ginger Cannot connect to Ginger Check your internet connection or reload the browser Disable in this text field Rephrase Rephrase current sentence Edit in Ginger (Web editor: Kou Jie, Bianji) BEIJING, Nov. 6 -- China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the report on Chinese military and security developments released by the U.S. Department of Defense, said Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense (MND) on November 5, 2021. The U.S. Department of Defense released its annual report on Military and Security Developments Involving the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) on November 4, 2021. The report disregarded facts and was fraught with bias, made false remarks on China's national defense policy and military strategy, and fabricated the so-called "Chinese military threat", said Senior Colonel Wu Qian. The report also made groundless accusations against China's nuclear capability development, and interfered in China's internal affairs involving Taiwan and other issues, Wu said. China is strongly dissatisfied with and firmly opposed to the report, and has made solemn representations to the U.S. side, said Wu. Wu said that China firmly pursues a national defense policy that is defensive in nature and a military strategy of active defense, China's military development is aimed at safeguarding the country's sovereignty, security and development interests, and smashing any plot that endangers the regional peace, stability and prosperity. It does not target any country, nor does it pose a threat to any other country, he added. In recent years, the Chinese military has actively served the building of a community with a shared future for mankind and provided the international community with public security products such as peacekeeping, escort, anti-epidemic and humanitarian assistance, demonstrating the sense of responsibility of the military of a major country, as well as injecting strong positive energy into world peace and regional stability, Wu said. Both history and reality have proved that the development of the Chinese military has brought the world security rather than threats, opportunities rather than challenges, Wu added. In recent years, the U.S. has accelerated the development of its military capabilities in multi-fields including nuclear, outer space, cyber warfare, and hypersonic technology, brazenly withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) and the Treaty on the Limitation of Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems (ABM), established a tripartite security partnership with the U.K. and Australia to carry out nuclear submarine cooperation, artificially creating serious risks of nuclear proliferation and causing tremendous shocks on the international nuclear non-proliferation system, Wu stated. As we all know, the United States has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, whereas it is still upgrading its nuclear power and lowering the nuclear threshold, Wu said. The United States is the largest source of nuclear threat across the globe, Wu stressed. In addition, the U.S. is the only country that has been blocking for years the relaunch of negotiations for a protocol that includes a verification regime to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), said Wu, adding that the U.S. has deployed more than 200 American bio-labs outside its territory, and has not completed the destruction of its stockpiled chemical weapons so far, all of these have caused major threats to world peace and security. What should be pointed out in particular is that the U.S. side still owes the international community a clear account on the truth about its nuclear-powered submarine USS Connecticuts collision incident, Wu said. On the issue of territorial sovereignty and maritime rights disputes, Chinas position is clear and definite. The Diaoyu Island and its affiliated islands are an inalienable part of Chinese territory, and China has indisputable sovereignty over the islands and reefs in the South China Sea and their adjacent waters, Wu stressed. Wu expressed that the Chinese side always advocates peaceful settlement of disputes through negotiation and consultation, and firmly opposes interference and intervention by countries outside the region. Wu reiterated that there is only one China in the world, and Taiwan has been a sacred and inalienable part of Chinese territory since ancient times. For a period of time, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) authority has continuously taken provocations to seek "Taiwan independence" under the connivance of external forces, which is the root cause of destruction of peace and stability and escalation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait, Wu said. China firmly oppose the United States playing the Taiwan card, opposes any external forces intervening in Taiwan affairs, and opposes the DPP authoritys attempts to bank on the support of the U.S. in seeking "Taiwan independence," Wu said. The Chinese nation has a glorious tradition of opposing secession and safeguarding unity, for any moves by the DPP authority to split Taiwan from the motherland, and any external forces stirring up tensions in the Taiwan Strait and deliberately creating regional crises, the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) will deal them head-on blows with strong determination, firm will, and strong ability, Wu said. For more than 20 years, the U.S. side has been deliberately cooking up the so-called report on Military and Security Developments Involving the PRC year after year, which is a blatant hegemony behavior, Wu said. Here, we must warn sternly the U.S. side that any attempts and acts of interfering in China's internal affairs or bullying against China are doomed to failure before the Great Wall of steel of the PLA, the defense spokesperson said. A round of talks on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal is held in Vienna, Austria, 2021. /CFP Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Saturday that China welcomes Iran's decision to return to negotiations aimed at reviving a 2015 nuclear deal at the end of November. During his telephone conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, Wang stressed that the United States should take actions first before Iran resumes full compliance with the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Under the 2015 pact between Iran and six world powers (China, Russia, the U.S., the UK, France and Germany), Tehran curbed its uranium enrichment program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions by the U.S., the United Nations and the European Union. In May 2018, the administration of then U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal and unilaterally reimposed sanctions on Iran. In response, Iran gradually stopped implementing parts of its commitments to the agreement from May 2019. Six rounds of negotiations have been held in Vienna since April to iron out steps Iran and the U.S. must take in terms of nuclear activities and sanctions, respectively, to return to full compliance with the JCPOA. The talks have not resumed since Ebrahim Raisi took office as Iran's president on August 5. Iran on Wednesday announced an agreement to resume the talks on November 29. Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at the Second Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan's Neighboring Countries via video link, October 27, 2021. The meeting was held in Tehran, Iran. /Chinese Foreign Ministry Wang said the decision has shown Iran's positive attitude on resuming compliance with the deal. The U.S., which unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA, should take steps to rectify its policies first, he noted. Iran may resume fulfilling its nuclear commitments on that basis, he added. The Chinese diplomat called on relevant sides to enhance coordination and jointly make the talks move in the right direction. China supports Iran to strengthen cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he said. Amir Abdollahian said Iran appreciates China's positive stance on the Iran nuclear issue and the constructive role it has played. He stressed Iran's commitment to attending the talks on the revival of the JCPOA, adding that the country is willing to enhance communication and coordination with China on the talks. Iran attaches great importance to its cooperation with the IAEA and will invite IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to visit the country in the next few days, he said. The two foreign ministers also exchanged views on bilateral ties and the situation in Afghanistan. Wang said China stands ready to continue to work together with Iran to oppose unilateralism and bullying, defend the principle and non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries. He spoke highly of Iran's efforts in hosting the Second Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan's Neighboring Countries in late October, adding that China will host the third meeting. Amir Abdollahian said Iran's new administration is committed to developing friendly cooperation with China, describing bilateral ties as "strategic." He said Iran appreciates China's support in the country's fight against COVID-19 and expressed support to the Global Development Initiative proposed by China. It was the second phone call between Wang and Amir Abdollahian in less than a month. China will hold those who support "Taiwan independence" criminally liable for life, it said on Friday, provoking anger and ridicule from the democratic island at a time of heightened tension across the sensitive Taiwan Strait. For the first time China was spelling out the punishment that awaits people deemed to back independence for Taiwan, top officials of the self-ruled island among them, as tension rises over what China regards as a province of its own. China has not ruled out using force to bring Taiwan under its control, despite the island's claim that it is an independent country that will defend its freedom and democracy. The Taiwan Affairs Office named Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang, Parliament Speaker You Si-kun and Foreign Minister Joseph Wu as being "stubbornly pro-Taiwan independence," as it made public for the first time that it had drawn up a list of those falling into the category. Korea will import 20,000 liters of diesel exhaust fluid from Australia in a bid to ease a critical supply shortage. The government said Sunday it will mobilize military aircraft to bring the fluid, which is made from urea and deionized water, to the country this week. The shortage of the fluid, the key material used in diesel vehicles to reduce emissions, came as China tightened exports of fertilizer and related materials, which includes urea. The country also plans to mobilize all available diplomatic channels to secure the fluid from countries such as Vietnam and China. Also, starting Monday, hoarding of the fluid is banned. Sellers who hold back more than 10 percent of their monthly average sales last year face a fine of up to W100 million or up to three years in prison (US$1=W1,185). The crackdown will be enforced until the end of the year. 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 Press Release November 6, 2021 Lacson: Experience Needed to Lead PH Out of Dire Straits More at: https://pinglacson.net/article/lacson-experience-needed-to-lead-ph-out-of-dire-straits CABUYAO, Laguna - Experience, more than anything, will be needed to lead the Philippines out of the dire straits made worse by the pandemic, Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson said Saturday afternoon. Lacson likened the country to a patient in the Emergency Room of a hospital, having to choose between a "smart-looking" fresh graduate from medical school or an experienced surgeon with a successful track record. "Kung sa ER kayo at lucid pa kayo, ang pipiliin nyo bang duktor ang matikas na bago o yung sanay sa opera? Siyempre pagkakatiwala ko buhay ko sa mas maraming karanasan (If you are in the ER and you are still conscious, who will you choose to work on you - a smart-looking doctor who just graduated, or one who has a track record of many successful surgeries? Of course you would entrust your life to the one with the experience)," he said at a gathering he and his running mate Senate President Vicente "Tito" Sotto III attended here. Lacson - who is running under Partido Reporma - said he and Sotto - who is running under the Nationalist People's Coalition - have more than 80 years of public service between them. He said this includes 42 years of legislative work as senators of the Republic - and thus ready to perform the proverbial surgery. "Yan ang maihahain namin sa inyo ni SP Sotto - may Kakayahan, Katapatan, at Katapangan (That is what Senate President Sotto and I are prepared to offer you - our talent, loyalty and courage)," he said. Meanwhile, Lacson stressed anew the need to empower local government units (LGUs) so they can implement their development projects. This is in line with his Budget Reform Advocacy for Village Empowerment (BRAVE), where local governments receive much-needed resources to implement their projects. The national government can give leeway to the local governments and limit its role to policy supervision and guidance, he added. In Cabuyao, Lacson noted the local government unit set up two hospitals and two schools without help from the national government. But he said this is not the case in many other parts of the country, adding that in the national budget from 2010 to 2020, an average of P328.25 billion went unused. "Ito ang dapat natin itama, kasi mali talaga (This is what we have to correct because it is simply wrong)," he said. Lacson also emphasized the need to allot enough resources to fully implement the Universal Health Care law, which would allow quality healthcare to all at no cost to the public. Should he be elected President in May 2022, he said his administration would fully fund the requirement of the "high-cost" stage of the Universal Health Care Act to cover all barangays - as well as subsidize Philhealth premiums for all especially for indirect contributory populations, and ensure optimal benefits for healthcare workers. Press Release November 7, 2021 Drilon nixes 'no vax, no subsidy' for 4Ps members, hits DILG's callousness Drilon agrees with Vice President Robredo that the government should offer incentives to get people vaccinated rather than punish them Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon strongly opposed the "no vax, no subsidy" for 4.4 million beneficiaries of 4Ps or Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, calling the proposal of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) "absolutely unacceptable, inhuman and callous". "It pains me to see a government that has shown nothing but a total callous disregard for the vulnerable sector of our society. It is yet another display of the government's callousness," Drilon said in a statement on Sunday. "It only shows that the DILG is detached from reality and unaware of the real plight of the poor," he added. Drilon said the DILG should recall its proposal and called on the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the lead agency for the program, to protect the welfare of 4Ps beneficiaries. "Let DSWD handle 4Ps. I call on the DSWD to defend the 4Ps beneficiaries against the 'iron fist' of DILG," Drilon said. Drilon, who is among the authors of Republic Act No. 11310 that institutionalized 4Ps, said that vaccination is not part of the conditions that beneficiaries must fulfill before receiving assistance. The government's flagship anti-poverty alleviation program has about 4.4 million Filipino families as beneficiaries since the time of the late President Benigno Aquino, who prioritized the program and increased its beneficiaries from about 700,000 in 210 to 4.4. million towards the end of his term, Drilon noted. "It is contrary to the 4Ps law to withhold benefits or expel members who are not vaccinated. The DILG cannot just do that. That will be inhuman and totally insensitive," Drilon said. "We cannot assume that they are not vaccinated because they refused vaccines. They are not vaccinated because they have limited access to vaccines especially in the countryside or the roll out remains slow or the vaccines available are not what the people prefer," Drilon said. Drilon said that he agrees with Vice President Leni Robredo that the government should offer incentives to get people vaccinated rather than punish them. The DSWD had also earlier maintained that COVID-19 vaccination is not among the conditions of 4Ps and vowed to oppose the proposal all out. Citing Section 11 of RA 11310, Drilon said the conditions for entitlement are clearly indicated in the law: these are (a) Pregnant women must avail of pre-natal services, give birth in a health facility attended by a skilled health professional, and receive post-partum care and post-natal care for her newborn; (b) Children zero (0) to five (5) years old must receive regular preventive health and nutrition services including check-ups and vaccinations; (c) Children one (1) to fourteen (14) years old must avail of deworming pills at least twice a year; (d) Children three (3) to four (4) years old must attend daycare or pre-school classes at least eighty-five percent (85%) of them time; (e) Children five (5) to eighteen (18) years old must attend elementary or secondary classes at least eighty-five percent (85%) of their time; and (f) At least one (1) responsible person must attend family development sessions conducted by the DSWD, at least once a month. "The poverty incidence is continuously rising. There are 4.25 million Filipinos unemployed and 4.8 million families are hungry," he cited. The National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) had earlier said that about 17 million Filipinos are expected to remain poor next year and the government may fail to reach its 14-percent poverty rate target set by the Duterte administration due to the pandemic. "DILG's callous policy will make things even worse for 4Ps beneficiaries and for the economy," Drilon said. The former justice secretary also said that while the exercise of police power in promoting public health and safety has long been upheld in other countries such as in the United States, Drilon reiterated that such must be weighed carefully because many Filipinos remain unvaccinated not out of their own choice but because of the lack of supply of vaccines. In 1905, the US Supreme Court in Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts [197 U.S. 11 (1905)] upheld the compulsory vaccination of persons over the age of 21 against smallpox. It ruled that the vaccination program had a "real and substantial relation to the protection of the public health and safety." Drilon also cited Zucht v. King [260 U.S. 174 (1922)] wherein the parents of an unvaccinated child excluded from school challenged the ordinance requiring vaccinations for schoolchildren as violative of the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses. The Court held that "it is within the police power of a State to provide for compulsory vaccination" and that the ordinance did not bestow "arbitrary power, but only that broad discretion required for the protection of the public health." Press Release November 7, 2021 Villar launches 6th edition of Farm Tourism Book IN an effort to promote farm tourism and farm schools in the country, Sen. Cynthia A. Villar, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, launched the 6th Edition of her Farm Tourism Book for 2021. "The book, consisting of 2,805 listings, is a Directory of Farm Schools, Tourism Farms, Learning Sites, and TESDA Agri Centers in the Philippines. It contains in full color, photographs and contact details of these sites from all the country's 17 regions," said Villar. The directory also includes the classification of farm whether it's under rice, corn, coconut, organic crops, non-organic crops, high-value organic crops, bamboo, livestock, poultry, dairy, aquaculture, wild catch, and diversified. It also features a list of TESDA- accredited courses on agriculture, which farm schools can teach for free students and farmers. A project of Villar SIPAG, the directory intends to further boost Farm Tourism in the country. This will also serve as a guide to farm enthusiasts, trainees and tourists about farm destinations and learning sites in the country. "From a list of only 386 in its first edition, the number of farm schools has reached over 2,367 in the fifth edition and now, we have 2,805 in the sixth edition," noted Villar. These included the four farm schools built by Villar SIPAG in Las Pinas-Bacoor; San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan; San Miguel, Iloilo; and Davao City. "I continue to urge farmers to follow the example of others who have since become more profitable after converting their farms into tourism and learning sites. They have tripled their income sourcesfrom their crops or harvests, from tourists who visit their farms and from trainees who enroll in training programs," Villar said. The senator is the principal author and sponsor of Republic Act No. 10816 or the Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016 that is widely lauded and credited for strengthening agriculture-related tourism in the country. The said law paved the way for an increasing number of farmers, farm owners and farming communities to enjoy the benefits of converting their farms into farm tourism sites and farm schools. "They have multiplied their earning sources--from their crops, from the tourists' who visit their farm and buy products as well as from the tuition fees of the trainees in their farm schools being paid by TESDA," noted Villar. The farm schools serve as learning sites for farmers and plant enthusiasts who are given the opportunity to train for free on the ways of modern farming. Once accredited with Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) or by the Agricultural Training Institute (ATI), Villar said a farm school can avail of government support and scholarship grants as a learning site. "Farm schools provide agriculture-related training to help remove the barriers that prevent Filipino farmers from being competitive and profitable, including the lack of technology, mechanization and financial literacy, and knowledge in operating a farm as a business and ability to access cheap credit," said Villar. "With these projects, we hope to make our agriculture more competitive and profitable," further stated Villar. ____________________________________________________ Villar, inilunsad ang 6th edition ng Farm Tourism Book UPANG patuloy na isulong ang farm tourism at farm schools sa bansa ,inilunsad ni Sen. Cynthia A. Villar, chairperson ng Senate Committee on Agriculture, ang 6th Edition ng kanyang Farm Tourism Book para sa taong 2021. "The book, consisting of 2,805 listings, is a Directory of Farm Schools, Tourism Farms, Learning Sites, and TESDA Agri Centers in the Philippines. It contains in full color, photographs and contact details of these sites from all the country's 17 regions," ayon kay Villar. Kabilang din sa directory ang klasipikasyon ng mga bukid gaya ng rice, corn, coconut, organic crops, non-organic crops, high-value organic crops, bamboo, livestock, poultry, dairy, aquaculture, wild catch, at diversified. Itinatampok dito ang talaan ng TESDA- accredited courses sa agriculture na maaaring ituro ng libre ng farm schools sa mga estudyante at magsasaka. Layunin ng directory na proyekto ng Villar SIPAG na isulong ang Farm Tourism sa bansa. Magsisibi rin itong guide ng farm destinations at learning sites para sa ating mga farm enthusiasts, trainees at tourists "From a list of only 386 in its first edition, the number of farm schools has reached over 2,367 in the fifth edition and now, we have 2,805 in the sixth edition," ayon kay Villar. Kabilang dito ang apat na farm schools na ipinatayo ng Villar SIPAG sa Las Pinas-Bacoor City; San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan; San Miguel, Iloilo at Davao City. "I continue to urge farmers to follow the example of others who have since become more profitable after converting their farms into tourism wnd lewrning sites. They have tripled their income sourcesfrom their crops or harvests, from tourists who visit their farms and from trainees who enroll in training programs," paniniyak ni Villar. Ang senador ang principal author at sponsor ng Republic Act No. 10816 o Farm Tourism Development Act of 2016 na kinikilala sa pagpapalakas sa agriculture-related tourism in the country. Ang naturang batas ang naging dasn sa patuloy na paglago ng bilang ng mgs magsasaka, farm owners at farming communities na pinakikinabangang ang konbersyon sa farm tourism sites ng kanilang mga sinasaka. "They have multiplied their earning sources--from their crops, from the tourists' who visit their farm and buy products as well as from the tuition fees of the trainees in their farm schools," noted Villar. Nagsisilbi ring ang farm schools na learning sites sa mga magsasaka at plant enthusiasts na nabibigyan ng pagkakataon ng libreng pagsasanay sa makabagong pagsasaka. Kapag accredited ng Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) o ng Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) bilang learning site, sinabi ni Villar na ang farm school ay makakukuha ng suporta ng gobyerno at scholarship grants. "Farm schools provide agriculture-related training to help remove the barriers that prevent Filipino farmers from being competitive and profitable, including the lack of technology, mechanization and financial literacy, and knowledge in operating a farm as business and ability to access cheap credit," ani Villar. "With these projects, we hope to make our agriculture more competitive and innovative and profitable," dagdag pa niya . Your browser does not support the video tag. Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Dalondo Moultrie is the assistant managing editor of the Seguin Gazette. You can e-mail him at dalondo.moultrie@seguingazette.com . If you are currently a print subscriber but don't have an online account, select this option. You will need to use your 7 digit subscriber account number (with leading zeros) and your last name (in UPPERCASE). Trina Marie Grantham, 59, of Mechanicsville, MD passed away peacefully on Thursday, November 4, 2021 surrounded by her loving family at UM Charles Regional Medical Center, LaPlata, MD. She was born on February 16, 1962 in Washington, DC to the late Grover Jackson Deese and Geraldine Bertha (Coppage) Deese. Trina was a strong, independent and caring woman. She was a beautiful soul and her greatest joy came from being a mother to her two wonderful daughters, Crystal and Amanda. Nothing compared to the happiness she felt when surrounded by her daughters, sons-in-law and her precious grandchildren. Trina cherished every moment she was with her grandkids and was looking forward to watching them grow and seeing her daughters handle teenagers. Whether you knew her as Mom, Grandma, sister, aunt or friend you knew a lady who would go out of her way to help and take care of you. She will be greatly missed by all she knew. Trina is survived by her children, Crystal Saunders (Brad) of Mechanicsville, MD and Amanda Yarbrough (Chad) of Mechanicsville, MD; brother, Dale Deese of Centerville, MD and six (6) perfect grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her parents, Grover and Geraldine Deese and brother, Darrell Deese. The family will receive friends for Trina's Visitation on Wednesday, November 10, 2021 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. with a Funeral Service at 11:00 a.m., all at Brinsfield Funeral Home & Crematory, P.A., 30195 Three Notch Road, Charlotte Hall, MD 20622. Interment will be private. Condolences to the family may be made at www.brinsfieldfuneral.com. Arrangements by the Brinsfield Funeral Home & Crematory, P.A. Visitation Brinsfield Funeral Home & Crematory, P.A. Wednesday, November 10, 2021 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Email Details 30195 Three Notch Road Charlotte Hall, Maryland 20622 Funeral Service Brinsfield Funeral Home & Crematory, P.A. Wednesday, November 10, 2021 11:00 AM Email Details 30195 Three Notch Road Charlotte Hall, Maryland 20622 Graveside Service Will be held privately. By Trend Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan are planning to sign intergovernmental agreements in the field of transport, Kyrgyz Ambassador Kairat Osmonaliyev told Trend on Nov. 7. According to Osmonaliyev, during a video conference between representatives of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Kyrgyzstan and the Ministry of Digital Development and Transport of Azerbaijan, draft intergovernmental agreements on international road and air traffic, the resumption of the flights on Baku-Bishkek route, including other directions, as well as issues of developing cooperation in the sphere of transport communications. "Besides, we discussed the issues of increasing the quotas for forms of permits for bilateral transit transportation by road, exchange of experience with the Azerbaijani side on the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route project [Middle Corridor]," he said. The similar mechanism of operational interaction is planned to be organized between other interested structures of Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan, added the diplomat. By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova A documentary film "Shusha, you are free!" has been premiered on the eve of Victory Day, celebrated on November 8. The film was co-produced by Baku Media Center and Salnamafilm studio with the support of the Azerbaijan Culture Ministry. A historical documentary film "We", co-produced by Baku Media Center and Azerbaijanfilm studio was also screened as part of the event. Heroes of the 44-day Patriotic War, veterans of the first Karabakh war, representatives of state structures, cultural and scientific workers attended the event. A memory of the martyrs was honored with a minute of silence. Next, the Culture Minister Anar Karimov addressed the event. He expressed his gratitude to the president of the Baku Media Center Arzu Aliyeva, Salnamefilm and Azerbaijanfilm studios for the implementation of major projects. "These films reflect the valor of our brave warriors, the fearlessness of heroes who risked their lives for the liberation of our lands, the unity and greatness of our people, our fighting spirit and desire to restore the triumph of justice," the Minister added. Furthermore, the film crew and main heroes of films - ghazis of the Patriotic War were invited to the stage. Director of the film "Shusha, you are free!" Javidan Sharifov spoke about the filming process. A special film crew was sent to the combat zone and filmed the historical moments of the Shusha liberation. The film shows real scenes of battles which have never been seen before. On behalf of the president of the Baku Media Center Arzu Aliyeva, the executive director of the Baku Media Center Orman Aliyev expressed gratitude to the film crew for hard work and the relevant structures for support provided to the film. A documentary "Shusha, you are free!" was accompanied by a storm of applause. The film provides insight into some interesting details of the "Shusha operation", one of the brightest pages of modern military history. It also contains interviews with Azerbaijani valiant soldiers and officers - participants of the operation and exclusive footage taken during the battles for the city of Shusha. The director of the film is Javidan Sharifov, producers-Nazim Huseynov and Orman Aliyev. The historical-documentary "We" tells about the bravery of the servicemen who fought on the front line for 44 days and the unity of the Azerbaijani people supporting the army. The film reflects the patriotic spirit of Azerbaijani soldiers and ordinary citizens during the war, their emotions, experiences and, most importantly, the absolute confidence of every Azerbaijani in Victory. The documentary features interviews of the Azerbaijani citizens, whose videos, photos, statuses have become the most discussed on the social network. In the film, they share their experiences and memories. In mid-October, the film was awarded a special jury prize at the 6th International Festival of Documentary Films of the Turkic World in Istanbul. The author of the idea and the director of the film is Orman Aliyev, producer is the director of the Azerbaijanfilm studio Fariz Ahmadov. A photo exposition which includes images from the film was also presented as part of the event. By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova The National Carpet Museum has showcased a Victory Carpet woven within the project "Carpet Map of Karabakh". A tapestry "Shusha" was also presented as part of the event. A minute of silence was observed in the memory of the martyrs who fought for the liberation of Azerbaijan's territories from the Armenian occupation. In her speech, director of the Carpet Museum, Doctor of Philosophy in Art Criticism, Honored Cultural Worker Shirin Melikova noted that the museum was actively involved in information activities during the Patriotic War. "Our museum, which houses the largest collection of Karabakh carpets, has provided extensive information about these exhibits in local and foreign media. Moreover, posts about these carpets were published on social networks in three languages ??- Azerbaijani, English and Russian...," said Melikova. The museum also compiled an interactive "Carpet Map of Karabakh" aimed at promoting Karabakh carpet school. Initially, the map included only black and white images of Karabakh carpets. After the liberation of Karabakh, these parts in the map became colored. A carpet was woven on the basis of this map. It features ornaments of famous carpet compositions from different parts of Karabakh region. There is an expression "Karabakh is Azerbaijan" on the Victory Carpet. The patterns on the carpet symbolize the unity of the Azerbaijani people and features The idea of ??the Victory Carpet was put forward by the museum itself. The carpet was woven within three months. Around 48 colors were used in this process. The Carpet Museum director expressed her gratitude to everyone who contributed to the creation of the Victory Carpet. Speaking about the tapestry "Shusha", she emphasized that it belongs to Honored Artist Adil Shikhaliyev, who celebrates his 75th anniversary. The central part of the tapestry triptych depicts the city of Shusha before the occupation. The other sides show the fire of the battles and the post-war landscape. At the event, the chairman of Azerkhalcha OJSC Emin Mammadov noted that over the past two months, Azerkhalcha held a competition titled "Victory". The contest participants took part in the training held at the Carpet Museum. In his speech, Emin Mammadov stressed the importance of the development and promotion of carpet weaving art. Further, the museum's chief artist, Honored Artist Tariel Bashirov informed public and cultural figures about the ornaments and patterns of the Victory Carpet. In turn, Adil Shikhaliyev provided insight into the tapestry "Shusha". Next, the carpet was presented to the museum visitors in compliance with all ancient traditions. The ceremony was attended by prominent public figures, participants and veterans of the Second Karabakh War, members of the families of martyrs, well-known cultural and art figures. At the end of the evening, the play "Fitne" was presented to the children of martyrs. The shadow play was staged by the museum's Children's Museum Department to mark the 880th anniversary of Azerbaijan`s poet and thinker Nizami Ganjavi. By Azernews On September 27, 2020, in response to a large-scale provocation of the Armenian armed forces along the frontline, the Azerbaijani army launched a counter-offensive operation, later called the "Iron Fist". The 44-day war put an end to nearly 30 years of occupation, ensured the liberation of Azerbaijan's lands and the restoration of the country's territorial integrity. Chronicle of 44-day Second Karabakh War: November 7, 2021 - Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made a Twitter post that the Azerbaijani army liberated two villages in Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Zangilan, Gubadli, Khojaly and Khojavand regions. - The cannons of the 3rd battery of the Armenian armed forces' D-30 artillery division were destroyed. - The Armenian armed forces' equipment and manpower were destroyed. - The personnel of the Armenian armed forces' special military unit was besieged and liquidated. - The Armenian armed forces shelled Tartar and Aghjabadi. - The Armenian armed forces shelled the villages of Aghdam. - The Armenian armed forces shelled Azerbaijani settlements. - A 16-year-old teenager was killed in an Armenian missile attack on Barda. - Another video of the liberated villages of Jabrayil region was released. - The Armenian armed forces suffered losses in the direction of Aghdam. - Another military column of the Armenian armed forces was destroyed. A Moscow-brokered ceasefire deal that Baku and Yerevan signed on November 10, 2020, brought an end to six weeks of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani army declared a victory against the Armenian troops. The signed agreement obliged Armenia to withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied since the early 1990s. The peace agreement stipulated the return of Azerbaijan's Armenian-occupied Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions and urged Armenia to withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied since the early 1990s. Before the signing of the deal, the Azerbaijani army had liberated around 300 villages, settlements, city centers, and historic Shusha city. By Trend Another meeting of the Azerbaijani state commission on elimination of the consequences of the aggression of the Armenian Armed Forces chaired by chairman of commission, Prime Minister Ali Asadov was held, Trend reports referring to the Azerbaijani Cabinet of Ministers. The current work carried out by the state commission for the year was discussed at the meeting. The prime minister stressed that so far, 113.7 million manat ($66.9 million) has been allocated to eliminate the damage, including 27.4 million manat ($16.1 million) for infrastructure work (roads, communications, water, electricity and gas supply), 50 million manat ($29.4 million) - construction, repair and restoration work, 6.6 million manat ($3.9 million) - for the purchase of apartment buildings for 89 families in Ganja, 1.4 million manat ($823,529) - for agriculture, 4.8 million manat ($2.8 million) - for working capital of entrepreneurs, 0.6 million manat ($0.3 million) - for vehicles, 7.4 million manat ($4.3 million) - for repair and construction work in eight educational institutions (the first stage), 15.5 million manat ($9.1 million) - for financial assistance to 12,370 families (about 50,000 people). Moreover, the state commission made a decision to repair and restore 13,295 facilities. The repair, restoration and construction work has been fully completed at 12,125 facilities (91.2 percent of the total number of facilities) over the past period. Currently, construction and repair work is underway at 1,094 facilities (8.2 percent). For one reason or another, repair has not been launched at 76 facilities (0.6 percent). The necessary assessment is carried out on the facilities of this category. By Trend Topics discussed at the Global Baku Forum to help solving problems, Co-Chair of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC) Ismail Serageldin said on the sidelines of the forum, Trend reports. According to Serageldin, the VIII Global Baku Forum, at which various topics are discussed, has a big importance. "The joint battle of the world countries against the COVID-19 pandemic would make its contribution to solving the problem. I highly appreciate the work of the VIII Global Baku Forum," he added. Organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center under the patronage of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the VIII Global Baku Forum under the motto "The World after COVID-19" kicked off on November 4 and will end on November 6. The VIII Global Baku Forum brings together high-level representatives, including former heads of state and government, officials of international and non-governmental organizations from more than 40 countries, as well as other distinguished guests, to discuss issues of global importance. About 300 guests are participating in the event, organized in a hybrid format, live and online. President of Intl Turkic Academy congratulates President Ilham Aliyev 07 November 2021 [12:15] - President of International Turkic Academy Darkhan Kydyrali sent a congratulatory letter to President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev. Views: 449 By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova The last panel within the 8th Global Forum has been held in Shusha. Co-Chairman of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center Ismail Serageldin delivered a lecture on the value of cultural heritage from an economic point of view during the panel titled The Valuation of Culture. Serageldin demonstrated the methods for calculating the cost of such investments and showed that investments in the restoration and preservation of cultural heritage, as well as protection of the environment and the wealth of biodiversity are of great value. Notably, the participants of the 8th Global Baku Forum arrived in Shusha on November 7. Delegation left for Shusha city by bus from the Fuzuli International Airport. During the visit, the guests viewed historical, cultural and religious monuments and restoration work being carried out in Shusha. Organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center under the patronage of President Ilham Aliyev, the 8th Global Baku Forum was held on November 4-6. The large-scale event was held under the motto "The world after COVID-19 and brought together high-level representatives, including former heads of state and government, officials of international and non-governmental organizations from over 40 countries, as well as other distinguished guests to discuss issues of global importance. Around 300 guests participated in the forum, held in a hybrid format, live and online. By Trend A march on the occasion of the Victory Day will be held in Azerbaijans Baku city on November 8, Trend reports on Nov. 7. The march with participation of a military orchestra, which will start at 10:00 (GMT+4) will start at the Azneft square until the White City Boulevard. Cadets of the Azerbaijan Higher Military School named after Heydar Aliyev will carry the flag of Azerbaijan. The cavalry will be also involved in the march. There will be a flash mob organized through the support of the Regional Development Public Union in the end of the march. By Trend Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry has released a video footage in connection with the events that occurred last year. The clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan resumed after Armenia launched large-scale attacks on Azerbaijani forces and civilians on September 27. The 44 days of war ended with the Russian brokered peace deal signed on November 10 by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders. The peace agreement ended the 30-years-old conflict between Baku and Yerevan over Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region that along with the seven adjacent districts came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s. For about three decades, Armenia failed to implement the UN Security Council resolutions demanding the withdrawal of the Armenian troops, which was the main obstacle to the resolution of the conflict. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva have talked to the 8th Global Baku Forum's participants who visited Shusha, Azertag reported. Congratulating President Ilham Aliyev on the Victory Day, the guests noted that they were impressed by such large-scale work here in a short time. The head of state then posed for a group photo with the guests in the Jidir Duzu. First Vice-President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva on her official Instagram has shared more footages from her visit to Shusha with President Ilham Aliyev. First Vice-President of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva has made an Instagram post on the visit to the city of Shusha. The post on her official Instagram post says: We are heading to Shusha! Homeland. By Trend The partnership between Uzbekistan and the special economic zone (SEZ) in Russia - "Innopolis" (in Tatarstan), in terms of development of technological entrepreneurship is a mutually beneficial cooperation for both parties, General Manager of the SEZ Renat Khalimov told Trend. "Startups and IT companies from both Russia and Uzbekistan will receive benefits such cooperation," Khalimov said. "This partnership expands access to highly qualified personnel for both parties." He added that the acceleration program for start-up projects will simplify entry into a new market and open up new opportunities for start-up projects. "We will strengthen each other's competencies and develop an expert community in the innovation field and regularly exchange experience in the development and promotion of software products and services of national developers in foreign markets," Khalimov noted. According to him, within the framework of partnership with 'Innopolis', a wide range of progressive opportunities, a new market, access to a developed infrastructure of international class and highly qualified specialists are opening up for the IT business of Uzbekistan. This is not the first time Uzbekistan is working with 'Innopolis'. Back in September of 2021, Uzbekistan's payment system UZCARD signed agreement with 'Innopolis' JSC. The cooperation aimed at joint projects in innovative technology and venture capital investments in Russia and Uzbekistan. "Innopolis" residents receive preferential tax conditions of the special economic zone, own recruiting center for IT specialists and low rental price which is $900 per month for a 100 sq. meters. By Azernews By Laman Ismayilova Musical fireworks will light up Baku on Victory Day, celebrated on November 8. Spectacular firework show will be accompanied by music pieces of Azerbaijan's prominent composers. The firework show will start at 21:10 (GMT+4) on Seaside Boulevard. November 8 is celebrated in Azerbaijan as Victory Day in accordance with the order "On the establishment of Victory Day in the Republic of Azerbaijan" signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on December 3, 2020. The clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan resumed after Armenia launched large-scale attacks on Azerbaijani forces and civilians on September 27. The 44 days of war ended with the Russian brokered peace deal signed on November 10 by the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian leaders. The peace agreement ended the 30-years-old conflict between Baku and Yerevan over Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region that along with the seven adjacent districts came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s. For about three decades, Armenia failed to implement the UN Security Council resolutions demanding the withdrawal of the Armenian troops, which was the main obstacle to the resolution of the conflict. The upcoming Gellify Corporate Entrepreneurship event will provide a state-of-the-art view on how some of the world's most dynamic and innovative companies are embracing the new trends in corporate venturing. The upcoming Gellify Corporate Entrepreneurship event will provide a state-of-the-art view on how some of the world's most dynamic and innovative companies are embracing the new trends in corporate venturing, not only to increase profitability but also to develop an entrepreneurial culture. The 5th annual online event scheduled for November 9 -10, 2021 from 4pm-8:30pm GST is free-to-attend and will see an exciting line-up of over 65 international speakers address a range of topics including corporate venture capital, venture building, diffusing entrepreneurial cultures within organizations amongst many more. Massimo Cannizzo, CEO, and Co-Founder, Gellify Middle East said: Its indeed a very good time for corporate venturing in the Middle East as the opportunities are vast while the Middle East and UAE, in particular, has prioritized digital innovation. The pandemic has given rise to new consumer demands which require businesses to supercharge innovation to provide seamless products and services. This is where Venture building and Corporate VC-ing can help to create companies future. Venturing helps established companies accelerate the adoption of digital technologies and create new markets through distinct and innovative vehicles. Along this journey, a new innovator's dilemma has emerged: consolidated companies are required to reshape their decision mechanisms, integrating start-ups' methods and mindsets into their leadership style. Corporate Venture is just an easier solution to that challenge. Connecting businesses and participants from around the world, the sessions at the symposium will deliberate on how can companies in any sector today take advantage of venturing methodologies, intrapreneurship, cross-innovation, and innovative technology startups to grow their business in the new post-pandemic economy. Corporate venture capital (CVC) has become a core part of corporate innovation as a means of giving companies access to emerging technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), financial technology, and biotechnology. This trend shows no sign of slowing as the impact of emerging technologies on the economy increases. Speakers and participants will meet virtually and share new trends and venturing methodologies that connect established companies with innovative technology startups. The focus will be on sharing experiences, insights, and practical ideas that senior managers and entrepreneurs in medium to large enterprises can use immediately to co-innovate and ensure a better future for the organizations they are part of. Moreover, the interactions will be enhanced by the interactive HOPIN platform, with moments dedicated to individual interactions and one-to-one networking with a network of over 450 innovators within corporate companies. The discussion will revolve around four major themes: Corporate Venture Capital, M&A, and Investments; Cultural change: the entrepreneurship mindset; How to thrive in the post-Covid economy as well as Creation and launch of new ventures. Attention to Corporate Venture Capital strategies i.e., the provision of risk capital by medium to large companies to finance the launch of a NewCo or startup is growing year by year. There was a considerable increase in the number of $100m+ rounds, which tripled compared to the same period in 2020. Furthermore, in the first 6 months of 2021, there were 438 exits by CVC-invested companies and 120 IPOs (3 times higher than the same period in 2020). "This year, we will also offer our B2B community of innovators an exclusive initiative, said Michele Giordani, the Managing Partner and Founder of Gellify. Through all the scheduled events, we will go even deeper into business resilience, digital innovation, and entrepreneurship, the main keys to become competitive on the market within structured companies, whether corporate or SMEs. We will do this through round tables and thematic sessions, but the real novelty of the year will be the possibility to participate in individual immersive speed-dates, where everyone will have the opportunity to introduce themselves, exchange virtual business cards, and interact with speakers and participants. In fact, we strongly believe that the other really effective key to Corporate Entrepreneurship is networking: the possibility of being able to compare yourself with other C-levels or entrepreneurs who are implementing new approaches to innovation helps to better and more quickly understand which strategies and practices to adapt within your own organization. Gellify is an innovation platform that connects high-tech B2B startups with traditional companies to innovate their processes, products, and business models. TradeArabia News Service Saudi Arabias economy will return to positive growth in 2021, and the current account level will return to surplus as the fiscal deficit shrinks in 2021, accompanied by a reduction in the level of debt in the medium term, said Moodys in a new report. The international Credit rating agency also updated its credit report for Saudi Arabia affirming its A1 rating for the Kingdom and changing the negative outlook in its June 2021 rating to a stable outlook, reported Saudi Press Agency (SPA). Moodys also praised the Kingdom's fiscal policies effectiveness evidenced by policy responses in periods of both low and high oil prices. A stable outlook suggests that despite to the economic recovery from the pandemic and improved oil prices, the financial position and net external assets of the Kingdom remain strong enough to support its credit rating. The agency also noted that one of the key pillars of the change in its outlook was the Government's commitment to medium-term fiscal reforms, including fiscal Sustainability Program which aims to further enhance fiscal discipline, improve effectiveness of public finance management, support the rebuilding of fiscal buffers by adopting fiscal rules and by transitioning to a multi-year budgeting process, which will also better align the forward-looking fiscal framework with national expenditure priorities. The financial sustainability program framework between 2015-2020 contributed to the growth of non-oil revenues from less than 10% in 2015 to more than 18% in 2020, and the reduction of non-interest expenditures from 56% in 2015 to 53% in 2020. Moodys estimates that the volume of public debt as a percentage of GDP for 2021 will fall below 29 percent and estimates that it will reach about 25 percent by 2025 from 32.5 percent in 2020. The agency estimated that the size of public debt to GDP in the coming years would fall between 25% and 30%, surpassing its estimations for comparable countries with the same credit rating of 35% - 40%. The agency expects Saudi Arabias fiscal deficit for the fiscal year 2021 to decrease to 2.5% from 11.2% during the year 2020, and the expenditures will reduce during this year and next year by around 6% in the year 2021 and another 6% in the year 2022 on the public finances level. In addition, the agency commented on the Kingdoms strength in the oil market displayed in its capacity of producing oil at the lowest costs in the world in comparison with other exporting countries. Such advantage supports the Kingdom's economic resilience in the environment of low oil prices. The agency also praised the government's ongoing economic diversification efforts and increasing the size and share of the non-oil private sector in the economy, supported by major government projects through local capital expenditures financed through the Public Investment Fund (PIF) targeted at 4% - 5% of GDP annually for the next few years, and reforms particularly in the education field will support economic diversification, in spite of oil price fluctuation, and provide the employment required to keep pace with growing population. Azizi Developments, a leading private developer in the UAE, has handed over Plaza, a well-connected condominium project strategically located in the heart of Dubais new growth corridor, Al Furjan. The announcement underlines Azizi's commitment to customer-centricity and timely delivery, with Plaza, a 448-unit development that is home to 286 studios, 46 one-bedroom units, 86 two-bedroom residences, 16 luxurious penthouses, as well as 14 retail units, being its fourth delivery this year, said the developer. Next up, Azizi will deliver Star, also in Al Furjan, it added. Announcing the handover, Founder and Chairman Mirwais Azizi said: "This completion is yet another testament to our dedication to prompt delivery and maintaining the highest quality standards. Plaza, with its central, prime location in Dubai's high-growth corridor, its remarkable connectivity, and its exceptional finishing, caters to both savvy, value-oriented investors seeking outstanding rental yields, as well as to end-users looking to enhance their lifestyle." "Plaza is an embodiment of our commitment to creating world-class properties situated in master-planned communities that provide excellent convenience in the form of retail and leisure options, easy access, and a true sense of belonging," he stated. Al Furjan grants residents a healthy, balanced, and social lifestyle, centered on human comfort and accessibility. "It fills us with great pride to hand over the keys to hundreds of happy families who will now make these remarkable residences their new homes," said Azizi. "We see our developments not just as mere buildings, but as spaces where aspirations are met and dreams can manifest into reality, and hope that our valued investors are as ecstatic as we are", he added.-TradeArabia News Service As many as 2,845 commercial property transactions worth AED33.9 billion ($9.23 billion) were recorded by the Dubai Land Department (DLD) in Q3 2021, according to the latest Dubai Commercial Property Price Indices. Transaction volumes were up 1% when compared with the preceding quarter and stood 34% higher year-on-year, said the indices report, jointly created by JLL and Dubai Land Department and launched at the Cityscape Global Summit. These figures demonstrate that 2021 saw a significant pick up in sales activity in this sector when compared with last year, said the report. Sale transactions, which represent cash bought commercial properties, accounted for the largest proportion of the overall volume of transactions registered in the third quarter of 2021. Indeed, this element accounted for 74% of the total figure, followed by mortgages at 18% and gifts at 2%. Meanwhile, the value of mortgage transactions equated to AED20.3 billion in Q3 2021 double that of cash transactions. This means that the relatively small volume of sales completed using mortgage finance were high-value commercial property transactions which have high dependency on financing options. Ready (existing) properties accounted for 86% of transaction volumes in Q3 2021 with off plan sales comprising the remaining 14%. In terms of value, ready properties represented the vast majority (98%) of total transactions recorded between July and September of this year. This suggests that buyers showed a strong preference for completed, and thus ready-to-occupy, commercial properties in Dubai, said Khalwar Khan, Head of Research, MEA and Turkey, JLL. Around 88% of the total volume of transactions in the third quarter of 2021 comprised properties located in freehold areas. Business Bay took the lead, recording 367 transactions, and was followed by Jebal Ali First (279 transactions) and Al Thanyah Fifth (209 transactions). In terms of value, freehold areas represented 68% of total transactions. Marsa Dubai was the most popular area in this context, recording transactions worth AED4.9 billion. Palm Jumeirah took second place at AED3 billion and Al Kheeran ranked third at AED2 billion. - TradeArabia News Service Gulf Craft, a leading boat and yacht manufacturer, has handed over the Majesty 175, the worlds largest composite production superyacht, to her owner. Since its unveiling in Dubai in May 2021, the Majesty 175 has captivated the global yachting community with its home-grown UAE design, production, and operational excellence. Fully manufactured in the UAE at Gulf Crafts integrated in-house production facility in Umm Al Quwain, the Majesty 175completed a series of sea trials demonstrating world class stability and manoeuvrability on the high seas of the Arabian Gulf. Now officially handed over to her owner, the worlds largest composite-built superyacht will visit global marinas and exotic destinations, underpinning Gulf Crafts Made in UAE capabilities prominently on the world yachting map. Gulf Crafts Umm Al Quwain shipyard, Gulf Craft Chairman, Mohammed Hussein Alshaali said: The Majesty 175 is our jewel superyacht, which demonstrates our capability to manufacture trailblazing vessels fully in-house here in the UAE. The innovative composite design and engineering of the Majesty 175are a testament to our position as a pioneer in the global yachting industry. We have created an exceptional world-first vessel on our home soil which was four years in the making - despite the challenges of the pandemic. It is a very proud moment to see her leave our facilities and set off on voyages around the globe. The Majesty 175 was manufactured at Gulf Crafts in-house facility using advanced design and engineering. The companys in-house team worked on every aspect of the worlds largest composite-built superyacht, to build it to the exacting specifications outlined by the UKs Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) for yachts over 500 gross tonnage (GT). The Majesty 175s exterior and interior design are by the award-winning Cristiano Gatto Design Studio in Italy while the naval architecture is by Massimo Gregori of the Yankee Delta Studio. Her stand-out features include a gym, 5-metre infinity pool at the forward deck and a hybrid sky-lounge that can be converted to an open sun deck. The pool has a swim-jet system that creates a constant current of water. The Majesty 175 is (56.4 metres) long, a beam of 31.6 ft (9.62 metres) and gross tonnage of 780. She can effortlessly cruise low-draft areas, drawing just 2.05 metres of water, as she is built using advanced composite materials such as carbon fibre and vinyl ester. This enables close beach access, a key consideration for many marine lifestyle enthusiasts. The smart layout accommodates seven lavish staterooms and can host a crew of up to 10 members with six large crew cabins and a private captain accommodation. Electricity supply comes from 175 kW Kohler generators and two pairs of TRAC fin stabilizers. Safety features include a SOLAS rescue boat and an emergency generator. With full speed of 16.5 knots and cruising speed of 10 knots, Majesty 175 has a range of 4,000 nautical miles, making her a transoceanic vessel. TradeArabia News Service Dubai Courts has formed a law enforcement committee for Dubais financial markets and the establishment of two new courts within its Commercial Court to expedite the resolution of disputes related to securities. The new courts will focus on dispute resolution in securities, shares, bonds, and other such financial instruments. This launch of the initiative is designed to reinforce mechanisms to ensure the speedy delivery of justice in the financial sector and help Dubais judicial system further raise its stature in the global commercial judicial community. Taresh Eid Al Mansouri, Director General of Dubai Courts, said the establishment of the new courts supports Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoums directives to introduce new initiatives to support the emirates efforts to achieve greater success and excellence in a new phase of growth. The announcement also reflects Dubai Courts commitment to constantly enhance the judicial system and ensure high levels of accuracy and speed in delivering justice, which are key to protecting the rights of litigants and enhancing the trust of investors. Khalid Obeid Al Mansouri, Chief Judge of the Commercial Court at Dubai Courts, said the establishment of the new courts reflects Dubai Courts efforts to raise the speed and efficiency of dispute resolution, enhance the protection of investors and participants in the financial market and accelerate the markets development. The Chief Judge of the Commercial Court added that the new courts will feature a remote litigation system that supports Dubai Courts aim of transforming itself into a smart judicial system. The Courts will introduce an interactive technology-based system that can be easily used by all parties including judges, advocates, experts and litigants. The smart system will cover all stages of legal proceedings, starting from the submission of a request. It will also allow users to attach supporting documents and reports, sign with digital signatures and verify the identity of persons involved in hearings and remote legal proceedings. Furthermore, the remote system can be used to manage all internal procedures and facilitate case management and remote judgments. Through the online system, judges and relevant departments can also follow up on cases, issue judgments and enforce rulings around the clock. The system can regulate authorisation for officials, including judges, court staff, advocates and experts to access the courts information system, and registration and review of cases. This will prevent unauthorised individuals from accessing case information and documents without permission. Khalid Obeid Al Mansouri affirmed that Dubai Courts will continue to deploy innovative smart tools and technologies to enhance the judicial process. Dubai Courts encourages all customers to use smart channels and applications to complete their transactions, anytime and anywhere, thus saving valuable time and effort and avoiding paperwork. TradeArabia News Service CSO Italy, a leading Italian fruit and vegetable cooperative, is returning to Dubai as part of the Speciality Food Festival taking place November 7 9 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Italian companies, including Apofruit and Oranfrizer, (Unifrutti Group), will be showcasing a range of products, such as apples, kiwis, artichokes and citrus fruit fresh juices grown and harvested from across Italy during the event. As a result of the climate and environmental conditions, Italy produces unique citrus fruits, fruits and vegetables with distinct quality, colour and special taste, making them a popular choice for consumers. Before the pandemic, fruit and vegetable exports from Italy to the UAE increased by 55% in 2018 to over 36 tonnes compared to the previous year. Globally, the country exported over 24 million tonnes worth upwards of AED20 million, a figure the cooperative is keen to increase as demand grows post COVID-19 and popularity rises amongst the F&B industry in the UAE. CSO will showcase Italian fruits and vegetables as the industry continues to rebound, grow, and expand after a challenging 18 months due to the pandemic. The Specialty Food Festival is the ideal platform to reconnect with a range of chefs, restaurateurs, hospitality buyers and other F&B professionals, showcasing the virtues of Italian fruits and vegetables. As part of Apofruits and Oranfrizers participation at the event, representatives from both companies will take centre stage at the Taste of the World Chef Theatre. As part of the television style setup, a series of masterclasses and demos will provide audience members with a first-hand experience of the taste and how the fruits and vegetables can be used in various dishes. Oranfrizer is a leader in the production and distribution of Sicilian citrus fruits and a pioneer of the fruit's exports to many countries worldwide. The Italian company, part of the international Unifrutti Group, will highlight a range of 100% NFC fresh juices, including blond orange, lemon, mandarin, and mostly blood oranges, which are known for their high vitamin C content, the special taste, intense pigmentation, these one are unique to Italy. Apofruit has a 60-year international pedigree and exports every kind of fresh F&V from apples and artichokes to pears and peppers. Company is a First-Degree Cooperative: it means that collects and trades directly products from its 3.200 growers associated all over Italy. The headquarter office in Cesena coordinates and manages the whole staffs in more than 12 packing stations all over Italy. In 2020 the overall production of the Apofruit Group was 169.000 tonnes. The company has invested heavily in innovation, to improve quality and variety of products exported around the world. TradeArabia News Service Bridgestone MEA, a pioneer in sustainable mobility and advanced solutions, has joined the Sustainability Network managed by the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry. As one of the newly inducted members, Bridgestone will take part in the networks collaborative efforts to advance Dubais social and environmental goals. Bridgestones membership will pave the way for the company to share its progress and success in providing more efficient and sustainable fleet mobility and fleet management solutions. It will also take the initiative to help foster a stronger and more vibrant Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) culture within the local business community. In addition, the company intends to contribute to implementing long-lasting solutions to issues impacting the private sector such as employee welfare, social inclusion, waste management, and supply chain. The Dubai Chamber Sustainability Network describes itself as the focal point for private entities to exchange knowledge, expertise, and best practices in implementing CSR and sustainability programs. Through the networks workshops and other events staged to build CSR leadership, its members can network, learn, and share experiences while also connecting with other stakeholders from the public and private sectors. Stefano Sanchini, Regional Managing Director, Bridgestone MEA, said: We have long been committed to shaping a more sustainable mobility future. The move is in line with our efforts towards the global sustainability movement and the growing actions of Dubai and the UAE to protect the environment. At Bridgestone, we have implemented our mid-to-long-term business plans with a focus on sustainability and CSR activities. We are guided by our mission focusing on Serving Society with Superior Quality and the groups worldwide Our Way to Serve CSR commitment. Bridgestone is thrilled to be onboard the Sustainability Network. We are looking forward to working with the network to achieve a carbon-neutral society in Dubai and the rest of the world. Bridgestone joins the networks high-profile members such as PepsiCo, Nestle, Aramex, Al Ghurair Group, Majid Al Futtaim Properties, DP World, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), Emirates Flight Catering, and many more. A sustainable mobility player, the company has invested in efforts to improve the efficiency and accessibility of electric mobility for all drivers. TradeArabia News Service Focusing on the latest developments and opportunities in the African upstream, the much-awaited Africa Oil Week (AOW), will commence here on November 8 with high-level attendance from the energy sector. Taking place for the first time in UAE, the conference, the largest and most prestigious oil and gas show for the African upstream, will run till November 11 at Madinat Jumeirah Conference Centre, Dubai. Top companies in the energy sector, including TotalEnergies, Eni, Adnoc, Shell, Equinor and Chevron, are strategic sponsors for this distinguished event which will witness the attendance of two thirds of African governments. The event will convene senior E&P stakeholders, key policy makers and international investors, providing opportunities for executives to secure major deals and lucrative partnerships which will define the future of the African upstream. With more than a thousand visitors expected at the four-day conference, 38 sponsors and over 400 participating companies, AOW will provide daily networking opportunities. A dedicated Ministerial & VIP programme will unite some of the most influential names across African Energy. In addition, bookable meeting spaces and the exhibition will offer one-to-one interaction opportunities. Under AOWs theme of Succeeding in a Changed Market, attendees can hear discussions on critical industry topics including the impact of the energy transition on African oil and gas, policy and regulatory updates from producing nations in a post-pandemic world, operating trends and future exploration commitments, and the role of digitalisation and technology in Africas future energy mix, among others. Oil and gas are core components of the UAEs national economy. About 30% of the country's GDP is directly based on oil and gas output. This makes the UAE a fitting choice for AOW to be held in. It will enable companies in the UAE and the Middle East to explore strategic investment opportunities in Africa thus, strengthening the local, national and regional economy and trade ties. Suhail Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Infrastructure in the UAE said: The UAE has been at the forefront in facilitating many key events from around the world including the ongoing Expo 2020. Our efforts have helped us gain the confidence of events like AOW that are of strategic importance to the energy sector in the Mena region. It is an honour to be welcoming Africas top government representatives, business people and key decision-makers into the country. This will not only boost bilateral trade ties between both countries, but it will also drive investment opportunities for the Middle East region at large. I am certain the AOW will help us maintain our upward trajectory and prove instrumental in driving growth. AOW will offer four days of pioneering insights, from ministerial panels to strategic outlooks and sessions designed to find solutions for key industry challenges. Scheduled to speak at the AOW Opening Ceremony on Monday November 8, Nicolas Terraz, President of Exploration and Production and member of the Executive Committee, TotalEnergies, said: As one of the biggest oil producers in Africa and across the globe, we are well aware of our role at AOW. As this will be my first speaking engagement in my new role as E&P lead, I am looking forward to speaking in Dubai. The event will unite the entire African oil and gas sector and lead discussions to create a secure future for the sector. Amid all the discussions and partnerships, we hope to see valuable solutions in energy transition, decarbonisation and strategies to meet the future energy demand. Fafa Sanyang, Minister of Petroleum and Energy, The Gambia said: "BP decided for corporate strategic reasons to exit the Gambia. Even during the exit, BP remained positive about the geology and at AOW we are looking at building a successful partnership with a competent international company that will take on the task of exploring and extracting our petroleum resources from where BP left. We thank BP for their interest and strong collaboration during the past two years in the Gambia that helped us and will help interested IOCs to better understand the opportunity in Block A1. Following our previous success in implementing the 2018 licensing round, we will implement a transparent and competitive fast track mini-licensing round for Block A1 with low entry costs and costs of failure to identify the best partner for the Gambia and the block. We are very happy to be able to launch this licensing round at AOW. Paul Sinclair, Vice-President of Energy & Director of Government Relations at Africa Oil Week, said: Top government officials and senior executives will partake in the event that will stimulate dialogue and facilitate business opportunities. We aim to reaffirm the event's role in bridging Africa and the Middle Easts energy sector. Additionally, ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our patrons is our top priority. Hence, we have ensured that all protocols will be followed during the event. We are now all geared up for a hugely successful show that will drive growth and change in the African energy sector. Lame Verre, Co-Chair for Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa at Lean In Energy (LIEN) said: In every edition, AOW has emphasised the need for inclusion and diversity in the industry. The AOW Accelerates initiative will further this agenda of equity in workplaces. I am also looking forward to meeting women from the 2021 Power List that features 50 inspiring professionals from Morocco to Cape Town, from Manager to Minister all of whom are working and motivating others across the African energy sector. To drive greater equity practices at workplaces of the future, particularly for women, across the energy sector, AOW and Lean In Energy (LIEN) will join forces to host AOW Accelerates Diversity & Inclusion. The initiative will explore the role of diversity and inclusion within Africas energy transition, host progressive dialogue and drive inclusive growth across the industry while welcoming male allies into discussions.-- TradeArabia News Service While green government spending should lift GDP, higher carbon prices--high enough to meet 2030 climate targets--could prove to be an economic shock for some countries, said S&P Global Ratings in a new report. While environmental policies tend to have a small overall economic impact, the costs of the transition to green growth may become more material if countries start implementing the required policies to reach their ambitious climate pledges, added the report titled "Green Spending Or Carbon Taxes (Or Both): How To Reach Climate Targets, And Grow Too, By 2030?" So far, the US and EU have added green spending of about 1.4% and 3.9% of 2019 GDP to their Covid-19 recovery plans. With fiscal multipliers of 1.4-1.6, this could add up to 2 percentage points to US GDP and 6.6 points to EU GDP by 2030. "Our carbon tax scenario shows that a sharp rise in the price of carbon to $100 by 2030, as recommended by the High-Level Commission on Carbon Prices, would represent a more negative shock for economies with low carbon prices and reliance on carbon-intensive energy sources," said S&P Global Ratings' Senior Economist Marion Amiot. The impact on GDP, without offsetting measures, could be over 8% for China by 2030, and closer to 5% if tax revenues were reinvested by the government. It's less for the US at 3% and Europe at 2%, and about 1% or less after reinvestment for both. Less productive and smaller firms, higher emitters, and lower-income households are more vulnerable to these environmental policies, raising questions about the "Just Transition". A carbon border adjustment mechanism may make sense for countries that have high domestic carbon prices but is likely to be viewed as a protectionist move otherwise. "The European experience of low carbon prices between 2005 and 2011 also suggests no evidence of carbon leakage, so a CBAM would mainly make sense for energy-intensive and trade-exposed industries," said Amiot. That said, this might change as the carbon price has recently increased to 60 a ton in the EU. Global private-sector investment in renewable energy has tripled to $2.6 trillion in the last decade, with the US, EU, and China accounting for about two-thirds. Yet, green innovation and R&D intensities have stalled since 2012. That said, the recent rise in ESG interest among investors could buck this trend, but may not be enough to reach 2030 targets on its own. TradeArabia News Service Reef Technology, the largest operator of delivery kitchens, logistics, and proximity hubs in North America, has entered the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region through the full acquisition of UAE-based iKcon Restaurant. The technology leader extends business into Mena to support growth strategy and transform the food industry in the region. The acquisition of iKcon (Innovative Kitchen Concepts) marks Reefs first major transaction in the Mena market and is part of its broader strategy toward global expansion. We are excited to welcome iKcon and its team members to Reefs global proximity platform, said Tommy Rosen, Head of Development at Reef. The Middle East and North Africa are crucial markets in the rapidly evolving F&B and retail industries, and our acquisition of iKcon will position Reef to become a leader in the region. With a network of innovative kitchens in prime locations and over 800 employees, iKcon utilises its modern facilities, smart technology solutions and highly qualified chefs and customer service teams to extend the reach of their portfolio of +100 well-known local, regional and international restaurant partners such as Just Salad, YO Sushi, Dunkin, California Pizza Kitchen, German Doner Kebab and local hero brands such as PINZA, and Pizza Di Rocco. Since its inception, iKcon has consistently focused on operational excellence and building a unique customer-centric business model, said Khalid Baareh, Co-Founder and CEO at iKcon. The past three years have taught us the importance of pursuing our vision with commitment and passion, driven by a world-class team. Today, we are thrilled to join the Reef team and to continue our journey of bringing innovation to neighborhoods everywhere. Reefs leadership in proximity will play a great role in accelerating our regional expansion plans. We are fully committed to driving the development of Reef in Mena. Reef, backed by a group of investors including Mubadala Capital, the asset management subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, UBS Asset Management and Target Global, focuses on transforming urban spaces into proximity hubs that create jobs and bring new goods, services, and experiences to neighborhoods across the globe. Reef has already established a presence in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the international financial centre of Abu Dhabi, with plans to continue growing throughout the region. -- TradeArabia News Service By Li Wei, Wang Lishan, Wei Yin China-Africa Peace and Security Forum Video Conference on Military Medicine (Photo by Wang Xiaoyu) BEIJING, Nov. 5 -- The China-Africa Peace and Security Forum Video Conference on Military Medicine, hosted by Chinas Ministry of National Defense and organized by the PLA Academy of Military Sciences, kicked off in Beijing on the afternoon of November 4. Themed on strengthening medical cooperation to fight the pandemic together, the conference invited representatives from the militaries of 19 African countries to share anti-virus experience and discuss how to jointly defeat the pandemic. Major General Qu Aiguo, vice president of the PLA Academy of Military Sciences, said in the opening speech that the China-Africa community of shared future has withstood the test of the pandemic. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Chinese military has taken a series of pragmatic steps of assistance, including providing anti-pandemic supplies and vaccines to the militaries of African countries, and sending military medical expert teams and peacekeeping contingents. He pointed out that China is willing to work with the African side to resolutely resist the political virus spreading hatred and the beggar-thy-neighbor vaccine nationalism, continue to implement the Health Action within the framework of Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), deliver the outcomes of the Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity against COVID-19, and jointly build the China-Africa community of health for all. At the conference, three Chinese participants shared the Chinese militarys experience in fighting the epidemic within the military and the country, the participation of Chinas military scientific research institutes in vaccine R&D, and efforts of virus origins tracing. The Chinese side made three proposals fighting the pandemic in solidarity, promoting pragmatic cooperation, and strengthening talents cultivation to intensify the military medical cooperation with the African side. Military representatives and experts from African countries also spoke at the conference, talking about how the pandemic has affected regional and national security, what they have done to enhance their military medical systems, and how they responded to public health emergencies and cooperated with China. Colonel Abeng Mbozo'o Emile, director of the Military Health Department under Cameroons Ministry of Defense, expressed his gratitude to the Chinese government for the large amounts of medical equipment, masks and other anti-pandemic supplies provided for Cameroon. Makonga Franck, chief of the Center of Urgent Operations of Public Sanitation under the Cote d'Ivoires Ministry of Defense, expressed the willingness to deepen the bilateral anti-virus cooperation with the Chinese side to enhance their militarys responsiveness to public medical crises like COVID-19.2 Surgeon Commodore NB Onwere, director of Defence Medical Services of Nigeria, suggested that the Nigerian and Chinese military medical teams could carry out joint training on fighting against the massive spread of infectious diseases, intensify joint medicine R&D, and share experience in developing the military medical systems. Colonel Stephen Sevalie, commander of the Joint Medical Unit under the Sierra Leone Armed Forces and president of the No.34 Military Hospital, vowed to continue promoting the cooperation between the two militaries in the medical field that had proved beneficial for both sides. An African representative speaks at the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum Video Conference on Military Medicine. (Photo by Wei Yin) The Chinese military will enhance solidarity, pragmatic cooperation and talent training with African countries in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic and safeguarding public health, senior military officials said. The Ministry of National Defense and the People's Liberation Army Academy of Military Science held the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum Video Conference on Military Medicine in Beijing on Thursday. Representatives from the PLA and 19 African nations participated in the event to share their experiences and insights on combating COVID-19. Major General Qu Aiguo, vice-president of the Academy of Military Science, said in the opening ceremony that overcoming the pandemic is a common aspiration of people around the world, and is a duty of military health services from various nations. In the face of the pandemic, the China-Africa community of a shared future has stood the test of time, and exhibited great resilience, Qu said. Since the outbreak, the Chinese military has provided pragmatic assistance to African countries, including providing vaccines and medical supplies, as well as dispatching medical experts and peacekeeping contingents. "Solidarity is strength, solidarity brings hope," Qu said, adding China is willing to work with African countries to combat "vaccine nationalism" and political viruses aimed at spreading hate and animosity. Meanwhile, China will continue to implement the public health action plan within the framework of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation and jointly build a community of shared future in public health, Qu said. In terms of military-to-military medical cooperation, Qu said the Chinese side is willing to encourage anti-pandemic measures in solidarity, promote pragmatic cooperation and enhance talent training with African countries. Colonel Abeng Mbozo'o Emile, director of the Military Health Department of Cameroon's Ministry of Defense, said he appreciates the Chinese government providing large quantities of medical supplies, ranging from face masks to medical equipment, to aid the country's anti-pandemic effort. Surgeon Commodore Ndubuisi Bethel Onwere, director of the Defense Medical Services at the Defense Headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria, said military medical personnel from China and Nigeria can conduct joint drills in tackling large-scale epidemic outbreaks, enhance collaboration in pharmaceutical research, and share their experience in building their health systems. BEIJING, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Throughout 2021, a special year in China's history, the schedule of Xi Jinping has been busy. Over the past months, he addressed a ceremony marking the Party's centenary, announced the realization of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, inspected Tibet, talked to astronauts working at China's first space station, attended online meetings of the United Nations, and held phone or video talks with world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden. Xi Jinping delivers an important speech at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, capital of China, July 1, 2021. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) Next week, Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, will attend a high-profile Party plenum -- the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee. A landmark document will be tabled at this important meeting -- the resolution on the major achievements and historical experience of the CPC's 100 years of endeavors. Few political parties worldwide could boast such a long history and uninterrupted period of state governance. The CPC has been China's ruling party for 72 years. Presently, Xi is the core of the CPC leadership. Before him, generations of central collective leadership had spanned the decades with Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao as chief representatives. Since being elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee in November 2012, Xi has been seen as a man of determination and action, a man of profound thoughts and feelings, a man who inherited a legacy but dares to innovate, and a man who has forward-looking vision and is committed to working tirelessly. Under his leadership, China is becoming a powerful country, and is now entering an era of strength, according to Channel News Asia. On the new journey, Xi is undoubtedly the core figure in charting the course of history. How will he lead the Party in the face of opportunities and challenges? How will he bring China back to the world's center stage? Today, the world is watching Xi just closely as nine years ago. WALKING WITH THE PEOPLE In September, during an inspection of the village of Gaoxigou in northwestern Shaanxi Province, Xi stopped by farmlands to check the crops and chat with villagers working in the fields. Xi hailed the achievements of local poverty alleviation. Gaoxigou was once an impoverished village; today it is prosperous thanks to the relentless efforts of cadres and villagers. It was in 1974 in Shaanxi's Liangjiahe, about 150 km from Gaoxigou, that Xi joined the Party. He was just 15 years old when he arrived in Liangjiahe in 1969 as an "educated youth." He would spend the next seven years living in the small village on the rural Loess Plateau; at the end of a day's labor, he would return to his primitive cave house and sleep on a simple clay bed. It would take 38 years and multiple postings across various levels of the Party's hierarchy until he would be elevated to the top job. After joining the CPC, Xi became Party secretary of Liangjiahe. Shedding light on his caliber, one of his village colleagues said Xi "worked conscientiously, had many ideas and could unite the people and cadres." Recalling his time in the impoverished village, Xi said what he wanted more than anything was to make it possible for the villagers to "have meat on their plates." To improve the lives of those who called the community home, Xi initiated various projects, including wells, terraced fields, and methane-generating pits. These "simple" projects would have a significant impact on the villagers' lives, work, and attitudes. In his spare time, the young Xi devoured as many books as he could. In particular, he read Das Kapital three times; his reflections on the seminal work filled 18 notebooks. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was among the first generation of CPC central leaders. Xi Jinping often evoked the wisdom imparted to him by the elder Xi. Inspired by a much-loved school book, he decided he would carry on the revolutionary torch from a young age. In 1975, Xi was admitted to the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. After graduating, he first worked at the general office of the Central Military Commission before moving to Zhengding, a county in northern Hebei Province, in 1982. Recalling the move to Zhengding, Xi said he had volunteered to work at the grassroots level among the people. He said he wanted to "love the people like he loves his parents." After Zhengding, Xi's political career took him to the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang and the metropolis of Shanghai. Wherever he went, his close ties with the people were notable. He wrote heartfelt essays commemorating his deceased friends and colleagues in Zhengding. He used his own money to help finance the medical treatment of a villager from Liangjiahe. Xi's care for the people can be seen in every aspect of his work. Zhang Hongming, one of his colleagues back in Zhejiang, still remembers Xi's attitude and work ethic when the province was hit by typhoons. "Even if nine of our ten evacuations are for nothing, we still need to do it to ensure the absolute safety of the people," Zhang said recalling Xi's instructions. Xi's people-centered philosophy explains why he ordered unwavering efforts to save people's lives at all costs during the COVID-19 epidemic, said Liu Jingbei, a professor at the China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong, Shanghai. In 2007, Xi returned to Beijing to sit on the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and later became China's vice president. He oversaw areas including Party building, organizational work, Hong Kong and Macao affairs, and preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the age of 59, Xi was elevated to the Party's most senior post in November 2012. About a month later, he braved the winter cold to visit poor villagers in Hebei. Sitting down with them, Xi asked about their income, and if they had sufficient food and enough quilts and coal to stay warm through the winter. Xi said his heart sank when he saw that some villagers were still struggling to make ends meet. Xi Jinping visits impoverished villagers in Luotuowan Village of Longquanguan Township, Fuping County, north China's Hebei Province, Dec. 30, 2012. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang) STRENGTHENING THE PARTY The year 2021 is also the ninth year of Xi's signature anti-corruption campaign, the most extensive in Chinese history. It shows no signs of letting up. More than 20 high-level officials and executives in the financial sector have been punished or investigated this year. And in the past 30 days or so, one former ministerial-level official in the central government's law-enforcement apparatus was investigated while another was punished. When Xi was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, China was already the world's second-largest economy. Yet, it faced challenges from within. "Facts prove that if corruption is allowed to spread, it will eventually lead to the destruction of a party and the fall of a government," Xi said in a stern warning. Over the past nine years, more than 400 officials at ministerial level or above have been punished or investigated, including a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and two former vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission. From 2014 to 2020, over 8,300 fugitives were repatriated from more than 120 countries and regions. "In a critical time, Xi turned the tide," said a foreign media editorial. Xi has ordered efforts to "lock power in the cage of systemic checks." He also spearheaded the establishment of the National Supervisory Commission. All public sector employees came under supervision following the supervisory reform. As general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Xi has led efforts to formulate and revise around 200 intra-party regulations. He also launched five Party-wide education campaigns to firm up the ideals and convictions of Party members and ensure they act effectively and in unison. Xi also attaches great importance to intra-party democracy. Solicited comments from CPC members are now incorporated into all Party national congress reports, documents reviewed at plenary sessions, and major Party documents, decisions, and reform policies. By June this year, the number of CPC members had grown to 95 million, 10 million more than the population of Germany. Experts in China affairs say the Party has become more disciplined, pure, and powerful. Xi Jinping is enjoying greater support within the CPC now than ever, said Neil Thomas, a China observer. In 2016, the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee established Xi's status as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the whole Party. Without a strong leadership core, the CPC would find it hard to unify the entire Party's will or build solidarity and unity among people of all ethnic groups. It would not be able to achieve anything or carry out any of its "great struggles with many new historical features," said Wang Junwei, a research fellow at the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee. In October 2017, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era was officially instituted at the 19th CPC National Congress. The thought was enshrined in the CPC Constitution and China's Constitution. Like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, Xi has advanced the adaption of Marxism to the Chinese context and kept it relevant, said Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance). MAKING CHINA STRONG After the Opium War of 1840, China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. It was bullied by foreign powers and suffered from poverty and weakness. "What a humiliation! China was trampled upon at that time," Xi said when recalling that part of history. The CPC was founded in 1921 to change the situation. According to Han Qingxiang, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, the pursuit of national rejuvenation is marked by four critical milestones -- the Party's founding in 1921; the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949; the advent of reform and opening up in 1978; and the new era after the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012. Two weeks after Xi's election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, he put forward "the Chinese Dream" of national rejuvenation. This October, at an event commemorating the 110th anniversary of the Revolution of 1911, Xi mentioned "rejuvenation" 25 times in his 35-minute speech, making it one of the most emphasized messages. Xi believes that rejuvenation requires both strategic design and hard work. He took the lead by being a man of action. In 2019 alone, he took part in more than 500 important events. His working itinerary covered weekends of about 30 weeks in that year. He revised each draft of major reform plans. Although Xi has little time for himself, he manages to find time for swimming. This and physical labor during his youth ensure that he has enough stamina to deal with affairs of the Party, government, and the military. More importantly, he is driven by a sense of mission. "Happiness is achieved through hard work," he said. Xi often visits farms, fishing villages, farmers' houses, small eateries, supermarkets, factory workshops, laboratories, hospitals, schools, and even inspects pigsties and toilets to obtain first-hand information of people's livelihood. Xi Jinping inspects a primary school of Laoxian Township, Pingli County of the city of Ankang, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, April 21, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) Zhang Mengjin, a former colleague of Xi's in Zhejiang Province, said: "Xi takes in enough knowledge day to day so it is impossible to fool him with lies or bragging. We have to be honest when reporting to him." Xi has stood the test in the face of numerous hurdles and crises over the past nine years. In early 2015, when Yemen descended into chaos, he directed the navy to evacuate hundreds of stranded Chinese nationals. When the United States initiated a trade war against China, he devised the strategy that China does not want a trade war but is not afraid of one and will fight one if necessary. He also said strengthening dialogue and cooperation is the only right choice for the two countries. "The vast Pacific Ocean has enough space for the two large countries of China and the United States," Xi said. From conducting regular patrols in the waters of Diaoyu Islands, fending off the so-called South China Sea arbitration, finding solutions to China-India border conflicts, to facilitating the return of Chinese people illegally detained overseas, Xi has spearheaded strategic and tactical planning and, if necessary, personally intervened. In 2019, when social unrest gripped Hong Kong, he directed efforts to safeguard the "one country, two systems" cause and crush attempts to instigate a "color revolution." On the eve of Lunar New Year 2020, with the COVID-19 epidemic clouding festivities, Xi had a sleepless night. The next day, he convened a Party leadership meeting to discuss the country's response. Before the meeting, Xi had made a decision to tighten restrictions on the movement of people and channels of exit in Hubei and Wuhan. Time has shown how this strict approach was the only viable option. Xi Jinping speaks with a patient and medical workers by video link at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 10, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) Xi introduced "black swan" and "gray rhino" into Party parlance. Han, the Party school professor, identified risk prevention and defusing as a major highlight of the new era. "It is indeed a huge responsibility and arduous task to govern such a big country," Xi said when answering a question from a foreign politician. "I am willing to be selfless and devote myself to China's development. I will not let the people down." BREAKING NEW GROUND OF REFORM When Xi took office as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, China's strength had significantly risen after more than 30 years of reform and opening up. Yet, it was not without problems, including downward pressure on the economy, wealth disparities, environmental damage, and social tension. Reforms also encountered some resistance. A more scientific top-level approach was needed. Xi designed a Chinese model of modernization characterized by an innovative, coordinated, green, and open development path that is for everyone. Xi Jinping applauds for the personnel awarded with medals during a grand gathering to celebrate the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 18, 2018. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi) Observers say this development vision is intended to lead socialist China out of a development trap reliant on extensive and inefficient growth at the cost of ecological damage, shifting the country to high-quality development, and avoiding situations where the rich become richer and the poor poorer. As head of the central commission for deepening overall reform, formerly a central leading group, Xi launched a series of reforms that broke new ground while furthering Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening up. Reform has reached into diverse fields, spanning land-use policies, Party building in state-owned firms, judicial procedure, family planning, fiscal and tax policies, the real estate market, science and technology, and anti-monopoly. One reform measure, above all, stands out: the modernization of institutions, which directly impacts China's long-term development and stability. Its essence is upholding and improving socialism with Chinese characteristics, and modernizing China's system and capacity for governance. At times, reforms encountered great difficulties. To address controversies and eliminate obstructions, Xi himself had to give the final say. Xi headed a group tasked with drafting the document of the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. The document centered on deepening overall reform. Officials and experts who participated in the drafting and appraisals said Xi personally conducted research and made decisions, facilitating many breakthroughs. For example, the new proposition "let the market play the decisive role in resource allocation" resulted from Xi's vital decision. "Without General Secretary Xi's determination, it would not have been possible to roll out many major reforms," said a source familiar with the process. To reverse environmental damage, Xi demanded that polluting factories address problems or face closure. He issued a 10-year ban on fishing to protect China's longest river, the Yangtze. He gave six instructions to demolish illegally constructed villas in the Qinling Mountains, home to giant pandas, snub-nosed monkeys, and many other rare wild animals. Xi Jinping learns about ecological conservation of the Qinling Mountains at Niubeiliang National Nature Reserve, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, April 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Ju Peng) For many Chinese people, environmental improvements are obvious. In 2020, the percentage of days with good air quality was 87 percent in cities at and above the prefecture level. The proportion of surface water with fairly good quality rose to 83.4 percent. As a result, 89.5 percent of Chinese people were satisfied with the environment. Reforms have made China more open. In 2013, the first pilot free trade zone was established in Shanghai. Now the number of such zones has reached 21, including the entire island of Hainan, which is roughly the size of a small European country. China's negative list for foreign investment has been further shortened. While some countries chose to erect trade barriers, China made itself host of a series of global trade and investment fairs. Xi personally initiated the China International Import Expo, one of the multiple national-level expos across the country. China also took the lead in ratifying the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. By the end of 2020, China had rolled out 2,485 reform plans in over seven years. The targets and missions set at the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee had been essentially accomplished as scheduled, Xi announced. From 2013 to 2020, China's GDP grew by about 6.4 percent each year on average, contributing more than 30 percent of world economic growth on average for many years in a row. China's GDP exceeded the 100-trillion-yuan threshold in 2020, or about seven-tenths of that of the United States. In 2021, China ranked 12th in the Global Innovation Index, higher than Japan, Israel, and Canada. It is the top recipient of foreign direct investment and the world's No. 1 consumer market. So far, the most impressive achievement in the new era has been the accomplishment of the "first centenary goal," namely building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, said Liu Ronggang, another research fellow at the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee. The term moderately prosperous, or "Xiaokang" in Chinese, originates from the Book of Songs of ancient China. It is an aspiration for a well-off life cherished by the Chinese people for thousands of years. The country has the world's most extensive social security system in scale and the largest middle-income group. Extreme poverty has ended, once and for all. Over the past nine years, about 100 million people have been hoisted out of extreme poverty. Xi ordered Party members and officials to be stationed at impoverished villages to carry out targeted poverty alleviation measures at the front line. Xi himself had visited every one of the country's 14 contiguous poorest areas. Eliminating extreme poverty was likened to fighting a war. Indeed, the campaign had its fallen heroes, with more than 1,800 people dying in the line of duty. Xi also comprehensively reformed the armed forces. Reiterating the principle established by Mao Zedong that "the Party commands the gun," Xi introduced a series of reforms in the military's leadership and command system, size, structure, and force composition. He demanded the military be combat-ready. He regularly inspected military bases. He boarded China's first domestically built aircraft carrier and new-generation nuclear-powered submarine. Xi Jinping boards the aircraft carrier Shandong and reviews the guard of honor at a naval port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Dec. 17, 2019. (Xinhua/Li Gang) Gerd Kaminski, an Austrian legal scholar and sinologist, said that after the 18th National Congress of the CPC, Chinese characteristics became an increasingly central guiding principle in all significant issues of China's development, including its governing philosophy. In such a process, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has stood the test, said Han Qingxiang. "It effectively leads the historical course of national rejuvenation and influences the whole world." CONTRIBUTING TO GLOBAL COMMUNITY Xi has been at the forefront of China's efforts to engage with and contribute to the global community. Before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, he had visited 69 countries in 41 tours and been the first Chinese head of state to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. He has said that, while spending so much time on overseas visits might be deemed a "luxury," he sees it as "worthwhile." His schedule during overseas visits is usually very tight and can last until the small hours. He had even spent his birthday during an overseas tour. "Everything we Chinese communists do is to better the lives of the Chinese people, renew the Chinese nation, and promote peace and development for humanity," Xi said. Altay Atli, a scholar based in Istanbul, Turkey, noted that there is a transformation of China's participation in international affairs, whether economic or diplomatic, under Xi's leadership, and that the world is witnessing the emergence of a major country with global influence. "The world is too big, with too many challenges, to go without the voice from China being heard, without solution ideas from China being shared, without the involvement of China being needed," Xi said. In 2013, Xi raised the notion of "building a community with a shared future for humanity." When elaborating on the specifics of his vision, Xi proposed that the international community should promote partnership, security, growth, inter-civilization exchanges, and the building of a sound ecosystem, citing a proverb: "The interests to be considered should be the interests of all." A community with a shared future for humanity comes from an excellent pedigree. Political scientists have noted that the notion inherits the Marxist idea of "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all," and the Chinese ideal of "harmony." It is the most recent proposition on foreign affairs floated by the CPC, following Mao Zedong's "Three Worlds Theory" and Deng Xiaoping's "peace and development as two main world themes." The response from the international community has been positive. When Xi presented his vision at the Palace of Nations, the United Nations Office at Geneva, in January 2017, politicians, diplomats, and celebrities across the world responded with more than 30 waves of applause in 47 minutes. Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech "Work Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind" at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 18, 2017. (Xinhua/Rao Aimin) Under this concept, Xi proposed a new approach to international relations based on mutually beneficial cooperation and the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration in global governance. "What kind of international order and governance system best suits the world and best suits the people of all countries? This is something that should be decided by all countries through consultation, and not by a single country or a few countries," he said. The same principle runs through the framework for major-country relations, as advocated by Xi, which features overall stability and balanced development. On many occasions, he has stressed that if nations maintain communication and treat each other with sincerity, the "Thucydides trap" can be avoided. By 2019, 180 countries had diplomatic relations with China, a sharp increase from around 30 in the 1950s. Over the past few years, five countries in Central America and the Pacific region established or resumed diplomatic ties with China. "We have friends in every corner of the world," Xi said. When meeting with outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel via video link in October, Xi called her an old friend: "The Chinese people put a premium on friendship; we will not forget old friends and will always keep the door open for you." The same year that Xi first called on the world to jointly build a community with a shared future for humanity, he also proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By August 2021, about 172 countries and international organizations had signed more than 200 cooperation documents with China under this framework. According to a report from the World Bank, BRI projects could help lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million people out of moderate poverty globally. Xi has personally visited several BRI projects, including the Piraeus Port in Greece, the Smederevo steel plant in Serbia, and the China-Belarus Industrial Park in Minsk, Belarus. Global development, however, should not come at the cost of the environment, and in 2020 Xi offered a clear signal of commitment when he told the world that China would peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. "The world should thank China for its contribution to climate change responses," said former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Xi offered China's strong support of the Paris Agreement four years ago and, without China's support, the agreement would not be the way it is now, Rudd added. Xi's commitment to offering a helping hand transcends environmental and development issues. Today, China is a vital force in addressing global and regional flashpoint issues, ranging from nuclear proliferation to pandemic response. "We need to 'join hands' with each other instead of 'letting go.' We need to 'tear down walls,' not to 'erect walls'," he said. A few months ago, when the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops triggered unrest in Afghanistan, Xi had a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and met leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization members via video link to call for support of the steady transition of Afghanistan, engage the country in dialogue, and help the Afghan people. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, Xi called for global solidarity and cooperation. By his instruction, China provided anti-virus material for more than 150 countries and 14 international organizations and sent 37 medical teams to 34 countries. He pledged to make Chinese COVID-19 vaccines a global public good and promised that China would provide 2 billion doses of vaccines to the world this year. The country also promised to donate 100 million U.S. dollars to COVAX. Xi Jinping chairs the Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity against COVID-19 and delivers a keynote speech in Beijing, capital of China, June 17, 2020. (Xinhua/Ding Haitao) Over the past 100 years, the world's most populous country has been on an almost unbelievable journey -- from a poverty-stricken nation to one where basic needs are met to its current state of moderate prosperity. Xi deemed this achievement a contribution to humanity. More than 70 percent of worldwide poverty reduction over the last 40 years was in and by China, which means it realized its poverty reduction goal from the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ten years ahead of schedule. Describing her impressions of Xi, Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, president of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, called him "a seasoned captain" whose contributions, such as advocating multilateralism, the BRI, and the notion of a community with a shared future for humanity, have been significant. FULFILLING NEW MISSIONS The CPC plans to achieve national rejuvenation through a pair of goals, known as "two centenaries." During the past nine years, as the Party's most senior leader, Xi has led the country in completing the first step and chaired the design of the second step of this historic plan. First, socialist modernization should be "basically realized" by 2035, and second, China should be built into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of the 21st century, which will be around the centenary of the PRC. Supplementary road maps support these overarching goals. Most notably, Xi spearheaded the drafting of the Party leadership's proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, which were adopted in October 2020. Xi has described the CPC's past century as "a historic miracle" and expressed confidence that the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is dawning. However, he also warned that this is no time for indecision. "At this critical moment, we must not stop, hesitate or wait," Xi said. He warned that achieving national rejuvenation will be no walk in the park, and the coming tests will only become more complex. "Realizing this great dream demands a great struggle," he said. Therefore, the upcoming sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee comes at a significant time, as a resolution on the major achievements and historical experience in the Party's 100-year history will be discussed. "Over its 100-year struggle, the CPC has accumulated rich experience, understood important rules, developed governance theories and earned wisdom. This great treasure should be summarized to inspire the Party's governance better," Han Qingxiang said. Over the past 100 years, the CPC has adopted just two resolutions related to historical issues, in 1945 and 1981. They analyzed the causes and drew conclusions on important historical events and figures, through which the whole Party came to a clear consensus and thus grew stronger in unity. "The Party's previous resolutions on historical issues played a profound role in building consensus and rallying strength to fulfill new missions. This is what we expect from the upcoming plenary session," said Wang Junwei, the research fellow. History has emerged as something of a buzzword for all CPC members this year. A sweeping education campaign helped cadres recognize the Party's history, and a new Museum of the CPC was inaugurated. On June 18, Xi and his colleagues toured the museum, viewing exhibits such as bonds issued by the Qing government used to pay for the war indemnity required by the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki; the manuscript of Karl Marx's notes from Brussels; the list of the 58 CPC members when the Party was founded; the car manufactured in the PRC's early years; and the model of China's Mars rover. Each display bore vivid testimony to how the Party led China. The exhibition ended with a "time tunnel," linking all significant historical junctures from 1921 until today, leading the audience to the future. Xi once quoted Mao Zedong, saying that "after several decades, the victory of the Chinese people's democratic revolution, viewed in retrospect, will seem like only a brief prologue to a long drama. A drama begins with a prologue, but the prologue is not the climax." "History has not ended, nor can it possibly end," he said at the conference marking the 95th anniversary of the CPC's founding. "The CPC and Chinese people have every confidence in their ability to provide a Chinese solution to aid the exploration of a better social system for humanity." After concluding their exhibition tour, Xi and his colleagues took a vow in front of the Party flag, reliving a ritual undertaken by all new CPC members. "I will fight for communism for the rest of my life," Xi said, leading the oath. Xi Jinping leads other CPC and state leaders Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan to review the Party admission oath after visiting an exhibition on CPC history at the Museum of the CPC in Beijing, capital of China, June 18, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Xueren) The July 1945 article about McCready told of similar big plans for a second term. He promised to expand the Naval Academy which would ring in the schools 100th anniversary that October. He pledged to extend the borders of the hemmed-in city by annexing the metropolitan area, though that wouldnt happen until 1950. A celebration of the 300th anniversary of the citys founding would follow during the spring of McCreadys final year in office. He also promised to develop Truxtun Park as a recreation center for the city and to make a recreation park on the property at the foot of Dock Street, which McCreadys administration had purchased during his first term. In September, four new cranes arrived at the ports Seagirt Marine Terminal. The cranes, among the largest in the world, will allow longshoremen to unload larger containers from arriving ships two at a time. Its part of an effort to bolster the ports capacity that also includes a $466 million upgrade to the Howard Street Tunnel, which will allow freight trains leaving the port to carry containers stacked two-high, putting the terminal on par with its competition in New York, Virginia and South Carolina. That project will break ground later this year. Turnover at the top of state government will trickle down to the General Assembly, as well. Already this year, five lawmakers have stepped down for various reasons. Another is about to become a judge and yet another is seeking the treasurers job. And the list of those who have announced plans to retire or compete for other offices is running into double digits. Dakota graduated from Bret Harte in 2013 and went to Davidson College, NC where she earned a bachelor's degree in Arab studies. After spending time studying in the Middle East and Europe, she is happy to be home, writing about the community she loves. Comment Policy Calaveras Enterprise does not actively monitor comments. However, staff does read through to assess reader interest. When abusive or foul language is used or directed toward other commenters, those comments will be deleted. If a commenter continues to use such language, that person will be blocked from commenting. We wish to foster a community of communication and a sharing of ideas, and we truly value readers' input. Another teenage boy, 17 years old, was shot at 11:08 a.m., telling police he was walking on Park Heights Ave. when someone with a gun approached him. They struggled over the weapon, and it fired, striking him in the leg. The second gunshot victim was found after Northeast District officers were dispatched to a home in the 4800 block of Claybury Ave. in Northeast Baltimore at about 6:20 p.m. Saturday to investigate a reported shooting. The officers found a 60-year-old man and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Other details, such as when the line will begin to operate and how much it will cost to build, wont be revealed until the Maryland Board of Public Works reviews the finalized contract, project officials said. Its not clear when that would happen. At the recommendation of town staff, the Town Council has determined it to be in the best interest of the town and its residents to increase the rental housing license fee, consistent with the current estimated cost to the town to administer its Rental Housing Chapter (Chapter 161), to $200 per rental unit every two years if paid by Dec. 31. Police recovered shell casings from the scene and nobody was injured, but the incident contributed to a spate of violence in Annapolis that prompted Police Chief Ed Jackson to bring cops in from their days off and put them on the streets, and politicians to issue statements relaying their concerns. Two people were shot Friday in separate, but possibly related, incidents. Afghanistan's acting foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi met with Chinese ambassador Wang Yu on Saturday and discussed bilateral relations and trade. "Acting FM Amir Khan Muttaqi met with China's ambassador to Afghanistan, Wang Yu, on Saturday, the foreign ministry spokesperson said, adding the two discussed bilateral relations and trade," Tolo News tweeted. Last month, the Taliban said Beijing has provided USD 1 million to Afghanistan and has promised additional humanitarian aid worth USD 5 million. Meanwhile, Chinese FM urged the US and the West to lift sanctions on the country. The meeting came amid Taliabn's repeated appeal for wider international recognition. China is among the very few which seem to have started engaging with the outfit. Other members of the international community are taking a wait and watch approach. (ANI) Also Read: US condemns attack targeting residence of Iraq's Prime Minister Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), citing the findings of an inquiry report by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on irregularities in the Daska by-poll, demanded legal action against Imran Khan and Pakistan's Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, reported a local media. Calling Imran Khan's ruling party Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) "champions of rigging", PML-N said that the inquiry report has proved that the PTI government is indulged in "vote-stealing", reported Dawn. PML-N information secretary Marriyum Aurangzeb said that the report was undoubtedly a proof that Imran Khan was "directly involved" in the Daska by-election rigging, adding that he himself was a "product" of election rigging, according to Dawn. Marriyum further questioned why the report was "incomplete" and shielded the real culprits from fixing the responsibility. "At the behest of the premier, the chief minister, ministers and others committed an organised rigging in the Daska by-poll. They should be made accountable and punished," Dawn quoted Marriyum as saying. The information secretary further demanded the responsible ones of rigging be held accountable. "We demand that all those responsible for rigging in the Daska by-poll should be made accountable. Imran Khan and Usman Buzdar are directly responsible for rigging, therefore, legal action should be initiated against them," Dawn quoted Marriyum as saying. Earlier this year, Marriyum Aurangzeb had alleged ministers of the PTI government are attempting to trample upon Pakistan's constitution to rob the next polls through "election fraud machines," local media reported. Aurangzeb lashed out at the government ministers for targeting the ECP after its objections to the EVMs which the government wanted to use in the next general elections, Dawn reported. It further reported that the Marriyum accused the PTI government of attempting to snatch the ECP's constitutional powers and shifting them to the Prime Minister House. (ANI) Also Read: Pakistan opposition raises questions over Imran Khan's relief package For much of the first half, I felt a sense of reactivity from the performers, a kinesthetic observance to one another, an emulation of others' movements, appearing to be improvised. And then Michelle Boule comes out in different pants, changing the color palette of the dance from grays and blacks by adding a pop of orange. The costumes took an opposite journey from the lights, with muted tones exchanged for bright, vibrant colors in the middle of the piece, only to return to their drab garb at the end. Boule's long, unbridled, solo near the end of the piece is followed by a return to each dancer moving, playing with internal soundtracks that don't match up. "OK, I'm going to stop this now," said Miller, and it was over. And most tenants are forced to leave their rental units not because of formal eviction proceedings, but because theyve been illegally locked out or their utilities have been shut off, or because they want to avoid an eviction being added to their record by leaving on their own. There were 5.5 of these so-called informal evictions for every one formal eviction in 2017, according to the Census Bureaus American Housing Survey. About 4 million federal workers are to be vaccinated by Nov. 22 under the presidents executive order. Some employees, like those at the White House, are nearly all vaccinated. But the rates are lower at other federal agencies, particularly those related to law enforcement and intelligence, according to the agencies and union leaders. And some resistant workers are digging in, filing lawsuits and protesting what they say is unfair overreach by the White House. Just before 1 a.m., the officer responded to a call in the 100 block of South York Road in Bensenville, Illinois, which is located west of the OHare International Airport, Schulze said. When the officer arrived, someone fired multiple shots at the officer. Each and every day, our law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to protect the safety and security we enjoy in DuPage County, States Attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement. For their service, courage and commitment, we owe them a great debt of gratitude that, in my opinion, can never be repaid. Any call to which they respond could turn violent at any time, as we saw in this case. The shooting of an officer touches all of us and on behalf of all DuPage County law enforcement, I wish a speedy and full recovery for the officer injured in this incident. Everyone was passing out around you, and everyone was trying to help each other. But you just couldnt move. You couldnt do anything. You cant even pick your arms up, one festival attendee told the wire service. It just got worse and worse. Theres a story behind the closure of each of the suburban amusement parks, and the family drama that resulted in Kiddielands end is among the more tragic. The descendants of the parks founder had split the operation so that some owned the land while others owned and operated the park. When the landowners got a large offer to sell, the operators had no choice but to shut Kiddieland down. Crestwood Electronics, 13314 Cicero Ave., does business in electronics such as repairing cracked cellphone screens, but was also a hub for buying, repackaging and reselling electronics including laptop computers, gaming systems, digital cameras and other devices, according to a criminal complaint filed Oct. 29 in U.S. court in Chicago. I am incredibly proud of the tenacious efforts of our detectives throughout this investigation, Sheriff John Idleburg said Friday. Through their hard and diligent work, they quickly identified a person of interest, discovered the likely crime scene and worked with Chicago detectives to further the investigation. We will always do everything in our power to be the voice of victims who are unable to speak for themselves and hold those who victimized them accountable. The 17th Chinese American Film Festival and the Chinese American Television Festival kicked off here on Friday as a live, in-person event. A total of 10 films won the Golden Angel Award at the event, including "Cliff Walkers," "Chinese Doctors," "Endgame" and "A Writer's Odyssey." Best Director Award went to Andrew Lau for "Chinese Doctors," while Best Producer Award went to his producer, Yu Dong. Three American hit films were singled out for their popularity in China with special awards -- Universal's action film "F9: The Fast Saga," Warner Bros. and Legendary's monster film "Godzilla vs. Kong," and 20th Century Studios' science fiction action comedy film "Free Guy." "Over the journey of the last 17 years we have been able to build a bridge and a platform, open access and create the brand of China-U.S. film and TV cooperation," said Zhang Ping, Chinese consul general in Los Angeles, at the opening ceremony. "We are gathering momentum right now. Film and television industry cooperation is a very important component in the China-U.S. relationship. It plays an important role in promoting understanding and friendship between our two countries and peoples," Zhang noted. "It is the role of film and television, no matter where you are from, no matter the color of your skin to bring us together," festival founder, James Su, told Xinhua. "It turns all of us in to Golden Angels." U.S. Congresswoman Judy Chu, the first Chinese American woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, sent her regards to the organizers in a video message, saying, "I understand the importance of cultural exchange and diversity is our strength." She said the event "invites others to learn more about and celebrate with the Chinese community." Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger announced in a video message that LA County will be recognizing November as Chinese Film Festival Month. Hollywood producer Arthur Sarkissian, producer of the "Rush Hour" film franchise, praised efforts from the event's organizers in keeping the festival going. "This kind of cultural event that brings both sides together is key to keeping an open door between the U.S. and China," Sarkissian said. Founded in 2005 by EDI Media Inc., the annual cultural event aims to promote film and television industry exchanges and cooperation between China and the United States, and to enhance the influence and visibility of China's outstanding film and television works in the international markets. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, dignitaries, nominees and award winners from China attended the event virtually. More than 600 film and television works will be screened at the festivals. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said on Saturday that the country is well prepared for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement to take effect in January. "All preparations are now in place to ensure China fully meets its obligations when the agreement comes into effect," MOFCOM said in a statement. China completed ratification of the RCEP and submitted the document to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in April. "The relevant preparations were completed within half a year of the signing of the agreement," said MOFCOM. The world's biggest free trade agreement, the RCEP covers nearly a third of the global population and about 30% of global GDP. It will take effect on January 1, 2022. The pact allows for one set of rules of origin to qualify for tariffs reduction with its members. A common set of regulations mean fewer procedures and easier movement of goods. MOFCOM specified that China can guarantee that the tax reduction obligation will be fulfilled when the agreement takes effect. It added that considering the rules of origin, customs formulated the RCEP origin management measures and exporters' management measures in the first half of the year, which will be announced and implemented simultaneously with the implementation of the agreement. MOFCOM said it has carefully sorted out the 701 binding obligations involved in the agreement in coordination with the relevant departments, including simplification of customs procedures, product standards, service trade opening-up, negative list in investment, and e-commerce. "At present, all departments involved in the obligations are ready to act according to the contract," the ministry said. Training sessions aimed at introducing the agreement to local governments and enterprises have been carried out, covering all prefecture-level cities, pilot free trade zones and national economic development zones. The RCEP's entry into force will effectively promote regional economic integration and promote post-pandemic economic recovery and growth, said MOFCOM. Chinese political advisors have discussed measures to promote the comprehensive competitiveness of foreign trade at a consultation session in Beijing. The biweekly session was held by the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), China's top political advisory body. Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the CPPCC National Committee, presided over the session recently. Based on the strategy to pursue a new development pattern, reforms should take place in foreign trade quality, structure, efficiency and institutions to achieve more sustainable development with higher quality and better security, Wang said. Eleven political advisors and experts offered their proposals at the session, and over 50 political advisors voiced their opinions via a mobile platform. They acknowledged China's progress in foreign trade, adding that uncertainties and challenges have increased due to profound and complex changes at home and abroad. However, China's foreign trade still has strong competitive edges, and the long-term development trend of steady quantity and rising quality has not changed, they said. They called for an in-depth study on the impact of COVID-19, changes in international supply chains, rising commodity prices, and difficulties in international logistics, suggesting better policies to support foreign trade, including helping alleviate the financing difficulties of small businesses. A medical worker disinfects a COVID-19 testing site in Xining, northwest China's Qinghai province, Nov. 6, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua] The Chinese mainland on Saturday reported 50 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases, the National Health Commission said in its daily report on Sunday. Of the new local cases, 21 were reported in Hebei, nine in Liaoning, six in Heilongjiang, four in Sichuan, three each in Henan and Yunnan, two in Gansu, and one each in Jiangxi and Ningxia. Also reported were 24 new imported cases, of which nine were reported in Yunnan, three each in Shanghai and Guangdong, two each in Liaoning and Shaanxi, one each in Beijing, Fujian, Shandong, Henan and Guangxi, according to the commission. Two new suspected cases arriving from outside the mainland were reported in Shanghai as well, the commission added. No new death related to COVID-19 was reported on Saturday, said the commission. A total of 9,736 imported cases had been reported on the mainland by the end of Saturday. Among them, 9,353 had been discharged from hospitals following recovery, and 383 remained hospitalized. No deaths had been reported among the imported cases. The total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases on the mainland had reached 97,734 by Saturday, including 1,169 patients still receiving treatment, 32 of whom were in severe condition. A total of 91,929 patients had been discharged from hospitals following recovery on the mainland, and 4,636 had died as a result of the virus. A total of 35 asymptomatic cases were newly reported, of whom 14 were from outside the mainland. There were a total of 442 asymptomatic cases, of whom 337 were imported, under medical observation as of Saturday. By the end of Saturday, 12,367 confirmed COVID-19 cases, including 213 deaths, had been reported in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), while 77 cases had been reported in the Macao SAR, and 16,438 cases, including 847 deaths, had been reported in Taiwan. A total of 12,036 COVID-19 patients in the Hong Kong SAR had been discharged from hospitals following recovery, while 75 had been discharged in the Macao SAR, and 13,742 had been discharged in Taiwan. Flash Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was unharmed in an assassination attempt carried out by a drone targeting his official residence on Sunday, the Iraqi military said. The media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement that an unknown drone bomb hit al-Kadhimi's residency at dawn in the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of the capital, but the prime minister escaped the attack unhurt. "The prime minister did not suffer any harm and he is in good health," the media office said. Iraqi security forces are taking all necessary measures toward the assassination attempt, the statement said without giving further details. In a tweet on his official page, al-Kadhimi said he was "fine" and called for "calm and restraint from everyone for the sake of Iraq." "The rockets of treason will not shake the steadfastness and determination of our heroic security forces to preserve the security of the people and enforce the law," al-Kadhimi said. The attempted assassination followed protests against the results of last month's elections. Friday's protests turned into a clash later with the security forces outside the Green Zone, which houses some of the main government offices and foreign embassies. The clash left two protesters killed and dozens of protesters and security members wounded, according to official figures. In the parliamentary elections on Oct. 10, the Sadrist Movement, led by prominent Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, took the lead with more than 70 seats, while the al-Fatah (Conquest) Coalition garnered 17 seats compared with 47 in the 2018 elections. Political parties unsatisfied with the results said the elections were manipulated and that they would not accept the "fabricated results." The lawyer of Brian Houston says the Hillsong senior pastor will plead not guilty to charges of concealing his father's sexual abuse. Houston was not present at a preliminary court hearing on Tuesday morning but said in August that the charges had come as "a shock" to him and that he was looking forward to clearing his name. "I vehemently profess my innocence and will defend these charges, and I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight," he said. New South Wales police pressed charges against the 67-year-old in August following a two-year investigation into what he knew about his father's abuse and when. "Police will allege in court [that Houston] knew information relating to the sexual abuse of a young male in the 1970s and failed to bring that information to the attention of police," the police said. Houston has always maintained that he acted properly in regards to the abuse committed by his father Frank Houston, who died in 2004. A statement released by Hillsong in July said that Houston "sought to honor the victim's multiple requests not to inform the police", and that he had acted in accordance with the law at the time. "The law at the time granted an exception to reporting a crime of this nature when a person had a reasonable excuse not to report. This state law has since further clarified that this type of situationwhen an adult victim of child abuse explicitly does not want the matter reportedqualified as a reasonable excuse under the law," the statement reads. The case has gone to court just weeks after Houston stepped down from the board of Hillsong Church. "I did this so that these boards can function to their fullest capacity during this season. This doesn't change my role as Global Senior Pastor," he said. The next court hearing in the case will take place on 23 November. Reposted with permission from Christian Today Guess what the most famous Bible story is which doesn't include Jesus? Well, it's David and Goliath (1 Samuel chapters 16-17)! David, the Giant Slayer The story begins when Samuel listens to God about choosing David, a young shepherd, in the replacement for King Saul and as the next king of Israel. After anointing David as the next king privately, an evil spirit tormented Saul. One of Sauls servants advised him that a musician, who can play the lyre, will help to soothe his spirit. Apparently, David was chosen to do it and since Saul loved him so much, he became one of his armour-bearers and was called into service for Saul whenever he needed help. Saul and the Israelite army were going to have war with the Philistines in the Valley of Elah. They chose one man to determine the resultof their battle.The Philistines chose Goliath who had been a warrior since his youth. Although Saul did not believe David could win any battle, David confidently stepped up with five smooth stones, a sling and a staff. David was certain that the living God will fight for himas God had previously given him the strength to rescue his sheep from bears and lions. As soon as Goliath approached the battle to kill David, David calmly took one of the stones out of the bag and slung it atGoliaths forehead. The Philistine fell facedown on the ground and as a result, the Israelites won the battle. The key message in this story is that we can be given the strength and power to overcome anything if we stand up with God's by our side. 1 John chapter 5, verses 4-5 states that it is through faith. So, our faith can be seen as the stone in David's sling. Obedience Just like the Bible is full of stories, God writes our stories too. In fact, He knows them backwards as He planned how we are going to live from beginning to end (Psalm chapter 139, verses 13-16). It is just a matter of obedience whether we are going to follow Jesus Christ wholeheartedly or not. The truth of Christianity is that we cannot be perfect through human effort. God does not judge us by perfectionism. This does not mean we are to be lazy and rely on God for everything. Christ already made believers perfect in Gods sight through His crucifixion and resurrection, and yet we are being made holy. The meaning behindholinessis the idea of being different from how the world operates. Holiness naturally comes to believersbut it also is a process in which the believer has to work through with the guidance of Gods Spirit. Put simply, we are not called to be perfect physically but we are able to be perfect spiritually by finding our identity in Jesus Christ and devoting our life onto Him. My Story I am not physically perfect as I have disabilities in speech and on the left side of my body. Therefore, I use a speaking application or type what I want to say on my iPad and I have been learning how to be independent as much as possible. After I became a Christian in 2011, I was baptised in 2012 and discovereda spiritual gift in 2013, which is Christian writing. I have been writing devotionals to encourage others spiritually for over 5 years and now I have 11 platforms to do them on. In July of 2018, I joined Christian Today of New Zealand as a young writer. Due to my spiritual gift, I dont mind if I have some disabilities. Although some people stare at me, I often offer grace to them by saying hello with a big smile. Nevertheless, I have a good community to be with and Jesus Christ as my Lord, Savior and my best friend for the rest of my life. Despite my time spent writing devotionals and articles, this doesn't mean I am a master in growing spiritually. The worldly life and Kingdom life haveconflicting perspectives, and like most people, I have to work hard to make sure my worldly life doesn't overrule. The world tells us that our minds could be healed by watching television. It also tells us that we can do whatever we want and that 24 hours is not enough time for a day. However, the kingdom life prompts us that we could be truly healed through Jesus Christ and that and we have to manage our time well as time belongs to God. Conclusion We do not have to get all acts together before following Jesus. He accepts where we just are. So, when we make a mistake, we have to acknowledge it, especially towards the Lord, and try again. Just like David, I have been learning to bring God in to every aspect of my life and through Him, I can achieve anything. For example, my little sister and mother have been better at English than me. As I keep practising my writing skills through devotionals, my mum has now been surprised at my writing skills, even if she cannot understand theology. Instead of making our story through our efforts, let God be the story writer. Also, let us remember that He has a perfect plan for each of us (Jeremiah chapter 29, verse 11)! A sizeable portion of Americans believe that God has "granted America a special role in history'. This was one finding from the Public Religion Research Institute's annual survey of American values. While 64% of Americans overall agreed about America's special role, this rose to three quarters of white evangelicals. Among religious groups, white evangelicals were the most likely to agree, followed by black Protestants (65%). White mainline Protestants and white Catholics were least likely to share this view (46% each). But the least support for the idea was to be found among non-Christians (29%), and religiously unaffiliated Americans (18%). In similar findings, most Americans overall (74%) feel that their country has always been a force for good in the world, rising to 88% among white evangelicals. The survey also found that a majority (60%) of Americans agree that abortion should be legal in most or all cases. A similar proportion (63%) said Roe vs Wade - the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the US - was the right decision and should be upheld. Americans with no religious affiliation (82%) were the most likely to support Roe vs Wade, compared to just 30% of white evangelicals. Global Advanced Structural Carbon Products Market size was valued at US$ XX Bn. in 2019 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.12% over 2020-2026, to account for US$ XX Bn. by 2026. Global Advanced Structural Carbon Products Market Overview and Dynamics: Advanced structural carbon product is manufactured from non-identical physical forms of carbon with amorphous and graphite carbon. This product is widely used in automotive, aerospace, & defense, energy, and other industrial purposes. Looking forward, the global advanced structural carbon products market is projected to reach a value of US$ XX Bn. by 2026, expanding at a CAGR of around 7.12% during 2020-2026. Thanks to the rising demand for carbon fibers in industries such as aerospace, the automotive industry is expected to drive the global advanced structural carbon products market growth. Global market growth for reinforced plastics in the automotive sectors in developing countries like India, China, and Mexico, as well as countries in the MEA, is estimated to boost demand for the industry. Moreover, growing government funding towards nanotechnology research in China, Japan, Germany, Netherlands, and the U.S is expected to result in the development of new advanced nanomaterial. However, waste in the manufacture of finished products and the high costs of carbon fiber composites are expected to hamper the overall growth of the advanced structural carbon products market globally. Request for Report Sample: https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/report/sample/13548 Growth Opportunities for Start-Up Companies: The industry provides various growth opportunities. Therefore, a number of start-ups providing advanced materials and technologies have been entering the global market. Some of them include Designer Carbon Material, DexMat, Solerial Matusions, Boston Material, and Battrion. Swedish startup Solerial Matusions produces an original nanoparticle additive for carbon fiber. The compound solution from the start-up seeks to decrease the weight and expenditure of structural elements of aircraft, while still providing larger protection. By type, the carbon fiber segment dominated the market, with market size of US$ XX Bn. in 2019 and to reach US$ XX Bn. by 2026, with a CAGR of nearly 8.34%. The major consumption of the product for manufacturing composites used in an extensive range of applications like the automotive, energy sector is expected to drive industry growth. However, the carbon foams segment is expected to reach US$ XX Bn. by 2026 thanks to its properties with superior electrical conductivity and chemical inertness. The Aerospace & Defense Segment to Dominate the Market Demand: By industry, the aerospace & defense segment dominated the market, with a market size of US$ XX Bn. in 2019 and to reach US$ XX Bn. by 2026, with a CAGR of XX. 50%. This growth is attributed to high graphene conductivity devices in the aircraft aid reduce the cost of the machinery. Companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industrial ltd. have been focusing on the growth of composite-derived wing boxes to decrease the overall aircraft weight. On the flip side, the automotive segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of nearly 7.82% during the forecast period. Growing vehicle manufacturing output in developing markets, such as India, China, and Mexico, is likely to encourage the use of the product as fillers due to the regulatory initiative to help investments coupled with increased SUVs sales. Global Advanced Structural Carbon Products Market Regional Analysis: The MMR report offers a brief analysis of the major regions in the market, namely, APAC, North America, Europe, South America, and the Middle East & Africa. Among these, Europe advanced structural carbon products market has considerably enhanced at a healthy CAGR of XX.07% from 2020 to 2026. The high dominance of aerospace manufacturing facilities of Augusta Westland, Boeing, and Bell Helicopters in Germany, France, Russia, and the UK as a result of easy availability of consumables is expected to augment the European industry growth. However, North America advanced structural carbon products market held the largest market share of XX% in 2019. Place a Direct Purchase Order @ https://www.trendsmarketresearch.com/checkout/13548/Single Key Development: The MMR reports cover key developments in the advanced structural carbon products market as organic and inorganic growth strategies. Many companies are focusing on organic growth strategies such as product launches, product approvals, and others like patents and events. ? In March 2019, Hexcel and Arkema announced, that they would open a joint R&D facility in France in April 2019. The companys objective at this new facility is to produce carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic prepreg tapes so that lightweight parts can be manufactured for upcoming generations of aircraft. ? In January 2010, Hexcel and Woodward announced a definitive agreement, to combine the equals in an all-stock merger to create a prominent integrated system provider for the industrial and aerospace sectors. The merged company will emphasize technology-rich inventions to deliver consumer solutions that are cleaner, safer, and smarter. The objective of the report is to present a comprehensive analysis of the Global Advanced Structural Carbon Products Market to the stakeholders in the industry. The past and current status of the industry with forecasted market size and trends are presented in the report with the analysis of complicated data in simple language. The report covers all the aspects of the industry with a dedicated study of key players that include market leaders, followers, and new entrants. PORTER, SVOR, PESTEL analysis with the potential impact of micro-economic factors of the market have been presented in the report. External as well as internal factors that are supposed to affect the business positively or negatively have been analysed, which will give a clear futuristic view of the industry to the decision-makers. The report also helps in understanding the Global Advanced Structural Carbon Products Market dynamics, structure by analyzing the market segments and project the Global Advanced Structural Carbon Products Market size. Clear representation of competitive analysis of key players by product, price, financial position, product portfolio, growth strategies, and regional presence in the Global Advanced Structural Carbon Products Market make the report investors guide. Litchfield, CT (06759) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High 49F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Rain likely. Low 43F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. Another resident of the house, Adnel Ortega, 20, was charged with altering a weapons serial number and risk of injury. He was also charged with criminally negligent storage of a gun because, police said, the pistol was stored in an unsecured dresser drawer in the same room where a toddler lives. The conditions of the injured were not reported. Police are asking anyone who witnessed the crash to contact them at 203-393-4200. Anyone driving through the crash scene with dash cam footage is asked to contact Bavolacco at Gina.Bavolacco@ct.gov. In June, Philip Morris announced that it would move its headquarters from Park Avenue, New York City, to Fairfield County, but it hadnt landed on a location. This week, it was announced that the company that manufactures six of the top 15 cigarette brands will lease more than 70,000 square feet of office space in the former UBS tower on Washington Boulevard. We under-promise and over-deliver. And its paid off. You talk to any of the municipalities we work with, weve come through on our promises, he said. You live one life. You want to do something thats meaningful. I dont think anybody should be harshly treated in a quick manner, he said, adding the state cannot simply offer blanket relief either. That means waiting until the labor department has a full accounting of overpayments, and then determining which households need assistance the most. The conventional wisdom for a very long time for women with kids at home was to not emphasize their children, in case voters wondered whos at home taking care of the kids, Sinzdak said. There was this sort of thought that it would be a deterrent to voters, but what weve seen in the last couple of election cycles is that women who have children have started using motherhood as an asset, to say my experience as a mother is valuable when it comes to policymaking and the decisions that affect our community. About 12% of Connecticut households do not have an internet subscription. Connecticut will receive at least $100 million to help provide broadband coverage across the state. Under this legislation, 654,000 people in Connecticut will also be eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Benefit, which was created to help low-income families afford internet access. I love that he is showcasing all the different faces of military families, she said. This is a huge military community, but I think because of that, a lot of people dont know what goes into being part of the military community and the daily sacrifices not only the dependents make, but their active-duty spouses. When Tookie settles down to decipher the book, she finds a 19th-century captivity narrative, though not of the white-woman-kidnapped-by-Indians variety. It appears to be the opposite: a Native woman abducted by whites. Interesting, Tookie thinks. But shes too scared to continue reading. What if the lethal sentence that took out Flora comes for Tookie, too? In recourse, she finds a can of lighter fluid and attempts to burn the book on an outdoor hibachi grill, where it resists destruction. She takes a hatchet to the book, with the same result. Finally, she shovels a hole and buries the cursed text in her backyard, then goes inside to thaw a block of soup and do crunches. But the object will not vanish, and neither will Flora. What first seems like an aimless haunting turns out to be a deadly accurate supernatural missile strike. Flora wants something, and only when Tookie decodes what it is can she exorcise the womans malevolent presence. State police have declined to answer any further questions about the shooting and pursuit including how the vehicles made contact with each other, what tactics police used to try to stop the Chevrolet and whether Greys body was found inside the car. Food production will need to rise significantly over the coming decades to meet an increasing global population, he said. Lab-grown items could help, in addition to reducing energy needed and greenhouse gases associated with the meat industry. But actually offering a product is a long way off. The Hampton team, which will get $3.2 million of the grant, is focused on improving the methods that could get us there. But the transmission level is not much lower than at this time last year, when there were no vaccinated residents. The positive test rate was 5.8% then, and the incidence rate the frequency that a new illness occurs in a community over a week was the same as today, about 15 per 100,000 people. Bilal is part of a community coalition with nonprofit organizations Stop The Violence 757, Stop The Violence Guns Down and Community of United Focus that hosts monthly events to reduce violence in Hampton Roads. He left a coalition event Wednesday evening when he heard about the shooting. Shortly after he arrived at the scene, he said he began planning to come back to support the neighborhoods residents. Puneeth was the youngest of five children of thespian and matinee idol Dr Rajkumar. (Photo: PTI/File) Bengaluru: Chorus demanding 'Padma Shri' award posthumously to Kannada film star Puneeth Rajkumar, who died recently, seems to be growing, as two Ministers of the Karnataka government on Sunday urged the Chief Minister to make a recommendation to the Centre in this connection. Considered the Kannada cinema's reigning star, Puneeth, youngest of five children of thespian and matinee idol Dr Rajkumar, had died of a cardiac arrest on October 29 at the age of 46. Agriculture Minister B C Patil said, Puneeth Rajkumar should have been given Padma Shri when he was alive for his achievements, but unfortunately as he is no longer with us physically, it has to be given to him posthumously . "As a fan, I too join other fans (in their demand). Being part of the government, I urge the Chief Minister to recommend the same to the Centre. Puneeth is qualified for it not only as an actor, but also for his service to the society," the actor-turned- politician said, adding that if the matter comes before the cabinet it will get unanimous consent. Minister for Tourism Anand Singh too in Haveri said, "Puneeth Rajkumar is a person who had a mentality to serve mankind, he had joined us in several campaigns of public good like pulse polio campaign, when I was into social service... I extend my support to the demand seeking Padma Shri to him." Kannada Actor Prem, too wished that Puneeth Rajkumar be given the Padma Shri award at the earliest. Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the state, Siddaramaiah had recently urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to award Padma Shri posthumously to Puneeth. "The love and affection Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar has gained is bigger than any title or award. I urge the Prime Minister of India to award Padma Shri posthumously to Puneeth Rajkumar. His acting and contribution to society deserves even more accolades," he had tweeted. Recently Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, responding to a question by the media on such a demand, said, "There are rules on when and people from which sectors should be recommended for Padma awards, it will be in a way unanimous recommendation for Puneeth Rajkumar. As a government considering everything, we will take a decision." He said the entire state and the government has love and respect for Puneeth Rajkumar. Padma Shri is one of the highest civilian honours of India announced annually on the eve of Republic Day, for distinguished service. Puneeth, popularly known as 'Appu' and 'Powerstar', by his fans, made debut on screen when he was just six-months-old and went on to win a national award as a child artist for the film Bettada Hoovu. He then re-emerge as a lead actor in 2002 and went on to star in 29 films, delivering some big hits. On the eve of her 18th birthday, the bottom of Vidhie Mukerjeas world collapsed. She got back from school to discover cops in her house. Vidhies mother, Indrani, was arrested for allegedly murdering her sister, Sheena Bora. Later, the case got even more sensational when investigations revealed that Sheena was not, in fact, Indranis sister, but her daughter instead, which meant that Vidhie and Sheena were half-sisters. There were horrific twists and turns almost daily, and the high profile Mukerjea family was harangued by the media for months thereafter. Vidhie had never felt more alone. Her mother was in jail, her biological father whom she barely knew was in jail, her step-father, Peter, was later sent to jail. Besides, she was acutely aware that Peters family despised her mother. As for her parentss former friends: People that had come to my house and sucked up to my parents were now on TV, giving interviews about what they thought my mum and dad had done and saying all sorts of nasty things. Just as well that Peter had packed her off to study in London, away from it all. Vidhie surrounded herself with people to stop her mind from revisiting that nightmare. She partied, drank like a fish, spent sleepless nights, fought panic attacks, dropped out off college, backpacked in South Americafortunately, her family had the money to support her extravagant lifestyle. Inside, however, she was furious with her mother, and worried about Petershe loved him, and took his side when her mother implicated him in the case. The stigma of the Sheena Bora Murder Case followed her everywhere, even to Barcelona, where her former employers did a brief Internet search on her background. As the years rolled by, Vidhies scars gradually healed, helped along by Peter, therapists, spiritualism, self-awareness and marvellous friends. The turning point was when she finally met her mother and forgave her. Thats when she got back on track, went back to college, and behaved like a responsible adult. In 2020 (six years after the trauma) Vidhie decided to write about her journey from hating her mother to trying to understand her, and attempting to deal with the fall out of that horrific crime. She also learnt to stop mistrusting Peters family, and has wonderful things to say about his sister: Shangon bua is someone who is one of the wonders of this story. You know the foundation that holds up a structure, prevents it from falling? While this book is not about the case, Vidhie makes frequent references to it. Like her affectionate relationship with Sheena, and her mothers attempts to end it. Then theres a rather amusing bit on her visit to the CBI office for questioning. The descriptions of Byculla Jail and Arthur Road jail are quite fascinating. And, as she points out, media trials by TRP hungry anchors are far more traumatic than trials in courts. Dont let the title scare you: While the subject matter is dark and intense, the style is light and breezy. Devils Daughter By Vidhie Mukerjea Westland pp. 242, Rs.399 Sudhakar Goud and other association leaders including Abdul Bari said the transport sector contributes Rs 40,000 crore each year by way of different taxes. Representational Image. (DC Image) Hyderabad: Telangana Lorry Owners Association (TLOA) has threatened to launch a state-wide strike demanding, among other things, reduction in high prices of diesel. Addressing a press conference here on Saturday, TLOA joint secretary Koyyeda Sudhakar Goud said they have been facing immense difficulties ever since the new state has been formed owing to high taxes. Now, the prices of diesel have gone up steeply, making it difficult to earn their livelihood. Sudhakar Goud and other association leaders including Abdul Bari said the transport sector contributes Rs 40,000 crore each year by way of different taxes. They maintained that many of the taxes are unreasonable. Premium for third party insurance has increased by 400 per cent, which must be lowered. Spare parts of lorries are taxed at 28 per cent. These must be brought to 18 per cent. Interstate permits cost Rs 1,700 per trip. The permit fee must be waived. Lorries must be exempt from paying toll, whether on state or national highways. Quarterly tax used to be Rs v6,200 for a 10-tyre lorry in the combined state, when the distance travelled had been more. Now, intra-state distance has reduced. Hence, quarterly tax must be reduced. The TLOA leaders said the biggest problem has turned out to be high rates of diesel. These must be reduced, apart from bringing diesel under GST. Further, they said the state government pays them Rs 193 per tonne of paddy transported for civil supplies department. This is the price fixed when diesel cost Rs 72 per litre. But now, diesel rates have shot up. The paddy transport charges must now be increased to Rs 300 per tonne, they demanded. Sudhakar Goud and Abdul Bari said despite their two earlier strikes, state government has not responded to their pleas since past seven years. If the government does not respond this time, we may have to once again go on lorry bandh, they warned. Chennai: AIADMK coordinator O Panneerselvam upped his ante on the ongoing slanging match between him and the State Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan on the release of water from the Mullaiperiyar dam before the storage level touched 142 feet, demanding answers to his questions and warning the DMK government of dire consequences if they remained silent on it. Denying the charge of Duraimurugan that the PWD Minister in the previous AIADMK government never visited the Mullaiperiyar dam, located in Idukki district of Kerala, Panneerselvam said that he been to the dam site at least 14 times when he held the PWD portfolio between 2002 and 2006 and from 2011 to 21 and in other times too as a Minister from the district. Slamming Duraimurugan for giving out false statements, Pannerselvam said his life was intertwined with the Mullaiperiyar dam and that the AIADMK had the moral authority to talk about any issue relating to the State, not just the dam issue. He said the AIADMK was organizing a massive protest in the headquarters of all the five districts that were fed by the water from Mullaiperiyar - Theni, Madurai, Dindigul, Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram on November 9 since the DMK government had reneged on the States rights. Raising the question as to why the water from the dam was release when the storage had not touched 142 feet and when the districts of Sivagnaga and Ramanathapuram had not received their share of water, the AIADMK leader recalled the various efforts made by former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa in restoring the States river water rights. It was not only in the seeking the raising of water level to 142 feet from 136 feet in the Mullaiperiyar dam through a legal fight but also in getting the States share of Cauvery water, Jayalalithaa had consistently waged a war with the neighbouring States. Though the DMK had once claimed that if it came to power it would solve all the river water disputes with neighbouring States through talks, it had not done anything on that, Panneerselvam alleged and wanted to know if the latest water release was done unilaterally by the Kerala government on with the consent of Tamil Nadu. If it was done by Kerala on its own, why were officials from Tamil Nadu present at the site on the occasion and if it was after getting Tamil Nadus consent, were the farmers in the region taken into account, the AIADMK leader asked. Camping in his hometown, Pannerselvam is said to have held a meeting with office-bearers of the five districts where the protest has been called. He is said to have told the functionaries to ensure that the agitation had a huge turnout of party supporters and that it was a grand success. He had taken up the fight with the DMK government over the Mullaiperiyar issue personally not just because he had been the PWD Minister and also hails from Theni district, which is one of the first districts that get water from the dam, but also because he has to prove himself in the party. Since the Leader of the Opposition the Assembly Edappadi K Palaniswami is seemingly overtaking him in the popularity sweepstakes within the party, Panneerselvam has to find a niche for himself in the AIADMK, in which technically he is the head honcho. So he found in the Mullaiperiyar issue a stick to beat the DMK government also to rally cadre around him. Meanwhile, the BJP had also announced an agitation to lay a siege at the Theni district collectors office on November 9 to protest the alleged giving up of the States river water rights by the DMK government. Achampet MLA Balaraju had asserted during the Huzurabad byelection that the TRS will win or he will resign as legislator. (Twitter) Peddapalli: TRS leaders of Peddapalli, including MLAs, are now facing heat from the people after the ruling partys debacle in the recent Huzurabad byelection. Many of these leaders had been deployed in Huzurabad to ensure victory of the ruling party candidate. After Achhampet MLA Guvvala Balaraju ran into trouble on social media on Friday, Peddapalli MLA Dasari Manohar Reddy who was also one of the in-charges of the bypoll campaign, found his convoy blocked by villagers and leaders of the BJP and the Congress at Kodurupaka in Sultanabad mandal on Saturday. They demanded that he too resign as legislator for development of several villages in Peddapalli constituency. The protesters said many of the villages had not been developed and some did not have any roads to them. Further, officials are not releasing water from SRSP canal to their villages, which are at the tail-end. Even after appealing and protesting on a number of occasions, nothing has been done, those agitating stated. Meanwhile, police intervened, arrested leaders of opposition parties, and cleared the road for MLAs convoy. As already reported, Achampet MLA Balaraju had asserted during the Huzurabad byelection that the TRS will win or he will resign as legislator. But the massive victory registered by BJP candidate Etala Rajendar has come as a moral setback and netizens began demanding that Balaraju keep his promise. New Delhi: As the BJP gears up for the coming electoral battle in five states due early next year -- in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab -- and its election strategies focusing on retaining power in four and making its organisational relevance felt in Punjab, where the party lost its old Akali Dal ally over the contentious farm laws and faces one of its toughest challenges in the form of farmers protests, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday urged the party leaders to become a bridge of faith for the common man and continue following the values of seva, sankalp aur samarpan (service, resolution and commitment) to win over the peoples hearts. The coming Assembly polls were on top of the agenda for the BJPs recently reconstituted national executive, which held its first meeting on Sunday. Originating in Punjab, the ongoing farmers protests against the three agricultural reform laws could impact the BJPs prospects in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand as well, where the ruling BJP will face new challenges in the form of new rivals and new alliances in the Opposition camp. The Narendra Modi government so far remains unwilling to roll back the contentious laws. The Assembly poll results, mainly in the most politically and electorally crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, will have a major impact on the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In his concluding remarks at the national executive, which was also attended in virtual format by many national executive members and several chief ministers due to the Covid protocols, Mr Modi expressed confidence that the BJP will win the peoples trust as it has been moving forward by taking up issues close to the people. BJP president J.P. Nadda, who during his inaugural speech also gave targets to the partys state units for organisational growth, reiterated what his predecessor Amit Shah, now Union home minister, had said in 2018 -- that for the party its best is yet to come. The national executive also passed a political resolution, which hailed Mr Modi on many issues, including Covid-19 management, the vaccination drive and vaccine diplomacy and how unlike some countries, who went in for increasing their debt and printing more currency to combat the Covid-related slowdown in their respective economies, India relied on Atma Nirbhar Bharat to boost its economy and to provide basic amenities, including food, to 80 crore poor and needy people through the worlds biggest food programme to save their lives and livelihoods. The BJP also attacked the Opposition parties for their politics of opportunity and hateful mindsets since the global pandemic had hit India to create propaganda against the Narendra Modi governments efforts in Covid-19 management and vaccination. The political resolution noted how through various initiatives like Mudra and Digital India, Indias youth was now a job giver and about how digitalisation had helped in bringing in transparency in all sectors. The resolution also mentioned how Indias foreign policy was centered on Nation First and how the Modi government rooted out inner conflicts and non-alignment -- how India wants to become a big power and not a balancing power, and how Indias voice in global issues was now taken seriously. The resolution also mentioned how since the abrogation of Article 370, Jammu and Kashmir was facing less terrorism and more development. The resolution was moved by UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath, and the central leaderships move to allow him to move the resolution was seen by many as an elevation in the organisational hierarchy and a message to his detractors within the party. The UP CM addressed the national executive for nearly 20 minutes after moving the resolution. Three Union ministers -- Dharmendra Pradhan, Nirmala Sitharaman and Bhupendra Yadav -- briefed the media about Mr Naddas inaugural speech, the political resolution and Mr Modis address respectively. The chief ministers and the BJP chiefs of UP, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur gave a presentations on the upcoming Assembly elections at the meeting. Ahead of the polls in Punjab, the BJP also reached out to the Sikhs, with Mr Nadda listing a number of measures that the Modi government had taken for the community, including expediting action against the 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurdwaras and keeping the langars outside the purview of the Goods and Services Tax. Amidst a lot of speculation about a possible tie up between the BJP and former chief minister Amarinder Singhs fledgling new party, the BJP said it would contest all the seats in the Punjab elections. While it prepares itself for the coming electoral battles, the party also sent out a message to its cadre in West Bengal, where the party failed to defeat Mamata Banerjee and her Trinamul Congress earlier this year, and has complained of political persecution since the electoral debacle. Mr Nadda, as quoted by Mr Pradhan, said if one looks at its growth in the state from the political science perspective, there will be very few parallels of it in Indian political history. Alleging that 53 BJP workers were killed and many victimised by the TMC since the results were out, the BJP vowed to fight legal battles and support its workers in the state. Setting new organisational targets for the BJPs expansion, Mr Nadda said the party will constitute booth-level committees at all 10.40 lakh polling stations by December 25 this year and have panna committees, a reference to each page of the voters list, by April 6. Citing the Talibans takeover of Afghanistan, Mr Pradhan said the BJP executive lauded the Prime Minister for his foresight in enacting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which aims at providing citizenship to the minorities in some neighbouring countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Congress MP N.Uttam Kumar Reddy addresses the meeting on podu lands in Suryapet on Saturday. Minister G. Jagadish Reddy and Suryapet collector T.Vinay Krishna Reddy are also seen. (P. Anil Kumar) Hyderabad: Nalgonda MP N. Uttam Kumar Reddy, the former state Congress chief, said he would start an indefinite fast if the BJP at the Centre and the TRS government in the state neglect paddy procurement. Farmers are facing problems due to the slow pace of paddy procurement, he said. He said that the government should procure every grain of paddy ane ensure that the farmers get the minimum support price of Rs 1960 per quintal immediately. He demanded that paddy purchase centres should be opened through Indira Kranthi Patham (IKP) and primary agriculture cooperative societies. Paddy farmers were worryied over the delay in procurement, Uttam Kumar Reddy told mediapersons after interacting with paddy farmers in Suryapet. Earlier, Uttam Kumar Reddy participated in a meeting on the governments podu lands policy at the collectorate in Suryapet. Minister G. Jagadish Reddy and elected representatives took part in the meeting. Uttam Kumar Reddy said that 8 lakh acres of forest land was handed over to tribals under Recognition of Forest Rights (RoFR) Act, 2006 during Congress rule in undivided Andhra Pradesh. All tribals, whose claims are backed by evidence under the RoFR Act, should be given their rights, he said. You have permission to edit this article. 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Let us know what's going on! Go to form The US is developing a high output laser to counter hypersonic missiles and drones deployed by China after conducting successful tests. On edge are US leaders who have witnessed China leapfrog them in several technologies, which prompted a lack of technology defense against them. US aerospace, defense firms develop high output laser weapons This high output laser weapon is the answer to China's advancements in weaponry that it needs to address America's vulnerability. After the Chinese hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) went around the world at low orbit and slammed its target, speeding at Mach 5+, this terrified the Pentagon. According to the US military, the aerospace and defense firms, Boeing and General Atomics Electromagnetics Systems (GA-DMS) are working on fabricating a 300-kilowatt solid-state laser as an offense and defense weapon, reported the Sun UK. The new weapon, Distributed Gain High Energy Laser Weapon System (DGHELWS), combines GA-DMS' laser technology with Boeing's target acquisition tools and software. The system will track and focus on the target while shooting, as cited by Defense News. Scott Forney, GA-EMS president, said that it is a high-powered compact directed energy weapon (DEWS) that should be a lethal DEWS at the military's disposal. He added the tech is a next-generation defense for air and missiles for the army to fix advanced threats on any battlefield. The contract was given to the team on October 25, several days after the Chinese HGV circled the earth. Promoting the need for such a defensive technology like the high output laser to defend against hypersonic missiles and drones, noted Al Jazeera. Read Also: China is Lining Up an Array of High-Tech Weapons To Overcome Taiwan When the Time Comes But, the nuclear warhead capable missile had hit nearly 24-miles away when launched last August. The US response to counter Chinese HGV technology This directed energy weapon system is the highest output laser so far, man-portable, agile, hi-performance, and cost-effective. According to Dr. Michael Perry, General Atomic's vice president for lasers and advanced sensors, the laser (DEWS) is packaged in the seventh version that has been tested. He added that it has dual Gen 7 laser heads mounted in a very compact and lightweight form. Recent developments enabled single beam DG lasers, similar to fiber lasers in simple design, with no need for beam combination. Should it be engineered successfully, it could take out small drones to fast-moving missiles. The directed energy weapon system needs a lot of power to project a light beam that should burn through any object's shield, and a short and powerful burst is required to knock out any target. Developing a power source is the most important step to enable an effective DEWS to be fielded in combat and versatile as man-portable and mountable on vehicles. Dr. Perry said that the DGHELWS is a customized aerial defense to intercept cruise missiles, manned planes, UAVs, rockets, or shells. It can either be powered by batteries or hooked to a power source for maneuverability for a full 300kw output. Depending on the intensity of the directed energy weapon, it will dictate what weapon systems it can attack. Hence the need for 300kw to generate an intense beam. Dr. Perry added that it is critical to generate higher intensity for a certain type of target. It's a new technology yet to be perfected over kinetic impact weapons too. Power is the key to powering the 'Star Wars' laser and managing the range and dwell time to neutralize hypersonic missiles and drones in an advanced kind of superpower era. Related Article: US is Deeply Concerned About a Threat to its Vulnerable Defenses Despite the Chinese Denial of Launching Hypersonic Glide Missiles @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Allied sentries in Mali lay friendly fire on British troops in a minibus. Still, no one was killed or injured in an incident that ended in near disaster due to miscommunication between the allies operating in the region. According to the account, the vehicle was a minibus carrying the British army, and Royal Air Force fighters nearly bought it had it not been for the evasion driving. While it was happening and shots fired, it was mayhem and confusion that the spokesperson explained later. Allied sentry posts fires at British army, Royal Air Force fighters One of the troopers said the incident could have ended with a piece of bad news to the next of kin of those on board. The UK force is part of the French counter-terrorism operations based in Gao, Mali. They were aimed at when they drove by their base, reported the Express UK. It was sentries from the trigger-happy Estonian forces that acted as guards on the base, who informed that the Britons were not able to fill out the paperwork to inform them. A minibus carrying the RAF crew and #UK troops was fired upon from a French special forces base after the #Estonian soldiers believed that they were attempting to infiltrate the garrison in #Mali https://t.co/CCry7qjTEz Arab News (@arabnews) November 6, 2021 An Estonia Defence Force representative, Capt Taavi Karotamm, stated that all procedures were followed by their troops, with no one harmed from the untoward incident. Britain has about 100 Royal Air Force and 310 soldiers now deployed in Gao. Army presence in the area with allied forces in the Sahel Region is because French President Emmanuel Macron requested assistance in the area of operation. The French leader asked for a favor from the US, as they had no good relations due to the AUKUS deal, which has not been officially silenced, cited Eminetra. The Sahel is where operations are going on, as a bid to stamp out terrorist groups by the British troops affiliated with the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group. But the incident with Estonian sentries could have reduced their number. Read Also: Taliban Betrays Promise Not to Murder Civilians As Photos Reveal Traitors Disposing Dead Bodies of Victims in Mass Graves Terrorist insurgents killed by Brits in a recent encounter A month ago, British Forces had wiped out a group of terrorists on patrol. The engagement ended with two of the Jihadis dead in the firefight, and it was the jihadis who fired first. Deaths and skirmish were verified by the Minister for the Armed Forces, James Heappey. He added that it is a reminder that there are new threats to armed forces, not just traditional threats, also in the cyber realm and space. But getting close to applying lethal force is still needed. Furthermore, Heappey remarked that technology developed for military use is for nothing without the armed forces, noted the Toys Matrix. British Forces searched the area and discovered stored weapons, AK-47, machine gun, ammo, and a radio. UK Forces have increased the UN's peacekeeping effort to keep civilians secure by controlling terror groups intent on causing trouble. Islamic State is forced to move away from the West Asia region, and ISIS is moving to other places to sell its ideology. The political chaos of Mail makes it is a rife recruit area for the evil terror cult. Groups like Boko Haram, ISIS, and Al-Qaeda are moving in Chad, Niger, Burkino Fasso, and Nigeria. The British Troops sent to the country are the most significant to date, like Iraq and Afghanistan, but one of the most dangerous, like getting shot at by Estonian sentries by accident. One rumor is the Wagner mercenaries might go in to replace the French forces. Related Article: British Commandos in Kabul Makes American Special Forces 'Look Bad' Amid White House Request to Halt Daring Rescue Missions @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. An expert claimed that Joe Biden should intervene to settle a fishing row between UK and France. The problem is a national interest for both, and Washington has a right as the row over the submarine deal has not fully subsided. According to political expert Gideon Rachman of the Financial Times, France should allow the US to interfere and set the situation right. US to build bridges between London and Paris The US is telling Britain that Brussels is just as important as the 'Anglosphere.' Also, Paris must accept that the UK is important to the US and stop treating it as an adversary, reported the Express UK. Both the UK and France want to keep good relations with the US as critical. The two countries have a common gain and shift to other Western democracies' goals and get with the program that might be against national interest. The fishing row between UK and France wherein Joe Biden should step in. Paris said that London was not in good faith after granting only 200 license rights to fish in UK water, which was not the December 2020 Brexit deal mandate. Infuriated Macron, who still had some beef over the AUKUS, cites the BBC. Read Also: Britain Angered by Joe Biden's Attempt to Appease France Regarding the French, Brexit Fishing Row As Another Misstep in Foreign Policy Paris said it wanted a deal, or the exports of the UK would be the unintended casualty. A deadline on Monday to sort out a settlement, but an extension was given. Fishing has been a point of tension between the UK and France since Brexit There were clashes over where fishing boats would have access to The deal specified EU boats could fish in UK waters, but the British would get a greater share of fishhttps://t.co/xPGfDM6aWa i newspaper (@theipaper) October 29, 2021 The French said the potential disruptions would be more customs checks on British fishing boats and trucks. Another is increased tariffs to keep the Channel Islands light on. In one statement, French President Emmanuel Macron said that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson would be discussing further. Macron added London would be discussing more proposals and see how well the talks go. Lastly is to reach a common agreement, stressing that resolution is hammered out between the two. The submarine deal had France upset with Britain What drew the anger of Paris is the AUKUS deal that included the UK, US, and Australia, remarked Mr. Rachman. Calling it a slap to France, the US Official said that the US would not consider London. This official admitted that Washington and Downing Street blindsided them. Rachman added that it was Brexit's fault. During the G7 Summit last June, the UK and France got into an argument about Northern Ireland, noted Reuters. It all boils down to one thing between the two countries because Johnson needs a Brexit win, but Macron wants a failure from London. This is where Joe Biden needs to intercede in the fishing row between UK and France. But, the AUKUS deal, which has been a problem for the EU countries and Brexit, was in the backdrop of COP 25 that ended with Australian Scott Morrison and Macron disagreeing. Related Article: Joe Biden's Apology to France May Backfire; White House Documents Show the AUKUS Pact was Doomed From the Beginning @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. President Joe Biden backed the concept of the US government paying immigrant families who were separated at the border as a result of the Trump administration's "zero-tolerance policy" on Saturday. Biden Supports Compensating Separated Migrants In a recently published article in The Hill, President Biden endorsed the notion of compensating migrant families separated by the Trump administration's zero-tolerance immigration policy on Saturday, emphasizing that his objection had been to the stated cash figure. The Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy, in which the Justice Department began criminal prosecutions of every adult unlawfully crossing the border, was announced in 2018 but was quickly abandoned due to overwhelming resistance. Because children cannot be held in federal custody alongside their parents, the policy led to the separation of thousands of families, including some with newborns as young as a few months old. Biden said, "Now here's the thing. If in fact because of the outrageous behavior of the last administration, you came across the border, whether it was legal or illegal, and you lost your child. You lost your child. It's gone. You deserve some kind of compensation, no matter what the circumstance. What that will be, I have no idea," according to a published report in CNN News. Read Also: Joe Biden Denies Paying $450,000 Each Separated Immigrant Families for Breaking the Law Biden Clarified the Amount Each Migrant Would Receive When asked about claims that his government was planning to compensate separated migrant families of $450,000 per person up to $1 million per family, Biden responded it was "not going to happen," A response Biden made after a series of reports that his administration will pay the said amount. On Saturday, the president clarified that he was talking to the reported financial number, not the notion of fully paying separated families. Until now, Biden or any members of his administration did not yet give any comments on how much they will pay, according to a published article in VOA News. The funds would come from settlements with separated families who had sued the government over treatment during Trump's presidency. Thousands of children were removed from their parents and put in shelters due to the zero-tolerance policy, while the adults were prosecuted. White House Willing To Settle Out To Court According to court records in a federal complaint in San Diego, over 5,500 children were separated from their parents under President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" policy, in which parents were separated from their children to face criminal prosecution for crossing the border illegally. White House principal deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that the president is perfectly comfortable with the Department of Justice settling with the individuals and families who are currently in litigation with the United States government if it saves taxpayer dollars and puts the disastrous history of the previous administration's use of zero tolerance and family separation behind them. Republican legislators have blasted the Biden administration over allegations of possible payments. However, some legal experts warned a news site that settling with the families might be less expensive than allowing the cases to go to court, where further facts about the government's harsh treatment of refugees could surface. Related Article: Biden Administration Considering To Pay $1 Million Per Migrant Family Separated at the Southern US Border During Trump's Administration @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Iraqi PM Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt in his home in Baghdad. According to reports, the assassination attempt was with a booby-trapped drone that tried to target the government official's home, which is located in the country's Green Zone area, where foreign embassies and government offices can also be found there. Mustafa al-Kadhimi uninjured following assassination attempt On Sunday, a statement was released confirming the failed assassination attempt. The government revealed that the drone tried to hit al-Kadhimi's home but failed. Residents of Baghdad told reporters that they heard a loud explosion followed by gunfire. As of press writing, no suspect has been named, but security forces are taking the necessary measures in connection with the prime minister's failed assassination. Even though al-Kadhimi was unharmed following the incident, two officials revealed that seven security guards were injured in the attack, according to CBS News. Iraqi prime minister releases statement Following the incident, the prime minister said that the rockets of treason would not shake the steadfastness and determination of the heroic security forces. Al-Kadhimi also said that he's fine and among his people. "I was and still am a redemption project for Iraq and the people of Iraq. The missiles of treachery will not discourage the believers and will shake a hair of the stability and determination of our heroic security forces to preserve people's security, achieve justice, and set the law in place," he said via CNN. Read Also: Powerful Haiti Gang '400 Mawozo' Believed to be Behind the Kidnapping of 16 Americans, 1 Canadian Missionary After Visiting an Orphanage in Croix des Bouquets Protesters have been threatening the prime minister According to the Huffington Post, pro-Iran Shiite militias have been camping outside the Green zone for almost a month after they lost during Iraq's parliamentary elections. On Friday, the ongoing protests turned deadly after demonstrators marched toward the Green Zone, and one of them was killed, and several security forces were injured. Militia supporters have been demanding a recount, and they also threatened to exercise violence if their request is not met. They have also been making unfounded claims that there was election fraud, but these allegations have not yet been proven. The Oct. 10 election was held months ahead of schedule following the mass protests in late 2019. At the time, thousands of Baghdad and Shiite southern province residents rallied against the country's endemic corruption, poor services, and unemployment. They also protested against the interference of neighboring Iran in Iraq's affairs through Iran-back militia. Iraqi residents lost their trust in the militias in 2018 after they were accused of suppressing the protests and challenging the state's authority. Al-Kadhimi was named prime minister of Iraq on May 6, 2020, after a six-month negotiation. Reports revealed that the PM tried to put Iraq back on the path toward stability over a year after he was sworn into office. However, one of the biggest hurdles to his top position has to do with the demands of protesters pertaining to political reform. Al-Kadhimi promised that he would meet many of the protesters' demands, but he has not achieved many with concrete results, the United States Institute of Peace said. Related Article: Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry Called To Resign Due to His Possible Connection to the Murder of Former President Jovenel Moise @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Prince Harry may, reportedly, have been waiting for Prince Charles and Prince William to beg for his return following Queen Elizabeth's hospitalization. Since the monarch's doctors advised her to take things slow, Prince Charles and Prince William decided to step up on behalf of Her Majesty. Prince Harry could return to the UK but on one condition During a recent interview, royal commentator Richard Eden said that Prince Harry might be willing to return to his royal duties to help his grandmother but only if his dad and older brother would beg him to. However, Eden believes that Prince Charles and Prince William will never ask Prince Harry to return to the royal fold. After all, several other senior working royals could help the monarch out. "I think he would love it! If the Royal Family comes back begging, saying, 'please come back from Montecito, we need you back...' I don't think there will be any desperate call to California. [There are] plenty of other royals who could step in" if the Queen is unable to," Eden said via Geo.tv. Read Also: Prince Harry, Meghan Markle Have Not Finalized Plans for Lilibet Diana's Christening Despite Claims Event Will be Held in the US Prince Harry worried about Queen Elizabeth Following the queen's hospitalization, reports revealed that Prince Harry became more adamant about returning home. Reports claimed that while the Duke of Sussex hasn't booked a flight back home, he has been exerting all sorts of efforts for his grandmother. For instance, Prince Harry has reportedly been sending the queen messages and care packages. He's also in touch with Her Majesty most of the time. However, the Duke of Sussex feels that calling or texting his grandmother 24/7 is not enough, that is why he wants to see the queen in the flesh. So, he's reportedly considering flying to the UK without his wife, Meghan Markle, and their two children, Archie and Lilibet. A source claimed that Prince Harry is worried that he won't have another opportunity to celebrate the holidays with his grandmother. So, even if he has unresolved issues with the other members of the British clan, he wants to return home because he misses the queen terribly, according to Marie Claire. It's business as usual for Her Majesty Two weeks ago, the queen shocked the world when a spokesperson for the palace announced that she was rushed to the hospital. Reports revealed that she stayed there overnight, but her health issue hasn't been disclosed to the public. Shortly after her hospital stint, the queen returned to Windsor Castle to get some more rest. She also canceled her trip to Glasgow for the climate change summit. But the queen's spokesperson reassured royal fans by saying that the queen is doing well. In fact, she was photographed driving her car on the Windsor estate just days after she was hospitalized, according to CNN. The queen also traveled to Sandringham via a helicopter this past weekend. It is unclear how long the monarch will stay there, but she will reportedly celebrate Christmas with her family in Norfolk, according to Town and Country. As of press writing, it's still unclear if Prince Harry will join the royal family's Christmas festivities next month. Related Article: Royal Expert Predicts Prince Harry Will Attack Prince Charles in His Memoir, Says Future King Should Wear a 'Hard Hat' @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. The vaccination requirement for municipal employees in New York City has gone into force, and just a few police officers have rejected it, significantly less than the 10,000 warned by the NYPD's union. Thousands of Police Officers Were Set To Be Pulled From the Streets In a recently published article in The Washington Post, after the Nov. 1 vaccination requirement deadline for New York City workers, the chiefs of the five main unions representing police officers in the city warned that 10,000 unvaccinated officers were "prepared to be taken off the streets" for refusing to be vaccinated. When the deadline on vaccine mandate passed on Monday, more than a third of the 35,000 uniformed officers in the NYPD were put on unpaid leave, along with 40 civilian NYPD employees out of 17,000, according to Police Commissioner Dermot Shea. Meanwhile, according to Shea, many more are waiting for the city to respond to their petitions for religious or medical exemptions. He noted that 85 percent of NYPD officers had been vaccinated already, according to a published article in Yahoo News. Read Also: US Congress Passes Biden's $1.2 Trillion Infrastructure Bill; POTUS Describes the Passage as a 'Monumental Step Forward as a Nation' Employees Who Were Placed On Leave Without Pay Status On Nov. 1, around 9,000 municipal workers out of a workforce of more than 300,000 were put on leave without pay, while roughly 12,000 had requested a religious or medical exemption to vaccination and were awaiting a decision from the city, according to de Blasio. Furthermore, during the same press conference, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that the vaccine requirement had caused no substantial interruptions in municipal services as thousands still refused to be inoculated, according to a report published in Independent. Mayor Bill de Blasio said, "Now, remember at any hour, any of those 9,000 can say, wait a minute, I'm willing to get vaccinated and come back, and we saw over the weekend, a lot of that happening, thousands of people changing their mind coming back." Hundreds of New York City Firefighters Opposed the Vaccine Mandate Meanwhile, hundreds more New York City firefighters than normal phoned in sick in the week coming up to the Nov. 1 deadline, according to Fire Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro, indicating that the vaccination requirement continues to be opposed by the organization. Since de Blasio announced on Oct. 20 that all city employees would be required to be vaccinated, with no option to avoid the vaccine mandate through regular testing, the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the main union representing active and retired New York City firefighters, has been at odds with city and state officials. Moreover, all municipal workers in New York had to verify they had gotten at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccination by Oct. 29 at 5 p.m. or ask for a medical or religious exemption by Oct. 27. Those who did not comply with the rules and did not apply for an exception were likely to be put on paid leave on Nov. 1. Under the state's Civil Service Law, they might be reprimanded and eventually fired, but the precise timing depends on the agency and existing agreements with workers and their unions. Related Article: Almost All Employees in New York City Protest Outside Mayor's Residence as Vaccine Mandate Deadline Nears @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. First Lady Jill Biden will spearhead a nationwide effort to encourage parents of children aged 5 to 11 to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The FLOTUS will lead the campaign after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) approved the Pfizer-BioNTech jab for the age group last week. On Monday, Jill Biden will visit Franklin Sherman Elementary School in Virginia, which will be housing a pediatric COVID-19 vaccination clinic, according to Forbes. The school holds historical significance because it was the first institution to administer the polio vaccine in 1954. Biden administration encourages Americans to get vaccinated According to The Hill, the Biden administration has been undertaking similar campaigns to encourage vaccines among kids aged 15 and older. They have also been providing answers to questions regarding the efficacy of the jabs and their side effects. Jill Biden has been helping her husband, Joe Biden, and his administration spread the word about the benefits of getting vaccinated, especially among children. The first lady has been traveling across the country to encourage vaccinations. And she has also made appearances alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci at a local children's vaccination clinic earlier this year. Last month, the Biden administration rolled out a plan to vaccinate the younger age group ahead of the CDC's approval. After the CDC gave Pfizer-BioNTech a clearance, the United States immediately started vaccinating children. Read Also: Kids Could Get Pfizer COVID-19 Vaccine by October But Their Dosage Will Be Different From Adults; Here's Why Joe Biden releases statement following the CDC's approval The government reportedly purchased more than enough vaccines to cater to 28 million children in the country's 5 to 11 age group. In a statement, Jill Biden called the approval of the COVID-19 vaccine for children a major step forward for the nation in its fight against the deadly virus. "Over the last several weeks, my administration has been working hard to be prepared for this moment: we are ready to act. We have already secured enough vaccine supply for every child in America, and over the past weekend, we began the process of packing and shipping out millions of pediatric vaccine doses. These doses - specially designed for these younger children - have started to arrive at thousands of locations across the country," the POTUS said via KTVZ. Jill Biden is one with parents and teachers Two months ago, the first lady acknowledged the challenges of remote learning for both students and teachers. And now that children are engaged in face-to-face classes, a simple cough can cause panic among parents. The FLOTUS said that she understands that the challenge is hard, but she is also aware that parents and teachers are doing their best. She added that even though no one knows what the future holds, everyone is aware of what they owe their children, and that is the commitment to follow science and the unity to fight the virus. Possible side effects of COVID-19 vaccine on kids According to Johns Hopkins, the COVID-19 vaccine is safe for kids. The jab will typically cause a painful sensation on the arm, and kids may also feel more tired than usual. Other possible side effects include headache, muscle and joint pain, fever, and chills. But these side effects are only temporary and will only last for a maximum of 48 hours. Related Article: Jackie Kennedy Beats Jill Biden In a New Poll of America's Favorite First Ladies; Melania Trump Ranked Second to the Last @ 2021 HNGN, All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. North Korean mechanized troops held an artillery fire competition over the weekend as part of efforts to boost the country's defense capabilities, state media reported on Sunday The drills were conducted on Saturday, state news agency KCNA said, and come as North Korea increasingly complains over what it sees as a double standard where its military activities invite international criticism when similar exercises by South Korea and the United States usually do not. Analysts say Pyongyang is seeking to normalize its defense activities, with the aim of eventually winning international acceptance of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile arsenals, which have been sanctioned by U.N. Security Council resolutions. Much of North Korea's large conventional artillery force is deployed along the fortified border with South Korea, where they have the range to reach as far as the heavily populated capital city of Seoul. The drills come "at a time when the enthusiasm to undergo intensive training prevails throughout the Korean People's Army (KPA) for ushering in a new heyday in strengthening the state defense capabilities under the banner of self-defense," KCNA reported. They were overseen by Pak Jong Chon, member of the Presidium of the Political Bureau and secretary of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, KCNA said. Pak is a general long seen as a rising star in the country's powerful military and a major player in its missile program who was promoted to his current positions in September. General Rim Kwang Il, chief of the General Staff of the KPA, and commanders of the participating units, observed the drills with Pak, KCNA said. "As soon as the firing orders were given by the commanders of the combined units, gun barrels to annihilate the enemy competitively shelled the target to accurately hit it," the report said. (Reuters) Participants offer flowers to a monument for Korean victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki during an unveiling ceremony of a memorial at the Nagasaki Peace Park, Saturday. Korean Ambassador to Japan Kang Chang-il and officials of the Republic of Korean Residents Union in Japan attended the ceremony. Yonhap Ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK)'s presidential candidate Lee Jae-myung, center, inspects Seoul Seojin School for people with special needs in Gangseo District, with Rep. Choi Hye-young, front, of the DPK, Sunday. Joint press corps Lee, Yoon both face challenges of escaping allegations, winning young voters By Jung Da-min The country's presidential race has entered into full swing, with the nomination of former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl as the presidential candidate of the main opposition conservative People Power Party (PPP), Friday. The presidential election is scheduled for March 9, 2022, to pick a successor to President Moon Jae-in. Yoon was selected as the PPP's presidential candidate Friday after winning 47.85 percent of votes cast in a poll of party members and the general public conducted from Nov. 1 to 4, beating out Rep. Hong Joon-pyo's 41.5 percent. Standing against Yoon is former Gyeonggi Province Governor Lee Jae-myung from the ruling liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK). Joining the candidates from the two major parties are Rep. Sim Sang-jeung of the minor opposition progressive Justice Party and Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the minor opposition conservative People's Party. Former Deputy Prime Minister Kim Dong-yeon has also declared his presidential bid, seeking a third way by founding his own party, "The New Wave." Political watchers say the main competition will be between Yoon and Lee, but whether Ahn or Kim ultimately join either of the two major parties or finish their own races as independents could be a major variable. Yoon and Lee have been back and forth in recent public opinion polls for the preferred next president. While the main opposition PPP has put the slogan of leadership change to the fore, saying the time has come to judge the ruling bloc's policy failures; the ruling DPK says retaining power would lead to the completion of the ruling bloc's reforms. Yoon is a symbolic figure for the PPP's slogan of leadership change, as he often clashed with former Justice Minister Choo Mi-ae when he was the top prosecutor over the DPK's push for prosecutorial reform. Lee is considered a strong figure who could appeal to the public with his clear messaging on welfare policies. He enjoyed high popularity when serving as governor of Gyeonggi Province with his strong policy drive for a basic income for provincial residents. The main opposition People Power Party's presidential candidate Yoon Seok-youl, center, poses with participants in a ceremony commemorating the country's fifth Youth Day, held at the Peace Plaza of Olympic Park in Seoul's Songpa District, Saturday. Courtesy of Yoon Seok-youl's election camp By Chyung Eun-ju and Joel Cho Chyung Eun-ju Joel Cho Clothes that cannot be worn, hung or touched are gaining traction. Labeled as e-fashion, these clothes are all digital and do not exist in the physical world. Essentially, consumers of these products do not receive a traditional package with their clothing of choice, but instead ownership of a digital file. Currently most e-fashion firms will provide an image of the clothes worn by the consumer so that they can share it on social media. At first, we wondered why digital-only clothes were becoming so popular, but after playing around on DressX, a multi brand retailer of digital fashion clothing comparable to a Net-a-Porter of the metaverse, we understood the potential of this digital market and truly believe that digital fashion could be the next big thing. When discussing writing a dissertation concerning the phenomenon of digital clothing with a professor who is an expert in consumer psychology at Seoul National University, he could not fathom such an idea, and affirmed that this new "asset" was too radical. Netflix's actions should match its global status Netflix is not changing its "free-rider" policy in Korea, resisting demands to pay fees for network use. Last Thursday, Netflix Vice President Dean Garfield reiterated his company's position that it is up to telecom service providers to send the content, citing network neutrality as the reason. Net neutrality is the promise of the international community to prohibit discrimination in the use of communication networks. But it was never meant to allow telecom providers to transmit content free of charge. It is somewhat ironic that the controversy over Netflix's free riding has been rekindled by the global popularity of "Squid Game." According to SK Broadband, a local internet service provider, Netflix's traffic in Korea skyrocketed 24-fold in September when the drama hit the air. The cost of network expansion to stabilize traffic was significant. However, Netflix is unlikely to pay a penny for it while enjoying huge earnings here. In contrast, domestic platform service providers, such as Kakao and Naver, pay network usage fees. Considering that other global streaming service providers, such as Apple TV+ and Disney+, have promised to make indirect payments, Netflix's move is unfair. "It is as if Netflix is the only player in the Squid Game refusing to pay participation fees," a local commentator said. We can hardly agree more. The international community largely agrees on the need to revise the principle of net neutrality, which Netflix regards as a "golden rule," in keeping with the calls of the new era. The U.K.'s Guardian daily also agrees, saying, "When the rule was first made 25 years ago, few expected that four or five internet firms would account for 80 percent of the worldwide traffic." The U.K. government has begun to revisit net neutrality. France's judiciary branch also ruled recently that internet service providers can refuse to upgrade networks to free riders. SK Broadband argues that Netflix pays what appears to be network use fees to U.S. and French telecom companies. Netflix is abandoning the responsibility it has as a global streaming giant by refusing to fall in line with the worldwide trend. The company should realize that it cannot solve the snowballing controversy by just dragging its feet. Yoon vows to achieve change of government Former Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl has become the presidential candidate of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP). On Friday, he won the final round of the conservative party's primaries by garnering 47.85 percent of votes against Rep. Hong Joon-pyo's 41.5 percent. Yoon's election represented party members and the people's aspirations for change and "new politics." In an acceptance speech, Yoon vowed to achieve a change government. He also promised to restore the values of fairness and common sense by ending the politics of division and anger, as well as that of corruption and plunder. Still it is uncertain if he can block the ruling Democratic Party of Korea's (DPK) bid to extend its liberal rule. The presidential race is now expected to enter into full swing with four months to go before the March 9 poll. It is a de facto two-way race between Yoon and DPK candidate Lee Jae-myung, although there are two other candidates Ahn Cheol-soo of the minor conservative opposition People's Party and Sim Sang-jeung of the minor progressive Justice Party. Yoon's presidential bid has already drawn much attention because he stood up against the Moon Jae-in administration for its hypocrisy and corruption. President Moon appointed him as prosecutor general in July 2019 in recognition of his investigation into a massive corruption scandal involving the impeached and then jailed former President Park Geun-hye. But he soon invited the ire of the government because he targeted Cho Kuk, Moon's confidant and then Justice Minister, over corruption and admissions fraud involving his family. He was also thrown into a fierce conflict with Cho's successor Choo Mi-ae over his tenacious fight against corrupt figures and Moon's push to weaken the prosecution's investigative power. To a large extent, Yoon's stance against Moon has helped him emerge as a major presidential contender. Now he should go beyond his anti-Moon slogans and show his leadership capacity and present a vision for the future. Yoon must come up with policy options aimed at improving people's living standards and ushering in a better future. This is easier said than done, particularly for a rookie politician like Yoon who has triggered a series of controversies over verbal slips and improper remarks. Yoon needs to propose better ways of creating new growth engines for the economy, overcoming social polarization, and stabilizing runaway housing prices. It is also important to suggest how to create more jobs and tackle the problem of the low birthrate amid an aging population. Most of all, he should map out measures to ensure the rule of law and usher in a fair society. Last but not least, Yoon should engage in a fair competition with his rival Lee. Both candidates must refrain from mudslinging. It is also necessary for Yoon to clear up allegations about any law violations against not only him but also his wife and mother-in-law. Lee, the former Gyeonggi Province governor, should give a clear explanation about his alleged involvement in a land development corruption scandal. Otherwise, they both will fail to win over the hearts and minds of voters. By Mark Peterson Korean language programs are booming all over the world. The K-pop craze, the music, the movies, the dramatic series, are all fueling an interest in learning the Korean language. At my university, for example, for the first 25 years I was there, we would often have to beg the department chair to allow us to teach a section of 101 even though there were only ten or twelve students enrolled. The minimum requirement was 20. But we'd beg and the chair would usually be understanding and let us carry the course with less than the necessary number of registered students. Now, the same university, in the last ten years or so, growing each year, has five or six sections of 101 with 20 students in each section! Exclamation point. The Korean wave in all its manifestations has fueled the rise. Some students love the music, some the movies, and some the dramas. And some like anything and everything Korean. When I started studying Korean, there were no language textbooks. None. Teachers would put together "mimeo" pages that they would prepare themselves. And no one wanted to study Korean. The few of us who did were considered weirdoes. And we were. But now, "it's cool" to study Korean. And YouTube is full of foreigners speaking Korean fluently. It used to be that a Westerner in Korea was assumed to be an American, and mostly, that was a correct assumption. But now, it's just as likely that the foreigner is from Uzbekistan or Australia as s/he is from America. We are witnessing a true internationalization of Korean culture. In addition to the students in my town that are studying Korean at the University, and in addition to the "Saturday Korean school" mostly for Korean-American children, I recently discovered another kind of classroom where Korean is being taught. It's on Saturday morning at a Korean restaurant! Yes, at a Korean restaurant. The owner of the restaurant is a Korean-American, a former student of mine. Korean students with native Korean ability could not take language classes that was too easy if they spoke Korean already. But such students could take literature and history and culture classes. Sun-woo was one of those students. His family had a restaurant business and he became the owner/manager of one of their restaurants. He told me that he was teaching Korean on Saturday mornings and one of his employees was teaching the class. I wanted to see what was going on, so I asked if I could come by and sit in on the class sometime. He said, "Come anytime Saturday morning from 9:30 to 11:00." I visited the class and was shocked!, no, pleased. Really pleased. I was able to interview some of the students. They were mostly college graduates in their late 20s and 30s, but there were some children and teenagers. They usually have about 20 students attend, but it varies. There is no formal "credit" given it's only a matter of learning what you can learn. As I suspected, some were there because they liked the K-pop music. Some liked the dramas, and some like the movies. They all wanted to learn the basics of the language. I asked why they didn't get one of the often-advertised programs that one can buy. They responded it was fun to meet with others in a classroom situation. A Korean language classroom in a Korean restaurant! Amazing! I asked Sun-woo how he got the idea to create such a class and he explained that many people who came into his restaurant had Korean language-learning books and things with them as they came to the restaurant, and they would try their limited language in ordering and chatting with the wait staff in the restaurant. He talked with many of them about Korean language learning opportunities and saw a need that he could help fulfill. So, the students pay a modest tuition, study from 9:30 to 11:00 and then their tuition includes lunch. (A strategy good for business, too.). And more chatting and language practice over lunch. I thought that in addition to increased enrollments in universities all across America, and the world, in addition to more high schools offering Korean language course, in addition to an active "heritage school" for Korean-American children and their friends, this!, a Korean school in a restaurant, has to me something unique. I don't know if such is being done in other places tell me if you know of any in other cities. For now, I'm going to claim my home area, Provo-Orem, Utah, (the restaurant is in Provo's sister city next door, Orem), as the most creative approach to Korean language learning in the whole world. I'll hold that claim until someone else tells me of a more-uniquely manifested interest in Korean culture. Until then, I'm giving the award of most creative application of an interest in Korean culture to Yummies Restaurant, Orem, Utah. Stop in if you're in Utah on a Saturday morning. And stay for the bulgogi. Mark Peterson (markpeterson@byu.edu) is professor emeritus of Korean, Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University in Utah. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, right, speaks with U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell at the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., Oct. 27. Courtesy of Senator Mitch McConnell's office By Kim Bo-eun SK Group is going all out to boost new businesses in electric vehicle (EV) batteries and hydrogen fuel. The group's chairman Chey Tae-won recently traveled to the U.S. and Europe to speak with key figures to request their support for SK's businesses there. Chey met with U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Congressman James Clyburn in Washington D.C. Oct. 27 through Oct. 28, to expedite SK's strategies to tackle climate change and introduce its ideas for environmentally-friendly businesses in the U.S. "SK has set a goal to cut 200 million tons of carbon, which is 1 percent of the world's carbon reduction target for 2030," Chey told the lawmakers. "The group will contribute to reducing carbon emissions in the U.S. by concentrating half of the $52 billion to be invested in the country into environmentally-friendly businesses such as EV batteries and hydrogen fuel." SK's EV battery affiliate, SK On, recently invested $11.4 billion in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee under a joint venture with Ford. Two EV battery plants will be built there that will have a production capacity of 129 gigawatt-hours, which can produce 2.15 million EVs on an annual basis. SK On has contributed $4.45 billion of the total amount of invested funds. Chey, who doubles as the chief of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), also met with Democratic Congressman Ami Bera, who heads the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific, as well as senior officials at the White House, Department of State and Department of Defense, to discuss investments in future business sectors, climate change and geopolitical issues. "Chey focused on promoting the interests of Korea's business community to key figures in the U.S.," an SK Group official said. "This is intended to secure widespread support from regions across the world through ESG management." Following his meetings in the U.S., the SK chairman joined President Moon Jae-in's delegation in Hungary, Nov. 1. The KCCI chief spoke with his Hungarian counterpart and attended the Korea-Visegrad Business Forum in Budapest on Nov. 3. Visegrad refers to the four countries of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Chey proposed a strong alliance for the countries' eco-friendly vehicle industries, at the forum, which was also attended by President Moon and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. SK has been stepping up investments in the region. SK On received subsidies amounting to $100 million from the Hungarian government this year for a second battery plant in the city of Komarom. SK On unveiled plans to pour in $1.1 billion into setting up a third plant there. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Hong Nam-ki speaks during a meeting on the external economy and security at the government complex in Seoul, Sunday. Courtesy of Ministry of Economy and Finance By Baek Byung-yeul The government will make all-out efforts to solve the ongoing shortage of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) sometimes called "urea water" an essential additive for diesel-powered vehicles, by seeking to import it from major producers including China and Australia. It will also temporarily simplify customs clearance and offer tax incentives for its importation. The mandatory testing period for DEF exclusively manufactured for diesel engines will be shortened from the current 20 days to three to five days, while urea used for industrial purpose will be allowed in the production of DEF for diesel-powered vehicles. These were measures discussed during an emergency meeting on the external economy and security, Sunday, presided over by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Hong Nam-ki. The meeting was attended by the foreign and security ministers and members of the presidential National Security Council. "The government will take all-out action by establishing a response system that combines the country's economic and diplomatic capabilities," the finance and economy ministry said in a press release. The government will mobilize all available diplomatic channels and talk with major producers of urea and DEF for their prompt importation. Specifically, it will push diplomatic consultations with the Chinese government to allow tens of thousands of tons of DEF, which had already been contracted for, to be sent to Korea via fast-tracking through customs. The government said 20,000 liters will come from Australia this week and that it plans to deploy military vessels for its rapid transportation here. In addition, it will explore ways to import thousands of tons of DEF from multiple countries before the end of the year. The administration will push to stabilize the situation by keeping product and logistics costs low through its diversification of import sources and using military transportation aircraft. Furthermore, it will crack down on anyone attempting to corner the market and gouge customers. A truck driver puts diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) into his vehicle at a station near a port in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, Nov. 5. Yonhap In this June 24 file illustration, small toy figures are seen in front of displayed new Pfizer logo. Reuters-Yonhap Pfizer's experimental antiviral pill to treat COVID-19 cut by 89 percent the chance of hospitalization or death for adults at risk of severe disease, the company said on Friday, as its CEO vowed to make this promising new weapon in the fight against the pandemic available globally as quickly as possible. The trial's results suggest that Pfizer's drug surpasses Merck's pill, molnupiravir, which was shown last month to halve the chance of dying or being hospitalized for COVID-19 patients at high risk of serious illness. Pfizer's pill, with the brand name Paxlovid, could secure U.S. regulatory approval by the end of the year. Pfizer said it plans to submit interim trial results to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) before the Nov. 25 U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. The trial was stopped early due to its high success rate. President Joe Biden said the U.S. government has secured millions of doses of Pfizer's drug. "If authorized by the FDA we may soon have pills that treat the virus in those who become infected," Biden said. "The therapy would be another tool in our toolbox to protect people from the worst outcomes of COVID." Shares in Pfizer, which also makes one of the mostly widely used COVID-19 vaccines, rose 11 percent to close at $48.61. Merck's fell 10 percent to close at $81.61. Shares of vaccine makers took a hit, with Moderna, Pfizer's German partner BioNTech SE and Novavax all down 11-21 percent. Pfizer's pill is given in combination with an older antiviral called ritonavir. The treatment consists of three pills given twice daily. It has been in development for nearly two years. The Pfizer and Merck pills are eagerly anticipated, with only limited options currently available for treating people sick with COVID-19. Full trial data is not yet available from either company. Pfizer is in active discussions with 90 countries over supply contracts for its pill, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said in an interview. "Our goal is that everyone in the world would be able to have it as quickly as possible," Bourla said. Bourla added that for high-income countries Pfizer expects to price its treatment close to where Merck has priced its drug. Merck's U.S. contract price is around $700 for a five-day course of therapy. For low-income countries, Bourla said Pfizer is considering several options, with the goal of "no barrier for them as well to have access." Merck's pill was approved by British regulators in a world first on Thursday. Even with the potential offered by the Pfizer and Merck pills, preventing COVID-19 infections through broad use of vaccines remains the best way to control a pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people worldwide, including more than 750,000 in the United States, infectious disease experts said. "Vaccines are going to be the most effective and reliable tool that we have in this pandemic," said Dr. Grace Lee, professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine. "These oral medications are going to augment our ability to really reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalization and death, which is huge, but it won't prevent infection." While more than 7 billion vaccine doses have been administered worldwide, that has covered only about half the world's people. In the United States, 58 percent of all people, including 70 percent of adults, are fully vaccinated. Mizuho analyst Vamil Divan forecast a "very minor impact" from Pfizer's drug on vaccination among people who do not want the vaccine or a booster shot as recommended by U.S. health regulators. "I think there's a small percentage of people that may decide not to get vaccinated now that there are good treatment options," Divan said. This 2020 electron microscope image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases - Rocky Mountain Laboratories shows SARS-CoV-2 virus particles which cause COVID-19, isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells cultured in a lab. AP-Yonhap Flowers lie against the south fence surrounding the Astroworld festival grounds the day after several people died and scores were injured during a concert by rapper Travis Scott at the two-day event, held at NRG Park in Houston, Nov. 6. AP-Yonhap Authorities in Texas opened a criminal investigation Saturday into a tragedy in which the crowd at a huge Travis Scott rap concert surged toward the stage in a crush that killed eight people and sent dozens to the hospital. Around 50,000 people were in the audience at Houston's NRG Park Friday night when the crowd started pushing toward the stage as Scott was performing, triggering chaotic scenes. "People were being pushed, people were being trampled, and then as I fought my way out of there, I saw people on the ground," Logan Morris, a Dallas native who was at the show, told AFP. Raul Marquez, 24, said he saw a lot of drinking and drug use in the crowd. "And they got hot and just dancing and it all caved in and just, they couldn't breathe, and passed out left and right," he said. "Some people didn't care and just stomped on them or ignored them. It was intense," Marquez said. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters Saturday afternoon that the crush left eight people dead, from ages 14 to 27, with one person's age unknown. The chaos also resulted in 25 people being transported to the hospital, including 13 who were still there. Turner said that authorities are looking at video footage, talking to witnesses, concert organizers and people who were hospitalized. "This is a very, very active investigation, and we will probably be at it for quite some time to determine what exactly happened," he said. The criminal investigation will involve both homicide and narcotics detectives, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner told reporters. Houston is known for staging high profile events, but the city had never experienced anything "of this magnitude that any of us can recall," Turner added. More than 300 people were treated on the scene for minor injuries in the first night of the two-day Astroworld Festival, which Scott helped organize, authorities said. Scott halted his act several times when he saw fans in distress near the stage. The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park in Houston, Nov. 5. AP-Yonhap People chant slogans during a protest in Khartoum, Sudan, Oct. 30. AP-Yonhap Sudanese security forces on Sunday fired tear gas at an anti-coup rally by a group of teacher at the start of a two-day civil disobedience call against last month's military takeover. Dozens of teachers carried banners reading "no, no to military rule" and called for a transition to "full civilian rule" at a rally outside the education ministry in the capital Khartoum. Nationwide anti-coup protests including by tens of thousands on Oct. 30 have occurred since the Oct. 25 coup but have been met by a deadly crackdown. At least 14 demonstrators have been killed and about 300 wounded, according to the independent Central Committee of Sudan's Doctors. "We organized a silent stand against the decisions by Burhan outside the ministry of education," said Mohamed al-Amin, a geography teacher who took part in that stand against the country's top general, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. "Police later came and fired tear gas at us though we were simply standing on the streets and carrying banners," he said. There were no immediate reports of casualties but a union of Sudanese educators said "a large number of teachers were detained." The teachers' rally came after the military leadership which carried out the coup replaced heads of department at the education ministry, as part of sweeping changes it made in multiple sectors. "The protest rejects the return of remnants of the old regime" of ousted President Omar al-Bashir, the teachers union said in a Facebook post. Sunday's rally followed calls for civil disobedience made by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella of unions which were instrumental in the 2018-2019 protests which ousted the longtime autocrat Bashir in April 2019. "The Sudanese people have rejected the military coup," the SPA said on Twitter, vowing "no negotiation, no partnership, no legitimacy." "We will start by barricading the main streets to prepare for the mass civil disobedience on Sunday and Monday," it said, urging protesters to avoid confrontation with the security forces. Since late Saturday, protesters were seen piling up bricks and large slabs to block streets in Khartoum and neighboring cities, according to witnesses and AFP correspondents. The latest resistance effort came almost two weeks after Burhan dissolved the government as well as the ruling joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that was supposed to lead the country toward full civilian rule. Burhan also declared a state of emergency and detained Sudan's civilian leadership. Text messages The SPA circulated its latest appeals via text messages to bypass internet outages since the putsch. By Sunday morning, some shops were still open but others were shuttered in Khartoum and its twin cities of Omdurman and Khartoum-North, according to witnesses. "Movement on the streets is less than usual but there is not full blockage of streets or closure of shops" after the civil disobedience call, said a witness from Omdurman who declined to give his name fearing reprisals. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was briefly detained but later placed under effective house arrest. On Thursday, the military released four civilian members of his government but other key figures remain in detention. The same day, security forces arrested other civilian leaders near a United Nations building in Khartoum following their meeting with U.N. special representative in Sudan Volker Perthes. "We call upon the military leadership to cease arresting politicians and activists and to stop committing human rights violations," Perthes said in a statement on Friday. The military takeover sparked international condemnation, including punitive aid cuts and demands for a swift return to civilian rule. Burhan insists it "was not a coup" but a move to "rectify the course of the transition." (AFP) Civilians carry a placard with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's portrait during a pro-government rally to denounce the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Western countries' interference in internal affairs of the country, at Meskel Square in Addis Ababa, Sunday. Reuters-Yonhap Tens of thousands of Ethiopians rallied in Addis Ababa on Sunday in support of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government as federal troops fight rebellious forces who are threatening to march on the city. Some demonstrators denounced the United States government, which is among the foreign powers that have called for a ceasefire as a year-long war that has killed thousands of people intensified amid rebel advances last weekend. The United States, the U.N. Security Council, the African Union, and Kenya and Uganda have called in recent days for a ceasefire. Abiy's government has pledged to keep fighting. On Friday, the government said it had a responsibility to secure the country, and urged its international partners to stand with Ethiopia's democracy. Some of those gathered in Meskel Square in central Addis Ababa draped themselves in the national flag. Many singled out the United States for criticism. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday accused Ethiopia of "gross violations" of human rights and said it planned to remove the country from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade agreement. "Shame on you USA," read one demonstrator's placard, while another said the United States should stop "sucking Ethiopia's blood." Other demonstrators expressed anger at the U.S. call for the government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) to begin talks. The conflict in the north of the country started a year ago when forces loyal to the TPLF seized military bases in the Tigray region. In response, Abiy sent troops, who initially drove the TPLF out of the regional capital but have faced a sharp reversal since June this year. "Why does the U.S. government not negotiate with terrorists like al Shabaab?" said 37-year-old Tigist Lemma, referring to an al-Qaeda linked militant group in Somalia. "They want to destroy our country like they did to Afghanistan. They will never succeed, we are Ethiopians." Speaking at the rally, Addis Ababa Mayor Adanech Abiebe invoked Ethiopia's history of resisting colonial power to justify the war. The conflict has killed thousands of people, forced more than 2 million from their homes and left 400,000 people in Tigray facing famine. 'No youth' to front lines During the rally, there was one call for restraint, from popular musician Tariku Gankisi, whose songs call for unity of all Ethiopians. "Let no youth go to the front lines to fight, let the elders go holding the fresh grass and ask for reconciliation," Tariku told the crowd, before his microphone was switched off, it was unclear by whom. Fresh grass is a symbol of peace in the country. A state of emergency declared by the government on Tuesday allows it to order citizens of military age to undergo training and accept military duties. Reuters has not been able to confirm independently the extent of the TPLF advance. The TPLF and their allies told Reuters last week they were 325 km (200 miles) from the capital. The government accuses the group of exaggerating its gains. The government has also complained about foreign media coverage of the conflict and some people at the rally held signs denouncing "fake news" in Ethiopia. Billene Seyoum, Abiy's spokesperson, said in a Twitter post late on Saturday: "Orchestrated media propaganda against Ethiopia is escalating ... Despite it all Ethiopia will overcome!" (Reuters) This Sept. 30 file photo shows China's President Xi Jinping, center, arriving with Premier Li Keqiang, left, for a reception at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on the eve of China's National Day. AFP-Yonhap Chinese President Xi Jinping, the uncontested leader of the world's most populous nation, heads a pivotal plenary of the ruling party's top figures next week that will set the tone for his bid for long-term rule. From Monday to Thursday, some 400 members of the Communist Party's all-powerful Central Committee gather in Beijing behind closed doors. The only such meeting this year paves the way to its 20th party congress next autumn at which Xi is widely expected to be handed a third term in office, cementing his position as China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong. At next week's plenary, top figures will debate a key resolution celebrating the party's main achievements in its 100 years of existence, according to state news agency Xinhua. Analysts say the resolution, only the third of its kind in the party's history, will help Xi shore up his grip on power by setting in stone his vision for China, ahead of the crucial 2022 party congress. Like all meetings of Beijing's secretive top leadership, the event will be held behind closed doors, and most key decisions are made well in advance. China's political meetings are all highly choreographed and open dissent to the official line is extremely rare. This March 11 file photo shows Chinese leaders attending the closing session of the National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. AFP-Yonhap Description Assistant Clinical Professor, Director of Clinical Education for Respiratory Care The Respiratory Care (RESP) program at Bowling Green State University Firelands College is seeking a Director of Clinical Education for their Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care degree. This is a full-time, non tenure-track, nine month renewable appointment, located in the Applied Sciences Department. The Bachelor of Science in Respiratory Care Degree program is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Respiratory Care. In addition to the base program located at BGSU Firelands, there is a satellite program offered through the University Partnership at Lorain County Community College. The Director of Clinical Education is responsible for clinical coordination and teaching at both locations as well on site visits with students at all clinical affiliates. Dedicated classrooms and labs are located at both campuses. The RESP program and Applied Sciences department are committed to providing an environment that promotes collaboration and multiple opportunities for professional excellence. BGSU Firelands is a 2,100 student, regional college of Bowling Green State University. The University has nationally recognized programs and research in the natural and social sciences, education, arts, business, health and wellness, humanities and applied technologies. BGSU Firelands seeks talented individuals to join our community in Huron, Ohio, on the scenic shores of Lake Erie. Essential Duties, Tasks and Responsibilities: Primary Responsibilities Coordinate and supervise all aspects of the clinical portion of the program including site recruitment. Coordinate with the Program Director to assess the quality and evaluate the overall effectiveness of all aspects of the clinical portion of the program. Teach didactic, laboratory, and web-based courses in respiratory care. Maintain and update Program and Clinical Policy document as needed. Facilitate clinical preceptor meetings on a regular basis including annual inter-rater reliability training and new clinical preceptor training/orientation. Maintain programs Trajecsys clinical tracking system and update as needed. Perform all administrative aspects of the clinical portion of the program to include clinical rotation scheduling, clinical site evaluation, student performance evaluation, monitoring program outcomes, continuous review and analysis, planning and development, and the overall effectiveness of the clinical portion of the program. Assist with ongoing program planning, review, evaluation, assessment, and curriculum development/revision. Assist Program Director in preparing the program for reaccreditation as well as annual program evaluation/accreditation and related reports on a routine and as needed basis. The Director of Clinical Education will serve as an advisor to the Program Director and Clinical Preceptors and reports to the Program Director for all matters related to the program. Serve as an active member of the Respiratory Care Advisory Board. Serve as an active member of the Allied Health Sub-Group in the Applied Sciences Department. Participate as an active member of the Applied Sciences Department. Participate in related service and scholarly activities as appropriate. Assist with program recruitment activities. Perform other job related tasks as may relate to maintaining and improving the quality of the education program. Minimum Qualifications & Salary: Minimum Qualifications Four years of clinical experience in a health care facility as a Registered Respiratory Therapist. Two years of teaching experience in an accredited respiratory care program either as an appointed faculty member or as a clinical preceptor. Valid Registered Respiratory Therapist credential from the NBRC. Licensed (or eligible) respiratory care professional in the State of Ohio. Masters Degree. Must be completed by the start date of this position. BLS Provider. Preferred Qualifications Previous Director of Clinical Education experience with an accredited respiratory care program. Current clinical experience in a variety of patient care environments (eg. emergency, critical care, floor therapy, neonatal/pediatric, sub-acute or long term care, home care). ACLS, PALS and NRP Provider. BLS, ACLS, PALS, or NRP Instructor. Additional Information: Credentials Required for Application Cover letter/statement of teaching interests Curriculum vitae Official transcripts of all undergraduate and graduate coursework Names and contact information for three professional references who will be asked to provide a current (dated within one year) letter of recommendation Diversity Statement In addition to your cover letter and curriculum vitae you will be required to upload a written response to the diversity and inclusion question listed below. The Diversity Statement should not exceed 1 page that is double-spaced with 1-inch margins, using 12pt. font. How have you incorporated equity, diversity, and/or inclusion into your current or a previous position? BGSU requires background check for employment. In compliance with the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), if you have a disability and would like to request an accommodation in order to apply for a position with Bowling Green State University, please call 419-372-8421. recblid w9y54q2juf4x2vwdzbdm53ebqdtyan Requirements None Description At Liberty Mutual, our purpose is to help people embrace today and confidently pursue tomorrow. Thats why we provide an environment focused on openness, inclusion, trust and respect. Here, youll discover our expansive range of roles, and a workplace where we aim to help turn your passion into a rewarding profession. We value your hard work, integrity and commitment to make things better, and we put people first by offering you benefits that support your life and well-being. To learn more, please visit https://www.libertymutualgroup.com/about-lm/careers/benefits Liberty Mutual has proudly been recognized as a Great Place to Work by Great Place to Work US for the past several years. We were also selected as one of the 100 Best Places to Work in IT on IDGs Insider Pro and Computerworlds 2020 list. We have been named by Forbes as one of Americas Best Employers for Women and one of Americas Best Employers for New Graduatesas well as one of Americas Best Employers for Diversity. To learn more about our commitment to diversity and inclusion please visit: https://jobs.libertymutualgroup.com/diversity-inclusion Liberty Mutual is an equal opportunity employer. We will not tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, age, disability, veterans status, pregnancy, genetic information or on any basis prohibited by federal, state or local law. Must live in Tempe, SantanValley, Chandler, Apache Junction, Glendale, Surprise, Gilbert, Peoria and surrounding areas $5,000 Sign-On Bonus for new candidates that have an active P&C or active Life license or Unlicensed with 2+ years sales experience! *To qualify for the Sign-On Bonus, Applicants must be new (not applied in the past 6 months) and apply from 08/09/21 to 12/31/21 and started by 2/1/2022 to qualify. Bonus will be scheduled on day 30 for next period pay out date. There is a 1-year payback clause if your employment is terminated prior to your first year anniversary. Do you want to join a Fortune 100 company where youll be rewarded for developing new clients, discovering new markets, and providing customers with the products they need? As a Liberty Mutual field sales representative, youll enjoy a diverse, supportive environment, along with a competitive compensation program, including base salary, uncapped commissions and a bonus structure, and comprehensive benefits. In this full-time role, youll also stay ahead of the curve with industry-leading, paid sales training and mentorships with successful colleagues. First year earnings average is between $70K to $85K through a combination of base salary, uncapped new business and renewal commissions, and bonus structure. Responsibilities: Selling Auto, Home, Life and other insurance and annuity products to individuals within an assigned territory using consultative sales techniques Identifying prospective customers using established lead methodologies for new business Counseling and advising prospects and policyholders on matters of insurance coverage that is tailored to their specific situational need Developing and maintaining business relationships Making presentations to decision-makers of corporations to establish or maintain an Affinity relationship Participating in various incentive programs and contests designed to drive sales and exceed production goals Exceeding sales goals for volume of quality new business quoted and written within company guidelines Competitive go-getter: Ready to earn uncapped commissions and bonuses? Youll have your chance while engaging in friendly (and rewarding!) competitions with your sales team and the opportunity to win recognition awards People person: Using your interpersonal skills and market insight, youll identify and cultivate prospective clients, and tailor products and services to meet the needs of existing customers Relationship builder: Youll play the long game, building strong relationships within local community and organizations, and maintaining open lines of communication for future sales opportunities We encourage you to RSVP and bring your expertise if you have experience as a business owner, generating new business, referral partnerships and client opportunities, are an active insurance sales professional, and/or have a background in network marketing, and outside sales! Experience Previous employment in sales where you have successfully turned prospects into customers A state insurance licenseor willingness to earn one with Liberty Mutuals training and supportin Property & Casualty, Life, and Accident & Health Skills Effective written, oral communication and presentation skills Well-developed persuasion and negotiation skills Great interpersonal skills and a proven ability to build rapport with prospective and existing customers Effective time management and organizational skills Knowledge Ability to learn insurance coverage and underwriting guidelines Familiarity with finding, building and growing leads and customer base Requirements See job description. Why is that we Pennsylvania taxpayers have to hear the true cost of President Bidens Build Back Better proposal from West Virginias Sen. Manchin? Manchin said the actual cost of the $1.75 trillion plan will be twice that cost due to shell games and budget gimmicks that progressive Democrats included in the bill. : Carraway (), : Military : : BBS (Sat Nov 6 22:56:02 2021, ) Berlin (CNN)A Russian diplomat found dead on the sidewalk outside the embassy in Berlin last month is believed by German authorities to have been a secret agent for a Russian intelligence agency, Der Spiegel magazine reported Friday. The body of the 35-year-old diplomat was found on the morning of October 19; he apparently fell from an upper floor of the Russian embassy building in the German capital, though it was unclear why he fell or what the cause of death was, Der Spiegel reported. Der Spiegel and investigative site Bellingcat report that the dead diplomat had been accredited as second secretary at the Russian embassy in Berlin since 2019, but German security officials believe he was an undercover officer for Russia's FSB, the internal security and counterintelligence service, and that he was related to a high-ranking FSB officer. The FSB was previously linked by Western intelligence services to the murder of a Georgian exile who was shot dead in a Berlin park in 2019, Der Spiegel and Bellingcat reported. The Kremlin has denied any link between the killing and the Russian state. -- :WWW mitbbs.com [FROM: 45.] Top five zany motorbike world records you never knew existed by Megan Henderson It's true to say that there are thousands upon thousands of Guinness World Records, but join us as we take a look at some of the strangest records ever achieved on two wheels When you think of motorbike world records you probably think: fastest motorbike, smallest motorbike, oldest motorbike, but we here at MotorbikeTimes has dug a little deeper for you, to find the most interesting, zany and downright crazy motorbike world records. Read on to find out what some people willing to do to have your name in the record books. You might just be slightly surprised. 1. Most motorcycle horns sounded simultaneously This one may not be too crazy, but it is certainly not what we expected to see when we were pilfering through the record books. Apparently this record was achieved by Yamaha Motor Philippines in association with Ad Staunch Communication Network Inc. at the SM Mall of Asia Complex. The record was set on 7 June 2014 when 1,425 motorcycle horns were set off at the same time in recognition of Yamaha Club Day. You can check out the video below to hear all the noise around this record. 2. Most motorcycles driven over the body whilst laying on a bed of nails (for two minutes) Italian, Simone Calati, beat the world record for most motorcycles driven over the body whilst laying on a bed of nails in two minutes on 12 May 2013. Calati broke the record in Cosenza, Italy, swiping the record from an Australian going by the name of The Space Cowboy, who performed the stunt as an audition for Australia's Got Talent. Ironically, The Space Cowboy also performed tricks on Italia's Got Talent, but he was certainly no match for Calati. We're not too sure why anyone would want to break this record, but it's certainly one for the books - and certainly one which will have you constantly saying 'ouch' as you watch on in bewilderment below. 3. Fastest motorcycle wheelie on a tightrope When you think of wheelies you don't think of tightropes as well. Somehow Johann Traber of Flensburg, Germany, did though, as he performed a wheelie at 33 mph on a tightrope. Johann used a solid trapeze and attached it to the motorbike, and then to keep the motorbike balanced he had someone sit on the trapeze. Johann sped along on the back wheel of his motorbike and made it to a dizzying height of 40 metres, whilst his speed was verified by a traffic police with a speed radar. The whole thing sounds a bit nutty to us, but Johann made it into the record books on 13 August 2005 where he has remained since. 4. Longest distance on a tightrope with motorcycle (no front wheel) Tightropes are again used in this record, which was made by Chen Shuangquan of China. Chen made the record on 15 October 2007. The front wheel was taken off of his motorbike and then Chen traveled 50 meters along a tightrope. The record was made in Taiwan for a show called Zheng Da Zong Yi (translating to the Guinness World Records Special), an outdoor event watched by millions. We're not sure why you would want to drive a motorbike along a tightrope, or who thought of it first, but Chen has had his name in the books since 2007. 5. Longest motorcycle ride through a tunnel of fire On 5 September 2014 two men did something incredibly crazy: they took the longest motorcycle ride through a tunnel of fire. Nothing wakes you up in the morning like singed eyebrows right? Enrico Schoeman and Andre de Kock of South Africa drove a motorbike through a 120.40 meter tunnel in Parys, South Africa. The men daringly sped through a fiery inferno, and it is certainly a sight to see. Guinness World Records thought the attempt was so impressive they even spotlighted it on their website. Check out the video below to see these two men break the world record. If you think that you can break a motorbike world record, why not give it a try? Records can be set as individuals, schools, charities or businesses and agencies. All you have to do is fill out a standard application and let Guinness World Records review it within 12 weeks. You can attempt a record by video submission, or invite a judge to come watch, it's all up to you. Good luck to all you potential record breakers, we here at MotorbikeTimes think we are just going to keep the zany antics to a minimum for now and continue to sit behind our desks or on our bikes without any tightropes in sight. International N.Korea holds artillery fire competition: State media An artillery fire competition between large combined units of the Korean Peoples Army (KPA) on the western front. (AFP) SEOUL, NOV 7 (IANS) | Publish Date: 11/7/2021 10:55:01 AM IST North Korea has conducted an artillery fire competition to boost the countrys defence capabilities as set forth by the militant policy of the ruling Workers Party, state media reported on Sunday. The competition was held Saturday to inspect how the mechanised troops of the KPA have conducted drills in order to increase their mobile artillery combat capabilities, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KPA stands for the Korean Peoples Army, reports Yonhap News Agency. Pak Jong-chon, a member of the Presidium of the Politburo of the ruling party, guided the competition. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not attend the event. As soon as the firing orders were given by the commanders of the combined units, gun barrels to annihilate the enemy competitively shelled the target to accurately hit it, the KCNA said. The unit that won the first place received a master gunner certificate, medal and badge, and Pak was greatly satisfied with the competition results, the report said. Its unusual for the North to unveil an artillery fire competition that was not presided over by leader Kim. The competition took place as Pyongyang has called on South Korea and the US to drop double standards, criticising Seoul and Washington for defining its military activities as provocations while justifying their own as deterrence. International US backs India-UK led solar Green Grids Initiative at COP26 LONDON, NOV 7 (PTI) | Publish Date: 11/7/2021 11:20:10 AM IST The US has partnered with the UK and India-led Green Grids Initiative of a global energy grid launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. At a meeting of the Steering Committee of the Green Grids Initiative One Sun One World One Grid (GGI-OSOWOG) earlier this week, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said that the US is excited to be back in the climate conversation and to partner with the new initiative. All the energy humanity uses in a year is equal to the energy that reaches the earth from the sun in a single hour, said Granholm. The GGI-OSOWOG is focusing on the two most important pieces of the puzzle. We at the US Department of Energy are happy to be a partner with GGI-OSOWOG, she said. The International Solar Alliance (ISA) under Indias presidency and the UKs COP26 Presidency had launched GGI-OSOWOG during the World Leaders Summit of COP26 on Tuesday. The Steering Committee of GGI-OSOWOG comprises five members besides India and the UK the US, Australia and France and has been set up to deliver the vision of One Sun One World One Grid under which 80 countries have resolved to combine their efforts to create more interconnected grids, endorsing the One Sun Declaration. Energy Secretary Granholm told the meeting this week that the US is focusing on next-generation technologies to ensure solar panels and grids are consistently efficient across markets and geographies. The US is interested in helping countries that do not have access to electricity by leveraging the power of the sun, she said. Following the leader-level events of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on Monday and Tuesday, each countrys delegates and officials have been participating in a series of meetings to finalise the way forward to tackle climate change by the end of the summit on November 12. The Indian team includes Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav and chief negotiator Richa Sharma. We must return to the sun to save the earth. As the world progresses to achieve new heights economically and socially, solar energy will power the transition, said Yadav. The GGI-OSOWOG initiative has sustainable development and climate change mitigation at its core with focus on underserved areas. It will stimulate green investment and create millions of green jobs, he said. The One Sun Declaration for GGI-OSOWOG will be focused on building new transmission lines crossing frontiers and connecting different time zones, creating a global ecosystem of interconnected renewables that are shared for mutual benefit and global sustainability. This will be combined with expanded and modernised national and regional grids and complemented with the rapid scale-up of mini-grids and off-grid solar solutions. Dr Ajay Mathur, Director General of International Solar Alliance, said: The success of the massive GGI-OSOWOG initiative depends on a countrys own grid expansion plans, which would require investments. The grid interconnections at intra and inter regional levels play a significant role to decarbonise our energy systems by using solar and other renewable energy sources placed in different time zones and amplifying that impact at large scale. We look forward to a highly interconnected geo-economic future that assimilates large scale international networks and arrangements for a better and more resilient interconnected world that will keep more decisions locally empowered but at a global level, Mathur said. The World Bank has also expressed its support as it expects this initiative to help leverage the benefits of complementarity between renewable generators and non-centres across continents by getting them interconnected. The OSOWOG initiative has the potential to integrate the global electricity system into one that is geared towards a higher share of variable renewable energy while reducing consumption of fossil fuel. This will usher in a new era of harnessing a much higher share of renewable energy capitalising the energy transition that is taking place globally and helping build an ecosystem based on mutual trust and shared benefit, said Riccardo Puliti, Vice President for Infrastructure at the World Bank. The ISA, launched at COP21 in Paris and recently expanded to include all UN member states, aims to help mobilise USD 1 trillion of funding by 2030 to assist developing countries in expanding their solar power grids. The initiative is widely seen as a big and bold move in ISAs ongoing efforts to realise a global solar transition. The global grid concept was first announced by Prime Minister Modi in October 2018 during the first assembly of the ISA. In May 2021, the UK pledged technical, financial and research support for the OSOWOG project. Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-06 15:54:31|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Photo taken on Nov. 6, 2021 shows the Cat Linh station in Hanoi, Vietnam. Authorities of the Vietnamese capital Hanoi inaugurated the China-built Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line project on Saturday, making it the first metro line in the country to start commercial operation. The project was handed over to Hanoi by its investor, the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport, on the same day. (VNA via Xinhua) HANOI, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- Authorities of the Vietnamese capital Hanoi inaugurated the China-built Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line project on Saturday, making it the first metro line in the country to start commercial operation. The project was handed over to Hanoi by its investor, the Vietnamese Ministry of Transport, on the same day. All passengers on the metro line can enjoy free rides during the first 15 days of the commercial run. After taking a free two-way trip on Saturday morning, Hoang Thi Huong, a 30-year-old passenger from Hanoi's Thanh Xuan district, said the metro line is as modern as those she had seen overseas. "Taking these trains, I will no longer have to worry about congestion every morning while going to work," Huong told Xinhua, hoping that more urban railway projects will be constructed to ease transportation in the city. The elevated line is more than 13 km with 12 stations. Each train, with a designed speed of 80 km per hour, has four carriages capable of carrying up to 1,000 passengers. The Cat Linh-Ha Dong elevated railway project officially started construction in October 2011. Its trial run was completed in December 2020, with more than 70,000 km of tests on thousands of trips, enabling the system to operate commercially, according to its investors. Tickets for passengers will be priced at 30,000 Vietnamese dong (1.33 U.S. dollars) for a day pass and 200,000 Vietnamese dong (8.83 U.S. dollars) for a monthly one. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-06 22:35:21|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close People rally to protest against anti-Asian hate crimes on Foley Square in New York, the United States, April 4, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying) BEIJING, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- COVID-19 is far from the only danger of the worldwide pandemic for Asian Americans and Asian people in the United States, a sociologist said at the Diversity Forum held by the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison). Russell Jeung, professor at San Francisco State University and known for being the co-founder of Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hate, made the remarks in his keynote speech "Ending Asian Hate: The Asian American Community Responds." The Stop AAPI Hate is a coalition across the country addressing anti-Asian hate amid the pandemic. It tracks COVID-19-related hate, violence and discrimination against the AAPIs in the United States, Jeung introduced. "What makes it worse is that you see so many cases where they feel so alone and others were around and no one did anything, as if they condoned what was happening," said the Asian American sociologist. The Diversity Forum has been UW-Madison's all-campus and community platform to discuss and learn about current issues on diversity and inclusion for the past two decades, according to the university's website. Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 01:16:23|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Photo taken with mobile phone shows a car damaged by a fuel tanker explosion in Freetown, Sierra Leone, Nov. 6, 2021. Over 100 people have been killed in a fuel tanker explosion in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, police said Saturday. The tragedy happened late Friday after the fuel tanker collided with a truck in the eastern part of the city and caused fuel leakage. (Photo by Abu/Xinhua) FREETOWN, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- At least 108 people were killed and 92 others injured in a fuel tanker explosion here late Friday, Sierra Leone's National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) confirmed on Saturday. According to a statement by NDMA, a loaded fuel tanker and a truck carrying granite stones collided on a highway while the fuel tanker was about to enter a nearby filling station to discharge its fuel. Footages and eyewitnesses revealed that while the collision took place, both drivers came out of their vehicles and warned community residents to stay off the scene while trying to address a leakage emanating from the collision, said the statement. In the interim, some community members rushed to the scene and took advantage of the leakage to scoop fuel and store it in nearby makeshift structures. In the cause of scooping the fuel, a major explosion happened and resulted in a fire disaster, it added. The statement said the injured were admitted into different hospitals across the city and suffering varying degrees of burning. Meanwhile, sufficient medical supply has been provided to the victims. Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio on Saturday also expressed his condolences over the fuel tanker explosion, saying the government will "do everything to support affected families." In the meantime, the president canceled his trip to the Extraordinary Session of the Economic Community of West African States Authority of Heads of State and Government, which is set to be held in Ghana on Sunday. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 07:07:24|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Houston Police Chief Troy Finner speaks during a press conference at the Wyndham Hotel in Houston, Texas, the United States, Nov. 6, 2021. The investigation into the stampede leaving eight people dead and many others injured Friday night at the Astroworld Festival in Houston was underway, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Saturday afternoon. (Photo by Lao Chengyue/Xinhua) HOUSTON, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The investigation into the stampede leaving at least eight people dead and many others injured on Friday night at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, U.S. state Texas, has been underway, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said on Saturday afternoon. "This incident is being thoroughly investigated and reviewed thoroughly. It is important for us to ascertain from last night what took place, what happened, where missteps may have occurred," Turner said at a press conference. Seven of the eight dead aged from 14 to 27 years old, said the mayor. The eighth's age is not yet available at that time. No one has been reported missing from the concert. Up to 25 people had been transported to the hospital following the incident, and 13 of them were still being hospitalized, including five people under the age of 18, according to the mayor. The patients also included a 10-year-old child who was in critical condition, according to media reports. "Organizers held the event to bring people together for music, but it sadly ended in tragedy," the mayor said on Twitter. Investigators will review video from the scene and look at how the venue was laid out and whether it had enough exit points so as to explore "what caused, one, the issue of the crowd surge, and two, what prevented people from being able to escape that situation," said Chief of the Houston Fire Department Samuel Pena. "The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage and that caused some panic and it started causing some injuries," Pena told a press briefing early Saturday morning. The tragedy occurred just after 9 p.m. CT as rapper Travis Scott was on stage at the sold-out outdoor music festival with about 50,000 attendees on Friday night. Video from the event showed Scott paused and looked on in confusion during the performance as an ambulance with flashing lights moved into the densely packed crowd. "The crowd was squishing me so much that I felt like I couldn't breathe," Emily Munguia, 22, told CNN. "I started screaming for help ... I felt so scared, like I was going to die." "I'm absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival," Scott tweeted on Saturday. More than 300 people were treated at a field hospital set up near the festival, Pena said earlier on Saturday. The causes of deaths are pending the medical examiner's determination, according to city officials. The second night of the concert was canceled in the wake of the incident. The Astroworld music festival began in 2018 and was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Houston, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas, is also the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 07:48:28|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close At least eight dead, scores injured at U.S. music festival in Houston (Xinhua) Up to 25 people had been transported to the hospital following the incident, and 13 of them were still being hospitalized, including five people under the age of 18, according to the mayor. HOUSTON, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) -- The investigation into the stampede leaving at least eight people dead and many others injured on Friday night at the Astroworld Festival in Houston, U.S. state Texas, has been underway, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said on Saturday afternoon. "This incident is being thoroughly investigated and reviewed thoroughly. It is important for us to ascertain from last night what took place, what happened, where missteps may have occurred," Turner said at a press conference. Seven of the eight dead aged from 14 to 27 years old, said the mayor. The eighth's age is not yet available at that time. No one has been reported missing from the concert. Up to 25 people had been transported to the hospital following the incident, and 13 of them were still being hospitalized, including five people under the age of 18, according to the mayor. The patients also included a 10-year-old child who was in critical condition, according to media reports. "Organizers held the event to bring people together for music, but it sadly ended in tragedy," the mayor said on Twitter. Investigators will review video from the scene and look at how the venue was laid out and whether it had enough exit points so as to explore "what caused, one, the issue of the crowd surge, and two, what prevented people from being able to escape that situation," said Chief of the Houston Fire Department Samuel Pena. "The crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage and that caused some panic and it started causing some injuries," Pena told a press briefing early Saturday morning. Police cars are seen outside a reunification center set up for missing attendees of the Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas, the United States, Nov. 6, 2021. At least eight people died and scores of others were injured at the Astroworld music festival in the U.S. city of Houston on Friday night, officials said. (Photo by Lao Chengyue/Xinhua) The tragedy occurred just after 9 p.m. CT as rapper Travis Scott was on stage at the sold-out outdoor music festival with about 50,000 attendees on Friday night. Video from the event showed Scott paused and looked on in confusion during the performance as an ambulance with flashing lights moved into the densely packed crowd. "The crowd was squishing me so much that I felt like I couldn't breathe," Emily Munguia, 22, told CNN. "I started screaming for help ... I felt so scared, like I was going to die." "I'm absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival," Scott tweeted on Saturday. Photo taken on Nov. 6, 2021 shows the NRG Park, a complex where the Astroworld music festival was held in Houston, Texas, the United States. At least eight people died and scores of others were injured at the Astroworld music festival in the U.S. city of Houston on Friday night, officials said. (Photo by Lao Chengyue/Xinhua) More than 300 people were treated at a field hospital set up near the festival, Pena said earlier on Saturday. The causes of deaths are pending the medical examiner's determination, according to city officials. The second night of the concert was canceled in the wake of the incident. The Astroworld music festival began in 2018 and was canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Houston, the most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas, is also the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area. Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 11:10:38|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close The owner (L) talks with a tourist in her veteran car during the annual Regent Street Motor Show in London, Britain, Nov. 6, 2021. Over one hundred veteran cars were on display at the show Saturday, attracting thousands of car enthusiasts on a traffic-free Regent Street. (Xinhua/Li Ying) Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 14:04:23|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Members of the riot police stand in the vicinity of the Green Zone after a failed attempt to assassinate Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Baghdad, Iraq, on Nov. 7, 2021. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was unharmed in an assassination attempt carried out by a drone targeting his official residence on Sunday, the Iraqi military said. The media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement that an unknown drone bomb hit al-Kadhimi's residency at dawn in the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of the capital, but the prime minister escaped the attack unhurt. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood) BAGHDAD, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was unharmed in an assassination attempt carried out by a drone targeting his official residence on Sunday, the Iraqi military said. The media office of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement that an unknown drone bomb hit al-Kadhimi's residency at dawn in the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of the capital, but the prime minister escaped the attack unhurt. "The prime minister did not suffer any harm and he is in good health," the media office said. Iraqi security forces are taking all necessary measures toward the assassination attempt, the statement said without giving further details. In a tweet on his official page, al-Kadhimi said he was "fine" and called for "calm and restraint from everyone for the sake of Iraq." "The rockets of treason will not shake the steadfastness and determination of our heroic security forces to preserve the security of the people and enforce the law," al-Kadhimi said. The attempted assassination followed protests against the results of last month's elections. Friday's protests turned into a clash later with the security forces outside the Green Zone, which houses some of the main government offices and foreign embassies. The clash left two protesters killed and dozens of protesters and security members wounded, according to official figures. In the parliamentary elections on Oct. 10, the Sadrist Movement, led by prominent Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, took the lead with more than 70 seats, while the al-Fatah (Conquest) Coalition garnered 17 seats compared with 47 in the 2018 elections. Political parties unsatisfied with the results said the elections were manipulated and that they would not accept the "fabricated results." Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 19:10:55|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Ma Yuxia prepares alpaca-fur stuffed toys to be displayed at the 4th China International Import Expo (CIIE) at the Peru Import Pavillon of the Greenland Global Commodity Trading Hub in Shanghai, east China, Oct. 15, 2021. At the first CIIE, Ma Yuxia, who had worked in South America after graduating from university, introduced the plush alpaca-fur stuffed toys made by Peruvian craftsmen into the Chinese market. Ma and her Peruvian business partner rented a booth of merely nine square meters at the first CIIE to display and promote these toys. Their alpaca dolls were quickly sold out, encouraging Ma and her Peruvian business partner to set up their own brand "Warmpaca." Their brand has now entered shopping malls in many Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, and has forged cooperation with three family workshops of about 60 artisans in Peru. At the 4th CIIE, Ma's booth expanded fourfold. Having participated in the CIIE for four consecutive years, Ma and her business partner gained access to the Chinese market with these cute little "alpacas" and other traditional hand-made fluffy dolls. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe) Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 21:36:24|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close Screen image taken at Beijing Aerospace Control Center on Nov. 7, 2021 shows Chinese taikonaut Zhai Zhigang conducting extravehicular activities (EVAs) out of the space station core module Tianhe. Taikonauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping have been out of China's space station core module Tianhe by 8:28 p.m. (Beijing Time) Sunday to start EVAs, the China Manned Space Agency said. Zhai opened the hatch of Tianhe's node cabin at 6:51 p.m. This is the second time Zhai has performed EVAs, having completed China's first spacewalk 13 years ago during the Shenzhou-7 mission. Meanwhile, Wang's EVAs make her the country's first female astronaut to leave footprints in outer space. Donning China-developed new-generation Feitian spacesuits, the pair will conduct a series of extravehicular tasks with the aid of the mechanical arm, the agency noted. Ye Guangfu stayed inside to support his crewmates in completing the operations. (Photo by Guo Zhongzheng/Xinhua) BEIJING, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Taikonauts Zhai Zhigang and Wang Yaping have been out of China's space station core module Tianhe by 8:28 p.m. (Beijing Time) Sunday to start extravehicular activities (EVAs), the China Manned Space Agency said. Zhai opened the hatch of Tianhe's node cabin at 6:51 p.m. This is the second time Zhai has performed EVAs, having completed China's first spacewalk 13 years ago during the Shenzhou-7 mission. Meanwhile, Wang's EVAs make her the country's first female astronaut to leave footprints in outer space. Donning China-developed new-generation Feitian spacesuits, the pair will conduct a series of extravehicular tasks with the aid of the mechanical arm, the agency noted. Ye Guangfu stayed inside to support his crewmates in completing the operations. China launched the Shenzhou-13 spaceship on Oct. 16, sending the three astronauts on a six-month mission to construct its space station. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 23:22:10|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close -- China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) two decades ago "has allowed the world to share in the fruits of China's domestic development successes." -- It is undeniable that since joining the WTO in 2001, China has been advancing economic globalization with openness as a hallmark and shared prosperity as a vision. -- Over the last two decades, the country's continuous efforts in widening opening-up have brought its development to a new stage and injected fresh impetus into the world economy. by Xinhua writers Yang Shilong, Xu Jing, Pan Lijun WASHINGTON, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) two decades ago "has allowed the world to share in the fruits of China's domestic development successes," said Albert Keidel, adjunct graduate professor at George Washington University. In the past 20 years, China's global ranking of trade in goods has risen from the sixth to the first, while that of its trade in services has jumped from the 11th to the second. Just as Keidel, also former senior economist in the World Bank's Beijing office, put it, apart from lower prices from China's "powerful productivity benefits," the Asian giant's entry into the WTO also offered "opportunities and development challenges for the rest of the world." It is undeniable that since joining the WTO in 2001, China has been advancing economic globalization with openness as a hallmark and shared prosperity as a vision. A container ship of China's COSCO Shipping docks at a new container terminal of the Port of Long Beach in California, the United States, Aug. 20, 2021. (Xinhua/Gao Shan) BENEFITS FOR U.S. ECONOMY Among all economies in the world, the United States has substantially benefited from China's WTO entry in multiple areas including consumption, investment and trade. China's WTO entry has been "a boon for Chinese producers and U.S. consumers," Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Institute for China-America Studies, told Xinhua. The cost of consumer electronics and numerous daily necessities which impact pocketbook budgets of American households has been bid down by China's exceptional cost competitiveness and medium technology-intensive manufacturing, said Gupta. Khairy Tourk, professor of economics with the Stuart School of Business at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, said American consumers have benefited from the continuous reduction in the prices of manufactured goods made in China. "If you look at the business sector here, we see that there is a lot of profitable opportunities for manufacturing and selling in China. Foreign direct investors are now beating a path to China's door," said Tourk. China has overtaken the United States as the world's top destination for new foreign direct investment, which explains why companies like Apple expand their operations in China, and Tesla built a factory in Shanghai, noted the professor. Employees work at the Tesla Gigafactory in Shanghai, east China, Nov. 20, 2020. (Xinhua/Ding Ting) In a report submitted to the Office of the United States Trade Representative in September, the U.S.-China Business Council (USCC) said that on balance, China's WTO entry has been positive for the United States and the world. "Apart from China itself, the U.S. economy has benefitted more from China's decision to open-up, including its decision to join WTO, than any other economy. China's WTO entry has certainly not been a 'curse' to the U.S. as some U.S. commentators now want us to believe," said Pieter Bottelier, a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. NO CHINA CONNECTION WITH U.S. HARDSHIP The loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States in the past several decades has been serious and caused severe hardship in traditional manufacturing industries. However, according to studies and experts, economic difficulties facing the world's largest economy, such as a loss of manufacturing jobs, has nothing to do with China. Citing major studies, Bottelier, also former chief of the World Bank's resident mission in Beijing, noted that as for the loss of manufacturing jobs, "there is no particular connection with China's entry into the WTO." The single most important reason for manufacturing job losses in the United States is not a transfer of jobs to China, but technological development in manufacturing such as robots, artificial intelligence and information technology, Bottelier said. When China joined the WTO in 2001, it was the beginning of a period when the United States started to experience a great loss of manufacturing jobs. The harm to American workers was, and is, due to the unsatisfactory performance of the U.S. government in transition programs, according to Keidel. "Blaming China is the policy that justifies non-action, because unfortunately here we haven't done our homework," said Tourk, adding that the workers were not equipped with new skills. Photo taken on Nov. 5, 2021 shows handbags printed with environmental friendly ink at DuPont booth during the 4th China International Import Expo (CIIE) in east China's Shanghai. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei) MILESTONE FOR WORLD The year of 2021 marks the 20th anniversary of China's accession to the WTO. Over the last two decades, the country's continuous efforts in widening opening-up have brought its development to a new stage and injected fresh impetus into the world economy. China has lowered the import tariff for goods to 9.8 percent from 15.3 percent when it joined WTO 20 years ago. At present, its overall import tax stands at 7.4 percent, lower than the average level of developing members of the WTO and is approaching the level of developed members of the organization. China's entry into the WTO was "a milestone event," said Robert Lawrence Kuhn, chairman of the Kuhn Foundation. It has accelerated the country's engagement with the external world quite dramatically, beginning with trade and the development of a manufacturing base in China, which later expanded into the manufacturing center of the world, Kuhn said. Borge Brende, president of the World Economic Forum (WEF), also said China's accession to the WTO in 2001 is an important step for its economic development and a milestone in globalization. After joining the WTO, "China is very much integrated in the global economy," Brende told Xinhua. (Xinhua correspondents Gao Pan, Hu Yousong, Xu Yuan, Deng Xianlai in Washington contributed to the story) (Video reporters: Hu Yousong, Tan Yixiao; Video editors: Peng Ying, Mu Xuyao) Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 21:08:27|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close CAIRO, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi made a phone call on Sunday to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi to check on him following "the heinous assassination attempt" that targeted the Iraqi official earlier in the day, said the Egyptian presidency. During the phone conversation, Sisi wished al-Kadhimi and all the Iraqi people "security, stability and peace." For his part, the Iraqi prime minister appreciated the kind gesture, "which reflects the strength of historical relations between both countries." The failed assassination attempt was carried out via a drone targeting the Iraqi prime minister's official residence. In an earlier statement, the Egyptian president said that he followed the news "with great concern," urging all Iraqi parties and political powers to adhere to calm, renounce violence and maintain solidarity to preserve the country's stability and achieve the aspirations of the Iraqi people. Hours after the attempt, al-Kadhimi posted a video speech on his official Twitter page criticizing the attack and calling on all parties to "resort to calm dialogue to build Iraq and its future." The assassination attempt came amid protests, which recently developed into violent clashes with security forces, by followers of political parties rejecting last month's election results. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-08 05:15:39|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close KHARTOUM, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- General Commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan on Sunday reiterated commitment to democratic transition in the country, official Sudan TV reported. Al-Burhan made the remarks when he received a delegation of the Arab League led by Hossam Zaki, assistant secretary-general of the Arab bloc. "The armed forces are committed to the democratic transition until an elected government selected by the people is reached," Al-Burhan was quoted by Sudan TV as saying. Zaki stressed the importance of dialogue among all Sudanese components to reach a satisfactory settlement for all parties. He further expressed the Arab League's readiness to help the Sudanese parties sit at the negotiating table. Sudan has been suffering from a political crisis after Al-Burhan declared a state of emergency on Oct. 25 and dissolved the sovereign council and government. The Forces of Freedom and Change alliance, the civilian component in the ruling coalition, accused Al-Burhan of carrying out a military coup. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 09:22:20|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close SYDNEY, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- As Australia's New South Wales (NSW) state has begun to see a tapering of its vaccination rates, authorities announced on Sunday that the state would transition to the booster program phase of its vaccination rollout. As the state inches towards its 95-percent inoculation target as of midnight Friday, 93.9 percent of the NSW's over-16 population have had at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and 89.7 percent have been fully vaccinated. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, during Sunday's press conference, said the state would transit to its booster program phase, focusing first on the state's most vulnerable population. "It is very clear that this booster program here in our state is going to be critical in order to keep people safe, and ensure we can keep NSW open," said Perrottet. NSW's Health Minister Brad Hazzard shot down supply concerns for the booster rollout. "The federal government has stepped up and made sure NSW, and other states and territories, have more than ample supplies of vaccine," said Hazzard. "It is there waiting to keep you safe." NSW recorded 244 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 and one related death in the 24 hours to 8:00 p.m. Saturday. Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria saw a drop in daily cases, recording 1,173 new locally acquired cases in the 24 hours to midnight Saturday down from 1,268 cases. The state recorded another nine deaths. About 83 percent of Victoria's over-12 population have been fully vaccinated. Enditem Source: Xinhua| 2021-11-07 17:11:06|Editor: huaxia Video Player Close TALUQAN, Afghanistan, Nov. 7 (Xinhua) -- A total of five people were killed and two others wounded in road accidents in the two northern Afghan provinces of Takhar and Badakhshan, sources confirmed Sunday. In Takhar province, three Taliban security forces members were killed and two others wounded when a pick-up truck veered off a road in Chal district on Sunday morning, Assadullah Hoshman at the district hospital told Xinhua. In the neighboring Badakhshan province, a driver, who fell asleep while driving, and a passenger taking the truck he drove were killed as the truck hit a rock in the mountainous Raghistan district on Saturday night, said Mohammad Hassan at the provincial police directorate. Road mishaps are frequent in the mountainous Central Asian country and occur mostly due to poor driving or poorly maintained roads and vehicles. Enditem SOMETIME in December 2020, the Government moved to avert the liquidation of the Cold Storage Company (CSC) by placing it under a corporate rescue plan in terms of the Insolvency Act while facilitating its revival. Corporate rescue, also known as business rescue or judicial management, provides temporary supervision of the company and of the management of its affairs, business and property. The model involves temporary moratorium (relief) on the rights of claimants or creditors against the company or in respect of property in its possession. Despite its huge potential and glorious past, the Bulawayo-headquartered giant has been struggling to sustain profitable operations over the past years and faced the risk of liquidation as creditors demanded their dues, which ran into millions of United States dollars. In the face of mounting debts and accusations of poor management and alleged corruption, among other factors, CSC slipped into insolvency, amid escalating risk profile, which made it difficult to attract fresh investment or working capital. Now known as CSC-Boustead Beef Zimbabwe since 2019, following the coming on board of Boustead Beef (Pvt) Ltd, a United Kingdom investor who has committed to inject a minimum of US$130 million, the company is still struggling to restore normal operations with the main plant in Belmont, Bulawayo, remaining defunct. While Boustead Beef investment was meant to unleash new life into CSC by reviving operations, refurbishing industrial assets such as ranches, feedlots and residential properties, stakeholders argue that progress is very slow. Some have further questioned the capacity of the investor and suggested that the deal be reversed. Justifying the corporate rescue path, Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development Minister, Dr Anxious Masuka, has said that it was difficult to viably implement the Boustead Beef deal as different creditors were threatening to attach CSC assets while former employees had reportedly destroyed critical documents. This saw Mr Ngoni Kudenga of BDO Zimbabwe Chartered Accountants being appointed as the first corporate rescue practitioner for the ailing giant beef processor. His stint was, however, short-lived as creditors rejected him in April this year during a crunch meeting in Bulawayo, accusing him of being allegedly compromised. Mr Kudenga was then replaced by prominent lawyer, Mr Vonani Majoko of Majoko and Majoko Legal Practitioners. Since then, legal proceedings have ensued over the matter. Business Chronicle recently met with Mr Majoko to seek detailed insight as to what really was happening at CSC. Mr Majoko admitted that amid these complications, different stakeholders remain anxious as to what lies ahead of this strategic public entity and whether or not it will be resuscitated? Opportunities lying ahead for CSC Mr Majoko said he was convinced the state-owned entity could be transformed within a short time should pending legal and administrative hurdles be promptly sorted. CSC can be turned around very quickly as it still has several advantages that all of its competitors dont have. US$130 million is too big as this does not require a lot of money. You dont even need US$20 million, said Mr Majoko. CSC still has unique facilities both in terms of the design, capacity and geographical spread and no other local competitor has this, he said. Im referring to ranches, which are virtually in every province and have adequate holding capacity to feed CSC abattoirs that are found in Bulawayo, Masvingo, Chinhoyi and Kadoma as well as distribution depots in places like Harare and Gweru. Mr Majoko said the existing CSC infrastructure network remains fairly in good condition with the Bulawayo and Masvingo plans still maintaining the European approved standards. A big part of CSC is also in terms of the range of by-products like tallow for soap making, glue production and deboned meat, which can help Zimbabwe substitute on imports, he said. Its the capacity to export regionally and internationally that is awesome. As we speak there is appetite for a revived CSC to service new bigger markets like DRC, Angola and Libya etc, outside of the narrow scope of the traditional EU alone. We need to play along more on areas where we have comparative advantage and one of these is the cold chain side, which is not about meat but anything that requires bulk refrigeration. CSC should be able to tap into this and service other industries. Mr Majoko said business enquiries from local and international players were piling up as the market desires CSC presence. How long should the market wait? For Mr Majoko and his team, what is critical is the refurbishment and restoration of the cold storage facilities at the giant Bulawayo plant and not the feed stock. At this stage there is work being done to get the Bulawayo abbatoir and cold storage facility functioning again. The cold rooms are being refurbished and my understanding is that the compressors, which have not been working for the past 23 years, are now up, he said. Only a condenser unit that has been shipped from China and other support materials to redo the facility are yet to be fixed, and take into account that there is about 80km of piping that needs to be attended to. Feedstock is not a challenge considering that we have about 5,1 million herd of cattle as a country and about 2,1 million are in Masvingo, and 2,2 million in Matabeleland provinces and CSC facilities are situated there. Prospects for working with the Botswana Meat Commission are also high and promising, he added. Regarding lost human capital Mr Majoko said there was sufficient knowledge and skill locally, adding that a revised CSC would create more opportunities for former workers and new graduates. Impact of indigenous farmers Following the successful land reform programme since 2000, there are a lot of successful indigenous farmers who have demonstrated capacity to produce good quality livestock, said Mr Majoko. Our engagements with them are very encouraging as well as with several local businesses that are keen to come on board in terms of stock feed supply and other inputs, he said. These take into account climate change realities and areas where we need to climate-proof CSC operations. Government is also doing a lot in terms of livestock development, borehole drilling and dam construction in communities, which will aid CSC revival. Our aim is not to push out our competitors but complement them and be partners where possible so as to provide wider and competitive service for others. Our infrastructure allows for such possibilities, said Mr Majoko. Chronicle PRESIDENT Mnangagwa is not liable to civil or criminal proceedings while he is still in office and the court challenge seeking to annul his ascendency to ZANU PFs top post in November 2017 is flawed, the partys Secretary for Administration, Dr Obert Mpofu, has said. This comes as ZANU PF Harare province acting chairman, Cde Goodwills Masimirembwa, has submitted that Sybeth Musengezi, who applied to the High Court to challenge President Mnangagwas ascendency, is not a bona fide member of the party. Dr Mpofu made the assertions in his founding affidavit in a notice of opposition filed at the High Court on Friday against Musengezis application. In his submissions, Dr Mpofu argued that the High Court has no jurisdiction to try the President as Section 98 of the Constitution guarantees the President immunity. The literal import of the Section is very clear. Theres no need for any aids to interpretation of this Section. The import of Section 98 (1) is that whilst in office, the President of Zimbabwe is not liable to any civil or criminal proceedings in any court for things done or omitted to be done in his personal capacity whilst in office. The Section confers immunity to prosecution to a sitting President. Dr Mpofu said Musengezi did not seek leave to sue the President as is required by rule 12 (21) of the High Court. He said the application was defective and cannot be allowed to go ahead as it falls away on filing and should be struck off the roll with costs. Furthermore, Dr Mpofu said Musengezi had not exhausted domestic remedies which are provided for in ZANU PFs constitution before bringing the application to court. On October 20 this year, Musengezi, who described himself as a ZANU PF youth member, approached the Bulawayo High Court seeking the nullification of ZANU PFs November 19, 2017 special session of the Central Committee meeting which elected President Mnangagwa as the partys First Secretary and President. According to the court application, Musengezi, through his lawyer Nqobani Sithole, cited ZANU PF as the first respondent and President Mnangagwa as the second respondent. In his submissions, Cde Masimirembwa said Musengezi is not in ZANU PF structures. I confirm that the Applicant is not a member of the 1st Respondent in good standing. Firstly, he applied to be a member of the 1st Respondent in 2014 in Hatcliffe yet he did not reside there and was using a local address belonging to one Cde Mutimbanyokas mother. It must be noted that for one to qualify as a member, they must belong to a cell within their area of residence. The party contends that Applicant has dirty hands in respect of his claims to membership, he said. Cde Masimirembwa said investigations by the party had discovered that Musengezi had been illegally planted into ZANU PFs structures by fugitive former national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere. It has currently been discovered that the Applicant is the branch deputy secretary to which no elections were held for branch officials other than the Chairman. This means that anything else has not been verified and its origins and authenticity questionable. Its believed, on investigation by the DCC security that reports to me as Chairman of DCC 4 Harare and also Acting Chairman of the Harare Province, that Applicant was planted into the relevant district, without the relevant credentials for political and other reasons by the former Secretary for the Commissariat, Saviour Kasukuwere, to whom he is allegedly related. According to Cde Masimirembwa, Musengezi belongs to another political party known as Front for Economic Emancipation in Zimbabwe (FEEZ). In June of the same year, he was seen to be a member of another political front by participating in their first press conference. He uploaded a video on his Facebook page wearing FEEZ regalia and denounced and disrespected the 1st Respondent and its First Secretary, the 2nd Respondent in the matter. The video footages are attached . . . he said. Sunday Mail OUTSPOKEN former Ntabazinduna chief Felix Nhlanhlayamangwe Ndiweni has described President Emmerson Mnangagwas United Kingdom trip for the COP26 summit last week as extravagant after he reportedly took with him more than 100 people. Ndiweni said the hiring of a private jet from former Soviet Republic Azerbaijan, at a reported cost of US$1 million was profligacy by the leader of a country where the majority of citizens live in poverty. Mnangagwas extravagance shows the falsehoods of the sanctions campaign. Over a hundred world leaders arrived in Glasgow for the climate change conference. Among the leaders present was Mnangagwa, whose delegation was double that of South Africa, a nation that is one of the G20 nations, Ndiweni said. The new President of Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema went to the conference on economy class, with just a few individuals. Indeed a fair question would be what was the plane carrying when it left Zimbabwe? It is common knowledge that gold bars and other precious stones are being regularly smuggled out of the country by the powers-that-be. The former Ndebele chief took part in protests against Mnangagwa in the UK during the COP26 summit. Ndiweni said Mnangagwas Glasgow jaunt showed that United Nations rapporteur Alena Douhan had been hoodwinked by government to think that sanctions caused the suffering of people, when in actual fact it was extravagance by the countrys leaders. Zimbabwean governments position has always been that the targeted sanctions crippled the economy and finances of the government completely. Surprisingly, the world witnessed a huge delegation from Zimbabwe in Glasgow for the COP26, and huge spending allowances for each delegate in United States dollars throughout the conference, he said. He said funds meant for climate change mitigation in the country should be channelled through environmental organisations for implemention of programmes. Newsday A panicky president Emmerson Mnangagwa has resorted to bussing supporters to impromptu rallies as a way of creating a picture of political popularity and to intimidate internal rivals within Zanu PF through a make-believe strategy that he enjoys huge support within the party. The command-rallies are also aimed at countering opposition MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa, who has been drawing huge crowds in his meet the people campaigns in hitherto no-go rural areas, analysts have said. Mnangagwa was served with court papers recently in a case where Sybeth Musengezi, a Zanu PF youth league member, is challenging the constitutionality of his ascendancy to power following the 2017 coup. Musengezi filed papers at the High Court in October seeking an order declaring illegal the November 19, 2017 Zanu PF central committee meeting that removed the late Robert Mugabe as the party leader. The court action is viewed as part of wider factional fights within Zanu PF pitting Mnangagwa and a faction allegedly loyal to his deputy Constantino Chiwenga. Analysts said Mnangagwa, who is facing growing anger from the general citizenry and within the party over an imploding economy, has been forced to default to Mugabes strategy of bussing supporters to rallies to push back threats to his presidency. Upon his return from Glasgow, Scotland on Thursday where he was attending a United Nations climate change summit (COP26), Mnangagwa was welcomed by hundreds of people that had been bussed from all corners of Harare and further afield. An internal party communique gave specific instructions to all Zanu PF district chairpersons to make sure that they get at least 300 people from each district brought to the airport to meet the president. The instruction also advised the district secretaries for transport to collect buses provided for the purpose from a designated location. The following day after the Harare command rally, the president went to Matabeleland North to preside over the graduation ceremony at Lupane State University. As happened in Harare, Bulawayo Zanu PF structures were ordered to organize a huge rally to welcome Mnangagwa when he landed at the Joshua Mquabuko Nkomo airport. Hundreds of people were, therefore, bussed to the airport to cheer the president at this impromptu rally. Most of those that get on the busses are usually those that are benefiting from Zanu PF system of political patronage and fear victimisation and depravation. They have been allocated market places, received controversially allocated residential stands or owe the party one favour or the other. The fear is that if they do not participate in this self-ingratiating exercise by the party leader, Zanu PF would withdraw whatever freebies they have. The idea of Mnangagwa commandeering Zupco buses to bring crowds to his rallies is a clear sign of his fears of the on-going internal power struggles within Zanu PF. Bringing crowds to himself is a push back on calls within the party and outside for him to leave office for allegedly failing to deliver on his promises. So this is a show of force and support, but unfortunately this is abuse of state resources, political analyst Rashweat Mukundu said. This is a replication of history from what we were witnessing with Mugabe in the past when every time he felt under threat he would seek to demonstrate that he was still wanted by bussing people to such impromptu rallies. We are back to the same scenario under which there is this growing fear in Zanu PF that Chamisa is demonstrating his support base, and so they are being forced in a way to respond by attempting to show that Mnangagwa has power. In 2007, former war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda led a million-man march on the streets of Harare in support of Mugabes candidature to contest the following years 2008 elections. Many thousands of Zanu PF supporters were ferried into Harare from all over the country by busses and trains. Even school busses were commandeered to join this political gamesmanship without the consent of parents who own the buses. In 2016, former youth leader Kudzai Chipanga also mobilised a one-million-man march in the capital in support of Mugabe amid infighting in Zanu PF. Chipanga also mobilised weekly youth interface rallies in 2017 where supporters were bussed to attend Mugabe prop-up rallies. These rallies, however, eventually backfired and led to the overthrow of the president in November of that year. Bulawayo-based commentator Effie Ncube accused Mnangagwa of bleeding the struggling Zupco for political expediency. The party survives on abuse of power and corruption. It is feeding from state resources and abusing state institutions, commandeering a parastatal like Zupco to transport party supporters to a rally, Ncube said. He said this abuse of state resources for electioneering purposes was likely to lead to disputed elections in 2023. The contest has already begun in various political parties and individuals and, therefore, what Zanu PF is doing is contributing to the 2023 elections, and clearly with the abuse of state resources, elections are already not free and fair even before they start. We are already in a crisis that will lead us into a disputed election because Zanu PF using Zupco to bus people to its rallies is an abuse not only of the law, but it is against the provisions of the constitution that govern elections. Mnangagwa was endorsed as the Zanu PF 2023 presidential candidate during the partys recent annual conference. Zanu PF will hold an elective congress in 2022. Chamisa has also emerged as the MDC Alliance presidential candidate to square off with Mnangagwa for the second time in as many years after narrowly losing to him in the disputed 2018 elections. The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (Zimcodd), a debt management and public finance accountability research institute, said the abuse of Zupco buses feeds into auditor-general (AG) Mildred Chiris reports that public institutions are collapsing because of abuse. We have a lot of case studies where parastatals fail because of misuse and being used for partisan or political rallies and whatever. For me, as a taxpayer, I would want to know if they (Zanu PF) are paying for these services because this is taxpayers money. Zupco is a state enterprise and if you look into the AGs reports, most of them are in arrears on everything. This is because the resources are used for political party politics, Zimcodds Florence Ndlovu said. Mukundu said probing whether Zanu PF was paying for the Zupco services in the spirit of accountability and transparency was difficult because of the naked conflation between the transport company and the ruling party. This, he said sounded a death knell to Zupco and inconvenienced the commuting public a great deal. The challenge to the state owned enterprises is that they are essentially cookie jars for Zanu PF and there is no attempt at all to ensure that these entities are transparent and are managed in a manner that promotes the interests of the people of this country, Mukundu argued. Government spokesperson Monica Mutsvangwa promised to respond to emailed questions on the issue, but had not done so up to the time of going to print yesterday. According to Ndlovu, approaching the courts to seek redress on the abuse of these public assets such as Zupco was not likely to yield results. Standard The United States has recorded more than 46 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and more than 750,000 deaths from the virus, since the start of the pandemic more than any other country has reported, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. With everybody coming back after 18 months, you should expect some chaos, some instability, said a Bronx counselor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. People have to allow for it to take its course and stop looking for instant results. Its not going to happen. I dont care if we have one social worker or 15, its not going to happen yet. This is the very thing that we (once) went to jail for, he said. So its time for us to profit. Why not put the people who have been doing it all along in a position to do it legally? Its only fair. Murdaughs lawyer, Dick Harpootlian, claims that his client saw his death as the only way out after the fatal shootings of his wife and son. Their murders have still not been solved but Murdaughs other lawyer, Jim Griffin, confessed recently that the embattled attorney is a person of interest in the crime. Kellie Chauvin, a real estate agent with a photography business, and her former husband are accused of underreporting $464,433 in joint income between 2014 to 2019, including more than $95,000 for his off-duty security work. They were charged in July 2020 with nine counts of felony tax evasion, just months after Chauvin was thrust into the spotlight thanks to video of his confrontation with Floyd last year. The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 in Houston. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference. (Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle via AP) (Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle) Rear Admiral Michael Wettlaufer, USN Commander, Military Sealift Command, speaks during the ceremonial address for the USNS Harvey Milk at General Dynamics NASSCO shipyard in San Diego, California on November 6, 2021. - One of the first openly gay politicians in the United States, who was assassinated four decades ago, will have a ship named after him this weekend, as the US military looks to keep step with modern-day social attitudes. The USNS Harvey Milk honours a former navy diver who served at a time there was a ban on homosexuality in the armed forces, and who was later shot dead in San Francisco, months after winning public office. (Photo by ARIANA DREHSLER / AFP) (Photo by ARIANA DREHSLER/AFP via Getty Images) ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD ** (ARIANA DREHSLER/AFP via Getty Images) The Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided it couldnt even rule in the case because White hadnt explained why she sentenced Toney so harshly, according to the AP. The appeals judges sent the case back to district court for a meaningful sentencing hearing. Toney will remain behind bars during the process. Because of the last-second travel arrangements, they were some of the last people to board the plane, MacCarthy told People. She requested that they be able to sit together, and eventually traded seats with other passengers. Theyre going to see a person that comes in the spirit of everyday New Yorkers and the complexity of what it is to be in a city like New York, he said. This is going to be an exciting four years for all New Yorkers. Calvo said that its not uncommon for the Mallorca airport to receive requests for medical emergency landings. However, it is unheard of for 21 people to be on the runways and putting air traffic at risk, she said. Led by the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front and the Oromo Liberation Army, the alliance pledged to dismantle Abiys government by force or by negotiation, NBC News reported. Fighting intensified in the northeast region of the country, about 200 to 250 miles from the capital of Addis Ababa. There are several problems with a de Blasio candidacy, besides the possibility that he might just win. This is one of them: Only white men have been elected as governor of New York. Thats not to take away anything from New Yorks first Black governor, David Paterson, who finished Eliot Spitzers term, and never ran on his own. But the application process is nearly impossible for someone in hiding. Applicants must complete several confusing immigration forms and compile many supporting evidentiary documents. The forms are in English legal jargon, which is obviously a problem for many Afghans, who do not speak English. Applicants do not always have the required identification documents and supporting evidence. Many applicants are physically separated from their documents. Others had no prior reason to obtain such documents (like a passport), and now such documents are impossible to obtain under Taliban rule. There is also a burdensome $575 application fee for each applicant. Additionally, humanitarian parole applicants must demonstrate they will be financial supported by a sponsor while in the United States. Finding a sponsor can be challenging for someone with no friends or relatives in this country. Big Bird specifically has been advocating for vaccinations since at least the 1970s and even pointed out Saturday that he has been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. Im not sure if Ive ever been this proud, Chenoweth wrote Saturday in an Instagram post. From the very first day I met you ... you were destined for this role. Among William Cuervo's favorite foods to cook are those for his favorite holiday, Noche Buena, which is Christmas Eve. Cuervo, a junior international and global studies major at UCF, said that a typical Noche Buena for his Cuban family involves roast pork, yuca, white rice, black beans and moros, a Cuban dish of rice and beans cooked together. (William Cuervo / Courtesy) That natural environment includes manatees, one of the creatures thats inspired mermaid legends over the centuries. In 1493, Christopher Columbus thought he spotted three of them as he sailed near Haiti. The mermaids rose well out of the sea, he noted in his journal, but they were not so beautiful as they are said to be. It was this time last year when [Mayor Rusty Johnson] and I had a number of tense conversations on how to develop and tell the story of the Ocoee Massacre, Jones told the audience. I share this with you all because it is hard to talk about and to remember the past. ... It is even harder when we have roots in the community when those horrific events occur. 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 Welcome Guest! You Are Here: Home Regional News East A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind. Kannada super star Puneeth Rajkumar's noble gesture to donate his eyes has created a sort of movement of eye donation in Karnataka. The eye donation which was badly hit by the Covid pandemic has gained momentum once again after the untimely demise of Puneeth, which was widely discussed in media and the good word has spread from mouth to mouth dispelling all hesitation regarding eye donation. Dr Bhujanga Shetty, founder of Narayana Nethralaya, who collected the eyes of Puneeth and successfully transplanted them to four persons, informed IANS that the gesture of the actor has created a lot of awareness among people about eye donation. "As many as 1,500 people have come forward and pledged their eyes in four to five days. About families of 16 deceased people have actually donated eyes of their dear ones, which is a record by itself," he said. Dr Sujatha, Director of Minto Eye hospital said, the trend of eye donation is steadily increasing all across the state. There is a rise of 20 to 30 per cent as far as eye donation is concerned after Puneeth and Sanchari Vijay donated their eyes, she said. People started donating their eyes after the death of National award winning Kannada actor Sanchari Vijay. The news of Vijay pledging his eyes for donation and helping the blind to see the world had moved the people to take a decision in this regard. The message of importance of eye donation has reached every household of Karnataka after the death of actor Puneeth, who had massive fan following in the state. The family of Puneeth had promptly informed the doctors to collect his eyes amid the grief. Puneeth's father, legend of Kannada cinema Dr Rajkumar after pledging his eyes, reminded family persons and doctors to see to it that they are collected at the right time before going waste after his death. His wife Parvathamma Rajkumar also followed suit. The Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) in Karnataka on Saturday sought protection for Ramana Rao, the family doctor of late Kannada superstar Puneeth Rajkumar, following protests and complaints against him by Puneeth's fans. Puneeth had consulted Ramana Rao at his clinic the day he succumbed to a massive heart attack on October 29. "PHANA is deeply concerned with the way healthcare is being portrayed in the media and public following the death of Puneeth Rajkumar. While we share the grief and shock of losing an young and popular actor, the turn of events post this are sad and calls for your immediate attention," PHANA president Prasanna H.M. urged Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. "We strongly oppose the attempts by the public to point fingers at the treating physicians, especially Ramana Rao who did his best. After all, we know that medical profession has its limitations and saving lives is not always possible. Else, no one would be dying," he said. Prasanna also urged Bommai to make a public statement to boost the morale of the medical fraternity. "Kindly provide police protection to safeguard Ramana Rao and the medical professionals involved in the treatment of Puneeth Rajkumar," he pleaded. Prasanna further said that visual and social media platforms are carrying narratives blaming lack of care by the medical professionals for the untimely demise of the popular actor. "This kind of judgemental and hyper critical media frenzy is creating distrust in the society besides risking the lives of the medical professionals who served the deceased," he stated. Attempts by fans and well-wishers to discuss the medical condition of the deceased person is gross violation of the healthcare policy and this can't be encouraged, he added. Lebanese-born Haaz Sleiman, who plays Ben, the husband of Marvel's first gay superhero Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), in 'Eternals', said he was close to tears when he learned of Disney's response to the film being banned in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar because of its LGBTQ+ content. Speaking to 'Variety', the gay actor said: "They (Disney) stood their ground and said, 'Nope, we are not going to compromise the integrity of our film'. It made these Arab countries look so ignorant and pathetic." Movies containing LGBTQ+ content, according to 'Variety', are often cut to appease international censors around the world, but Disney refused to alter 'Eternals'. "I have no respect for those governments," Sleiman said. "They have displayed to the world that they are not only a disgrace to humanity, but to God. Hopefully this will inspire the Saudi people, the Kuwaiti people and the people in Qatar to fight back." Sleiman, who was raised in a Muslim family in Lebanon before moving to the U.S. when he was 21, came out as gay in 2017 after first gaining attention playing Tarek, an undocumented Syrian immigrant in 2007's 'The Visitor'. Former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, congratulating him for inaugurating Adi Guru Shankaracharya's statue at Kedarnath in Uttarakhand. "I wrote to Prime Minister Modi on how the Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Karnataka, established by the great saint, has to me always been a refined symbol of interfaith harmony," Deve Gowda stated. On Friday, Modi unveiled a 12-foot statue of Shankaracharya at Kedarnath. The Prime Minister also offered prayers at the temple before unveiling the statue weighing 35 tonnes, work on which commenced in 2019. "I was deeply moved to see the very impressive black schist statue of the great saint Sri Adi Shankaracharya being unveiled by you in Kedarnath on Nov 5. I congratulate you for the dedication you have shown to the transformation of the holy site," Deve Gowda stated. "I wish to soon visit Kedarnath to see the newly-installed statue of the great saint. It is also a matter of great joy that the statue was sculpted by a Mysuru sculptor -- Arun Yogiraj. I also learn that the black schist is from HD Kote in Mysuru district of Karnataka. There is so much of Karnataka connection in this endeavour. It is all divinely arranged. May the grace of almighty be on you," Deve Gowda wrote in the letter. At least 108 people were killed and 92 others injured in a fuel tanker explosion here, Sierra Leone's National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) has confirmed. According to a statement by NDMA on Saturday, a loaded fuel tanker and a truck carrying granite stones collided on a highway late Friday while the fuel tanker was about to enter a nearby filling station to discharge its fuel. Footages and eyewitnesses revealed that while the collision took place, both drivers came out of their vehicles and warned community residents to stay off the scene while trying to address a leakage emanating from the collision, said the statement. In the interim, some community members rushed to the scene and took advantage of the leakage to scoop fuel and store it in nearby makeshift structures. In the cause of scooping the fuel, a major explosion happened and resulted in a fire disaster, it added. The statement said the injured were admitted into different hospitals across the city and suffering varying degrees of burning. Meanwhile, sufficient medical supply has been provided to the victims, Xinhua news agency reported. Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio on Saturday also expressed his condolences over the fuel tanker explosion, saying the government will "do everything to support affected families." In the meantime, the President canceled his trip to the Extraordinary Session of the Economic Community of West African States Authority of Heads of State and Government, which is set to be held in Ghana on Sunday. Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, the special representative of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on religious harmony, on Sunday criticised the appearance of women in advertisements, saying that "despite having so many good looking men in the country, advertisers still hire women to represent their brands", Geo News reported. Speaking to the media in Lahore, Ashrafi further said that women should not be "unnecessarily featured in advertisements", adding that he is against such practices, the report said. He also talked about the growing menace of sexual crimes in the country and said that the perpetrators must be sentenced to harsh punishments as these crimes cannot be ignored. "The Ulema has a role to play in eradicating obscenity, terrorism and extremism from the country," Ashrafi said. Ashrafi also said that upon the instructions of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan is internationally combating the rise of Islamophobia. "For this purpose, the government has started reaching out to different Islamic scholars across the globe," Ashrafi said, adding that those who have been posting blasphemous content on websites have been taken into custody, the report said. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi Pakistan strongly condemned "the cowardly attack" on the residence of Iraq's Prime Minister in central Baghdad, Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. "It is a matter of relief that Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is safe," the Ministry added on Sunday. Pakistan stands in solidarity with "the brotherly government and people of Iraq," it said, adding that "we extend our heartfelt sympathies to the injured and pray for their early recovery," Xinhua news agency reported. Pakistan reiterated its strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, saying no cause justifies such cruel acts of violence, according to the Foreign Ministry. Trustpower Limited (NZX: TPW ) has delivered a strong half year result ahead of its impending sale of the mass market retail business to Mercury NZ Limited (Mercury Energy), with two of the three conditions now met and the final condition expected before the financial year is over. Net profit after tax climbed to $115.1 million, up from $33.6 million the previous year, largely due to a non-cash fair value gain on financial instruments. Underlying earnings which exclude fair value gain on financial instruments were $59 million for the six months to 30 September 2021, up from $52.7 million in the prior period driven largely by higher generation volumes and wholesale prices. Announcing its interim financials, Trustpower chair Paul Ridley-Smith said the companys results reflect a wellperforming bundled retail business and sound management of its 27 generation schemes across New Zealand, enabling the business to deliver consistent returns for investors. Trustpower shareholders approved the sale of its retail business to Mercury Energy at its Annual Shareholder Meeting on 22 September, and Mercury Energy had also been given the green light from the Commerce Commission, which said the $441 million deal would not substantially lessen competition. The final condition of sale is the completion of the Tauranga Energy Consumer Trust (TECT) restructure, subject to a High Court hearing scheduled for 15-17 November 2021. Chief executive David Prentice said there had been considerable effort within the company to prepare the business for sale. Despite this, and the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns, Trustpower delivered an 11 per cent increase in total combined (discontinued and continuing) operating earnings (EBITDAF) of $122.2 million, rising from $110.4 million in the prior period. The company has remained focused on its customers with a rise in customer connections and continued high levels of customer service. Operating earnings (EBITDAF) from discontinued retail operations were $15.8 million, down from $18.3 million in the prior period. This decrease included a reduction in revenue of ~$2.6 million resulting from the removal of the prompt payment discount structure, a cost of $1.1 million relating to the retail sale, and increased gas costs which Trustpower largely absorbed. Trustpowers telco customer numbers reached 114,000, up 8,000 or 7 percent on the same time last year, including a new milestone of 10,000 mobile connections. All key retail metrics including fibre and mobile connections, products per customer and digital uptake, showed positive momentum. Please see the links below for details Interim Report Interim results presentation NZX distribution notice 30092021 NZX results announcement 30092021 Media Announcement for six months ended 30 September 2021 Source: Trustpower Limited Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) reaffirms guidance and progresses growth plan 18th November 2021 Morning Report Blis Technologies Limited (NZX: BLT) Challenging market conditions in US impact half year result EROAD Limited (NZX: ERD) NZ Commerce Commission Clears Coretex Acquisition NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Digital acceleration delivering on NZME's 2023 strategy GENEVA FINANCE LIMITED EXPECTS SIX-MONTH PRE-TAX PROFIT FOR PERIOD TO SEPTEMBER 2021 TO BE 21% ABOVE PRIOR YEAR GENEVA ANNOUNCES INTERIM DIVIDEND OF 1.25CPS Despite the impact of lockdowns, the Geneva Group expects its unaudited results to come in at $3.96m, 21% above the previous year and 4.6% higher than the guidance announcement made on 14 September. Managing Director, David OConnell says, I am impressed by how the entire Geneva team has adapted and focused on making the best of the difficult circumstances the company has faced through these unprecedented times. Across the lending, insurance, and collections teams and the support functions of IT and finance, each member has buckled down and given their best to ensure the company comes out in the best shape possible. As a result, the board has approved the interim dividend of 1.25 cps. Though the dividend is unchanged from last year, the payment date is being brought forward to 30 November (last year the payment date was 21 December). The ex-dividend date will be 16 November 2021. The impact on the full year result is expected to be positive, though is dependent on the term and frequency of any further COVID restrictions. The Company will provide updates once more information is available. Please see the links below for details GFL market update 08 November 2021 Distribution Notice Source: Geneva Finance Limited Comments from our readers No comments yet Add your comment: Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process. Related News: 19th November 2021 Morning Report Ryman Healthcare Limited (NZX: RYM) unaudited first half underlying profit of $95.9m Steel & Tube Holdings Limited (NZX: STU) Earnings Guidance 1H FY22 My Food Bag Group Limited (NZX: MFB) achieves record earnings; confirms dividend Turners Automotive Group Limited (NZX: TRA) delivers 24% increase in HY22 earnings AFT Pharmaceuticals Limited (NZX: AFT) reaffirms guidance and progresses growth plan 18th November 2021 Morning Report Blis Technologies Limited (NZX: BLT) Challenging market conditions in US impact half year result EROAD Limited (NZX: ERD) NZ Commerce Commission Clears Coretex Acquisition NZME Limited (NZX: NZM) Digital acceleration delivering on NZME's 2023 strategy Earlier, there was Paris Climate Meet (COP 21), which was highly publicized and when some framework policies were recommended to prevent the global warming. by N.S.Venkataraman Glasgow Climate Meet ( COP26) has concluded , after Presidents / Prime Ministers of different countries have expressed concern about the impending global climate crisis and after hearing some promises from several countries. Prime Minister of one country has said that the future generation would not pardon us , if we would fail to tackle the climate issues adequately well. There was also talk as to what would happen to the world climate,if there would be temperature rise of 0.5 degree centigrade or 1 degree centigrade or 1.5 degree centigrade and it was said that some regions would go out of the world map by the year 2040 , if the emission level of toxic and global warming gas would not be eliminated. The world citizens have heard all these kind of statements several times before. Earlier, there was Paris Climate Meet (COP 21), which was highly publicized and when some framework policies were recommended to prevent the global warming. Now , Glasgow Climate Meet is yet another meeting to discuss the issue. What is noteworthy here is that between the Paris Climate Meet and the present Glasgow Climate Meet, no significant difference in the emission levels have been seen. During this period , production of fossil fuel such as crude oil, coal , natural gas have not been brought down. Prior to Glasgow Climate Meet, China said that it would have zero emission by the year 2060.In the Glasgow Meet, USA and some European countries said that they would have zero emission by 2050. Indian Prime Minister has said that India will have zero emission by 2070. While there have been promises galore, no convincing or holistic solutions have been arrived at during the Glasgow Meet , where various countries have not agreed to have any uniform strategies all over the world to achieve zero emission. To attain zero emission, the primary requisite is that production / consumption of crude oil, coal and natural gas have to be brought down to Nil level or atleast drastically reduced. In the world, present consumption of coal is around 7 billion tonne per annum, that of crude oil is around 91 million barrels per day and that of natural gas is around 3.8 trillion cubic metre per annum. It would be a herculean task to reduce the consumption of coal , crude oil and natural gas drastically in the future. Crude oil producers : OPEC countries, Russia, Venezeula and a few other crude oil producing countries including USA cannot afford to reduce the production of crude oil to any significant extent , as their economy is considerably dependent on the fortunes of crude oil sector and their economy cannot be sustained at the present level in the absence of large scale crude oil production and sale. Coal producers : In the case of coal, countries like China, India , Indonesia , South Africa, Australia have huge production and consumption of coal and these countries cannot reduce the consumption of coal without seriously upsetting their national economy. Coals share in Indias power generation is now about 70%. India has distanced itself from the global alliance on phasing out coal by 2030 -40, as Indias dependence on coal as fossil fuel is expected to continue with its growing energy needs. The largest polluting countries including USA and China , too , did not sign the agreement that calls for phasing out coal power in advanced economies by 2030s and worldwide by 2040s. Limitations of renewable power : It is said that renewable energy sector (wind, solar and hydro) should be promoted significantly to reduce the use of fossil fuel such as coal , crude oil and natural gas. India has promised that it would increase the renewable energy power to 500 GW by 2030. IMF has welcomed Indias vision on renewables. The renewable power by using solar, wind and hydro are seasonal and weather dependent and the capacity utilization of renewable power industry is as low as around 20% on an average . Therefore, it is obvious that the renewable energy cannot be a substitute for fossil fuel to any significant extent, considering the present production and use level of fossil fuel. Concerns about nuclear power : It has also been suggested that nuclear power is eco friendly and nuclear power generation should be substantially increased to substitute fossil fuel. While some countries like France have large share of nuclear power to meet the power needs, Germany has decided not to set up anymore new nuclear power plants. After the Chernobyl (Russia), Fukushima (Japan) nuclear power station accidents, there have been world wide concern about the safety issues with regard to nuclear power plants. Electric vehicles : World over, the production of electric vehicles are being increased at feverish pace now, expecting that electric vehicles are eco friendly and will avoid the emissions of sulphur dioxide , carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Lithium ion battery is essential component of the electric vehicle and these batteries have to be charged from time to time , requiring power from external source for charging the battery. Production of power from renewable energy sector will not be adequate to meet the demand for power for charging lithium ion battery. Therefore, the power for charging lithium ion battery have to necessarily come from thermal power stations , where fossil fuel would be used. Using power generated from fossil fuel which is a source of pollution, to charge the lithium ion battery will be counter productive from the point of view of reducing emissions. While electric vehicle will have no emission, fossil fuel based power stations will have emission of sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Hydrogen : Hydrogen is an eco friendly gas , which can be used as fuel and feedstock. Hydrogen can be an acceptable substitute for fossil fuels in a big way, if it can be produced in large scale in eco friendly manner. Number of hydrogen plants are now being set up around the world. Hydrogen is produced as grey hydrogen ( from natural gas), brown hydrogen (from coal) and green hydrogen ( by water hydrolysis). The production of hydrogen from natural gas is being carried out in a big way now . However, natural gas is methane . In the production , processing, storage and transportation of natural gas, methane emission takes place and methane is a toxic gas. In USA alone, it is reported that about 13 million tonne of methane emission take place every year. Therefore, production of grey hydrogen using natural gas as feedstock cannot be considered as entirely eco friendly. Production of green hydrogen by water hydrolysis is eco friendly. One kilogramme of hydrogen production require 48 KWH of power and water electrolysis is a power intensive process and therefore, expensive. Power for water hydrolysis has to come from renewable energy or from thermal power plants that use fossil fuel. While power from renewable energy is eco friendly, adequate power from renewable energy source will not be available for large scale green hydrogen production, with the added problem of renewable power supply fluctuating due to seasonal and weather factors. Global hydrogen industry is a much discussed subject today but still appears to be too far away to meet the global needs for 100% substitution of fossil fuel, particularly considering the present consumption and usage of fossil fuel around the world. Methane emission : There is large amount of methane gas production from livestock population in the world. There is no way of collecting the gas from millions of cows and buffaloes. Methane emission also takes place from usage of natural gas , as discussed . While targets were fixed during the Glasgow Climate Meet to reduce the methane emission, no tangible and feasible and effective solutions have been evolved so far , to completely get rid of methane emission. Carbon dioxide capture and storage: Lot of research work is going on to capture the carbon dioxide emission and either use the carbon dioxide for production of derivative products or pump it into the soil . However, all such work are right now on formative stage only. Feasibility of large scale utilization of carbon di oxide for production of derivative products or storing carbon dioxide is yet to be conclusively established. Will the world be different after Glasgow Climate Meet ? It appears that the world climate did not become better after Paris Climate Meet and it would not become better after the Glasgow Climate Meet also. There are large number of environmental activists around the world, most of whom seem to have made it a profession and they demonstrate , shout slogans , hold placards whenever Global Climate Conference take place. Perhaps, they have to continue to have such demonstration for long time to come for whatever it is worth. Tall talk and huge protests are not sufficient strategies to sort out the impending global climate crisis. The long story can be cut short , by noting that while the developing countries have asked the rich countries to provide one trillion USD to developing countries to reduce emissions, their request have been met with deafening silence from the rich countries. What we must as a nation realise, the 1971 War with Pakistan was a unique event in the history of the planet. For all of us who fought, even from our macro-perspectives, everything came together in a manner that few countries could ever hope for. by General (Dr) Vijay Kumar Singh For decades the narrative had been hijacked. Two years ago, I stared in disbelief at a document prepared by Pakistans Inter-Service Intelligence Wing in which they blatantly put on the cover a photograph of two Bengali cycle rickshaw pullers who had been shot and bayoneted by the Pakistan Army in 1971. The caption blithely blamed the killings on the Indian Army and was the official history of the 1971 War in East Pakistan. Be it Mirpur or Baramula in 1947, or the killings and rapes in 1965 or in later years, the reality has always been brushed under the carpet with even people on our side of the border labelling it propaganda. But then history is made up of hard facts, and for those who dig deep, the truth will always be out there. On the telephone, Shiv Kunal Verma asked me if I would be the Chief Guest for the 5th Military History Seminar that was an annual event hosted by the Welham Boys School since 2017. Without waiting for me to say yes, Kunal said the theme this year would be the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, and he wanted to open the event with a session moderated by him that would focus on the genocide unleashed by the Pakistan Army and the Razakars that had killed a staggering 3 million people 50 years ago. Well do away with the conventional opening remarks. Id like to go over the mass killings with you and the Chairman of Welham Boys, Mr Darshan Singh. Everyone knows about the Jews and the Nazis, but somehow what happened in the subcontinent, few ever talk about what happened in East Pakistan. From left to right: Darshan Singh, Gen V.K. Singh (Author), Shiv Kunal Verma. The Genocide! The very word had frozen time for me. Kunal had been my co-author in 2013 when Aleph had published my autobiography, Courage & Conviction, and we had covered some of the more brutal aspects of the war in the book. Barely 21 years old then, I had been commissioned into 2 RAJPUT (Kali Chindi) in June 1970 and had been assigned the role of the battalions Intelligence Officer (IO) cum the ad hoc Commando Platoon commander by my commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Dev Raj Dutt, in April 1971. When war was declared after Pakistans pre-emptive airstrikes against eleven Indian airfields in the Western Sector, the battalion was poised to cross the International Border in the Belonia Bulge. 2 Rajput came under attack almost immediately from the lone but spirited PAF F-86 Squadron that was based at Tezgaon and the battalion lost one of our mess boys who unfortunately poked his head out of a foxhole to see what was happening. During the next 14 days, as Indian Army units surged forward from three different directions (with the Navy kicking in from the fourth), the Pakistan Armys tryst with instant karma seemed a foregone conclusion. From our point of view, if ever there was a just war, this was itthe signs of the carnage, the looting, the plunder, the rapes, the murderswere all around us. After a few decisive battles, the Pakistanis seemed to implode like a house of cards. War is a dirty business and sometimes things on the ground do not quite reflect the entire picture. General Yahya Khan and his politically savvy chum, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, held a major trump card up their sleevethey had in their custody Bangabandhu, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who they were quite capable of assassinating out of sheer pique. For the newly created Bangladesh, the survival of this remarkable man was vital, for the last thing the country needed was post liberation anarchy. With most of the leadership and intellectuals butchered, without Bangabandhu, Bangladesh would have been in a terrible situation. The Americans knew it. So did the Chinese. And most importantly, Bhutto knew it. Neither of the three parties liked having egg on their face. Fifty years on and frankly, apart from the limited focus on the 14-day period, no one in India had paused long enough to understand what had really happened in East Pakistan in the intervening period between Operation Searchlight and December 1971. Now Kunal and the Welham team were wanting to go into this zone, and talk to school children about it. If we do not tell them what happened, who will? Unless the horror of what happened is talked about, how will people ever understand what happened. We are not getting into graphic details, but giving a perspective of what happened. Quoting Brigadier (later Lieutenant General) Adi Sethna, who was then the BGS Eastern Army Command, Kunal reminded me of the one dominating phrase that encapsulated the mindset of the ruling West Pakistan elite. Sadda Punjabi Saala Bangali! The rear view mirror of timeone can hear the sounds, smell the fear and the stench of death, remember the look in the unseeing eyes 2 Rajput had just liberated Chittagong and my CO said to me, VK, there are some reports of a Race Improvement Camp at the Chittagong Medical College go see what it is. After commandeering a jeep, with two of my Intelligence staff, I set off with no clue what to expect. I had already been exposed to the brash bravado of the Pakistani prisonersespecially their young officerswho showed no remorse over what had happened. They were full of bravado, even though they would turn to jelly if we so much as threatened to hand them over to the Mukti Bahini. How many Bangalis can you kill with one bullet, one of them had said to me. He then went on to answer the question himself: Twelve I have lined them up, and shot them with a rifle number 13 and 14 were also injured, but a dozen of them were killed instantly. We got to the College and found the camp without too much difficulty. There were maybe 200 women herded inside, all stark naked, at various stages of pregnancy. Seeing my motely team arrive, we were surrounded immediately and they wanted to grab our weaponsnot to turn on the guards but to shoot themselves for they had been reduced to a state of extreme shame, like herded animals sexually abused in a methodical manner by the Pakistani Army. There is an Associated Press film clip I believe where one of these camps was filmed, with graphic sketches in the form of graffiti encouraging the soldiers to do what they did. What exactly happened after that, I do not know. I reported back to Dev Raj Dutt and told him what we had found. Then we got on with our jobs, documenting and guarding the Pakistani prisoners and their families before they were moved to the huge pool of 90,000 plus combatants that were being concentrated at Dacca before being moved to various POW camps in India. But try as I might, those visuals would never leave me. And even now, half a century later, they refuse to die a natural death. Ours was the first session on the Bangladesh War and after we talked of the Genocide, the remaining sessions over the two days focused on the actual fighting. Lt Colonel Sajjad Zahir, who had defected in the Sialkot Sector to the Indian side as a Lieutenant, has on his part done yeoman service in keeping the memories of the fallen alive, especially on the Bangladesh side. He has quite appropriately been honoured by the Indian government with a Padmashree this year. Talking of the Genocide in the second session, Sajjad too emphasized the need to not only educate the people of Bangladesh and India, but of Pakistan as well. Unless the horror of what has happened is known and understood, these things have a way of repeating themselves and each and every time humanity is the victim. As one watched the other five sessions also unfold, one could not help but marvel at the work put in by Sangeeta Kain, Sana Durrani and the rest of Team Welham in putting this incredible seminar together. From the opening musical clips performed by Welhamites under the tutelage of Shabani Arora, the various officers selected to carry the narrative forward did a commendable job. Between Kunal and Maj Gen Jagatbir Singh, both of whom are classmates from the Doon School, the moderation was seamless. Sessions covered the fighting in the Eastern Sector, the Western Sector, the Final Surrender, the Naval Operations and finally, the closing session looked at the Air War with Air Marshals Jimmy Bhatia covering the operations in West Pakistan and Harish Masand (he shot down the first Sabre flying a Hawker hunter) wrapping up the east. I would honestly urge all those who have a say in educational institutions, to find the time to make all students watch these sessions. What we must as a nation realise, the 1971 War with Pakistan was a unique event in the history of the planet. There have been conflicts and there have been conflicts, but few Wars have ever been so justified where regardless of which faith or religion you were from, God was without any reservations on Indias side. For all of us who fought, even from our macro-perspectives, everything came together in a manner that few countries could ever hope for. In the post-Independence history of the Indian sub-continent, this was undoubtedly our golden hour. To bring this out at the grassroots level, I doff my hat to Mr Darshan Singh, for Welham Boys has not only ventured into unchartered territory five years ago, they have continued to sustain the Military History Seminars that in my view deserve national recognition. The greatest tribute to our fighting men is when every child knows their storyand when they in turn walk nine feet tall, everything else falls into place. General (Dr) Vijay Kumar Singh was the Chief of the Indian Army between 2010 and 2012. Commissioned into 2 Rajput in 1970, he fought in the War of Liberation, moving from the Belonia Bulge to Chittagong with his battalion which nine years ago had borne the brunt of the Chinese attack on the Nam Ka Chu. The general has held various ministerial portfolios in the Government of India since he was first elected to Parliament in 2014. The Kashmir border is porous. It is not unusual for human beings or animals to stray into Indian territory. by Amjed Jaaved For the past severa; days, India has been carrying on an encounter in Poonch forests. Despite the use of drones, India could not know the strength of the militants or weapons with them. The Indian army took out a prisoner Zia Mustafa to help them identify the location of militants hideouts. Zia, son of Abdul Kareem, is a resident of Burmag Kalan, Tehsil Rawalakot (Azad Kashmir). According to Indias version, he was caught in crossfire between Indian forces and militants. According to Indian media 13 other Kashmiri civilians were killed in similar "cross-fires". The story does not sound credible. According to his family, living on the border, he lost his way and crossed over into the Indian side of occupied Kashmir. At the time of his arrest, he was alone and unarmed. Unanswered questions The Kashmir border is porous. It is not unusual for human beings or animals to stray into Indian territory. The Pak army returns people or cattle to their natives. The hapless guy had been languishing in jail for over 17 years. How could he be in communication with militants? Earlier he had been shifted from the Kashmir jail to Indian jails to prevent him from indoctrinating other prisoners in the jail. The state attorney had pleaded intelligence inputs indicate that militant outfits are indoctrinating the minds of other inmates lodged in the prisons. He was arrested from Anantnag in March 2013. The trial court could not produce a single witness or a shred of evidence against him. As such the case was dismissed. The govt appealed but the High Court Srinagar dismissed the case for want of evidence. Thereafter, the prosecution appealed to the Supreme Court, vide Criminal Appeal 39899/2018. The case was time-barred because of laches. But, the court condoned the delay and admitted the case for hearing. Killing of Mustafa reflects the exasperation of the Indian army. For over 16 days they have been engaged in encounter against militants. Despite use of drones and artillery they could not exhibit dead bodies of militants or report about their number to the media. The ongoing Poonch encounter has marked similarity to the sarp vinash (kill the snake) encounter staged in 2003. The encounter was termed sach vinash (destroy the truth) by critics. In an article in Indias prestigious Frontline magazine, Pravin Swami exposes tell-tale falsehoods in claims about victory of the operation/encounter. These include inconsistent dates of the FIRs, arms and ammunition recovered, and number of militants. Swami writes: Operation Sarp Vinash *was launched on 21 Apr 2003, by a force level of two brigades, covering an area of 150 square kilometres". It does not specifically state when the Operation ended, but notes that it "resulted in the elimination of 65 terrorists". Major-General Hardev Lidder, the head of the Rajouri-based counter-terrorist Romeo Force, had affirmed exactly this figure at the press conference on May 24. Attached to the fact sheet is a list of 20 first information reports (FIRs), registered with police stations after each encounter. At a first, very casual glance, it would seem that the Army has a case. It does not. Many of the FIRs that the Military Intelligence Directorate has listed do not belong to the period when it claims Operation Sarp Vinash took place. Five of the FIRs, all filed with the Surankote police station, are dated April 2, April 2-3, April 3, April 17 and April 19, and refer to encounters that took place before the Military Intelligence Directorate itself claims Operation Sarp Vinash started. Remove these from the list in the fact sheet, and the Sarp Vinash tally of terrorists immediately drops to 50. Five other FIRs refer to encounters in Banota, Kallar, Niayon ka Khet and Hari Safeda, again in the Surankote area, which took place after Gen. Lidder's claim. Indeed, the Hari Safeda encounter took place on June 14, after the Frontline expose on the Operation had become public. Cut the number of terrorists killed in these encounters from the fact sheet claim, and the figure falls by another 20, to just 30. Even this pitiful figure - less than half of the total that is now claimed by the Army - is open to dispute. The fact sheet, for example, claims that three terrorists were killed in Gagriyal, near Chrar-e-Sharif, on the night of May 6-7. Informed sources told Frontline that all three were ethnic-Kashmiri terrorists and not foreign nationals who were claimed to have been holed up in Hil Kaka. Only five machine guns and a single mortar were recovered during Operation Sarp Vinash, hardly of a scale with the "war-like" fortifications everyone from Gen. Lidder to Chief of the Army Staff General Nirmal C. Vij claimed had existed on Hil Kaka. By the admission of the fact sheet itself, troops did not recover even a single rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a basic weapon widely used in the Jammu and Kashmir militancy. Worst of all, the number of Kalashnikov rifles the Army claims to have found, 40, sits very poorly with the 65 terrorists it claims to have killed. Concluding remarks Since 2000, over 80 major fake encounters have been reported in occupied Kashmir in which more than 160 innocent Kashmiris were killed. Human-rights organisations have reported over 3000 nameless graves in India in which countless innocent Kashmiris have been buried. Recently, an Indian army captain Bhoopender Singh staged an encounter in which three Pakistani militants were killed. Their families protested that they were not militants picked up by the captain from their homes. A DNA examination of the exhumed deadbodies proved the families claim. The captain staged the encounter to earn a reward of Rs. 20 million and promotion. When porters are not handy, Indian army considers picking up Kashmiri prisoners and shooting them dead in fake encounters.The writer is a freelance contributor. He is author of "Kashmir: The Myth of Accession". Sri Lanka, Country like No Other: Now We Have PCR Yeggs - Sniffs 123 Million So Far Loss of Rs. 125m by giving PCR contract to a particular company in Sri Lanka Disregarding average market prices, PCR testing kits had been bought from a bidder who quoted a higher price at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, thus causing a financial loss of more than Rs. 125 million, the Auditor Generals 2020 Report has revealed. The report was handed over to Speaker Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena this week by Auditor General W.P.C. Wickramaratne. It said 328 PCR kits were bought in three instances in April 2020 at a higher price, disregarding the average market price of Rs. 1,850 a kit. The report said Rs. 762.96 million had been spent on buying PCR kits by the State Pharmaceuticals Corporation on behalf of the Medical Supplies Division of the Ministry of Health. The report said that while the PCR kits offered by the lowest bidders were rejected as not being compatible with the existing PCR machines, the technical evaluation committee had taken decisions in a manner favourable to a certain company and supported it on the grounds of urgency, past experiences and the type of machine used by the Medical Research Institute (MRI). The report, however, noted that prior to calling for bids, no specifications had been prepared accurately by analysing the type of PCR machines used by each medical facility to assess if the kits being purchased were compatible with the machines available. The special procurement committee of the ministry on the recommendation of the technical evaluation committee had awarded the contract to the higher bidder, leading to the loss of more than Rs 125 million, the AG said. While the university academia have their guns trained on the President, principals and teachers have been on strike for months demonstrating on the streets for long overdue salary increments. by Gamini Weerakoon Decisions made President Rajapaksas Government for the past two years which have resulted in severe mounting crises have left political observers wondering about the strategy of the Government in tackling them. In Sri Lankan lingo people ask: Is the government coming or going? Even the most devout worshippers of the Lotus Bud (Pohottuwa) party are questioning whether they are on the correct track Vyath Maga, No Maga or Atharamaga? However, the innermost of the hardcore say, it was the pandemic and now that Gota has got almost all vaccinated, we will be galloping towards the Vistas of Prosperity and Splendour soon as envisioned in his manifesto. The scenes on the streets both in cities and countryside are crowded with angry people of all classes voicing protests, demanding withdrawal of some of the decisions made by President Rajapaksa while some are silently standing in queues breathing venom on whom they voted to power. Rajapaksas main thrust during his presidential election campaign was for the need to re-establish national security which the Yahapalnaya government had floundered on following violent attacks on Churches and tourist hotels by a local extremist Muslim group alleged to be linked to the international terror group, the ISIS. He has brought into top administrative posts, military officers, including retired officers, ostensibly to strengthen national security. Most observers presumed that on this bedrock of national security, his plan for development would be built upon. He has appointed four service officers retired and in service as secretaries to four key ministries and several other retired officers as heads to key institutions such as the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, the Ports and the Customs. These were posts held by civilian officials of the Administrative Service. Administrative Service officials, though remaining discreet silent, obviously cannot be too happy about key posts in their cadres being given to those of the armed services while those of the lower ranks are resenting the inroads made into their civilian service and also view this as an attempt to suppress trade union activities. Government service employees by and large have traditionally supported the SLFP and did so to its successor Pohottuwa party at the last presidential election, as evident in the postal voting. Will Rajapaksa be able to keep this prong of support with him when the next election comes around? The strident and vociferous protests made against the manner in which the billion (or millions of dollars) Yugadanavi LNG plant deal with an American company was made and the things said about the Rajapakasa government on this issue certainly did not seem to bode well for the Rajapaksas. For some inexplicable reason, most of the important decisions made by this former Lt. Colonel (Retd) seem to go against the interests of segments of the electorate that cast 6.92 million votes for him (52.25 percent of the total number of votes cast). In the field of Education, there were no objections to granting the Kotelawala Defence Academy the status of a university. But in June 2021, a bill was brought before parliament, proposing changes to the administrative structure of the Kotelawala Defence Universirty (KDU). It placed the KDU under the Defence Ministry management with a senior manager of the armed services as the Vice Chancellor rather than under the manager of the Higher Education Ministry as has been the accepted norm. Several academic groups and students alleged this was an attempt at privatisation and militarisation of the KDU that would enable it to function independent of the University Grants Commission (UGC). The KDU issue united almost the entire academia from university professors to student union leaders as they vehemently opposed the move. The issue has brought into question the support of many academics and intellectuals for the party of the Rajapaksas as against the UNP and the SJB. While the university academia have their guns trained on the President, principals and teachers have been on strike for months demonstrating on the streets for long overdue salary increments. During the last presidential hustings, a vote-catching slogan was that they opposed tooth and nail the selling of national treasures to foreign investors which meant foreign interests. Some of these were making huge financial losses over the years. The lease/sale of the Hambntota harbour which was being ignored by international shipping lines and the Mattala airport which was described as the loneliest airport in the world was opposed with gusto, stirring up nationalism of the highest order. It was seen as a threat to the sovereignty of the nation. Now the chicanery of politics when in opposition has boomeranged on those leaders who opposed foreign investments under the previous government. Foreign investments being made on state-owned property are now openly opposed by trade unions which backed the Rajapaksas when they were in the opposition. Direct foreign investments are what this Government is longing for. Finally, the coup de grace was delivered on itself by the overnight announcement to ban the import of inorganic fertiliser and farmers asked to use organic fertiliser. No other issue had generated such responses from farmers who comprise the biggest segment of the population in this agricultural country. We will not delve into the issue because those knowledgeable have said it all. But the president, a former military officer, wont go back on his order on the ban. It appears that in military terms an order is an order that has to be obeyed. True, he had said it in his manifesto quite clearly that he would stop the use of chemical feriliser and insecticide because of the harmful effects on the health of the people. But farmers ask: couldnt time be given to make the shift? Crops rice, vegetables and tea take different times for growth and require specific plant nutrients, not what a military mind determines. Napoleon, Hitler all have beaten massive retreats, when the situation demanded .But President Gotabaya, so far stands firm, making only minor adjustments. There are some other decisions and actions that may be considered as follies of Rajapaksa and his government. His supporters will deny that they have adverse effects on the nation and give reasons for failure, mainly the Covid 19 pandemic. The Five Great Forces (Pancha Maha Balavegaya) that launched the SLFP in 1956 to power continued to back the SLFP. The SLPP that contested the 2020 elections and had supported Gotabaya Rajapksa for presidency mainly comprised former SLFP members and were backed by this five pronged force: Sangha, Indigenous physicians, teachers, farmers and industrial workers. By last week four of the five forces, save indigenous physicians, were on the streets demonstrating against the Government. Last week, some coalition party partners of the Government seem to have picked up enough courage to tell President Rajapaksa that they could not go along with all his unilateral decisions. Thus faint fissures are appearing in the coalition that may deprive the Government of its two-thirds majority. President Rajapaksa seems not too concerned about the rallying of forces that had supported him and his party. Last week he was at the COP 26 summit, talking to world leaders probably about his efforts to protect the soil of Sri Lanka by using organic fertiliser. Thus, the question arises whether he has a planned strategy by letting even the supporters who backed him go against him or he is overwhelmed by the crises that has assailed the country and is just muddling through. Is his strategy to let chaos accumulate and then bring order using military resources? Already he is constitutionally vested with executive powers which no other president had wielded before. On the other hand, he may be thinking that all this hot air will blow over once the pandemic ends and the financial crisis eases. And that Sri Lankans memories do not last for more than two weeks. That was also the thinking of Velupillai Prabhakran. But the amnesiac Sri Lankan memory should not be relied on too much. Remember that people did not forget the food shortages, broken promises, empty rhetoric and the long queues in the era of Sirima Bandaranaike who won a two-thirds parliamentary majority in 1970 but was reduced to a pathetic eight seats in the General Election of 1977. (The writer is a former editor of The Sunday Island, The Island and consultant editor of the Sunday Leader) System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28: 29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdea9bf00)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde9c7b68)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdea9bf00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde9c7b68)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdeb05b10)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde9c7b68)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde9c7b68)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fc4bf3ed8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeacae98)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeacae98)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fde9e4230)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeb6f568)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fde9e4230)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeb6f568)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdeb1fc38)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeb6f568)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeb6f568)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde1b50f0)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeb376e8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeb376e8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdeac56f8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeadb8e8)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdeac56f8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeadb8e8)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdeaba760)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeadb8e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdeadb8e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde1b55c8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeadb3f0)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeadb3f0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 System error error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. context: ... 21: 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: 28:
29: ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25 /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951 /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17 /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149 Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdece6128)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdece3158)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdece6128)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdece3158)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fdecddf48)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdece3158)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdece3158)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fde77c018)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeccfab0)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdeccfab0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0 The G20, an exclusive club of mostly wealthy nations, met just before the COP26 in Glasgow and paid little more than lip service to the worlds leading problems, while preserving their own financial dominance. by Sonali Kolhatkar Heads of state from the worlds wealthiest nations gathered for the first time in person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic at the recent G20 summit meeting in Rome, Italy. The two-day meeting culminated in a grand dinner at the Quirinale Palace, where the evenings menu featured salmon with dill, pumpkin risotto, sea bass fillets, tomato and celeriac puff pastry, and for dessert, a delicate steamed mandarin cream. Guests sat around a large formal dining table in a high-ceilinged palatial room with an impressive crystal chandelier and window dressings of tasseled red drapes. French President Emmanuel Macron attends the opening ceremony of the World Leaders Summit at the 26th United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow, Britain, Nov 1, 2021. [Photo/Xinhua] The dinner was the modern-day equivalent of let them eat cake, the phrase (inaccurately) attributed to the epitome of frivolous luxury by the ruling class (and the last queen of France before the French Revolution), Marie Antoinette. The leaders of the G20 nations, who had gathered under the banner of People, Planet, Prosperity, appear to have disproportionately focused on the third rung of their agenda and limited its scope to the prosperity of elites like them. On the three critical issues of climate change, global corporate taxation, and COVID-19 vaccines, the worlds wealthiest nations looked out for themselves at the expense of the rest of the world. In contrast to the United Nations General Assembly, which represents all the worlds nations, the G20 is a self-selected private club of the top tier of global wealth, only one step below the even-more-exclusive G7 club. Its members are mostly economic powerhouses, with a handful of exceptions of developing nations such as India, China, South Africa, Mexico, and Argentina. Proudly proclaiming that G20 nations account for more than 80 percent of world GDP and 75 percent of global trade, the club sets the rules of global finance. Summit host Mario Draghi, the Italian prime minister, said the 2021 gathering demonstrated that multilateral decision-making is once more possible, declaring, We have succeeded, in the sense of keeping our dreams alive, with no mention of how self-serving the exclusive club really is. Although the 26th meeting of the United Nations Conference of Parties (COP) in Glasgow, Scotland, is currently generating more news headlines than this years G20 summit, wealthy nations made many of their preliminary decisions on climate change at their club meeting before the global climate gathering. While they came to agreement on a handful of issues, such as cutting off funding to coal plants, and getting to net-zero emissions in a few decades, climate advocates slammed the pledges as the bare minimum. Draghi admitted, Its easy to suggest difficult things. Its very very difficult to actually execute them. Eric LeCompte, executive director of Jubilee USA Network, explained to me in an interview that developing countries are suffering from the fact that their natural resources were taken during the industrialization period that took place in Europe and the United States in the 1800s and the 1900s, fueling the climate crisis. Most of these same nations were left out of the recent climate discussions by the G20, as they are too poor to be considered members of the exclusive club. It remains to be seen if these nations will be able to extract greater commitments at the COP26 meeting. LeCompte reflected, it seems right now that there is a lot of despair among countries in terms of if its going to be possible to fulfill pledges like a $100 billion financing pledge to help poorer nations combat climate change. Indeed, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared on Twitter as the summit ended, While I welcome the #G20s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled. In addition to their shamefully insufficient climate pledges, G20 leaders congratulated themselves on tackling the issue of corporate tax evasion. The grand agreement they came to was a minimum 15 percent tax rate for wealthy companies. Hailed as a historic deal, the goal was to ensure reliable tax revenues from big corporations that chase tax havens offering lucrative terms. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen declared that the agreement would end the damaging race to the bottom on corporate taxation. LeCompte commented that the 15 percent minimum rate was certainly progress but falls short of the more ambitious calls of the Biden administration earlier on of 27-28 percent. And, shockingly, it exempts digital technology corporations largely based in the U.S., like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple, from being subject to this bare-bones rate. The U.S. essentially lobbied the G20 on behalf of these major companies to carve out the loophole. LeCompte explained that this agreement really only supports and helps the wealthy countries. While the United States would raise an additional $60 billion in revenues if the agreement is actually adopted, developing nations would not see much of an increase in revenues and are particularly impacted by the tax exemptions for digital technology companies. Even the Wall Street Journal admitted that the G20 tax deal makes rich countries big winners. The G20 nations are also disproportionate beneficiaries of COVID-19 vaccine technology. Draghi opened the summits proceedings by acknowledging that the worlds wealthiest nations have vaccination rates of about 70 percent while only 3 percent of residents in poor nations have been vaccinated. He called such a gap, morally unacceptable. Indeed, LeCompte shared that the crisis in many developing countries is really horrific, and that most countries are experiencing economic loss because of not having access to vaccines. Ahead of the summit, he expected the G20 to offer a concrete plan for financing and distributing vaccines to the worlds poorest nations. And yet, at the summit, they didnt do that, said LeCompte. Instead, he said that they put forward a process in order to do it. That process was essentially to create a task force, which, according to a statement signed by G20 leaders, is aimed at enhancing dialogue and global cooperation on issues relating to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. One advocacy group, Global Citizen, dismissed such demonstrations of lip service, saying, Its no longer the time for statements of intentions. Now is the time for our leaders to act. Among the only pandemic-related achievements at the G20 was a deal that the U.S. arranged for the African Union to buy 33 million doses of the Moderna vaccine originally intended for sale to the U.S.an embarrassingly low bar for success on vaccine equity. While the G20 leaders and their spouses enjoyed their fine dining experience at the culmination of their two-day meeting, it became clear that the summit was little more than an exercise in grand pontifications of multilateralism. Like the erstwhile top echelons of pre-revolutionary French society, the worlds wealthy nations remain out of touch with reality. This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. Sonali Kolhatkar is the founder, host and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, a television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute. Labady told the Sun Sentinel he had no intentions of keeping the ammo inside his house, but would purchase it online from the manufacturer and send directly to the person buying from him. He said he could buy it cheaper by being the middleman and still make a profit: To make a profit you have to get it from the manufacturer. The fees collected on carbon pollution should be returned to us in a cash-back check. Many of us will be using those checks to update to more energy-efficient appliances and cars or to weatherize our homes. In the past, regulatory actions for clean air, clean water, hazardous waste cleanup, etc., have been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike. We need to again patriotically act together to keep America clean and beautiful. Our representatives need to act not only because its the patriotic thing to do, but to keep their jobs. That gathering storm is likely to unleash a torrent of climate catastrophes again next summer in the middle of election season. Its time for Republicans and Democrats to unite to solve this problem with a market-based solution carbon pricing. On Monday, Nov. 8, Springfield visitor Stella Blackmon revealed in a post on Facebook that s Read more Ma Edith Nahwelee Dahwomeh Curran Indeed, it is difficult to find enough adjectives to describe Ma Edith Nahwelee Dahwomeh Curran. We do not know the exact year, let alone the date of Nahwelees birth but from all analyses, it is suspected she was born in 1919. Her father, Yanagi Mator was among others who migrated from Guinea to Kpaiyea in Liberia. After they settled, they planted corn which grew enormously. They, therefore, named the place Kpaiyea, meaning, a hill of corn. Mr. Mator established the section of town (commonly called quarter) the family occupies to this date. Mr. Yangai Mator and his wife, Yangai Luopu, commonly known as Apu, had two boys, Kawkawfleh and Flomoku, and two girls, Kortoe and Nahwelee. While in the marketplace one day in the late 1920s, a cottonwood tree fell across the marketplace and killed many people. Nahwelee was among the injured to the extent that, when taken to the Curran Lutheran Hospital established in Zorzor, Liberia in 1924, the doctor had little choice but to amputate Nahwelees leg below the knee. Unfortunately, Nahwelees people did not think she would ever amount to anything or anyone of significance with an amputated leg. Conversely, missionaries such as Dr. J. D. Curran, Miss Esther Bacon, and Miss M. Bongor fitted the young lady with a prosthetic leg, took her under their wings, and showed her enormous love. Ms. Bacon encouraged her to be courageous while Dr. Curran supported Nahwelee in school. Nahwelee, therefore, took on a new name, Edith Curran, in appreciation of the love Dr. Curran and his wife showed her. The Currans not only supported Edith through eighth grade but led her to the nursing field. By the late 1930s and early 1940s, Edith Curran became a licensed nurse, a true trailblazer in that field. Upon becoming a nurse, one of the first things Edith did was to pay twenty dollars to free her older sister, Kortoe from a bondage marriage to a powerful chief, Chief Gbegbay. She took her sister back to Zorzor along with Sartor and Palaa, the two children Kortoe had with the chief. She also took in her brothers children and the children of Mr. Cole, a tall relative. Likewise, she took her mother, Ma Apu to Zorzor where great grandma stayed until the civil war when she passed away at about the age of 105. After moving to Zorzor, Kortoe, Ediths sister, met and married Mr. Moses Jensen, a man from the Belleh country who traveled to the hospital for surgery. They had two boys and two girls (Kulubo, deceased, duma, Yama, and Stephen). Edith took in those children. Additionally, the children Edith took into her home later began to get children; they were Ediths grandchildren. Beyond them, Edith took in children of relatives and non-relatives; yes she adopted many children, including this grateful writer. Thus, she became Ma Edith until she went to be with the Lord. In addition to taking in children and grandchildren, Ma Edith, whom the community did not think would amount to anyone of significance, return to Kpaiyea and established a village. She made the biggest rice and sugar cane farm in the entire town, but the farm had more than rice and sugar cane. There were goats, pigs, cows, chickens, and more. She also grew cocoa and coffee. She employed people from the area to work on the farm. The farm also became a source for vacation jobs for students who dearly needed to earn little money to enable them to return to school. The farm exists to this day. Taking in children and making a big farm were not easy tasks for Ma Edith. Despite her being amputated, she had to work hard, very hard. She traveled as a nurse to various villages in the area and into Guinea to care for patients, some of whom were taken back to the hospital. Moreover, she was an ardent believer in education; she ensured all who lived in her house went to school. Later, with the help of Wilson Tokpa, one of her children, she started a kindergarten school in her house for the neighbors children who could not afford to attend the government or Lutheran school. Ma Ediths children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have fond memories of and deep profound appreciation for their matriarch. Lady Demoe Johnson said Ma Edith loved without boundaries. Ma Ediths faith in God was a shining example for her. For instance, Ma Edith gave a thousand dollars for Fali, one of her grandchildren, to start a ministry. This became Mission Of Faith which is thriving and expanding today with a church in Liberia and a 501C3 status in the United States. Stephen Jensen remembers ma Edith as a hard worker despite her disability. She held down the family as a single female. Similarly, Rennie Curran remembers Ma Edith as one who loved deeply; she did not choose and pick among people. Rennie also did not realize his mothers impact on others until he took a vacation job with the late Pastor Dugulu who assigned him to Buluyeama, one of three clans in Zorzor District. Wherever Rennie went, when people knew Ma Edith was his mother, he was received enthusiastically as one person after another narrated the kindness Ma Edith showed them when they attended the hospital. Similar compliments could be heard in other clans in the Zorzor District, parts of Liberia, and across borders into Sierra Leone and Guinea. Like her siblings, Esther Curran remembers ma Edith as her mother and father, a courageous and hard-working lady who was strong, caring, and determined. She did not allow her disability to deter her. She always told her children that if others could succeed, they could too. Additionally, she gave, gave, and gave. She fed strangers whom she suspected of being hungry. Moreover, she loved and feared God, and taught her children to do the same. These lifetime examples have stuck with Esther and other children. Josie Curran, who is a nurse, remembers her mother-in-law as one who was a generous giver; she always gave people her best. Josie, who stood over the old mom when she gave up her last, remembers ma Edith as one who was very brilliant, clean, adamant about proper nutrition, passionate about nursing, strong in faith, curious to learn new things, and always grateful. When people thank Josie for taking care of Ma Edithand deservedly soJosie always says she could not possibly match the love Ma Edith showed her; ma Edith loved her first, sincerely, and deeply. She is thankful to god that Ma Edith did not suffer in giving up her last; she passed quietly and peacefully. Duma Jensen, the oldest of the children now, shares the views of his siblings. He remembers Ma Ediths ambition to educate anyone who went through her house. Duma stresses that whatever he is, and whomever he has become, the catalyst was ma Edith sending him, the late William Curran, and Rennie Curran to the Lutheran Training Institute, LTI. She sent us on our way, duma concluded with palpable gratitude. Ma Edith Nahwelee Dahwomeh Curran Similarly, Yama Jensen remains exceedingly grateful to ma Edith. She remembers ma Edith returning home after a midnight shift but not resting. Rather, ma Edith would go around town to find something for the children to eat. Yama added, She sacrificed for everyone. With all she had, she still gave and gave. Moreover, ma Ediths emphasis on faith and prayer remains with Yama to this day. Wilson Tokpa also expressed gratitude to Ma Edith. He is grateful for Ma Ediths strong faith and unselfish attitude which she passed on to him and other children. He is grateful for ma Ediths insistence on sound education and Ma Ediths boundless love and generosity. I will be remiss if I fail to mention how Ma Edith loved me sincerely as her son. On my account, she took in my first girlfriend. Besides, she was always there with motherly advice and, of course, her touching Bible verses. Doubtless, she was a nonpareil in terms of loving and caring for people. No doubt, each person is grateful to Ma Edith for the example she set, for the manner in which she gave and gave despite a disability. Unfortunately, we could not talk to all the children; we did not talk to any of the grandchildren or great-grandchildren although we benefited from a tribute Amelia Tokpa-Addy wrote a couple of years ago to her grandmother. Indeed, enough cannot be said about Ma Edith Curran for her impact was huge and far-reaching. Hence, Amelia, who is a nurse, reminds us: Grandma is featured in a book Titled "Outlaw for God; The Esther Bacon Story". In 2011, the Dame Grand Commander in the Humane Order of African Redemption distinction was Conferred on Grandma by the then President of the Republic of Liberia, H.E. Madame Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. In sum, the truth remains that, despite her height and disability, Ma Edith was a towering figure who touched many lives, including Peace Corps teachers who lived in her house. Therefore, Zorzor District, Lofa County, Liberia, and indeed the world have irreplaceably lost a great one. However, while we remain ever grateful to this great lady, and as she continues her homeward journey in the arms of smiling angels, we take solace in the legacy she left behind, namely, the example she set for us to emulate. Thank you, thank you, and thank you Ma Edith Curran! MINE-EMI Gulf Property Show at The Avenues will take place from November 24 to 27 at The Avenues Mall Bahrain, the organiser Hilal Conferences and Exhibitions (HCE) has confirmed. The boutique showcase will be the first real estate event in the kingdom for over two years. The Gulf Property Show (GPS) brand has a reputation of bringing together the real estate industry and prospective investors. The Gulf Property Show at The Avenues Mall has attracted strategic sponsorship of Edamah (Bahrain Real Estate Investment Company), the real estate arm of the Kingdoms sovereign wealth fund, and GFH Properties, the real estate arm of Gulf Financial House Financial Group. Gold Sponsors are Naseej, the MENA regions first fully integrated real estate and infrastructure development company. Jubran Abdulrahman, Managing Director of HCE, commented: After several false starts for the return of the event in The Avenues Mall, we can now say that the show will go ahead. We are humbled that the Gulf Property Show, though out of site for two years, is still popular in the hearts and minds of developers and investors alike. Our sponsors represent an invaluable vote of confidence from the leading real estate developers in Bahrain. The Gulf Property Show at The Avenues also carries the organisational support of the Real Estate Regulatory Authority of Bahrain (RERA), and has received approval from both the Ministry of Health and the Bahrain Tourism and Exhibitions Authority. Visitors are welcome from 10 am to 10 pm at the Harbour Gate Entrance. -TradeArabia News Service The Cityscape Summit opened its doors today as government, industry and thought leaders descended on the Dubai Exhibition Centre (DEC) at Dubai Expo 2020 to take part in a number of topics defining the current and future real estate landscape from across the region and beyond. The event, runnilg till November 11, was officially inaugurated by Sultan Butti bin Mejren, Director General of Dubai Land Department. Taking a look at the global economic outlook, Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development at University of Oxford, shared his thoughts about the future of the world economy and the implications for Dubai and its property sector. Identifying the Urban 2040 Plan and recent amendments to property and visa laws, Goldin believes there are very few places on earth that have achieved what the UAE has in the last 60 years. The world economy will look very different than it does today by the year 2040. China will be the largest economy by far probably accounting for about 18% of global economic activity, the US will have slipped from number one to number three, India will be bigger than the US at number two at around 15% and Indonesia will be close behind the US, with about 10% of global economic activity, he said. The centre of global economic gravity is shifting fast, and the pandemic like with so many other things has accelerated this shift towards this region and further east. In that, the UAE is ideally placed to be a bridge and a centre. Not only is it where things are happening and changing, but the composition of economic activity and markets are aligning perfectly, as well, said Goldin. He identified some of the UAEs key industries that are growth sectors. Manufacturing, services, digital, financial, hospitality, retirement, care, health and education are all accounting for a greater share of our economies. Again, this places the UAE and Dubai in an ideal situation because these are where the country is excelling. More people will come here to enjoy and work in these industries, with dramatic implications for property and the real estate sector. We are already seeing a rebound to the sorts of levels seen before the pandemic, and this will be sustained. Real estate market has seen fivefold investment Meanwhile, Ian Albert, CEO Colliers MENA, discussed the staggering increase in real estate investment and how as an asset class, rental collection rates make it a keen focus for institutional investors and funds. In 2014 there was a report by Grosvener Estates about resilient cities. Effectively what they came up with is new ways of looking at property investment. And it took two different lumps of assessments one called vulnerability which looked at citys vulnerability to things like climate change, industrial changes and adaptability such as governance and how quickly it could change itself. The outcome of those numbers is resilience. Whats happening in the global investment market has been a shift from the traditional shopping malls, offices and industrial parks and since 2008 the investment from funds and institutions into the real estate market as increased fivefold. In the last five years alone, residential investment has grown 30% in Europe from funds. This year, a full 25% of committed investment fund money has gone in to residential, he said. According to Albert, the increase in residential investment is due to it being a good cash business. Rental collection rates of various investment funds in 2021 was sitting at 95-97%. Industrial and logistics are quite high with 85-87% and office space is around 70-75% rent collected. So, if you look at it from a cash-on-cash business it wins. The UAE markets total available assets for foreign investment is somewhere around $350-450 billion now that foreign investors can buy now in this market. If you look at returns in Dubai, capital growth is sitting at about 30% with yields at around 5%, clearly outperforming some of the key markets in Europe. A glimpse into the future Nasser Abu Shehab, Chief Executive Officer, Strategy and Corporate Governance, Dubai RTA also spoke on day one of the summit to look at how Dubais Vision 2040 will shape real estate and future investment. According to Abu Shehab, two of the plans strategic themes will be imperative to the ongoing growth of Dubais real estate sector planning vibrant and healthy communities and the national housing programme. The Dubai Urban master plan is focused on the development and investment in to five main urban centres, three existing and two new. This will support growth of the economic sector and increase job opportunities across the city. Two of the new areas are Expo 2020 and Dubai Silicon Oasis, both new and important areas for tourism, research and events. The 2040 Urban Plan also proposed over 120 strategic projects and initiatives through direct government investments or private sector partnerships and attracting foreign direct investment. These are specifically designed to forge a new and advanced economic sector and well as supporting vital sectors such as tourism and logistics, said Shehab. The Cityscape Summit hosted here at the Dubai Exhibition Centre with the amazing backdrop of the Expo 2020 site will explore the sustainability of our future ambitions and our visions. Over the next two days, we will hear from government organisations, industry experts and chief economists, who will share the micro and macro insights that will ensure these opportunities are maximised but with some knowledge and understanding of what the future may look like, said Chris Speller, Cityscape Group Director. - TradeArabia News Service A nationwide tree planting campaign with participation of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov was held in Turkmenistan. In Ashgabat, tree planting took place in the territory of a new park complex around the Makhtumkuli monument in the foothills of Kopetdag. Together with the head of state, members of the government, parliament, heads and representatives of ministries, departments, student youth and residents of the Turkmen capital participated in planting of trees. The current campaign is part of the systematic nature-conservation work in Turkmenistan that is aimed, among other things, at solving the problems associated with climate change. Three million trees are traditionally planted in the country every year. However, 2020 and 2021 were record years in this regard. For example, last year, 25 million were planted in celebration of the 25th anniversary of Turkmenistans neutrality, and 30 million trees are to be planted this year on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of independence. Planting of trees was held in all regions of Turkmenistan. TURKMENISTAN.RU, 2021 Buenos Aires, Nov 7 (UNI/Sputnik) Nearly 20 people were killed as a result of a major accident on a highway in Mexico, the countrys federal highway authority, CAPUFE, informs. The accident occurred on Saturday afternoon, when a truck, which appeared to have suffered from a brake malfunction, crashed into cars waiting at a toll booth on the highway that connects Mexico City with the city of Puebla. "When crossing the toll booth, the truck dragged six vehicles, causing the death of 19 people and injuring 3. Among the deceased is the driver of the truck," CAPUFE said in a Saturday statement. Several vehicles caught on fire as a result of the accident. UNI/SPUTNIK GNK 0734 Dhaka, Nov 7 (UNI) The trial of people arrested in connection with recent attacks on Hindu community in Bangladesh will be completed in the quickest possible time, said Attorney General (AG) of Bangladesh AM Amin. He further said that any new law to be formulated will delay the trial process. Earlier, the Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council (HBCUC) announced it will hold a protest procession called 'Dhikkar Michil' across the country on November 12 against attacks on the minority community, which started during the Durga Puja on October 13. Rana Dasgupta, General Secretary of HBCUC, said the minorities suffered attacks in 27 districts between October 13-November 1. He said 117 temples or mandaps were vandalised and 301 homes and business establishments were damaged during the attack. Advisor to the Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson, Khandkar Abdul Muktadir in an interview to UNI, slammed the ruling Awami League for blaming BNP for communal violence in the country for achieving its own interests. He also held the ruling party responsible for increased persecution of Hindus. UNI MAZ RNJ New Delhi, Nov 6 (UNI) BJP's national executive meeting will be held at the NDMC Convention Centre here on Sunday, party's General Secretary Arun Singh said on Saturday. "The meeting will be held under the chairmanship of BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda. It will start at 1000 hrs. All senior party leaders, who are members of the national executive committee, will attend the meeting. Total 124 members will participate in the meeting at the NDMC Convention Centre," Singh said while addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters here. Among the senior leaders include former national presidents of the party and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari, and added that the meeting will conclude with the address of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The BJP leader informed that all the members have not been called to attend the meeting here keeping in view the Covid-19 protocol. He, however, said the members, Chief Ministers and BJP state presidents will participate in the meeting virtually through two-way communication by sitting in their respective State office. "Deliberations will be held on upcoming Assembly elections in five states - UP, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab," Singh informed. Assembly elections in these states will be held next year. The meeting comes days after the announcement of results of the by-elections in which the saffron party's performance was 'mixed'. UNI DS RJ SHK1610 Beijing, Nov 7 (UNI/Xinhua) Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Saturday held a telephonic conversation with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian over bilateral relations and practical cooperation. China and Iran are comprehensive strategic partners, Wang said, noting that no matter how the international situation changes, China will firmly develop its friendly relationship and advance practical cooperation with Iran so as to bring more benefits to the two countries and their peoples. China is ready to work with Iran to continue to oppose unilateralism and bullying, uphold the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs, and safeguard the common interests of developing countries, Wang said. China is also ready to strengthen anti-pandemic cooperation with Iran until the pandemic is finally defeated, he said, adding that China hopes Iran will support the Global Development Initiative. China welcomes Iran's decision to resume negotiations for a return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) at the end of this month, which shows Iran's positive attitude toward resuming the implementation of the deal, Wang said. The US side should take the first step to take corrective actions because it unilaterally withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal, Wang said, adding that on this basis Iran can resume fulfilling its commitments in the nuclear field. All parties should strengthen coordination and jointly push the negotiations in the right direction, and China supports Iran to strengthen its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which will create a good atmosphere for the resumption of negotiations, he said. Wang congratulated Iran on successfully hosting the Second Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan's Neighboring Countries, saying the mechanism of the foreign ministers' meeting came at the right time and has attracted attention from various sides. Noting China is going to host the third foreign ministers' meeting, Wang said the country stands ready to strengthen coordination with Iran and other parties to accumulate consensus and strive to achieve more results by then. The six countries should give full play to the advantages of neighboring countries and highlight their distinctive features, so as to play a unique and constructive role in achieving lasting peace and stability in Afghanistan while addressing the legitimate concerns of their neighboring countries, Wang said. For his part, Abdollahian said Iran-China relations are strategic, stressing that the new Iranian government will firmly develop friendly cooperation with China. Iran thanks China for its strong support in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, and hopes to continue to deepen anti-pandemic cooperation with China, he said. Iran appreciates China's positive stance and constructive role in the Iranian nuclear issue, is committed to the negotiations for a return to the JCPOA, and is ready to strengthen communication and coordination with China in this regard, he said. He said Iran attached great importance to cooperation with the IAEA, and would invite the agency's Director General Rafael Grossi to visit Iran in the near future. Iran fully supports the Global Development Initiative, and supports China in successfully hosting the third Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan's Neighboring Countries, he added. UNI/XINHUA VP SY 1810 Suva, Nov 7 (UNI/Xinhua) The Fijian government is preparing to inoculate children aged 12 to 14 with the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19 from November 15. According to the Fijivillage news website Sunday, the vaccine rollout for this age group came after a total of 32,533 children aged 15 to 17 have received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 20,059 have received their second dose. Fiji's health ministry has encouraged parents to get their children vaccinated to gain maximum protection from the coronavirus epidemic. The ministry said the Covid-19 vaccination for children is not compulsory while noting that Covid-19 vaccines are safe and effective and can provide protection from severe illness, hospitalization and death. There have been 674 deaths recorded due to Covid-19 in the Pacific island country, with 672 of them during the outbreak that started in April this year. UNI/XINHUA VP RNJ New Delhi, Nov 7 (UNI) Minister of State for External Affairs Dr. Rajkumar Ranjan Singh will pay an official visit to New York during which he will attend a High Level Open Debate of the UN Security Council on Exclusion, Inequality and Conflict. The debate is under the agenda item of Maintenance of International Peace and Security to be convened by the Mexican Presidency of the UNSC on November 9. The event would be chaired by the President of Mexico. (The Center Square) Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry is challenging the legality of a new federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule tied to President Joe Bidens COVID-19 vaccination mandate on private businesses. Landry joined attorneys general from Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah on Friday in suing the administration. The lawsuit was filed directly with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans. I trust our Petition for Review will be granted by the Fifth Circuit, and I look forward to showing them the many statutory and constitutional reasons why the Court must halt implementation of the OSHA rule, Landry said in a statement. The legal challenge came a day after Landry sued the Biden administration on behalf of federal contractors. That lawsuit also is a multistate effort involving Mississippi and Indiana, though the case is led by Landrys office. As the chief legal officer of Louisiana, Im taking action to prevent the government from making your health care choices, Landry said Thursday evening. The mandate applies to businesses with 100 or more employees and is expected to affect an estimated 84 million workers. While I would have much preferred that requirements not become necessary, too many people remain unvaccinated for us to get out of this pandemic for good, Biden said. According to an interim rule filed with the Federal Register, affected businesses must require employees to be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4 or impose mandatory mask rules and weekly COVID-19 tests for all unvaccinated employees. The OSHA will enforce the mandate, which also requires private employers to keep records on employee vaccination statuses and comply with OSHA spot-checks. The interim rule said the agency will rely largely on complaints to initiate enforcement activities. Mandate violations could result in fines of nearly $14,000 per employee. Businesses that are in willful violation of the requirements could face fines up to $136,000. Fridays lawsuit included several large businesses along with the five state plaintiffs. The list of named defendants includes the U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA and their respective agency heads. In a Thursday evening video statement, Landry said the private sector vaccine requirement is an attempt to bully Louisiana into complying with an unlawful mandate. He also said it will cost Louisiana billions of dollars. You see, Louisiana receives a large amount of federal funds about 60% of our state budget is federal money. It affects our local governments and institutions of higher learning as well, he said. Both lawsuits raise issues about federalism and government overreach, and the federal contractor complaint claims the scope of the mandate is as broad as possible. Thus, the guidance ensures that the contractor vaccine mandate applies to all employees of a contractor or subcontractor who is party to a federal contract even if the employees work is completely unrelated to the contract or if the employee will never work in a location with a co-worker who is working on a federal contract, the lawsuit reads. In his statement, Landry was careful to explain he is not questioning the pandemics impact on Louisiana, saying, Many have been ill, some even hospitalized, others have lost loved ones. It is imperative to never lose sight of our individual rights, he said. The tension between rights and safety has been at the core of the vaccination debate, especially in Louisiana. The state has maintained one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. According to the Mayo Clinic, Louisiana ranks 44th out of 50 states with a 47.8% of eligible residents vaccinated. Still, Landry said medical decisions should be made between patients and doctors, not mandated by the government. South Boston, VA (24592) Today Partly cloudy this morning, then becoming cloudy during the afternoon. High 58F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy skies with periods of light rain late. Low near 45F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. #VacunateYa ???? En los ultimos dos dias el Peru, a traves del #Minsa, recibio un total de 2 171 330 dosis de vacunas contra la #COVID19 para continuar con el proceso de vacunacion dirigido a la poblacion de 12 anos o mas en todo el pais. Conoce mas aqui ??https://t.co/9WDdXrF4Ob Scotland's largest Pictish fort 'reconstructed' in new images Stunning new reconstructions have revealed how Scotland's largest known Pictish fort may have looked over one thousand years ago. Three-dimensional images of Burghead in Moray have been created based on archaeological excavations by the University of Aberdeen. Reconstruction of Burghead [Credit: University of Aberdeen/Dundee] Funded by Historic Environment Scotland as part of a wider video project to enable the public to learn more about Scotlands Pictish past, the images showcase the enormous defensive ramparts, which were once thought to be eight metres thick and six metres high, as well as dwellings within the fort. It has long been known that Burghead was home to a Pictish settlement but it was thought that the 19th century development of the modern town had eroded most traces of this important period of its history. The landward ramparts were levelled and part of the seaward defences was destroyed in order to build the modern harbour. Reconstruction of Burghead [Credit: University of Aberdeen/Dundee] More than 30 Pictish carved stones were discovered during this destruction of the fort but just six carved bulls have survived along with a number of fragments of early Christian sculpture. When University of Aberdeen archaeologists first began excavations there in 2015, they expected little to have survived such extensive building work close by. But over the last five years, a very different picture has emerged and the digs, led by the Universitys Professor Gordon Noble, and funded by both Historic Environment Scotland and the Leverhulme Trust, have yielded some of the most significant Pictish items and building remains ever uncovered. It is this work which has enabled such a detailed reconstruction of how the site may have looked. Professor Noble said: The scale of houses and buildings we have discovered evidence of show that this was a densely populated and important Pictish site. Reconstruction of Burghead [Credit: University of Aberdeen/Dundee] We have found many objects which have helped us to learn more about the everyday lives of Burgheads inhabitants between the 6th and 10th centuries AD. From metalworking to weaponry and even hair and dress pins, with each new dig we are finding out more about our ancestors who lived here. The foundations of the huge ramparts have survived far better than anyone anticipated, despite their wilful destruction over the centuries and the midden layers, which is effectively where the Picts threw their rubbish, have provided startling insights into the lives of the Picts to the archaeologists. It wonderful to see the work of our excavations spanning more than five years brought together in these stunning reconstructions which offer an amazing insight into how Burghead may have looked. Reconstruction of Burghead [Credit: University of Aberdeen/Dundee] The reconstructions were coordinated by Dr Alice Watterson of the University of Dundee with additional filming and editing work by Kieran Duncan and arial drone filming by Dr Kieran Baxter, members of Dundees 3DVisLab research group. They also include a spectacular well enveloped in the ramparts. Elements of this can still be seen today and the archaeologists have pieced together how this fitted with dwellings and other buildings across the site. Evidence of early Christian occupation was also uncovered in previous excavations, supporting theories that a chapel once stood at the entrance to the site, and this has been translated into the 3-D design. This is how Burghead looks today [Credit: University of Aberdeen/Dundee] The fort at Burghead was destroyed by fire in the 10th century - a time when Vikings are known to have been raiding the Moray coastline bringing to a rapid end a way of life which had endured for centuries. The fort then remained unoccupied until around the 12th Century. Dr Kevin Grant, Archaeology Manager of Historic Environment Scotland said: Burghead fort was one of the most important places in Early Medieval Scotland, and was built to be dramatic and imposing. These reconstructions help us imagine experiencing this spectacular site in its hey-day. We are also delighted to support these excavations, which are transforming our understanding of Pictish Scotland and saving important archaeological remains from being lost to the waves. Dr Watterson added: "Burghead has certainly been one of our most challenging projects to date. Not only has it been one of the largest sites I have reconstructed, but in order to model its full extent we had to completely remodel the landscape to remove the modern town and rebuild the eroded cliffs." "Working in visualisation and outreach involves blending interpretation and research with compelling visual storytelling. For our team, capturing a sense of place for Burghead was particularly important. Its dramatic location on the Moray coast is key not only to its archaeological interpretation but also what makes it such a special place to visit today." Additional funding from Historic Environment Scotland is supporting additional excavations at the site which it is hoped will further understanding of how those who lived at the site connected to the wider world. Source: University of Aberdeen [November 02, 2021] Support The Archaeology News Network with a small donation! TANN YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 7, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan assures that the government is taking daily actions for the return of the Armenian captives from Azerbaijan. We must work tirelessly for the quick return of our brothers. And we do so. Work is being done on this direction every day, he said in an interview to Public TV. Pashinyan said that work needs to be done with the international partners, the international community and also with Azerbaijan for this issue to be solved as soon as possible. Despite the commitments assumed by the 2020 November 9 statement on the ceasefire in Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan still refuses to return all Armenian captives. Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan The Spanish Company URO Vehiculos Especiales (UROVESA) S.A presents the 4x4 VAMTAC LTV (Light Tactical Vehicle) at FEINDEF 2021, International Defense Exhibition that was held in Spain. This vehicle is the smallest brother of the VAMTAC 4x4 High Mobility Tactical Vehicles. Spanish Company UROVESA presents its VAMTAC LTV Light Tactical Vehicle at FEINDEF 2021, Defense Exhibition in Spain. (Picture source Army Recognition) Originally, the URO VAMTAC was developed by the Spanish company URO, Vehiculos Especiales S.A. to meet the requirements of the Spanish military for a multipurpose, air-portable, high mobility off-road vehicle with good payload capacity. The VAMTAC LTV (Light Tactical Vehicle) has been developed by UROVESA to complete the wide range of this independent suspension platform, with a light vehicle capable of developing tactical and logistic functions. The VAMTAC LTV is based on a pickup design with the engine at the front, the crew in the middle, and a cargo area at the rear. The body is made of aluminum to reach a weight of 3,500 kg for the non-armored version. It has a maximum payload capacity of 1,000 kg. The vehicle is fitted with a single or a double cabin able to accommodate up to five people. The VAMTAC LTV is a 4x4 light tactical vehicle using independent suspension with a 2-speed transfer case. The vehicle can be fitted with different types of engines but the standard version is motorized with a Euro 3 engine developing 150 hp. With its special driveline with 100% mechanical locking system together with the high power/weight ratios and its large ground clearance allowing the LTV exceeds the performance of most existing light-duty 4x4 vehicles. At FEINDEF 2021, the roof of the VAMTAC LTV was fitted with a light remotely operated weapon station armed with one 7.62mm machine gun. Today, combat vehicles, as well as non-combat vehicles, need to be equipped with weapon stations to increase protection against ambush attacks. Tactical and logistic convoys have become privileged targets on the new battlefields. A pro-government rally in Addis Ababa Tens of thousands of people took part in mass rallies in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Sunday to show support for the government in its fight against an alliance of rebel forces threatening to march on the city. Fighting has been going on since November 2020 between the government of Ethiopia and forces in its northern Tigray region. Eritrean soldiers are also fighting in Tigray for the Ethiopian government. All sides have been accused of atrocities. The conflict has displaced more than 2 million people and left 400,000 in Tigray at risk of famine In a speech to the crowd, the capital's mayor, Adanech Abebe, castigated the Tigrayan rebels and called on the city's residents to play a heroic role by fighting them Pro-government forces have struggled to repel the rebel advance. Tigrayan forces recently seized two strategically important towns about 300km (186 miles) from Addis Ababa Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has come under intense pressure as the conflict has developed and this week called on citizens to take up arms and "bury" the rebel forces Despite the show of solidarity, a year of war has left millions of Ethiopians in need of urgent humanitarian assistance and international pressure for a ceasefire has been intensifying All photos subject to copyright. The mandate would apply to tens of millions of US workers A US appeals court has temporarily blocked President Joe Biden's plans for a vaccine mandate for businesses. The law would require workers at private companies with more than 100 employees to get fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or be tested weekly. But the court found "grave statutory and constitutional" issues with the rule, set to be introduced in January. It said it was suspending the mandate and gave the Biden administration until Monday to respond. Five Republican-led states - Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah - as well as private companies and religious groups, had filed legal challenges against the mandate. They accused the president of overstepping his authority. Louisiana's Attorney General Jeff Landry tweeted that the court's decision was a "major win for the liberty of job creators and their employees". If enforced, the ruling by the the fifth US circuit court of appeals would be a blow to the Biden administration's sweeping measures to extend vaccination. Mr Biden says the mandate, which would cover more than two-thirds of the nation's workers, would set a national standard of safety at work. On Thursday, the president said employees at large companies would have to be fully vaccinated by 4 January, calling vaccination "the single best pathway out of this pandemic". Many businesses in the US already require their employees to be vaccinated. There are also requirements for military and federal contractors. But opponents say it is not constitutional for a president to impose such a sweeping nationwide rule. Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has opposed government mandates on vaccines and masks, applauded the court's decision. "We will have our day in court to strike down Biden's unconstitutional abuse of authority," he said. But Labor Department solicitor Seema Nanda said it was "confident in its legal authority" to issue the rule. "We are fully prepared to defend this standard in court," she said. During the month of November, the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church has specific feasts which taken together commemorate what we pray in the Apostles Creed: I believe in the communion of saints. All those, baptized in Christ, whether living or dead, are part of the communion of saints. Nov. 1 was the Solemnity of All Saints commemorating that great multitude of holy ones who stand before the throne of God in heaven (see Revelation 7:9). Nov. 2 was the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed, traditionally known as All Souls Day. Catholics on this day pray for the souls in Purgatory those who die in Gods grace and are assured of their eternal salvation, but are still in need of purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (see Revelation 21:27). Purgatory is a wonderful example of Gods mercy, drawing us to himself even after death. Nov. 9, this coming Tuesday, is the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, the Cathedral Church of the bishop of Rome (Pope Francis) and the mother church of all Churches. Whenever we celebrate the dedication of a church, we are really celebrating the people who make up the church, those still living in this world. Some have described the communion of saints as comprising the church triumphant those in heaven, the church suffering those in purgatory, and the Church militant those of us still on their faith journey in this world. Presiding over the communion of saints is Our Lord Jesus Christ King of the Universe, whose feast is celebrated on the last Sunday of the church year, which this year is Nov. 21. Because the communion of saints unites all who are in Christ, we can pray for one another. Those on earth can pray to and with the saints in heaven and also can pray for the souls in purgatory. The souls in purgatory can pray for us. The saints in heaven can intercede for us. Some Christians think we shouldnt pray to the saints but should go directly to God. But it must please God to have his children helping one another. Thats why God commands us in scripture to pray for one another (see James 5:16). Just as we might ask a friend to pray for us, so we can ask the saints to pray for us or to intercede for us because of their position in glory enabling their prayers to be more efficacious. Images of our friends, the saints, can be found in most churches. At St. Marys Church, there are statues of the Virgin Mary (Patron of the church), St. Anne, St. Joseph, St. Anthony, St. Isaac Jogues, St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Christopher (outdoors). At. St. Francis of Assisi Church, there are statues of the Virgin Mary, St. Anne, St. Joseph, St. Francis (patron of the church), St. Clare, St. Anthony, St. Padre Pio, St. Peregrine, St. Lucy, St. Therese of the Child Jesus and St. Jude. At St. Hyacinth Church, there are statues of the Virgin Mary, St. Hyacinth (patron of the church), St. Francis, St. Anthony, St. Maximilian Kolbe and various male and female saints on either side of the church. At St. Joseph Church in Weedsport are statues of the Virgin Mary, and St. Joseph (patron of the church) and St. Anthony. At St. Patrick Church in Cato, there are statues of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. Patrick (patron of the church). Catholics and others have specific devotions to particular saints: the Virgin Mary, Mother of God (a powerful intercessor), St. Anne (Mother of Mary, grandmother of Jesus, patron of grandmothers), St. Joseph (patron of carpenters, invoked for house sales, a happy death), St. Anthony (invoked for finding lost objects), St. Francis (patron of animals, ecology), St. Peregrine (invoked against cancer), St. Lucy (invoked against eye ailments), St. Jude (invoked for impossible situations), St. Therese of Lisieux, known as the Little Flower (patron of the missions and florists), St. Padre Pio (invoked for healing of pain and suffering). Almighty ever-living God, by whose gift we venerate the merits of all the saints, bestow on us, we pray, through the prayers of so many intercessors an abundance of the reconciliation with you for which we earnestly long. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen The Rev. Frank E. Lioi is pastor of St. Marys Church and SS. Mary & Martha Parish (St. Francis and St. Hyacinth churches) in Auburn, Our Lady of the Snow Parish (St. Joseph Church, Weedsport, and St. Patrick Church, Cato) in northern Cayuga County, and dean of the East Region (Cayuga and Tompkins counties) of the Diocese of Rochester. He can be reached at flioi@dor.org. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Students in Auburn's Herman Avenue and Owasco elementary schools were able to get COVID-19 vaccines on Tuesday as Cayuga County started the fi Aided by strong growth in sales tax revenue and fund balance, Cayuga County's tentative 2022 budget would keep property taxes flat if adopted by the Legislature. The county Legislature last week received Chairperson Aileen McNabb-Coleman's proposed spending plan. At a special meeting held Thursday, she and budget director Lynn Marinelli presented highlights of a proposed $160.6 million budget. While total spending under the plan would increase by 5.5%, it includes significant use of the county's fund balance, which is effectively the county's savings account, and anticipates considerably higher sales tax revenue than what was budgeted in the current year's budget. The amount of money that would be raised through property taxes, at $42.3 million, would remain flat. The average tax rate for property owners, the amount charged per $1,000 of assessed value, would decrease by 5.9% because of increases in property values countywide. "Our employees and residents continue to make sacrifices and remain inconvenienced under the strain of COVID-19," McNabb-Coleman said in her budget message, which was included with the draft plan. "I'm presenting a budget that does not add additional burden to our residents." Cayuga County's state-imposed tax increase cap for next year is estimated to be 4%. Despite the flat property tax levy and the lower tax rate, Legislator Keith Batman cautioned legislators about how to communicate with constituents about the budget because property assessments also affect tax bills. "This does not mean that when you get your tax bill, you will pay less taxes," said Batman, who chairs the Legislature Ways & Means Committee that will review the proposal over the next two weeks. He noted that the flat levy should mean that many taxpayers won't see their bills change at all. The committee will hold special meetings on Monday and on Nov. 16 and Nov. 18 to go through the budget with department heads and recommend changes. The full Legislature will vote on a preliminary budget plan at its Nov. 23 meeting, which will set a public hearing on the plan in December ahead of a final vote before the year ends. Sales tax revenue projection was one of the major discussion points at last week's meeting. The tentative budget set that funding stream at $25.5 million, about $2.3 million above the current budgeted amount but well below the $27 million that Marinelli said is expected in actual sales tax funds for this year. Marinelli said the county tries to be conservative with sales tax projections. "Historically we've been outperforming (the budgeted amount)," she said. The budget also includes a substantial increase in general fund balance use, taking $2.1 million to fund operations in 2022 after budgeting for $1.2 million in the current year. About $800,000 of that fund balance, though, would be spent on two major roof replacement projects on county facilities: the public safety building on County House Road in Sennett and the 95 Genesee St. building in downtown Auburn that houses multiple county agencies, including the district attorney's office. Marinelli noted that the fund balance is expected to end 2021 at $22 million. The Legislature's fund balance policy is to maintain the account at 10% to 15% of the total general fund, which translates to $14.1 million to $21.2 million. "We're reinvesting it in things we haven't been budgeting in recent years," she said. The plan creates two new full-time posts: an identification officer in the sheriff's office and a senior public health assistant in the health department. It also adds part-time hours in the parks department, emergency management office and district attorney's office. Outside organizations that rely on county funding would also get funding boosts. Cornell Cooperative Extension would receive an extra $65,235, taking its total county funding up to $315,000. Cayuga County Soil and Water Conservation District would get $700,000, up by $25,000. And Cayuga Economic Development Agency would receive $75,000 more, taking its total to $375,000. Legislators Paul Pinckney and Timothy Lattimore both asked about the CEDA increase, noting that the agency had been asked to spend down its reserves in past years and inquiring what the status of those reserves is now. McNabb-Coleman said the agency had spent out of reserves in recent years, but did not have specifics on how much was spent and on what it was spent. She said that information would be provided for legislators as they work on the budget over the next two weeks. Jeremy Boyer can be reached at (315) 282-2231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @CitizenBoyer Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The future of one of the St. Louis region's most important assembly lines could depend on the next 60 days. Boeing's Super Hornets are in the final months of an international jet fighter sweepstakes, on the cusp of wooing Canada and Finland into multibillion-dollar deals. The orders could keep thousands of workers busy through the end of the decade. The new work can't come fast enough. The U.S. Navy is looking to curtail Super Hornet orders after more than two decades of support, leaving Boeing with a gap between current orders and those to come. At the same time, the company needs the Super Hornet to drive development of new fighters, a competition pitting the nation's aerospace giants in a race to the next generation of aerial warfare contracts that could keep assembly lines like those here in St. Louis humming for decades. "If there's going to be a sixth-generation fighter, Boeing needs a bridge," said Loren Thompson, a defense industry consultant and executive with the Lexington Institute. The Super Hornet is Boeing's all-purpose naval workhorse, built to live on a carrier deck and handle any mission thrown at it, from dogfights and airstrikes to acting as a fuel tanker. It's also been a big winner in Washington: Since it entered production more than two decades ago, Congress has allocated roughly $50 billion for nearly 700 planes. But they've been a harder sell abroad. The past quarter century has garnered just two foreign customers: Australia and Kuwait. Germany has announced its intent to follow, but, even if the deal is finalized, production on that program won't start until 2026, Boeing said two years after the last American order is scheduled to roll off the line. Impending decisions from Canada and Finland could fill that gap. Both countries are looking to replace McDonnell Douglas Hornets procured decades ago, and they have the evolved Hornet on their shortlists. For the Canadian order, Boeing is promising to partner with five Canadian companies to build, maintain, support and train pilots on 88 new planes, a buy it says will deliver 61 billion Canadian dollars in economic impact and 250,000 jobs. In Finland, where Boeing is offering 64 planes, the company has also touted opportunities for local industry and emphasized that the Super Hornet could reuse much of the infrastructure built for the old Hornet. Thompson, the Lexington Institute executive, isn't buying it. He expects both countries to go with the Hornet's main competitor, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin's newer, more advanced and stealthier F-35, built in Fort Worth, Texas. "It's become the global standard for tactical aircraft," he said. "And with the exception of Germany, all their allies will be flying F-35s." Boeing hasn't been on the best terms with the Canadian government of late. The company lost an opportunity to sell Canada some Super Hornets a few years back when it accused Ottawa of illegally subsidizing one of its competitors in the commercial airliner business. But some analysts said not every country needs the high-end stealth of the F-35, an argument Boeing itself makes. "F-35 is the car you drive on Sunday, and the Super Hornet is the car you drive every other day, to work and school," said Boeing F/A-18 program manager Jen Splaingard. The Super Hornet is also cheaper, part of its appeal to the U.S. Navy in recent years. "We have seen orders for Super Hornets just based on price tag," said Jeff Windau, who covers Boeing at local brokerage Edward Jones. "The F-35 is very expensive and is not necessarily what is needed in all applications." If neither Canada nor Finland buys the pitch, Boeing could face a "business decision" on whether to subsidize the line until a new order comes in, Splaingard said. That could mean stretching out current orders or diverting workers to other lines. But if the pitches sell, Boeing would get money to keep people in place for the real prize: next-generation aircraft. St. Louis hasn't won one of those in decades: McDonnell Douglas lost the F-22 fighter competition to Lockheed Martin in the 1990s. Boeing, which bought McDonnell in 1997, fared the same against the F-35 in 2001. And six years ago, Washington chose Northrop Grumman to build the new stealth bomber. The search for sixth-generation fighters could be Boeing's last chance to get back in the game before the Super Hornet and F-15, which Boeing builds for the Air Force, finally die out. Most of Boeing's work on that is classified, locked away in Phantom Works, the secretive research division named for McDonnell's iconic Cold War fighter. But Boeing told the Post-Dispatch some of its progress is visible in the newly upgraded Super Hornets coming off the line now: revamped communications hardware to take in and share battlefield data, powerful new mission computers to crunch it, and a new tracking system that detects enemies via heat signature a valuable tool for detecting radar-dodging planes like the F-35. Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said it's a good start. "Boeing's definitely pursuing the right technologies," he said. But other analysts pointed out that competitors are doing the same thing, and that much of the new technology isn't Boeing's. The new mission computer, for instance, was built with Florida-based tech firm and defense contractor L3Harris Technologies; the new detection system is mostly a Lockheed product. "These are things you could apply to any jet," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at the Teal Group. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 How to Clip Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. When you're happy with your selection, click the checkmark icon next to the clipping area to continue. One gleaming La Marzocco espresso machine a sleek thing ornate vintage-style furniture, the constant hum of regulars and newcomers alike, local art on the walls, the aroma of carefully roasted single origin coffee beans and the feeling of being received warmly into someones living room these are what welcome you to Lund Canyon Coffee. Tucked between fitness studios, outdoor stores and chain restaurants in the upscale Aspen Place shopping complex, the European-style coffee house has made a name for itself. One of a small handful of locally-owned businesses in the plaza, Mahmud Lund along with his two sons Ibrahim (Ibi) and Kasim, as well as a close friend Jasin Brown opened in June with almost every member of the Lund family currently working there and moving from distant places to do so. The aim is to serve the highest-quality coffee. Its a light roast with deep, fine and delicate flavors. Mahmud is quick to point out that for him the shop is more about being neighborly than it is to turn a profit, though. At the core of coffee lies hospitality. It is about the human connection over the capitalist goal to make money. We want to be successful, but for us success means making people feel welcome, being good neighbors, being human, making genuine connections, Mahmud said. And he means it, deeply. Donned in a cowboy hat, neatly tied kerchief and a Lund Canyon Coffee shirt, the elder Lund maneuvers around his sons with ease, treating each patron more like a long-awaited house guest than a customer. He also speaks with eloquence and carefully chosen diction about every step of the coffee process, from berry to cup, the art that both barista and grower add to the final product and in its nascency, respectively. Until recently, Mahmud was living in Nottingham, England where his coffee shop Espresso Gallery kept him busy for many years. Mahmuds wife and Kasim and Ibis mother is still there, visiting Arizona occasionally before she decides on any big moves. However, a life of travel and living all over Europe called ever louder for a change of pace and a new location. He knew he wanted to open a coffee shop in the United States but wasnt sure quite where. So he travelled. From South Carolina across the continental US to the northernmost part of Washington State on an almost Homerian journey to find the next Lund-owned coffee spot. Ibrahim joined him in Mahmuds hometown of Los Angeles before the two headed southwest. Both his sons are American but were born in Germany, growing up there and in England. The language adds to the tapestry of sounds in the cafe but they were living on opposite sides of the world at the time of Lunds genesis. Kasim in Australia and Ibi in South America, but each, like their father, found themselves ready for a change and joined one by one, having worked at Espresso Gallery and being skilled baristas already. It wasnt long until Brown joined in as well. When we hit Flagstaff, literally that day we knew this is the place, Mahmud sais. He and Ibi visited the Grand Canyon, and, like many who have beheld the natural wonder turned its likeness into art, with the iconic Canyon-scape now decorating the Lund logo and all merchandise, which Brown designed. With baristas well versed in the history and complexities of coffee, Lund serves a light roast in lieu of the popular dark roasts of many American coffee shops. When it first opened, all coffee for Lund was supplied by local Navajo roaster Yeego Coffee, which supplies coffee primarily to shops and individuals on the Navajo Nation. Lund also gets their beans from local roaster Single Speed, as well as Square Mile Coffee Roasters. The latter supplied the Lunds Nottingham shop in addition to many of the top coffee houses in Europe. Lund carries Square Root Foods pastries, as well as Biffs Bagels and Honey Pie Bakery baked goods. The work of local artists of many mediums covers the walls. Having been in Flagstaff even a short time has made clear the support of what Mahmud calls their colleagues in coffee, as well as the surrounding businesses. We quickly learned that Flagstaff is not about competition, he said. And it was through many individuals that Lund came into existence, he added. Whether through prayers or many other ways. Lund Canyon Coffee Lund Canyon Coffee is located at 601 Piccadilly Dr. Suite 10. You can find them on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Lund-Canyon-Coffee and on Instagram at @lundcanyoncoffee. Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 125 years ago 1896: The Governor Benjamin J. Franklin personally submitted his report to the Secretary of the Interior. It is one of the most voluminous documents ever filed with that department and is a detailed statement of the resources of Arizona. The three most important industries in Arizona are mining, stock raising and agriculture. The present population of Arizona is estimated by the governor to be 100,000 people. The total area of Arizona is 72 million acres. Educational advantages are said to be excellent, and gratification is expressed over the fact that the percentage of children enrolled in the schools was 76% last year. About statehood, the report says the people of this territory believe that they should be given state sovereignty. We have a greater population, and we have greater wealth; plus we promise more for the future than many of the states that have been heretofore admitted. The question of statehood should not be made a question of politics. It is a question of rights and justice. 100 years ago 1921: A Coconino County attorney on behalf of the State of Arizona has appealed to the Supreme Court from the decision of Judge E. E. Bolinger, who presided in the trial of Mercer Hemperly, a former Flagstaff attorney. Mr. Hemperly was arrested a few weeks ago for alleged transportation of booze. The judge ruled that the officers who arrested Hemperly had no right to look with the aid of a flashlight into the tonneau of Hemperlys car. In other words, the judge ruled in instructing the jury in favor of the defendant that every man's automobile is his castle. The tax laws of Coconino County and the State of Arizona are of the kind most lax and obliging. Delinquent taxes can only run five years before they are outlawed. Of course, this is rather a long time for the delinquent taxpayer to be in suspense and we would suggest because the link when taxes are not collected much if any that the last should be amended so that if a person failed to pay his taxes on the dates mentioned for each year that they become outlawed and uncollectible. In other words, if a person does not feel inclined to pay his taxes he should be excused and awarded an apology and writing from the State Tax Commission or some other body duly elected for that purpose. 50 years ago 1971: Thats a lot of snow. The City of Flagstaff will not play the role of the snowmaker by a 4-to-1 vote at today's regular meeting. Council rejected a proposal to undertake a winter cloud seeding project that was advertised by its proponents as possibly being able to increase by 10 to 20% the moisture yield from winter snow clouds. The program would have cost the city as high as $76,000 annually. Opponents say that the city would be wiser to expand its water development funds in other areas such as well development. Flagstaff streets and roadways are considerably cleaner today than they were last Friday. This is due to the efforts of some 450 young people who participated in the Johnny Horizon cleanup campaign last Saturday. The youths are members of such organizations as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Brownies, Cub Scouts and a 4-H club. Together they picked up 500 bags of litter from along the edges of the Flagstaff streets. 25 years ago 1996: Ten countries, 26 cities and 30 snowboard competitions all crammed into a little more than four months. To many folks it would be considered an eccentric schedule full of stress headaches and homesickness. To Antonio Davila of the United States Snowboard Team, it is life and work. Born and raised in Flagstaff, 22-year-old Davila picked up his first snowboard at 9 years old when his brother pointed out the then peculiar sport. Davila was on a snowboard within seven days and now, 13 years later, he rarely gets off one or more than one week per season. With a steady flight schedule and unwavering competition, this snowboarder from Flagstaff spends the winter months traveling the world with the US Snowboard Team in quest of victory and chasing his Olympic dream. It was not the usual bar room greeting. A Coconino County man was arrested after he greeted the man at the next stool with I could crush your head like a walnut. Fred Bonsmann, seated at the Lone Tree Cafe, allegedly continued to tell the man I will kill you for a dollar or anybody else in this bar. When the bartender refused to continue serving him Bonsmann allegedly said he would throw her against the wall and burn the bar down. He claimed he has a genetic defect that gives him the strength of 1,000 men. A Coconino County Sheriff's Department officer arrived and handcuffed Bonsmann, who received citations for threatening and intimidating and disorderly conduct. All events were taken from issues of the Arizona Daily Sun and its predecessors, the Coconino Weekly Sun and the Coconino Sun. Bruce Carl Ertmann assisted with compiling the events. Love 2 Funny 2 Wow 2 Sad 1 Angry 0 RENO, Nev. (AP) A Nevada state regulatory board has narrowly voted against banning contests that give cash or other awards to hunters for killing coyotes. The regulation was rejected by the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commission on a 5-4 vote Friday. It would have prohibited organizing, promoting or participating in contests or other competitions to capture or kill coyotes or other predatory or furbearing animals. What are we regulating? questioned Commissioner Tom Barnes. Theyre really not doing anything illegal. All 16 advisory panels to the nine-member board supported continuing to allow the contest, the Reno Gazette Journal reported. Commissioner David McNinch, who introduced the language to end the competitions, said outlawing the events wasn't a biological issue but a response to changing societal views on sportsmanship. I fully support people protecting their livestock, their pets, their family. I just disagree that the best way to do it is through these contests, he said. Its not the act of killing the coyotes that bothers me, its how its done. Board Chair Tiffany East said that at least one state legislator has written to the board saying that that, if the board failed to take action, lawmakers will consider the issue during their next session. Conservationists had hoped that political pressure and other states banning the contests would prompt the commission to vote differently. While some states offer bounties for coyotes to control their population, coyote killing contests have been banned in at least eight states since 2014, including Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, In Nevada, the Clark County Commission and the Reno City Council have approved resolutions asking the competitions be banned, but the Elko County Board of Commissioners unanimously passed one supporting the continuation of coyote hunting contests. Eliminating killing contests would be the camels nose under the tent that could eventually threaten such wholesome family events like fishing derbies, according to the Elko County resolution. During the past fiscal year, coyotes were responsible for deaths or injuries to 253 cattle, 82 domestic fowl, 330 goats, five pets and 596 sheep in Nevada, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Unlike predators such as gray wolves or prey species such as elk, coyotes have no species protections and can be killed without licenses. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Country United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of 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San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine 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 The Northern Plains Resource Council has hosted an annual gathering of members and guests every autumn since 1972. The conservation and family agriculture organization will convene its landmark 50th event on Nov. 19-20. The online event, titled Cheers to 50 Years, will celebrate a half-century of Northern Plains work in communities across Montana with a wide range of speakers and panel discussions. Congregating with our friends and neighbors is always a highlight of the year, but celebrating our 50th gathering is especially meaningful, said Birney rancher Jeanie Alderson in a press release, whose parents were founding members of Northern Plains in the early 1970s. Alderson is now chair of the organization. The first of two keynote speakers is Katharine Hayhoe, described by The New York Times as one of the nations most effective communicators on climate change. Hayhoes keynote address is scheduled for Friday, Nov. 19. Saturdays keynote speech will be delivered by Marshall Ganz, a teacher, researcher, and writer who studies leadership and social movements. Ganz, who worked with Cesar Chavez to organize farm workers in the 1960s, is one of the nations premier experts on grassroots leadership through his research at Harvards Kennedy School of Government. Still, as with other wildlife diseases like brucellosis and chronic wasting disease, hunters are advised to be careful when butchering, gutting or hauling an animal theyve killed. Wearing latex gloves is advised and properly disposing of any waste material. In the instance of an animal testing positive for CWD, hunters are advised not to eat the meat. No such warning is being given for consuming an animal that tests positive for COVID-19 in Iowa, although testing for the virus has only been conducted as part of the recent research. Samples Montanas and Wyomings wildlife management agencies conduct testing for chronic wasting disease to help track and identify its spread. Testing for the always fatal infection in deer, moose and elk requires removal of glands in the animals neck the retropharyngeal lymph nodes. The same lymph nodes provide information on COVID-19 infection. So we have an archive of lymph nodes from 2019-present, and will continue to collect more throughout this season, Ramsey noted. Those archived samples could potentially be used for Covid research. The good thing is we have samples collected from both pre and post pandemic. One of the most commented issues during the planning process was determining recommended wilderness areas. Only Congress can designate wilderness areas such as the Bob Marshall or Gates of the Mountains, but the Forest Service is required in its planning to analyze and then recommend areas that meet the legal requirements to be wilderness. The 2021 plan designates an additional four RWAs, bringing the total on the forest to seven and total acres from about 34,000 to more than 153,000. Big Log, Mount Baldy, Electric Peak, Big Snowies, Silver King, Red Mountain and Nevada Mountain are now all RWAs. We are pleased that the Forest Service decided to recommend wilderness for the Big Snowies Wilderness Study Area, the first time the agency has done so, Zach Angstead, field director at Wild Montana, said in a statement, noting that the study area was proposed for removal under a 2017 bill from U.S. Sen. Steve Daines. This decision is a testament to how extraordinarily wild these mountains are and how much Montanans have come to value this wilderness study area over the past few decades. GILLETTE, Wyo. For the past nine months, Juan Guajardo Jr. has been taking up temporary residence at the Campbell County jail. Serving time while awaiting a sentence for check fraud and bringing drugs into jail, Guajardo quickly earned a spot on the work block outside crew. He clocks in at 7:30 a.m. and clocks out at 4 p.m., and he can be seen shoveling snow, trimming trees, blowing leaves and any number of other tasks hes asked to do. But when he completes these tasks, he goes straight to the workshop and gets straight to another type of work. He takes pieces of scrap wood and turns them into furniture and works of art. When hes not in his cell, he spends his day trying to make the jail a better place. Jails not the happiest place, man, Guajardo said. But theres still happiness to be found there, you just have to know where to look. For Guajardo, that joy comes from seeing other people smile at the various projects hes made, including a birdhouse, a wishing well and a picnic table. I do it for myself, but if someone else feels good about it, it makes me feel good that they feel good about it, he said. Then you had space for 200 characters to write down the name of your tribe. Given the opportunity to provide specifics on race and ethnicity, people did. The 2020 census had 350 million detailed write-ins that we collected and coded and are working to tabulate, Jones said. So that gives you a sense of the volume of what people are reporting. Before the census, Alaska tribes were concerned their tribal citizens wouldnt get counted if they used abbreviations or acronyms for their tribes name. It's really been the partnership with American Indian, Alaska Native tribal leaders and researchers over the past decade to help us understand the types of responses that tribal responses may provide, whether it's using their Native language to report a response, or using an acronym, or using a various spelling of their particular tribe, Jones said. All of that, that volume of information that helped us over the past decade to enhance our coding system is what led to us to be able to code 99 percent of those 350 million responses automatically using our automated system, he said. The 1 percent of written responses that coding couldnt decipher were reviewed by a coder working with subject matter experts. Completely unlike your 2017 bill and your anti-WSA bill to come, the BCSA is the culmination of a 15-year collaborative effort by Montanans representing a wide spectrum of interests conservation, timber, ranching, outfitting, local business, recreation and more the sort of collaborative effort missing from your WSA proposal. We spent years vetting the BCSA, making sure it works for the vast majority of Montanans, not just for 8%. Adding to the support of the BCSA are the 170 groups, organizations and businesses across the state that have so far endorsed the bill, including Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Montana Outfitter and Guides Association, and several hunting and angling groups. Since youre troubled by the wilderness components of the BCSA, then perhaps you could explain why, in 2019, you joined with your colleagues from Utah in support of 660,000 acres of new wilderness in their state, but wont join with 75% of Montanans in support of protecting 80,000 acres of new wilderness in your state? Its not as though Montana has an abundance of wilderness protection, as you keep trying to claim. After all, only 3% of our states land mass is designated wilderness (Floridas is 4%, by comparison). Montanans are lucky to have an even more direct line to local and legislative officials. The benefit of having a part-time, citizen legislature is most representatives have their email or phone number listed on the legislative website, and they watch it closely. Contacting your local representative directly is a great way to get their attention, make them aware of your concerns and get to the bottom of an issue. Second and third-hand accounts of political issues on social media can often be unreliable and intentionally inflammatory. By contacting your representative directly, you give them the opportunity for a direct explanation. Odds are they can share important information about an issue that wasnt communicated clearly or fairly by others. 2: Aim for peaceful dialogue In our polarized political environment, most messages our representatives receive is hate mail, filled with insults and threats that accomplish nothing. Engaging in an impactful way with your representatives requires breaking through this vitriol and demonstrating your credibility. Two weeks ago, Gov. Greg Gianforte thought by showing up at St. James Medical Center in Butte, touting the availability of monoclonal antibody treatment, the citizenry of Montana would be fooled into believing that he is actually providing leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dont be fooled. While monoclonal antibody treatment is one spoke in the wheel of treatments for patients already infected with COVID, (albeit under emergency approval only), it is a limited, reactive approach. Effective leaders know that proactive public health mitigation measures, such as vaccination, including mandates where needed, and masking, with requirements when needed, are a necessity to slow this runaway freight train of COVID cases. Consistent messaging about testing, masking and vaccinating for the collective protection to the community is imperative. Other state governors are doing just that. The proof is in the statistics. Montana recently ranked first for new COVID cases per 100,000 people. This distinction means Gianforte is getting an "F" in COVID Management 101. Cases nationwide are dropping, but not here in Montana. State lawmakers can expect long days this week as they work to cut through their special session's major topics, while a slate of proposed bills threatens to put a stick in their spokes. Republican majority leaders hope for a five-day session beginning Monday to allocate North Dakota's $1 billion of federal Rescue Plan coronavirus aid, reapportion legislative districts and act on other bills outside the main scope. Much of the work has already been done, according to Senate Majority Leader Rich Wardner, R-Dickinson. The bills "need to be heard, double-checked and kicked up" for votes, he said. Key to the session's speed will be immediately working out differences between the House and Senate on how to spend the Rescue Plan money, he added. "We don't wait until the fifth day and start saying, 'Well, can't we get along here?' or 'Can't we agree on this?'" Wardner said. Leaders won't allow bills to "sit and percolate" for days, he said. "Most of these issues, they're ready to vote now. It's either up or down," he said. "The research and the work has been done." Wardner thinks a five-day session is possible, but he sees six or seven days as more likely. House Majority Leader Chet Pollert, R-Carrington, has expressed hopes to wrap up late Friday. Both leaders have said they expect committees to work into evenings, potentially resulting in 12-hour days. Delayed bills committees on Monday will decide which of 21 House and five Senate bills to advance for introduction. Any of those bills would be in addition to the redistricting and Rescue Plan legislation, as well as several, mostly minor bills advanced by interim committees. Many of the proposed bills deal with divisive issues, such as banning or restricting so-called critical race theory and vaccination requirements. One bill would force pharmacists to dispense the antiparasitic drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19 -- an unproven remedy -- even if against their professional judgment. Sen. Jerry Klein, R-Fessenden, who chairs the Senate Delayed Bills Committee, expects to see bills advance to restrict critical race theory and vaccination requirements. He wants to ensure every bill is thoroughly vetted. "Is it something that could certainly wait until next session before we need to address that issue? If we can, we should," Klein said. "If it's an issue that we took up during the (regular) session, and it failed, I don't know that that should go forward." Sen. Ray. Holmberg, R-Grand Forks, who leads a panel that laid the plans for the special session, said he hopes "we don't get sidelined" from the Rescue Plan money and redistricting, "but there are a few issues that I think the public wants us to address." "We work for the public so we should certainly be attuned to what it is they want us to address," the longtime senator and top budget writer said, noting concerns of some people over critical race theory and vaccination requirements. Sen. Erin Oban, D-Bismarck, hopes the special session sticks to redistricting and the Rescue Plan money and doesn't stray too far. "Regular legislative sessions are when policy changes should be made, when the public is most engaged, and squeezing (other bills) through in an expedited fashion is, to me, not appropriate," she said. "It's sort of like telling kids, 'no.' The mom in me is coming out." Thirty-six organizations signed a letter to the delayed bills committee urging lawmakers to focus on redistricting and the Rescue Plan aid. "Many of the policy bills that have been submitted require substantive policy debate and a very open public process," Greater North Dakota Chamber President and CEO Arik Spencer told Prairie Public. "It's our fear, at least on behalf of GNDC, that this condensed special session won't allow that vigorous debate to happen." A "We the People" rally planned for Monday on the Capitol grounds aims to draw lawmakers' attention to personal liberty issues, such as the proposed bills restricting vaccination mandates. "We need to look out for individual freedom of our citizens, so hopefully by having this rally we'll get enough attention that the rest of the legislators that are on the fence will join us in defending the liberty of our North Dakota citizens," said Rep. Jeff Magrum, R-Hazelton, who supports the rally organized by four Minot-area Republican district chairs. He has two bills relating to election integrity among the 26 proposed for the special session, and he expects the Legislature to continue into the following week. North Dakota had no documented election fraud in 2020, and President Donald Trump's claims of widespread fraud in the national election have been rejected by election officials, judges and Trump's attorney general at the time. "With the special session, I don't think we have to worry about the exact amount of days that are being used," Magrum said. The special session is not subject to the state constitution's 80-day limit every two years. The Legislature would have had only four days to reconvene after its 76-day session adjourned earlier this year had Gov. Doug Burgum not called the special session. Rep. Mike Nathe, R-Bismarck, will be busy on both the redistricting and House appropriations panels, which are handling the session's two main topics. He also has submitted a bill to establish an "in-state investment impact committee" for targeting some of the $8.4 billion Legacy Fund within North Dakota. He said the oil tax savings fund's advisory board has been too slow to implement new investment mandates. Nathe thinks the special session might go smoother than others are expecting, but not without surprises. He sees consensus but some details to firm up between the House and Senate on the Rescue Plan money. He too is hopeful for a Friday finish. "The people of North Dakota don't want us to be sitting there any longer than we have to," he said. The special session will cost taxpayers about $64,000 per day. The Legislature has met in special sessions 15 times in state history, most recently in 2016 to address a $1 billion state revenue shortfall. (Tribune reporter Amy R. Sisk contributed to this story.) Reach Jack Dura at 701-250-8225 or jack.dura@bismarcktribune.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 1 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. A former student who was friends in high school with one of the plaintiffs said in a sworn statement that sexual relationships between Koch and female students were not a secret to other students and that Kochs inappropriate behavior was open and obvious to students. A second affidavit signer said Koch had attempted to kiss her when she was a high school senior and that he was allowed to prey on students who were much younger than him. Both affidavit signers also said that their high school friend, identified as Jane Doe in a lawsuit, told them at the time that she was having a sexual relationship with Koch. I was not surprised when she confided this, because it seemed to be common knowledge among the student body, one of the women said in her affidavit. Billionaire businessman and former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz spoke to the coffee chain's Western New York employees at a "partner event" Saturday evening in a downtown Buffalo hotel, just days before workers at three area Starbucks locations will begin voting in a union election that has drawn nationwide attention. For the event, Starbucks closed its 20 corporate-owned stores in the Buffalo market at 3 p.m. and paid workers who attended the event from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Hyatt Regency Buffalo. By 5 p.m., employees steadily trickled in the front entrance, greeted by other workers with their green Starbucks aprons on. The event was closed to the media. At about 7:45 p.m., after the event had concluded, a Starbucks spokesperson sent The Buffalo News a letter from Schultz, which "encapsulates what took place today." In the letter to employees, in which Schultz said he was writing from Buffalo, he dives into how he built Starbucks around the idea of a "for-profit company imbued with love, social conscience and shared success based on shared responsibility." He wrote that the company's rituals have for many years included forums such as the one held Saturday in Buffalo. Region Nine is working with Janet Meiselman of Oxford Consulting and Gary Kajtoch of East Ferry Partners LLC, as well as Long Architects. The project received a $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last month, and Region Nine officials plan to submit two grant applications to the state for tax credits through New York State Homes and Community Renewal and for Homeless Housing and Assistance Program support. The proposal has already been presented initially to the Village Planning Board, and a public community meeting is planned for Nov. 16 to solicit feedback. If approved and funded by next spring, Region Nine hopes to start construction in December 2022, and open by June 2024. The nonprofit housing corporation was formed in 1970 by UAW Region 9, a division of the international union that covers auto workers and others in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It was created to provide affordable housing to meet the needs of low- and moderate-income seniors, people with disabilities and their families. Today, the nonprofit owns and manages 10 communities with 1,173 affordable housing units across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. But this would be its first project in all of New York, despite past attempts locally. "Were very excited to start our first project in New York," Comroe said. Covid-19 vaccination rates continued to climb across New York State over the weekend as children ages 5 to 11 began to receive their first smaller dose of the Pfizer vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration authorized such doses for children in that age range last month. +2 Kids and the Covid-19 vaccine: 'It gives an extra layer of protection' Oishei Children's Hospital and the Erie County Health Department teamed up to offer a vaccination clinic for 5- to 11-year-olds who became eligible for the vaccine Wednesday. "The weather is getting colder, and friends and family will be spending more time indoors, increasing the risk of transmission and threatening the incredible progress we've made so far," Gov. Kathy Hochul said Sunday afternoon as she reported almost 111,500 new vaccines were given during the previous 24 hours. Nearly three in four state residents have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported. At least 88.2% of adults statewide have received at least one dose, and 79.2% have been fully vaccinated. News wasnt all promising. The state reported 25 deaths from Covid-19 on Saturday, including three in Erie County and one in Niagara County. The five-county Western New York region comprising Erie, Niagara, Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties reported 680 new cases of Covid-19, including 448 in Erie County. The company also has a mobile test unit that Misiak said could set up to do tests at Ellicottville for Canadians who are about to return home. A Canadian who plans a visit shorter than 72 hours to the United States is allowed to take a PCR test at home before leaving and then present the results of that test at the border when returning. Critics pointed out that test, taken before a trip begins, might not reflect the person's Covid-19 status after crossing the border and visiting people. Higgins praised those who have been vaccinated, and asked of the test requirement, "Why are you doing this to people who have done the responsible thing on behalf of yourself, your family, your neighbors and your bi-national neighbors?" 'What has taken so long?' Border reopening plan is big step for families, businesses With the U.S. side of the Canadian border poised to reopen, this holiday season will be a time for cross-border family reunions. The economic and emotional strain on people in the border communities of Western New York and Southern Ontario has been severe, Higgins said. "People have been separated from people that they love, their family members, for 19 months," he said, "and they have this additional, redundant requirement." In an appearance on YourTV Niagara last week, Mayor Jim Diodati of Niagara Falls, Ont., lamented that although the Canadian border has been open to leisure travelers from the U.S. since Aug. 8, "the Americans have not come back." Masten Common Council Member Ulysees O. Wingo Sr., one of Brown's staunchest supporters on the Council, said the picture will be clearer once all the votes, including the mail-ins, have been counted. We still dont have the absentee ballots yet, either, so we dont know how well she did overall, he said. I know my district, and the folks who voted for Mayor Brown have a point of reference. They can look back and see exactly how his administration has made inroads and has made positive impacts in the Masten District," he said. "We dont have all the blight and dilapidated houses. We have community centers. All the parks have been done. They can see streets being repaved. And they can see crime going down and opportunities for young folks to be employed. All those things make a difference when youve seen the city move through this timeline." But Walton struck a chord for voters who viewed the mayoral race as a personality contest, he said. "Clearly, she has the charisma to make an appeal to much younger voters, who always see the establishment as archaic, and they always tend to want this proverbial new blood to come in and exact some type of change," Wingo said. Having Republican governors in key presidential battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan can be worth a point or two on the presidential ballot," said Phil Cox, former executive director for the Republican Governors Association, who is advising GOP gubernatorial candidates for 2022. "Republican governors can be difference makers in 2024. Republican strategists say Wisconsin and Michigan are among their best pickup chances next year, along with Kansas a normally deep-red state where Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won a three-way 2018 race. Nevada, Maine and perhaps New Mexico could be within reach, they say. GOP candidates across the country will likely try to energize conservative parents by denouncing schools adhering to critical race theory, an academic framework about systemic racism that has become a catch-all phrase for teaching about race in U.S. history. Defending parents' rights to push back against school districts' efforts to teach about things like institutional racism helped Republican Glenn Youngkin win the governor's race in Virginia, a state Biden carried by 10 percentage points just last year, and could further resonate in toss-up states. GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) As this year's U.N. climate talks go into their second week, negotiations on key topics are inching forward. Boosted by a few high-profile announcements at the start of the meeting, delegates are upbeat about the prospects for tangible progress in the fight against global warming. Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who helped forge the Paris climate accord, said the general atmosphere had improved since the talks began Oct. 31 and "most negotiators want an agreement. But negotiators were still struggling late Saturday to put together a series of draft decisions for government ministers to finalize during the second week of the talks. People are having to take tough decisions, as they should," Archie Young, the U.K.s lead negotiator, said Saturday. Here's the state of play in four main areas halfway through the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow: TOP RESULT FROM THE CONFERENCE Each Conference of the Parties, or COP, ends with a general statement. It's as much a political declaration as a statement of intent about where countries agree the effort to combat climate change is heading. Some musings on Election 2021 and what lies ahead for 2022: Within a few short months, Mayor Byron Brown has pulled off two of the most remarkable feats in the history of Buffalo politics. First, he cruised through the June Democratic primary without lifting a finger and lost to a socialist whom few outside progressive circles had ever heard of. Remarkable. Second, he rebounded to score an impressive win as a write-in candidate. Nobody can recall a similar scale triumph ever occurring in New York State. Remarkable again. Once Brown got going, the political operation that sustained him through three decades of Buffalo politics began humming again. Even without any substantive presence of Grassroots his old political club the mayor accomplished what was needed. Most important, the Brown campaign concentrated on guiding Buffalo voters through the process of casting a write-in vote. Because most people have never voted in such a manner, his education effort proved key to his success. It worked. Although Canada was first to reopen its border, the hoops that travelers have had to jump through are either expensive or confusing or both. While the United States demands only that adult travelers be fully vaccinated, Canada requires anyone entering the country also show proof of a negative Covid test taken within the previous 72 hours. Rapid tests dont count. What is more, they must also have uploaded that information to the ArriveCAN app within 72 hours of appearing at the border. The result is that fewer Americans have bothered even to try crossing the border, to the dismay of restaurants, theaters, merchants and other businesses whose operations count on revenue from U.S. travelers. The grand reopening has been less than advertised. That pattern may repeat itself as the United States once again welcomes Canadian visitors. While those travelers need only proof of vaccination to enter, they face the same testing requirement when they return home. If they are staying less than 72 hours, they can be tested before they leave, but if theyre staying longer, theyll need to find a place to be tested in this country. Either way, its likely to be an expensive hassle. That, too, will help lead the country out of the swamp. Its short-term influence may not be great, given that many parents will worry about even the smaller-sized dose. And, since many adults refused vaccination while the shots had only emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration, that influence is also likely to cause some parents to hesitate. For the moment, that probably calls more for sympathy and understanding than it does criticism, but parents should know that while children with Covid-19 dont usually get as sick as infected adults, some do become severely ill. And pediatric cases are rising in the United States. Its puzzling that so many people resist a vaccine whose science dates back more than 30 years and which has been shown to be safe and effective not just at saving lives, but even preventing the need to be hospitalized. But they do resist and their selfishness threatens millions of others. Its why the new federal mandate is necessary. Businesses should welcome it even more than a tax cut. Whats your opinion? Send it to us at lettertoeditor@buffnews.com. Letters should be a maximum of 300 words and must convey an opinion. The column does not print poetry, announcements of community events or thank-you letters. A writer or household may appear only once every 30 days. All letters are subject to fact-checking and editing. They had been drafted to serve and did what was asked of them. They deserve to be called the Greatest Generation; they gave their youth and innocence and for many, their lives, and we owe them a lifetime of gratitude. When they returned, many took advantage of the GI Bill and joined my teen brother, in his college classes now doubled in size, as they needed to catch up. They came back, the war was over, they had seen death and needed to live. They wanted a future which now included a better appreciation for the liberty and freedom and peace that they had helped to secure. They did it quietly and with purpose, while carrying a nagging awareness that they could easily have been one of those left behind under white crosses in a foreign land. It was the luck of the draw, or by the grace of God, but they were back and another chapter needed to begin. We have seen recent flights of remaining veterans being taken to the nations capital and being thanked for their service and they in turn are recalling their time as soldiers and sharing their stories, some for the first time, before it is too late. It will never be too late for us to thank them for our freedom, our wonderful country and the lives we have been privileged to have, thanks to their service. A Navy captain says there is widespread agreement in the military that 'torture is wrong' and that it is not a liberal viewpoint US Army Military Police escort a detainee to his cell January 11, 2001 in Camp X-Ray at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during in-processing to the temporary detention. Getty Images Capt. Scott B. Curtis told The New York Times most people in the military agree "torture is wrong." Curtis wrote a letter condemning the torture a Guantanamo Bay detainee went through. The letter, signed by seven senior military officials, called it a "stain" on the US' "moral fiber." A Navy captain who served 30 years in the military said there is widespread agreement among service members that "torture is wrong." "I think you'll find that your senior people fully understand that acts like torture do more long-term damage than good, if they do any good," Capt. Scott B. Curtis told The New York Times. Curtis spoke with the Times' Carol Rosenberg last week, revealing himself as the author of a letter signed by a military jury that condemned the CIA's use of torture. The two-page handwritten letter, sent to Pentagon officials after the jury delivered a mandatory sentence to a terrorist, asked for clemency for the man, calling the torture tactics used against him "a stain on the moral fiber of America." The man, Majid Khan, 41, described to the jury the torture he experienced at CIA black sites, which were established around the world during the war on terror to hold enemy combatants and perform "enhanced interrogations." Like Khan, many who were interrogated were eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay. Khan said he experienced force-feeding, waterboarding, and physical and sexual abuse. He said he was isolated while nude, chained up in the dark, and nearly drowned. The letter compared the tactics to those used by "the most abusive regimes in modern history." Curtis told The Times that the jury, made up of senior military officials, did not have sympathy for the man or his actions, but that the torture he described was a "mitigating factor." He said he wrote the letter in 20 minutes after the sentencing and offered to let the other jurors sign it, with seven of the eight doing so. Story continues He also said that opposition to torture is not a "liberal" position, citing the late Sen. John McCain's view. McCain, a Republican from Arizona and also a veteran, experienced torture himself during the years he spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. McCain was a vocal opponent of torture, arguing it produces faulty intelligence, endangers our own troops who end up captive, and is morally wrong, writing in 2011: "This is a moral debate. It is about who we are." However Republican President Donald Trump expressed support for torture in 2017, claiming it "works," though his defense secretary, James Mattis, and CIA director, Mike Pompeo, both opposed reintroducing the enhanced interrogation methods. Curtis told The Times he thinks the US "is still the good guys, for lack of a better term, throughout the world" but that "we certainly make mistakes." He also said the letter "wasn't condemning the present military and the present CIA." Read the original article on Business Insider HOUSTON (AP) Investigators Sunday worked to determine how eight people died in a crush of fans at a Houston music festival, as families mourned the dead and concertgoers recounted the horror and confusion of being trapped in the crowd. Authorities planned to use videos, witness interviews and a review of concert procedures to figure out what went wrong Friday night during a performance by rapper Travis Scott. The tragedy unfolded when the crowd rushed the stage, squeezing people so tightly they couldn't breathe. Billy Nasser, 24, who had traveled from Indianapolis to attend the concert, said about 15 minutes into Scotts set, things got really crazy and people began crushing one another. He said he was picking people up and trying to drag them out. Nasser said he found a concertgoer on the ground. I picked him up. People were stepping on him. People were like stomping, and I picked his head up and I looked at his eyes, and his eyes were just white, rolled back to the back of his head, he said. Over the weekend, a makeshift memorial of flowers, votive candles, condolence notes and T-shirts took shape outside at NRG Park. Michael Suarez, 26, visited the growing memorial after the concert. Its very devastating. No one wants to see or hear people dying at a festival," Suarez said. "We were here to have a good time a great time and its devastating to hear someone lost their lives. The dead, according to friends and family members, included a 14-year-old high school student; a 16-year-old girl who loved dancing; and a 21-year-old engineering student at the University of Dayton. The youngest was 14, the oldest 27. Houston officials did not immediately release the victims' names or the cause of death, but family and friends began to name their loved ones and tell their stories Sunday. Thirteen people remained hospitalized Sunday. Their conditions were not disclosed. Over 300 people were treated at a field hospital at the concert. City officials said they were in the early stages of investigating what caused the pandemonium at the sold-out Astroworld festival, an event founded by Scott. About 50,000 people were there. Authorities said that among other things, they will look at how the area around the stage was designed. Julio Patino, of Naperville, Illinois, who was in London on business when he got a middle-of-the-night call informing him his 21-year-old son Franco was dead, said he had a lot of questions about what happened. These concerts should be controlled," Patino said. If they dont know how to do that, they should have canceled the concert right then, when they noticed there was an overcrowd. He added: They should not wait until they see people laying down on the floor, lifeless. Steven Adelman, vice president of the industry group Event Safety Alliance, which was formed after the collapse of a stage at the Indiana State Fair in 2011 killed seven people, helped write industry guidelines widely used today. He said investigators will examine the design of the safety barriers and whether they correctly directed crowds or contributed to the crush of spectators. He said, too, that authorities will look at whether something incited the crowd besides Scott taking the stage. Adelman said another question is whether there was enough security there, noting there is a nationwide shortage of people willing to take low-wage, part-time security gigs. Security obviously was unable to stop people. Optically, thats really bad-looking, he said. But as for what it tells us, its too early to say. Contemporary Services Corp., headquartered in Los Angeles, was responsible for security staff at the festival, according to county records in Texas. Representatives for the company which advertises online as being recognized worldwide as the pioneer, expert and only employee owned company in the crowd management field did not immediately respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment. Houston police and fire department officials said their investigation will include reviewing video taken by concert promoter Live Nation, as well as dozens of clips from people at the show. Officials also planned to review the events security plan and various permits issued to organizers to see whether they were properly followed. In addition, investigators planned to speak with Live Nation representatives, Scott and concertgoers. Izabella Ramirez of Texas City was celebrating her 21st birthday and said that once Scott came on stage, no one could move. Everybody was squishing in, and people were trying to move themselves to the front. You couldnt even lift up your arms, Ramirez said. Ramirez said a security guard pulled her over the barricade, while her date, Jason Rodriguez, lifted her up. Everyone was yelling for different things. They were either yelling for Travis or they were yelling for help, Rodriguez said. On video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: Security, somebody help real quick. There is a long history of similar catastrophes at concerts, sporting events and even religious events. In 1979, 11 people were killed as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum to see a concert by The Who. Other past crowd catastrophes include the deaths of 97 people at a soccer match in Hillsborough Stadium in 1989 in Sheffield, England, and numerous disasters connected with the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Experts who have studied deaths caused by crowd surges say they are often a result of too many people packed into too small a space. Also Sunday, at least two of the first of many expected lawsuits were filed on behalf of a man injured in the crush of people in state court in Houston. Attorneys for Manuel Souza sued Scott, Live Nation and others, saying they were responsible. Another lawsuit was filed on behalf of Noah Gutierrez by Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer who has represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people killed by police. In a tweet posted Saturday, Scott said he was absolutely devastated by what took place." He pledged to work together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need. Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Randall Chase in Dover, Delaware; Kristin M. Hall in Nashville and Bob Christie in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report. A previous version of this story was corrected to show Travis Scott is 30, not 29. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 The Zippo lighter was ubiquitous during the Vietnam War, as standard as a pair of boots and an M16 rifle. And for many, the aluminum, reusable lighters did more than ignite a Camel, Kool, Chesterfield or Marlboro cigarette. Embossed with names, dates, places, unit numbers and insignias, each tells a story. One of the many lighters for Eric Oxendorf, who was an aviation electricians mate in the U.S. Navy and served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971, features the USS Kearsarge. Oxendorf was aboard the Essex-class aircraft carrier for missions in the Gulf of Tonkin for airstrikes and rescue missions, among other places. All told, he served on 13 aircraft carriers, ammunition ships and light cruisers during his four years in the Navy. One of the things I did was collect a lighter from every ship that I was attached to, Oxendorf, a Milwaukee native, said in an oral history recorded in 2019. I have a box of them and I dont smoke. And now one of his lighters is part of the great wall of lighters, part of a new exhibit that opened Friday at the Wisconsin Veterans Museum on Capitol Square. Souvenirs of Service: The Things They Kept, is scheduled to run for at least the next 18 months and chronicles the varied items collected or purchased by Wisconsin veterans during times of war. The exhibit ranges from the Civil War through Afghanistan and includes scores of photographs taken by service members, German patches, a parka worn by a U.S. Navy chaplain assigned to Antarctica, Iraqi license plates and a Saudi Arabian Pepsi can. Theres a bottle of cognac brought home from Germany during World War I and even a dress made from a silk World War II parachute. The exhibit has only a smattering of the tools of war. Oftentimes in military history we get lost in the ephemera of war, said Kevin Hampton, the museums curator of history. We get lost in the tanks, the planes and the weaponry and we forget about the people behind it. The museum, which reopened in July after being shuttered due to COVID-19, has been around since 1901, has 25,000 items in its collection, exhibits on wars, and digital and in-person archives for researchers to tap for history or genealogy work. It hosts special events and educational programs, and has millions of pages of digital and paper records, more than 100,000 photographs, and one of the largest oral history databases in the country. The exhibit on souvenirs includes about 50 displays but will change over time, said Christopher Kolakowski, the museums director. Some include QR codes that allow visitors to use their smart phones to access audio or video clips about an individual item, while others have circles on the floor that when stood on activate multimedia stories. The exhibit is part of the continuing mission of the museum to better connect veterans with nonveterans from different eras. Its an ancient human impulse to preserve some memento from something that was important for you or made an impression on you. Every human being does that. Veterans are no different, said Kolakowski, who notes that only about 3% of the museums collection is ever displayed at any one given time. A lot of this really hasnt ever been displayed, but its an opportunity for us to get it out into the public, show some really interesting stuff in the collection and also tell some great stories. The exhibit begins with a series of what are called cartes de visite, small photographs that during the Civil War were reproduced and shared with family, friends and fellow soldiers. Peter Arndt, of Kenosha, the first assistant surgeon with the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry Regiment that was part of the famous Iron Brigade, collected 192 cartes de visite during his time in the war. It includes those from the Confederate Army. A few feet away is a pair of Sioux buckskin trousers presented as a gift to Lt. Charles King, of Milwaukee, from William Buffalo Bill Cody during the 1876 Great Sioux War. The dress made from a parachute has a spectacular story. On Nov. 21, 1944, 1st Lt. Floyd Steiners B-29 was badly damaged over Japan. The Eau Claire native and the rest of his crew eventually bailed out over Japanese-occupied territory in eastern China and were smuggled back to safety by local farmers. Steiner mailed the parachute that saved his life back home to his wife with instructions to make a dress for herself. The nearly empty of bottle of Remy Martin & Co. cognac is also a good tale, thanks to Reuben Lewis, of Waupaca, who enlisted in the Wisconsin National Guard four months before his 18th birthday. The buglers unit eventually became part of the 32nd Infantry Division, and in 1918 Lewis found himself in Europe. During this time, a fellow member of his company acquired a bottle of cognac that in the years after the war would become the centerpiece of the Last Mans Club. Under the rules set forth by those Lewis served with, the bottle could not be opened until there were just five men remaining. It was opened, with considerable effort, thanks to a rotten cork that crumbled, in 1986. The moment was captured on video that is included in the exhibit. Lewis died in 1988. About an eighth of the cognac remains in the bottle. When it comes to lighters in the exhibit, they arent just limited to the Vietnam War era. And one comes with a macabre back story. Norra Prohaska of Cudahy served with the Wisconsin National Guard in Iraq in 2003 and 2004 and was attached to the 18th MP Brigade and the 89th MP Brigade during Operation Iraqi Freedom. One day, a merchant selling lighters approached her squad. One of the lighters had the New York Citys Twin Towers on it with a plane headed into one of the towers. Osama bin Ladens picture is in one corner of the lighter, and when its opened and flicked, theres an opening that gives the appearance of explosion. More than 2,700 people died in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York. The merchant, who seemed clueless about the lighters symbolism, was asked to leave by Prohaskas squad leader. And he left, but its interesting, Prohaska said. I mean, he wasnt aware of what it meant. But he thought for some reason we would want it. Barry Adams covers regional news for the Wisconsin State Journal. Send him ideas for On Wisconsin at 608-252-6148 or by email at badams@madison.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 6) The country has received a fresh shipment of nearly 900,000 more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by US firm Pfizer. State media reported that a plane carrying 866,970 Pfizer shots landed at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 in Pasay City Saturday evening. The delivery comes a few days after the country marked a milestone in its vaccination drive, having reached a record-high of more than 1.1 million people inoculated in a day. As of Nov. 5, over 109 million coronavirus shots have been delivered to the country. Of this number, 16.5 million were Pfizer doses procured by the national government, according to the National Task Force Against COVID-19. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) Weekday operating hours of shopping malls in Metro Manila malls will start at 11 a.m. and end at 11 p.m. starting Nov. 15, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority said in an advisory issued on Sunday. The malls will be allowed to open earlier at 10 a.m. on weekends and holidays, the MMDA said further. The MMDA said that the adjusted mall hours will help ease the traffic this Christmas season. However, mall promotional sales offering price discounts will only be allowed during weekends and holidays, the MMDA added. The adjusted mall operation hours are prescribed under MMDA Resolution 21-25 approved by the Metro Manila Council, which is composed of 17 mayors in the capital region. MMDA chairperson Benhur Abalos earlier said that mall operators agreed with the adjusted operating hours. With Metro Manila now under a more relaxed Alert Level 2, the MMDA also lifted the 12 a.m. to 4 a.m. general curfew in the region since Nov. 4. However, curfew hours for minors are still in place under existing ordinances of local government units. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) The camp of Vice President Leni Robredo urges Filipinos to be watchdogs following the Commission on Elections 535.99-million deal with F2 Logistics, a Dennis Uy-linked company that has been chosen to deliver vote-counting machines during the 2022 election period. Robredo's spokesperson Barry Gutierrez said during the vice president's radio show Sunday morning that the poll body must ensure safeguards are in place to protect the integrity of next year's general elections. The call was made amid concerns raised about the Comelec decision to award the multimillion-peso logistics deal to a company chaired by the Davao-based businessman, widely known to be one of President Rodrigo Duterte's top campaign donors in the 2016 polls. "Alam mong malaking donor, kaibigan, dikit na dikit sa isang particular na pulitikotapos bibigyan ng ganung kontrata," he said during a radio show. "Patuloy lang dapat ang pagbabantay sa Comelec, pangungulit sa kanila. Kailangan ipaliwanag at patunayan na may sapat na safeguards na napapatupad para hindi magkaroon ng 'magic' sa darating na election," Gutierrez added. [Translation: You are aware that he is a major donor, a friend, very close to a particular politicianbut you still gave such a contract. We must continue to be vigilant about the deal of Comelec. It needs to explain and prove that there are enough safeguards in place so as not to have "magic" in the coming election.] Gutierrez said they are hoping the Comelec would allay the fears of the voting public. Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez has said in the past that F2 Logistics cannot affect the election results. RELATED: Comelec assures integrity of votes with F2 Logistics deal for 2022 polls Tacloban City (CNN Philippines, November 7) Local government units in Eastern Visayas will hold simple commemoration ceremonies to mark the 8th anniversary of Super Typhoon Yolanda. The towns of Llorente, Giporlos, and Hernani in Eastern Samar; Tanauan, Palo, Tolosa, Hindang, Hilongos, Bato, Palompon and Matalom in Leyte province; and the city of Tacloban have all suspended work in government offices as well as classes for the solemn rites on Monday, Nov. 8. The San Joaquin parish in Palo will celebrate mass at 5 a.m. at the Yolanda memorial mass grave located in front of the church. A separate program in the afternoon will include a candle-lighting ceremony with at least 300 candles to be lit by residents at the San Joaquin Yolanda memorial site, the biggest mass grave outside Tacloban where around 500 victims of the super typhoon were buried. In Tacoban City, the remembrance rites started on Sunday morning with a mass at the Anibong Shipwreck memorial site, which opened to the public in 2015. It was fashioned from the bow of the MV Eva Jocelyn, which plowed into the coastal village of Anibong, killing 11 people, including six children. On Monday, the city government also prepared commemoration programs in two other sites. Meanwhile, the provincial government of Leyte also lined up simple rites, with a mass at the provincial capitol building in the afternoon, followed by a candle-lighting ceremony. Yolanda was one of the strongest tropical cyclones in the country's recorded history, according to weather bureau PAGASA, topping maximum center winds of 300 kilometers per hour. Its strength was comparable with that of Typhoon Reming that struck Catanduanes in 2006, the bureau added. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council also listed 28,688 persons injured, 1,062 missing and 93 billion worth of damage to infrastructure due to Yolanda. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) Life in Metro Manila is slowly but surely easing back to normal. This is after different establishments were allowed to raise capacity use and welcome back more people under Alert Level 2. During the first weekend under eased restrictions, many parents grabbed the chance to finally bring their children to public areas. "Sobrang saya kasi after two years na rin kami hindi nakalabas. Parang nakatikim ng kalayaan, said one parent. [Translation: We are so happy. We have not been outdoors as a family for two years. Its like getting a taste of freedom.] On Sunday, many families also went to church but some still preferred to hear mass outside the premises of the church in order to avoid transmission of COVID-19. Establishments where families usually converge assured that they are taking precautionary measures to make sure that everyone is following safety protocols. Business establishments hoped that Alert Level 2 will be implemented throughout this holiday season to give them chance to work on bouncing back their profits. We are very optimistic that this coming Christmas, business will be better for all our micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that are badly affected by the pandemic, said Arlene Magtibay, senior vice president and general manager of Robinsons Malls. Families are not the only ones seen to be reunited in public under Alert Level 2. Night life in Metro Manila as seen in famous hangout spots is slowly easing back to its old form. Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque has earlier noted that videoke bars are now allowed to operate but people still need to be wearing face masks as they reach for those high notes. Under Alert Level 2, customers allowed in many establishments such as restaurants and bars have been raised to 50% of capacity. Those who wish to dine in may do so provided that they have completed their vaccination, supervisors said. (CNN) -- A pill to treat Covid -- Pfizer and Merck both generated excitement with news they have pills that could help keep people out of the hospital if they catch coronavirus. Pfizer says its pill, which it proposes to sell under the brand name Paxlovid if it gets authorized, reduced the risk of death or hospitalization by 89% in people who got it within three days of symptoms starting. Merck says its capsule molnupiravir reduced the risk by about 50%. Neither is a cure, and they don't work like antibiotics do against bacterial infections. But doctors say easy-to-take antivirals can be important additions to hospital-based treatments such as monoclonal antibodies, the infused antiviral remdesivir and immune system modulators. They might help cut death rates from a virus that's killed 750,000 people in the United States alone. "I see them as a one-two punch. Vaccines are prevention. These antivirals are early treatment. Both have utility," Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told CNN. "Neither one is a substitute for the other." Having two possible treatments adds a lot, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. "It makes the landscape a lot more promising because what these antivirals represent is more evidence of the ability to tame the virus," Adalja told CNN. "It gives us a big toolbox, makes it a more treatable infection. It brings it down from the level of being a five-alarm fire." Currently, if someone gets sick with Covid-19, the options include quick treatment with monoclonal antibodies to boost immune response. If that is not available -- and monoclonals must be infused by a professional -- or if it doesn't work and patients are hospitalized, there's no single specific treatment. Patients might get infusions of the antiviral remdesivir, which can reduce the length of time someone is ill but doesn't lower the risk of death. They're also likely to get blood thinners to stop the out-of-control blood clotting that killed many patients early in the pandemic, as well as steroids or other immune modulating drugs to control inflammation. There's nothing to specifically attack the virus. The pills are designed to do that -- each by stopping different stages of its replication. Not a lot is known about either pill yet. Merck has applied for emergency use authorization for molnupiravir with the US Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer, which announced its interim results on Friday, says it is preparing to do so. That means what is known is the bare-bones information given by a news release. According to Pfizer, researchers gave its pills to volunteers within either three days or five days of their symptoms showing, and these are people who agreed to take part in clinical trials because they were considered at high risk of hospitalization or death from Covid-19 if they became infected. That means doctors will have been paying close attention to them and to their symptoms. Molnupiravir was started within five days of symptom onset. "We haven't seen the safety data," Schaffner noted. Side effects he'd be on the lookout for include any evidence the drug may cause kidney or bone marrow damage. "We'd want to know a little bit more about the mechanism of action," he said -- how the drug is working. "And there is always the issue of pregnancy," he said. These are all questions the FDA will want answered, and it means neither drug will be available quickly. Both companies will be asked to provide safety and efficacy data and now that there are three highly effective vaccines available, the pressure is off to authorize anything too quickly. Nonetheless, the US and the world are hungry for antivirals to treat Covid-19. "Effective, early, oral medicines will be fundamental to ending Covid-19. Health agency Unitaid welcome additional small molecule antivirals -- supported by evidence -- and with meaningful commitments to access in all countries, including low and middle income countries," Herve Verhoosel, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization sponsored nonprofit, said in a statement. Raising expectations Some people may have unrealistic expectations of an antiviral. "There's a group of people who are really vaccine averse. They will see this as a port in a storm," Schaffner said. "They'll say to themselves, 'Oh, I don't like the vaccine but in case I get sick, I can get treated.' They may have too many expectations of this treatment." Antivirals aren't magic bullets in the same way antibiotics can be. One easy analogy is flu. Four prescription antivirals are available for flu in the US: Tamiflu, or oseltamivir; Relenza, known generically as zanamivir; peramivir, sold under the name Rapivab; and baloxavir, sold as Xofluza. Tamiflu and baloxavir can be given as pills and work best if started immediately after someone tests positive -- or even, in the case of Tamiflu, to prevent infection in people who have been exposed. Zanamivir is inhaled and peramivir is injected. Adalja said it looks like the Merck and Pfizer drugs for Covid-19 work more effectively than any of the influenza drugs. "I think that when you have oral antivirals that can decrease complications and decrease hospitalizations, that makes Covid-19 a much more manageable respiratory infection, and that's always been the goal," Adalja said. Down the road, if either or both drugs are authorized, an important question will be how they are delivered. Speed will be of the essence, Schaffner said. "There will be delivery mechanism. Can you get this at a pharmacy? Will there be some central mechanism to send it out to people at their homes?" he asked. Plus, there will be the issue of making sure people take the drugs as directed. Molnupiravir is given as a batch of four pills taken twice a day for five days. "That sounds easy. But that's not so easy for a lot of people," Schaffner said. "I think there are a lot of people who won't take all the pills." Adalja hopes having Covid-19 antivirals will kickstart a system that should have already existed, with tests available for a range of infections, from flu to strep. "People should have the ability to test themselves at home and have that linked to antiviral treatment," Adalja said. "I envision a kind of a world where someone has a cough or cold and they walk into their bathroom or their kitchen and they put a swab in their nose and they stick it in the machine and it spits out rhinovirus or flu or strep or whatever it might be," he said. And that test result could be sent to a pharmacy that would then deliver any appropriate medication to the patient's home. The infected person would get treatment without wasting time standing in lines first to see a caregiver and then for a prescription, and best of all, would know to stay home from school or work. "So the faster that antiviral gets into someone once they know they're infected, the better the impact will be," Adalja said. This story was first published on CNN.com "Antiviral pills for Covid-19 -- not a cure, but a great tool". (CNN) The US Attorney's office in Arizona announced the unsealing of two indictments that charged high-ranking members of the Sinaloa drug cartel with international drug trafficking, one of them the brother of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the convicted former leader of the cartel. A federal grand jury in Tucson returned superseding indictments in November 2019 and February 2020 against cartel members Aureliano Guzman-Loera of Sinaloa, Mexico, along with brothers Ruperto, Jose, and Heriberto Salgueiro-Nevarez of Guadalupe Y Calvo, Mexico, according to a press release from the US Attorney's office on Friday. "The indictments allege various violations of United States law related to the international distribution of controlled substances, including fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana, occurring over several years," the release said. In February 2019, El Chapo was convicted on 10 counts, including engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to launder narcotics proceeds, international distribution of cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs. He is serving his life sentence in Colorado's Supermax prison. The wife of El Chapo, Emma Coronel Aispuro, pleaded guilty in June in a federal court in Washington to drug trafficking and money laundering charges related to her husband's narcotics empire. This story was first published on CNN.com, "Brother of drug trafficker El Chapo and 2 others indicted on drug trafficking charges" (CNN) -- A man is missing after a reported shark attack at a beach in North Fremantle, Western Australia according to police and the state government. Police and surf rescue helicopters as well as water police and surf lifesaving personnel responded to reports of the "serious shark bite incident" at Port Beach around 10 a.m. local time. The search for the person is continuing, police said. The City of Fremantle and nearby City of Cottesloe have closed beaches in the area for the next 24 hours, according to the state's Fisheries department. Acting Inspector Emma Barnes, Western Australia Police Force, said: "A male adult has been attacked by a shark. "I can say that the actions of the witnesses were heroic and very brave: for getting everyone else in the water out of the water and notifying everyone of what was happening." CNN affiliate 9News said the attack was witnessed by a group of teenage boys who tried to help the victim, then warned other swimmers to get out of the water. According to 9News, police are searching for a man in his 50s and they have said that the victim was a regular swimmer at Port beach. The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) patrols will continue the search until sunset and resume at sunrise. There was another shark attack off an Australian beach in September this year which resulted in the death of a man in his 20s. Australia ranked behind only the United States in the number of unprovoked shark encounters with humans in 2019, according to the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File, Reuters said. This story was first published on CNN.com "Police searching for missing swimmer after a shark attack in Western Australia". (CNN) -- Two 16-year-old high school students have been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a Spanish teacher at their Iowa school, court documents show. The remains of Nohema Graber, who was a Spanish teacher at Fairfield High School, were discovered in Chautauqua Park in Fairfield, Iowa, on the same day she was reported missing, according to a statement posted on the city's Facebook page. Willard Noble Chaiden Miller and Jeremy Everett Goodale, both 16, have been criminally charged as adults based on the circumstances and their ages, the city said in the statement. Each is charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit a forcible felony, according to court records, which also show they are held on a $1 million bond. It is currently unclear whether Miller or Goodale have attorneys. Preliminary investigation at the scene indicated that Graber -- whose remains were concealed under a tarp, wheelbarrow and railroad ties -- had suffered inflicted trauma to the head, according to a criminal complaint. In an interview, "an associate" of Goodale and Miller provided authorities with exchanges in social media that indicated Goodale had "specific details of the disappearance and subsequent death of Graber," the criminal complaint stated. The social media interactions also showed that Miller was "involved and present for the death of Graber," according to the complaint. "The details included, but were not limited to, the motive for killing Graber, the planning and execution of the means to kill Graber, as well as deliberate attempts to conceal the crime," authorities wrote in the complaint. Miller admitted in an interview to being in Chautauqua City Park "as the murder was taking place, providing materials utilized in committing the murder and aiding in actions taken to conceal the murder," according to the complaint. "Fairfield Community School District is saddened by the tragic death of longtime teacher, Mrs. Nohema Graber," District Superintendent Dr. Laurie Noll said in a statement. "In her nine years with Fairfield High School, Mrs. Graber touched the lives of many students, parents, and staff." Miller and Goodale are slated to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on November 12, court records show. This story was first published on CNN.com "2 students are charged with first-degree murder in death of Spanish teacher who taught at their Iowa school". Third Ward Council Member John Vandenberg has missed at least half of the David City council's meetings so far this year. City council members discussed how to approach abundant absences at the council's Oct. 27 meeting -- specifically, the impact of absences on the compensation city council members receive. In a Nov. 5 email to the Banner-Press, City Administrator Clayton Keller said council members are paid $225 per regular meeting, and $112.50 per special meeting. The council usually has two regular meetings each month -- one on the first Wednesday of the month and another on the third Wednesday. "As a representative of the citizens of this town, I don't think they need to be paying if we're not going to be at the meetings," First Ward Council Member Jessica Betzen-Miller said at the Oct. 27 meeting. Betzen-Miller suggested that the council adjust the current policy so that council members are not paid for meetings they miss. She added that they could allow council members to miss a certain number of meetings per year, with possible exceptions for emergencies and illnesses. "We can look at the circumstances to see whether or not it justifies that counting against them," Betzen-Miller said. However, city code and Nebraska law prevent the council from altering the terms of compensation for council members until an election where seats on the council are up for vote. Vandenberg was elected to represent the third ward in November 2010 and has served on the council since January 2011. He is currently nearing the end of his third four-year term. His seat on the council will be up for election in November 2022. Since the council can't make any compensation changes until then, Betzen-Miller asked to put the topic of compensation on the agenda in one year. The council may not be able to adjust compensation until this time next year, but there is a provision that allows the council to remove a council member on the sixth meeting following absences from five consecutive meetings. "Then the city council member that has missed the five meetings in a row is allowed to ask the council to excuse his or her absences," Keller said. Keller said any council member who has missed meetings can ask to have their absences excused at any time. Vandenberg has not yet been absent for five consecutive meetings this year, but he did come close with four consecutive absences in June and July. So far in 2021, there have been 20 regular council meetings and one special council meeting, which took place on June 16. As of the council's Oct. 27 meeting, Vandenberg had missed 11 meetings: the special meeting and 10 regular council meetings. Still, Zavodny noted that there have been times in the past when extenuating circumstances, such as illness or other medical issues, have prevented council members from attending meetings regularly. The Banner-Press reached out to Vandenberg for comment but had not received a response as of press deadline for this story. After the Oct. 27 meeting, the council has two more meetings scheduled -- one on Nov. 10 and the other on Dec. 8. "Part of what we're discussing is disenfranchising the voters of a given ward. The other thing is, meetings are one part of this job," Mayor Alan Zavodny said. " The other side of the coin is, how do you represent the people you've been elected by? It's hard to do it when you can't be there." Third Ward Council Member Bruce Meysenburg had something else to add. "When I decided to run for this seat, I figured I was going to try to be here at every meeting," Meysenburg said. "I know there are times when you can't make every meeting -- you miss one or two here and there. But you've got to take some responsibility in what you were doing when you got elected. You've got constituents who elected you." Molly Hunter is a reporter for The Banner-Press. Reach her via email at molly.hunter@lee.net. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. " " Valerio L. M. talks with his grandfather Remigio, 91, via a WhatsApp video call on March 19, 2020 in Bologna, Italy, during the nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Massimo Cavallari/Getty Images In the United States, texting via the app or software that comes loaded with your phone is the usual way for people to stay in touch with friends and family. This is called SMS (abbreviation for Short Message Service) texting. Throughout most of the rest of the world, however, people use a separate third-party app. The biggest one of these is WhatsApp. Since its launch in 2009, it has remained the texting app of choice in countries as diverse as Spain, South Africa, Brazil and India, with penetration rates of over 50 percent to over 90 percent of mobile phone users. (In the U.S., just 12 percent of mobile phone users had downloaded WhatsApp, according to Statista.) In all, more than 2 billion people in 180 countries have used WhatsApp to text, send audio clips, and make audio and video calls. That enormous user base made it an irresistible target for Facebook, which purchased WhatsApp in 2014 for a mind-warping $19 billion. Advertisement It's certainly not the only messaging app around. Others, like WeChat (over 1 billion users in China), Viber (big in Eastern Europe), Facebook Messenger (North America's favorite) and others are all vying for the same users. These messaging apps aren't just child's play. Some experts believe they will overtake social media giants like Facebook and Twitter in the next few years as a means for communicating with others. The Appeal of Text MessagingApps So why does the rest of the world favor these apps over using SMS? "Free, unlimited SMS messaging is more common in the U.S. than many other countries and that has limited the need for over the top mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp that can offer consumers a cheaper alternative to regular mobile services," says eMarketer principal analyst Jasmine Enberg via email. "iPhones are also more commonly used in the U.S. than most countries worldwide, so the widespread use of iMessage has also held back WhatsApp adoption. In short, there has been less need for an app like WhatsApp in the U.S. than in the rest of the world." WhatsApp has several characteristics that help explain its widespread appeal. For one, it's free, and unlike so many other apps, it doesn't have ads, nor do you have to log in to an associated social media account to use it. The app identifies users through their phone numbers, so after you install the app, your phone contacts become your WhatsApp contacts, without extra steps like asking for your friends' usernames or info. In the U.S., carriers often include text messages as part of a flat monthly fee, but in other places, like Europe, cell phone carriers often charge per-text fees that can quickly add up meaning messaging apps can help users save a bundle on their cell phone bills. The fact that WhatsApp is an independent, freestanding app is also to its advantage. "OTT (over-the-top) messaging apps that aren't linked to an operating system, like WhatsApp, also allow smartphone users with different operating systems to message each other using mobile data or WiFi, which can bring down mobile service costs and allow users to communicate when there is no cell signal," says Enberg. "That also enables smartphone users in different countries to message each other without incurring additional international charges." Of course, it's still possible to accumulate obscene data charges using WhatsApp. If you video chat or send huge files via your cell signal instead of WiFi, you could be in for a surprise when you see your phone bill. WhatsApp, WeChat, Viber, and other apps are superior to SMS with regard to the kinds of messages you can send. There are no limits on the number of characters in your messages, and of course, you can make voice and video calls, even internationally, for free. You can also attach documents of all kinds, as well as video and audio clips. And if your cell phone service is cut off because you haven't paid the bill, you can still communicate with people if you're near a WiFi hot spot. Notably, WhatsApp also uses strong end-to-end encryption which ensures that your messages are confidential and fairly secure. (Your typical SMS message is not encrypted.) Many experts have lauded the app's commitment to privacy. Government agencies, however, say the app makes it easier for criminals and terrorists to communicate their wretched plans with one another without getting caught. Security issues aside, it remains to be seen whether WhatsApp will retain its huge lead on other messaging competitors. The company has unveiled a business version (for which it charges subscription fees), which will undoubtedly grow the app's footprint. But the fact that WhatsApp is owned by Facebook has rubbed some privacy-focused users the wrong way, and they've continued their search for alternatives. These apps have names like Telegram and Threema. NOW THAT'S INTERESTING WhatsApp has a read receipt feature that shows two blue checkmarks after the recipient sees your message unless, of course, they turn off read receipts for privacy reasons. You can work around this issue with a simple hack. Just send them a short voice note (even one second will do) and even if they have read receipt turned off, you'll see those two blue ticks that show they've listened to the audio. You didn't hear that from us. After weeks of falling totals of new COVID-19 cases, Cumberland County was one of the few counties in the region to see a slight uptick in cases over the past weekend. The state Department of Health reported on its online dashboard Sunday that the county saw 142 new cases over two days. That's more than last weekend's tally of 114 but still short of the 164 new cases two weeks ago, and a far cry from the 266 new cases a month before that. With the increase in cases, however, the percentage of tests coming back positive also rose. Judging by just the number of confirmed positives reported (108) and the total number of negative tests reported (340), about 23.8% of tests came back positive for COVID-19 in the last two days. Across the region, only a few counties saw a somewhat significant rise in cases compared to last weekend. Perry County had 29 new cases this past weekend, compared to 19 last weekend, while Lebanon County had 127 new cases compared to 98 last weekend. York County also saw a slight rise to 370 new cases over the weekend compared to 361 last weekend, but that total is still far from the 450 range of the last few weeks. A silver lining in the latest report is that fewer new deaths were reported compared to last weekend. There were no new deaths in Cumberland County, nor in Dauphin County. In the region, three new deaths were reported in Huntingdon County, two in Blair County and one each in Adams, Bedford, Juniata and York counties. With one new additional death, York County is one step closer to reaching the 1,000 death mark, with its current total of 999 COVID-19 related deaths since the pandemic started in March 2020. Though cases are wavering and leaning toward reductions, there haven't been large decreases in the number of hospitalizations. In the last two days, the county saw one fewer patient with COVID-19 in the hospital, with only 79 hospitalized with COVID-19. And while there was a large drop of patients on ventilators, falling from 16 to 12 over the weekend, there was an increase in the number of patients in the ICU, rising from 15 to 17. In the county, of the 114 currently staffed ICU beds, only six are still available. Franklin County saw a much steeper decrease in COVID-19 patients, with numbers falling from 57 to 51. Of those who were in the hospital, only nine were in the ICU and seven were on ventilators - the same numbers as late last week. Of the 30 currently staffed beds, only two were still available Sunday. Dauphin County saw a slight increase in the number of its patients, rising by one to 100 patients overall. Of those patients, 31 were in the ICU and 19 were on ventilators. Of the 198 currently staffed beds, 28 were still available. School-age children In its weekly update for the 10th week of the school year, the department reported 84 cases among children aged 5-18 in Cumberland County during the week of Oct. 27-Nov. 2, an increase of 12 from the 72 cases reported last week. That brings the total number of cases in Cumberland County for this school year to 1,346. Statewide, the number of cases among 5- to 18-year-olds decreased for the sixth week in a row with 4,918 cases reported. The state said the total number of cases in that age group for the school year is 64,674. Early Warning Dashboard Cumberland County saw an increase in its in percent positivity and a decrease in its incidence rate per 100,000 people in the Health Department's weekly update to its Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard Friday. Its percent positivity increased to 9.5% for the week of Oct. 29-Nov. 4, up from 8.4% the previous week. The incidence rate per 100,000 people decreased to 115.6, down from 128.3 the previous week. Philadelphia County, which includes the city of Philadelphia, had the lowest percent positivity in the state for the week of Oct. 29-Nov. 4 at 3.4% and the lowest incidence rate per 100,000 people at 62.5. Penn State Health update (Nov. 3) Penn State Health lists a COVID-19 dashboard on its website tracking cases at each of its acute care hospitals Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Penn State Health Holy Spirit Medical Center, Hampden Medical Center and Penn State Health St. Joseph Medical Center. The dashboard will be updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday's update shows 86 total cases (81 adults, 5 pediatrics) in the health system's four hospitals 12 are fully vaccinated (14.8%) with five in an ICU and two on a ventilator, 64 are nonvaccinated (74%) with 19 adults in an ICU and 9 adults on a ventilator, and 10 are unknown status patients. Three of five children hospitalized are unvaccinated (two are unknown status), with no one in an ICU and no one on a ventilator. Holy Spirit Medical Center in Camp Hill has 15 COVID patients. Four are fully vaccinated adults (one in ICU and one on a ventilator) and 11 unvaccinated adults (one in an ICU and one on a ventilator). Hampden Medical Center has six COVID patients. Five are not fully vaccinated (one in an ICU, no one on a ventilator) and one is fully vaccinated (one in an ICU). Vaccinations The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labels Cumberland County as having "high" transmission of the virus the highest level, which is the transmission level for every county in the state except Philadelphia County which has dropped to "substantial," the next highest level. Community transmission is determined by the number of new cases per 100,000 people in the last seven days and the positivity rate over the last seven days, so the classification could vary from day to day based on those numbers. In data updated Saturday evening, the CDC says Cumberland County has seen 63.3% of its total population of 253,370 become fully vaccinated. For the county's vaccine eligible population of people ages 12 and older, 73% have been fully vaccinated. County numbers in the southcentral region (for Nov. 7) *2-day totals: Adams County (pop. 103,009): 68 new cases; 13,648 total cases (11,138 confirmed, 2,510 probable); 44,327 negatives; 231 deaths (+1); 50.4% of county population vaccinated 68 new cases; 13,648 total cases (11,138 confirmed, 2,510 probable); 44,327 negatives; 231 deaths (+1); 50.4% of county population vaccinated Bedford County (pop. 47,888): 46 new cases; 7,035 total cases (4,791 confirmed, 2,244 probable); 12,571 negatives; 176 deaths (+1); 35% of county population vaccinated 46 new cases; 7,035 total cases (4,791 confirmed, 2,244 probable); 12,571 negatives; 176 deaths (+1); 35% of county population vaccinated Blair County (pop. 121,829): 180 new cases; 18,250 total cases (14,396 confirmed, 3,854 probable); 47,428 negatives; 400 deaths (+2); 46.5% of county population vaccinated 180 new cases; 18,250 total cases (14,396 confirmed, 3,854 probable); 47,428 negatives; 400 deaths (+2); 46.5% of county population vaccinated Cumberland County (pop. 253,370): 142 new cases; 28,778 total cases (22,463 confirmed, 6,315 probable); 102,802 negatives; 634 deaths; 63.3% of county population vaccinated 142 new cases; 28,778 total cases (22,463 confirmed, 6,315 probable); 102,802 negatives; 634 deaths; 63.3% of county population vaccinated Dauphin County (pop. 278,299): 143 new cases; 35,485 total cases (30,428 confirmed, 5,057 probable); 129,097 negatives; 659 deaths; 59.1% of county population vaccinated 143 new cases; 35,485 total cases (30,428 confirmed, 5,057 probable); 129,097 negatives; 659 deaths; 59.1% of county population vaccinated Franklin County (pop. 155,027): 66 new cases; 22,236 total cases (18,055 confirmed, 4,181 probable); 64,660 negatives; 467 deaths; 46.1% of county population vaccinated 66 new cases; 22,236 total cases (18,055 confirmed, 4,181 probable); 64,660 negatives; 467 deaths; 46.1% of county population vaccinated Fulton County (pop. 14,530): 18 new cases; 2,330 total cases (1,143 confirmed, 1,187 probable); 5,045 negatives; 32 deaths; 31.7% of county population vaccinated 18 new cases; 2,330 total cases (1,143 confirmed, 1,187 probable); 5,045 negatives; 32 deaths; 31.7% of county population vaccinated Huntingdon County (pop. 45,144): 30 new cases; 6,989 total cases (5,740 confirmed, 1,249 probable); 20,985 negatives; 167 deaths (+3); 47.2% of county population vaccinated 30 new cases; 6,989 total cases (5,740 confirmed, 1,249 probable); 20,985 negatives; 167 deaths (+3); 47.2% of county population vaccinated Juniata County (pop. 24,763): 15 new cases; 2,981 total cases (2,719 confirmed, 262 probable); 6,723 negatives; 116 deaths; 40.5% of county population vaccinated 15 new cases; 2,981 total cases (2,719 confirmed, 262 probable); 6,723 negatives; 116 deaths; 40.5% of county population vaccinated Lebanon County (pop. 141,793): 127 new cases; 21,090 total cases (18,034 confirmed, 3,056 probable); 63,455 negatives; 340 deaths; 51.2% of county population vaccinated 127 new cases; 21,090 total cases (18,034 confirmed, 3,056 probable); 63,455 negatives; 340 deaths; 51.2% of county population vaccinated Mifflin County (pop. 46,138): 22 new cases; 7,445 total cases (7,042 confirmed, 403 probable); 17,690 negatives; 204 deaths; 49.4% of county population vaccinated 22 new cases; 7,445 total cases (7,042 confirmed, 403 probable); 17,690 negatives; 204 deaths; 49.4% of county population vaccinated Perry County (pop. 46,272): 29 new cases; 5,416 total cases (4,172 confirmed, 1,244 probable); 13,421 negatives; 127 deaths; 47.5% of county population vaccinated 29 new cases; 5,416 total cases (4,172 confirmed, 1,244 probable); 13,421 negatives; 127 deaths; 47.5% of county population vaccinated York County (pop. 449,058): 370 new cases; 64,259 total cases (52,292 confirmed; 11,967 probable); 195,329 negatives; 999 deaths (+1); 55.7% of county population vaccinated ZIP code-level counts (updated Nov. 7): 17013: 3,454 positives, 15,932 negatives - +20 since Nov. 5 17015: 2,056 positives, 7,780 negatives - +9 since Nov. 5 17050: 3,263 positives, 16,261 negatives - +11 since Nov. 5 17055: 3,678 positives, 18,419 negatives - +16 since Nov. 5 17011: 3,388 positives, 15,448 negatives - +16 since Nov. 5 17007: 492 positives, 1,988 negatives - +4 since Nov. 5 17065: 354 positives, 1,375 negatives - +5 since Nov. 5 17324: 402 positives, 1,416 negatives - +2 since Nov. 5 17241: 923 positives, 3,458 negatives - +5 since Nov. 5 17257: 2,364 positives, 7,815 negatives - +6 since Nov. 5 17240: 230 positives, 701 negatives - +2 since Nov. 5 17025: 1,572 positives, 6,258 negatives - +10 since Nov. 5 17070: 1,478 positives, 5,952 negatives - +14 since Nov. 5 17043: 497 positives, 2,260 negatives - +5 since Nov. 5 17019: 1,738 positives, 6,048 negatives - +11 since Nov. 5 17266: 28 positives, 136 negatives - +0 since Nov. 5 School district and college case counts (updated Oct. 29) The Sentinel's case counts for Cumberland County school districts and colleges or universities are updated Fridays. The policy for each school districts reporting is noted in the list below. Big Spring School District (reports active cases in past 14 days with school exposure): 16 student cases and 3 staff cases being monitored as of the sites last update on Nov. 5. (reports active cases in past 14 days with school exposure): 16 student cases and 3 staff cases being monitored as of the sites last update on Nov. 5. Camp Hill School District (posts chart that includes total case count): 12 new student cases and no new staff case since Oct. 29; 74 student cases and 8 staff cases this school year (started Aug. 25.) (posts chart that includes total case count): 12 new student cases and no new staff case since Oct. 29; 74 student cases and 8 staff cases this school year (started Aug. 25.) Carlisle Area School District (reports cases as they occur and updates a chart): 4 new cases since Oct. 29; 168 cases this school year (started Aug. 25) according to the charts last update on Nov. 4. (reports cases as they occur and updates a chart): 4 new cases since Oct. 29; 168 cases this school year (started Aug. 25) according to the charts last update on Nov. 4. Cumberland Valley School District (reports weekly and total number of cases with school exposure): 25 cases since Oct. 29; 219 cases this school year (started Aug. 31.) (reports weekly and total number of cases with school exposure): 25 cases since Oct. 29; 219 cases this school year (started Aug. 31.) Mechanicsburg Area School District (chart lists total cases actively being monitored, updated Tuesday and Friday): 14 positive and presumed positive cases being monitored as of Nov. 5. (chart lists total cases actively being monitored, updated Tuesday and Friday): 14 positive and presumed positive cases being monitored as of Nov. 5. Shippensburg Area School District (reports weekly and total confirmed case counts involving school exposure): 9 new cases since Oct. 29; 156 cases this school year (started Aug. 19) as of the charts last update on Nov. 3. (reports weekly and total confirmed case counts involving school exposure): 9 new cases since Oct. 29; 156 cases this school year (started Aug. 19) as of the charts last update on Nov. 3. South Middleton School District (posts notices as cases occur, updates table of case counts weekly on Fridays): 1 new case since Oct. 22; 73 cases this school year (started Aug. 25) as of the charts last update on Oct. 29. (posts notices as cases occur, updates table of case counts weekly on Fridays): 1 new case since Oct. 22; 73 cases this school year (started Aug. 25) as of the charts last update on Oct. 29. West Shore School District (reports active cases with school exposure within past 14 days): 63 student cases and 9 staff cases being monitored as of Nov. 5. (reports active cases with school exposure within past 14 days): 63 student cases and 9 staff cases being monitored as of Nov. 5. Dickinson College : no new student cases and 3 employee cases since Oct. 29; 34 student cases and 27 employee cases this semester (started Aug. 30.) : no new student cases and 3 employee cases since Oct. 29; 34 student cases and 27 employee cases this semester (started Aug. 30.) Messiah University : 8 new student cases and 5 new staff cases since Oct. 29; 66 student cases and 29 employee cases this semester (started Aug. 7.) : 8 new student cases and 5 new staff cases since Oct. 29; 66 student cases and 29 employee cases this semester (started Aug. 7.) Shippensburg University: 1 new student case and no new staff cases since Oct. 29; 164 student cases and 21 employee cases this semester (started Aug. 1) as of the last update on Nov. 1. (Counties with a percent positivity above 5% in a week go on the Department of Health's watch list) Pennsylvania: Percent Positivity - 9.3% last 7 days (8.7% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 165.3 (165 previous 7 days) Adams County: Percent Positivity - 14.2% last 7 days (15.2% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 192.2 (194.2 previous 7 days) Cumberland County: Percent Positivity - 9.5% last 7 days (8.4% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 115.6 (128.3 previous 7 days) Dauphin County: Percent Positivity - 10.6% last 7 days (11.8% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 140.1 (179.3 previous 7 days) Franklin County: Percent Positivity - 11.1% last 7 days (11.7% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 138.7 (152.2 previous 7 days) Lebanon County: Percent Positivity - 14% last 7 days (11.7% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 201 (186.9 previous 7 days) Perry County: Percent Positivity - 9.1% last 7 days (14.7% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 97.3 (179.4 previous 7 days) York County: Percent Positivity - 15.9% last 7 days (15.3% previous 7 days) last 7 days (15.3% previous 7 days) Incidence Rate per 100,000 people last 7 days - 228.3 (249.2 previous 7 days) Carlisles parks and recreation board expects to have plans finalized next month for construction of two parks, one of which will be for skateboarding, along Fairground Avenue. Engineer Chris Chiampi from Frederick, Seibert & Associates presented plans to the board Thursday that featured a little more fine-tuned design for the two parcels, and concrete designer Matt Arment also took questions from local skateboarders over the design of the skate facility. The two pieces of land were deeded to the borough by Carlisle Auto Industries, the development company associated with Carlisle Events, as part of the overall redevelopment plan for the former IAC/Masland factory site. A parcel at the south end of the site, roughly an eighth of an acre adjacent to the railroad tracks, is planned for a skate park. Following feedback from local skaters, Arments preliminary layout would have the park divided roughly evenly between a skate bowl and an area with pads for tricks. The second parcel is roughly a half-acre running alongside Fairground Avenue between B and C Streets, and is planned to be a more traditional park with green space, a playground, walking trail, and both swinging and fixed benches. A final review and approval of the plans to be referred to borough council will likely be scheduled for the parks and recreation boards December meeting, said borough Parks and Recreation Director Andrea Crouse said. Construction of the parks is expected to start in March 2022 and will need to be completed by the end of June, when the payout period for the state grant funding the project ends. The grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources is a matching grant up to $300,000 in state funds, giving the project a budget ceiling of $600,000, with a final price tag to be determined, Crouse said. Email Zack at zhoopes@cumberlink.com. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Nearly two decades ago, all preschool classes in Charlottesville City Schools were under one roof, and that was marvelous, said Eursaline Inge. Because the teachers could walk down the hall and say, Im struggling with this, or I need this, said Inge, who currently works as a family support worker for preschool. And if you were struggling with a child, you could access a colleague or just encourage each other during the day. That ability for staff members to collaborate and share resources is one reason Charlottesville wants to go back to a center model. The citys roughly 200 preschoolers are spread across the six elementary schools in 20 classrooms, according to division data. The citys preschool program took over the Jefferson School for several years before vacating the site in 2002 and moving the classes to the neighborhood elementary schools. Since moving out, the School Board has discussed on and off again a plan to bring all the preschool students and their teachers back together again. Now, Charlottesville is the closest it has ever been since 2002 to having all preschoolers together again after City Council voted last month to keep the so-called reconfiguration project moving forward. As part of the projects first phase, all preschool classes would be moved to Walker Upper Elementary School. A standalone $22.3 million early childhood center would be built on the Walker campus in an eventual phase two. The other parts of the plan include moving fifth-graders from Walker back to the elementaries and sixth-graders to Buford Middle School. Renovating and expanding Buford, which would cost an estimated $75 million, is the first phase. In the meantime, Walker would be turned into a temporary facility until the preschool center is constructed, under the current plan. The city wants to start construction on the first phase in July 2023 and wrap it up by August 2026, meaning students not born yet would likely be part of the first preschool class at Walker. +8 Why Charlottesville wants to spend $75 million to remake Buford Middle School The first phase of the so-called reconfiguration project estimated to cost $75 million will upgrade Buford Middle School and eliminate a school-to-school transition in Charlottesville. Here's why parents and students think that's important. No specific timeline has been set for the construction of the early childhood center because how it will be funded is still unclear. School board members and community members have mentioned the possibility of private funding. Officials also want to raise the sales tax rate, the revenue from which would be dedicated to school construction. If approved by the General Assembly and local voters, the city could levy a general retail sales tax at a rate of 1%, which would bring in about $12 million a year, officials have said. City officials have said that the real estate tax rate would have to be increased by five cents in order to pay for the first phase. Reconfiguration: By the numbers First Phase: $74.78 million - $73 million expansion and renovation of Buford Middle School to bring the schools capacity from 533 to 1,050 students. 593 students currently attend Buford. - $1.35 million to turn Walker Upper Elementary into a temporary preschool facility. - $425,000 to buy furniture for fifth-grade classrooms at elementary Second Phase: $22.3 million - Building a 48,600 square-foot early childhood center with 18 classrooms and space for support services Why a preschool center Over the years, school division officials have pointed to greater investments in early childhood as one way to address the persistent achievement and opportunity gaps in the school division. The preschool program serves 3- to 4-year-olds from low-income households, who have a disability or are at risk of starting kindergarten behind their peers. From 2017-21, students of color made up 84% of the preschool programs enrollment, and 66% of students were economically disadvantaged, according to division data. In the overall school division this year, 60.4% were students of color and 45.9% were considered economically disadvantaged. Centralizing preschool could take teaching and learning to a new level, said Sheila Sparks, the preschool coordinator for Charlottesville. Thats because all students would have all access to the same materials and experiences and their teachers would be able to share resources and support one another. It really will make teaching and learning more powerful, Sparks said. Having everybody speaking the same language and everybody pulling in the same direction, pushing for kindergarten readiness for everybody with the same plan, I think is really important. The center also would provide more continuity for students, so they dont have to change schools if their families move to another attendance zone. Inge said she likes the idea of going back to a center in which everything in the building is focused on preschool. Sometimes that support for preschool is not there because everybody doesnt get preschool, she said. As a family support worker for the preschool program, Inge helps families find transportation to doctors appointments and connects them to other resources in the community to find food or other resources. She and another support worker work with families at five of the six elementaries. Sparks takes care of Clark, Inge said. Inges office is at Charlottesville High School, so she doesnt see the families she works with every day. I miss a lot of that connection with parents, she said. With a center, she and the other support worker would work in one building where their families actually are, enabling them to better support students and their families. The earlier we can get children and nurture and encourage families, the better we are as a community, she said. More than 90% of a persons brain develops before age 5, which makes early childhood a critical time for children. In preschool, young children learn essential skills such as working with others and controlling their own behaviors and emotions before they head to kindergarten. That brain development really happens through moving their bodies and exploring their environments in ways that really need to be facilitated by the design of that environment, said Jessica Whittaker, a research associate professor at the University of Virginias School of Education and Human Development. Sparks said preschool teachers are look at students language and communication skills as well as fine and gross motor skills in addition to reading and math. We look at all of those areas, and everything that we do, we try to make it engaging and disguised in play, Sparks said. A four-year study published in 2019 of an expanded Virginia preschool program called Virginia Preschool Initiative Plus found that two-thirds of students who participated entered kindergarten ready to learn. Additionally, those students developed more than 15 months of mathematics skills and more than 20 months of literacy skills in a 12-month time frame from when they started preschool to beginning kindergarten, according to the study. According to the Virginia Kindergarten Readiness Program, children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are about 1.5 times more likely to be ready for kindergarten if they attend public preschool, compared to their peers who did not attend preschool. The citys preschool program is one of several options for early childhood education in the area as part of the states system for funding preschool. The recent conversations about the early childhood center come as the Gov. Ralph Northam administration has taken a greater interest in expanding access to early childhood programs. At the federal level, universal preschool has emerged a key policy priority for Democrats and could be funded in the Build Back Better Act. Were in the sweet spot; were in the eye of the storm in early childhood, so to speak, Sparks said. A long discussion The prospect of having all the preschoolers at one location has been a driving force in the reconfiguration conversations, which began in earnest in 2009. Following a year of community forums and conversations about the future of school facilities, the idea emerged for a central preschool center as a way to make room for fifth-graders at the elementary level, according to board documents. In fact, many board members who voted for the project in 2010 mentioned the early childhood center as a key reason for their vote, according to the minutes from the October meeting. The creation of the preschool center affords our children the opportunity to benefit from a consolidated program in a state of the art facility, former board member Colette Blount said then. Through collaboration with UVa and other early childhood education specialists, we have the chance to open the door to affecting early and long lasting positive work in the educational foundation of our children. I am primarily supporting Option 4 because of the preschool center. That is where we can have a very different and long lasting impact. Option 4 was the reconfiguration option thats still being considered today. As many of you have already said, the early childhood development center is something that I think given our proximity to UVa is a golden opportunity to really be a game changer in the early years of our childrens lives, former board member Kathy Galvin said during that meeting. A year after her vote, Galvin was elected to City Council and started her term in 2012. The project was shelved in early 2012 because of funding concerns. But after former Councilor Wes Bellamy asked for a plan to expand early childhood programs, reconfiguration was pulled off the shelf. The School Board sought once again to make the project a reality in late 2018 following capacity concerns. Reconfiguration Key Dates & Decisions January 8, 2009: Efficiency study presented to School Board, calling for the closure of an elementary school. April 20, 2009: Then schools Superintendent Rosa Atkins presents four options to the community to kick off a series of community meetings about school facilities. Those four options were: staying the same, closing an elementary school, having two middle schools, or going to sixth through eighth grade middle school. Oct. 27, 2009: Community group narrows the options to the fourth one Oct. 21, 2010: School Board votes to proceed with the reconfiguration plan, citing the benefits of a centralized preschool Feb. 17, 2011: School Board votes to make Buford the middle school November 2011: VMDO Architects estimates the project would cost $46 million January 2012: Plan abandoned because of cost and the economic downturn Fall 2015: Former Councilor Wes Bellamy asks for a plan to expand prekindergarten Summer 2017: VMDO capacity study released in response to rising student enrollment Sept. 26, 2017: School Board meets to review capacity study and reconfiguration and central preschool presented again Dec. 19, 2018: Board decides to proceed with reconfiguration plan, estimated to cost $55 million with a range from $60 to $80 million. Spring 2019: City Council approves $3 million for a reconfiguration design study to estimate cost Spring 2021: City Council includes $50 million placeholder in CIP for project Spring 2021: VMDO receives contract for the design phase June 2021: Design meetings begin October 2021: City Council votes to swap out the placeholder for a $75 million project, moving the project forward Current plans call for a two-story early childhood center with 18 classrooms that would be built on the lower end of the Walker campus near Rose Hill Drive. The schools gym would be demolished to make space for the new facility, which would be connected to the arts building. That building and the auditorium would be repurposed. The center could eventually be expanded to 32 classrooms. The facility would also include space for community services that families could utilize. What those wraparound services will be has not been determined, Sparks said, but will be based on what families need. They could include a food pantry or clothing closet, among other ideas. I see it as a conduit to get them in touch with the right people, she said. Gail Esterman, the director of early learning for ReadyKids said the wraparound services would be a wonderful asset to the center. ReadyKids is a nonprofit that provides a range of services to the community such as counseling and professional development for early childhood teachers. If families need support or have concerns about their childs development, she said that it can be cumbersome for families to access the necessary resources. Im supportive of anything that expands the opportunity for young children to get a high-quality early childhood experience, Esterman said of the proposed center. The VMDO team is working with preschool teachers and administrations to determine the specific designs for the center before the City Council makes a final decision regarding funding in March. Walker was built in 1966 and designed for middle school students. Instead of renovating the site to meet the needs of small children, the citys architects recommended constructing a new building. That option also leaves Walker available for central office staff or a potential new elementary school down the road. During the first phase of the project, the academic building at Walker would be turned into a temporary preschool facility until the center is built. That would entail installing step-stools and bathroom sinks, adding outdoor learning areas and making exterior improvements and cost $1.35 million, according to VMDO. Before the pandemic, 235 students were in prekindergarten, according to state data. Currently, 221 students in the citys preschool programs, which include community options such as the YMCA and Barrett Early Learning Center. About 201 preschoolers are in city schools classrooms. The biggest thing that I think that Im most excited about, which wont affect me directly or my children, is the idea of a dedicated preschool, said Tammy Sutton, a Charlottesville mom. Its just another step toward equity. Officials have said over the years that the preschool center could open the door to expanding the program. Sutton said childcare in the Charlottesville area is expensive and expanding access to preschool could help families who have to choose between working or sending their child to daycare. This is important and investing in our children is the most solid investment in our future, she said. According to Child Care Aware Virginia, the city has 41 child care programs for young children 25 of those are licensed. Looking at licensed capacity, there are 1,763 spots at child care centers, preschools and family child care homes. For children ages 2 to 3, the average cost of full-time child care in Charlottesville is $274 a week, which would come out to about $14,222 for a full year. For children ages 4 to 5 who arent in school, the cost is $229 a week or $11,882 a year. Providers in Charlottesville and Albemarle account for 75% of all licensed providers in the area for young children as well as those who are school-aged, according to an analysis of Child Care Aware data. In Albemarle, the average annual cost of full-time child care for those ages 2 to 5 is $10,504, according to Child Care Aware Virginia. Spaces designed with young kids in mind Teaching 3- and 4-year-olds requires a different approach compared to teaching older children, Sparks and others said. The younger children learn through play, have nap time during the day and need to move around. Because small children learn differently, it is important that they learn in spaces designed for them, said Whittaker with UVa. They learn by moving their bodies, they learn by playing, they learn by exploring, she said. Classrooms have to be set up in a way that really allows for that sense of play in order to incorporate a lot of the learning that they do into their play. So its just a very different environment that facilitates young childrens learning than older students, and that needs to be accounted for in any type of redesign. Whittaker studies the association between teacher-child interactions in early childhood and childrens academic and social-emotional outcomes. She said studies have highlighted the importance of high-quality interactions for young children. We know that the environment can be really supportive of high-quality interactions if theres space for children to play, if there are spaces for them to be able to calm their bodies when they get upset, if theres enough room for them to interact with peers, if theres cozy corners for them to have interactions with their teachers, she said. Whittaker said that young children need to be able to go outside and to use the outdoors as part of their early childhood experience. So they really need to be able to go outside and to use the outdoors as part of their learning environment, she said. You can imagine with a group of four-year-olds, that its a lot harder to get them outside than it is, for example, a group of fifth-graders, so having that accessibility to the outdoor learning environment is really key. The team at VMDO focused on ensuring that teachers can easily take their classes outside as part of the initial designs. For example, the classrooms are at the same level as the outdoor play and learning spaces. Access to the outdoors whenever they needed it was a perk of the Jefferson School center, Inge said. The school had a playground and a dedicated area for tricycle riding along with an indoor gym. Teachers didnt have to work around the schedules of older students for time in those spaces. Plus, if one student didnt want to take a nap, another teacher could help out. I remember there were kids that didnt nap and there might be one of the teachers say, Oh, Im gonna take your two kids that are not napping and my four outside and they can ride bikes or swing on the swing, Inge said. Those are the kind of things that as a center, we were able to do. A space designed for young children also means having the sinks, toilets and furniture at the right size, and that makes a difference for all involved, several people said. I think it is really going to be exciting to have things that are kind of at their level, and its going to be focused on their development and whats really important in early childhood, Sparks said. Whittaker said that it is important for people to keep in mind that the center would affect the most marginalized learners in the schools. Because its our most vulnerable children who are in these programs, she said. Were designing a high-quality learning environment specifically for early childhood. That hasnt happened because right now theyre sitting in classrooms that are designed in elementary schools. So the ability to design a space specifically for the development of young learners is really exciting. Shes hoping that momentum behind reconfiguration can continue after the first phase is done. I have some concerns that momentum will get lost once that redesign happens because there just arent as many advocates in the early childhood arena as there are for older students, she said. Overall, Sparks said a new early childhood center could help the school division provide professional learning support over preschool providers in the area along with student teachers. This program has historically been very well respected across the community and across the state, Sparks said. ... We want to really take that lead and take it to the next level. Shes hopeful that the city and school division will be able to take next steps to make the center a reality. Because it really is for generations to come and for the children who arent even born yet, thats who this is for, she said. Want to see more like this? Get our local education coverage delivered directly to your inbox. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. It was clear that the board and I did not see eye to eye and it was untenable. So I resigned, Woolley said. I stand by my work. I stand by all that Ive done. And Im ready to defend it. And I will defend it and have defended it in the past. But as far as anecdotes that have not seen the light of day in a courtroom where Ive been disposed of, theres nothing to say about them, he said. Councilor Lloyd Snook also gave Woolley the opportunity to address multiple lawsuits that had come against him while he was employed at the Philadelphia Housing Authority. I was one of several defendants named including the organization itself there were four cases, three of which involved lawyers that were disgruntled. One was taking corporate documents, another was living outside the city. And then another ones representing both the housing authority and a wayward police officer, Woolley said. In most cases its very difficult, near impossible for one attorney to represent both sides. And so I just ran into some issues there, but because of it, I was named in the suit. And it was disposed of and the attorney in question was reprimanded by a federal judge from the bench, he said. The president and the administration wouldnt have put these requirements in place if they didnt think that they were appropriate and necessary, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Sunday on ABCs This Week. And the administration is certainly prepared to defend them. If the mandates are a success, they could make the most serious dent in new coronavirus cases since the vaccine first became available, especially with the news this past week that children ages 5-11 can get the shot making an additional 64 million people eligible. But with two weeks remaining until the federal worker deadline, some leaders of unions representing the employees say that convincing the unvaccinated to change their mind is increasingly challenging. I got the vaccine in February, it was my own choice and I thought it would stop the virus, said Corey Trammel, a Bureau of Prisons correctional officer and local union president in Louisiana. But it hasnt. And now I have people resigning because they are tired of the government overreach on this, they do not want to get the shot. People just dont trust the government, and they just dont trust this vaccine. The Democrats who represent Colorado in Washington hailed passage of the massive, bipartisan infrastructure bill late Friday, celebrating billions in spending on long-awaited improvements across the state and declaring a victory on the party's domestic agenda. In this file photo, Rebecca Hong, right, a registered nurse who is the assistant nurse manager in the mom/baby unit at Rose Medical Center, administers the COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna to hospital worker Kudusan Tekle in the first round of staff vaccinations at Rose with the Moderna product on Dec. 23, 2020, in Denver. I was glad to hear the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade will return this year with the crowds, who might want to take out some extra insurance based on past occurrences. Begun in 1924, the event was originally called Macys Christmas Parade, and featured animals from the Central Park Zoo. It was a wet day in 1957, a downpour filled the cap of the Popeye balloon with gallons of water, causing it to veer off course and dump on some unlucky spectators below. In 1997, Kathleen Caronna was the victim of the famous Cat in the Hat incident, when the balloon got swept away from the parade route by high winds, hit a lamppost and was knocked in to Caronna, who was in a coma for a month afterward. She sued the city, Macys and the lamppost manufacturer for $395 million, but settled for an undisclosed amount. Her strange fortunes continued in 2006, when a plane carrying Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle and his flight instructor crashed into the Belaire Apartments building. Caronnas apartment was one of the ones hit, although she wasnt home at the time. 1986 saw two sad incidents when a 61-year-old bagpiper had a fatal heart attack while marching in the parade, and a spectator fell out the fourth story window he was watching from, landing on someone below. MADISON, Wis. (AP) Prosecutors trying to convict Kyle Rittenhouse of murder have been working to paint him as an inexperienced teenager who misrepresented his age and medical training to other armed civilians in his group on the night he shot three men during a protest against police brutality in Wisconsin last year. Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger has drawn out testimony during the first week of Rittenhouse's trial from several witnesses, including two military veterans, saying the Illinois teen appeared inexperienced, that he falsely claimed that he was old enough to possess a gun and that he was a certified medic when he was really just a lifeguard. Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor and attorney in Chicago who isnt involved in the case, said Binger is trying to show jurors that Rittenhouse didn't know what he was doing and that they shouldn't believe his self-defense claims. In terms of how he reacted, they want to show it in context that he's young and he's not experienced and would be more likely to perceive (the protest) as a more threatening situation (than an older person), Turner said. A younger guy is going to think this guy is going to hurt me when really it's not true. ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) Reversing its previous position, the University of Florida said Friday that it will allow three professors to testify as experts in a lawsuit challenging a new state election law that critics say restricts voting rights. Last month, the university prohibited Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin from testifying in the lawsuit brought by civic groups, saying that such testimony would put the school in conflict with the administration of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, which pushed the election law. More than half of the university's trustees are appointed by the governor. In a letter to the campus, university president Kent Fuchs said he is asking the office responsible for approving professors outside work to greenlight their request to serve as expert witnesses in the litigation. Fuchs said the outside work would have to be on the professors own time and not use university resources. Attorneys representing the professors said they were still planning to move forward with a lawsuit against the university. China's careful scanning of packing and transportation means for the Covid-19 virus is hurting Vietnams agricultural exports and putting the produce at risk of getting damaged. The intensified inspection regime has forced exporters to spend a lot of time waiting at ports and borders. In some cases, the quality of perishable agricultural products has been affected, said Le Ba Anh, deputy head of the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD). "We have spoken directly to the Chinese Customs Department on the matter but they said this is a mandatory regulation for dealing with the complicated development of the pandemic," he said. "There have been quite a lot of Vietnamese fruit batches that have been suspected of having the Covid virus on their packaging or on vehicles." Tang Cheng Wei, President of the Pingxiang International Fruit Association in Guangxi, China, said 100 percent of Vietnams agricultural products exported to China must be inspected for the virus while the rate is just 30 percent for Thailands. Chinese authorities want Vietnam to sign a protocol soon that would expedite the customs clearance process. Under the protocol, only 30 percent of each batch exported to China will be subjected to inspections, he said. In September, China, which is Vietnams second largest export market behind the U.S., had temporarily ceased the import of dragon fruit from Vietnam after detecting the novel coronavirus on the packaging. It had also reported a similar detection on Vietnamese mangosteens early August. Seafood export to China has also faced difficulties, said Anh of the NAFIQAD. Since last year, China has maintained a slow pace in checking and supplementing the list of Vietnamese businesses qualified to sell seafood to China. Apart from more stringent inspections, China has reinforced its sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations on Vietnamese agricultural products. Deputy Director of SPS Vietnam, Ngo Xuan Nam, said that between January and October, China had made a total 42 announcements about SPS changes imposed on Vietnams goods. Chinese agriculture authorities have recently issued a list of more than 10,000 maximum residue limits for imported products. Compared with the document issued in 2019, the new list adds 81 more types of plant protection drugs to the list and 3,000 types of products subjected to the residue limit. China is one of Vietnam's top trading partners. The import-export turnover of agro-forestry-fishery products between the two countries had grown strongly from $8 billion in 2015 to $11 billion last year. China was Vietnams second largest export market of agricultural, forestry and fishery products behind the U.S., posting an export turnover of $7.5 billion in the first 10 months of the year, accounting for 19.3 percent of Vietnams total agricultural exports. A cement plant in Vietnam's southern province of Binh Phuoc. Photo courtesy of Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation Cement producers have pushed up sales prices by VND50,000-90,000 ($2.21-3.98) per ton due to higher production costs, especially amid thinner coal supplies. Ha Tien 1 Cement JSC announced a price hike of VND80,000 per ton for packed cement branded Vicem Ha Tien, applicable from early this month. Late last month, Bim Son Cement JSC increased its packed and unpacked cement prices by over 6 percent. Meanwhile, Vicem Hoang Mai Cement JSC announced a price hike of VND50,000 per ton for all kinds of cement. According to statistics from Vietnam Association of Construction Contractors, prices of coal in the Vietnamese market, with thinning supplies, had recently surged 7-10 percent. Coal accounts for 40-45 percent of cement production costs. Prices of diesel oil and many kinds of additives used in cement production have also risen, leading to cement price hikes since Oct. 25. Many cement producers reported smaller profits or losses in the third quarter of this year. Ha Tien 1 Cement JSC under Vietnam National Cement Corporation (Vicem) racked up losses of over VND20 billion. According to statistics from Vicem, total cement sales on the Vietnamese market stood at 11.8 million tons in the third quarter, seeing a year-on-year decline of nearly 24 percent. Specifically, Vicem sold nearly 4 million tons of cement, down more than 20 percent. Cement firms often make big revenues and profits in the last quarter of a year, the peak construction season. The Building Materials Department under the Ministry of Construction predicted cement demand would surge when the Covid-19 pandemic is controlled, and construction resumes. Local securities company VNDirect said in the coming months, Vietnamese cement companies could export their products to some neighboring countries facing temporary cement shortages. Hanoian commuters are excited, even thrilled, at the prospect of getting to work and back without the draining, frustrating daily experience of being stuck in traffic jams. For them, Vietnam's first metro line, the Cat Linh - Ha Dong route in the capital city, offers hope that their daily commute is faster, more convenient and less harmful to their health. Nguyen The Thanh, 26, has lived the daily nightmare of traveling 10 kilometers from his house in Ba Dinh District to Ha Dong District for a long, long time. When the Cat Linh-Ha Dong metro line opened Saturday morning, the IT engineer could not wait to go for a ride, and experience as easier daily commute to work and back. "When I saw the metro line under construction, I yearned for the day I could ride one of the trains and escape my daily traffic-jam torture. Now my dream has come true," he said, as he set out for the Cat Linh Station to try the countrys first metro. Thanh is one of hundreds of excited residents waiting to try out the route and find an escape from the daily drudgery of rush hour traffic jams that have plagued major cities in Vietnam because of a lack of efficient public transportation and the resultant large number of personal vehicles motorbikes and cars on the road. Hanoi Deputy Chairman Duong Duc Tuan said the metro line would help increase the number of public transport users, and together with the nine other routes planned, form a key transport network that will reduce traffic congestion. Cat Linh metro station in Hanoi, Nov. 6, 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy Among people waiting at the Cat Linh Station early Saturday morning were many families, groups of elderly people and friends. Some people made it a festive occasion, wearing the traditional ao dai for their first metro experience. "I used the metro when I was in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, so Im thrilled to see we now have a metro line of our own," said La Tan Thanh, a Dong Da District resident. In the crowded waiting hall of Cat Linh Station, Nguyen Phuong Dung, who had brought her family along for the ride, said: "The metro line's construction started when I was in high school. Now I am married and have a daughter already." Built by China Railway Sixth Group Co Ltd, the project took 10 years to complete with many hurdles and conflicts delaying the work several times. Next to Phuong, many young people were taking photos of the station and themselves on the noisy platform. As the train entered the station, the excitement among the people was palpable, many trying to capture the first moment of entering the train with their cameras. Elderly people in the crowd found entering the train a bit of a struggle. All seats taken on a train running Vietnams first metro route, Nov. 6, 2021. Photo by VnExpress/Dat Nguyen On par Many people are not only relieved that their wait for a modern metro line is over, but also proud that new means of public transportation will help modernize their city. "Hanoi is now on par with other modern cities in the world," said Hoang Minh Thuy, a university student riding one of the shiny new trains with her classmates. Truong Vinh Tien, 66, resident of Dong Da District, said: "I only travel by bus usually, and now have another option, this is so convenient." Inside the shiny, air-conditioned carriages, hundreds of first-time passengers took photos of themselves and the city through the glass windows, wearing face masks. "This is very modern, I feel like I am in Bangkok," said Do Truong Tan, an engineer traveling with his family. For most commuters, the metro line is a symbol of the city's development. "The train is very smooth and convenient for the disabled, the old and pregnant women... I am so proud," said Nguyen Thi My Hanh, 30, who has worked on the project. In the first week, the service will run from 5.30 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day with a train every 15 minutes. The frequency will be increased from the second week onwards with a train leaving every 10 minutes. After six months, the service will be extended to 10.30 p.m., with a train every six minutes during rush hour. On a video call with his mother from the new train, Thanh said: "I would love to go to work on this train every day." RENO (AP) The extended studies program at the University of Nevada, Reno is launching the first online courses in the state to obtain non-credit certificates in cannabis education ranging from business to horticulture and medicine to help meet demand for jobs in an area that sponsors say is growing like gangbusters. Each certificate program includes three eight-week online courses offered through Green Flower, a cannabis career training company. The four programs cover the business of the marijuana industry; agriculture and horticulture; law and policy; and health care and medicine. Its a new era, said Jodi Herzik, interim vice provost for Extended Studies. The industry is changing, she told the Reno Gazette Journal. You cant just have former potheads running the counter, you have to have educated professionals. Legal cannabis sales exceeded $1 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 in Nevada, where about 10,000 people work in the industry, the Nevada Dispensary Association reported. Weve been very careful to stress that this is strictly education about the industry because theres a need, Herzik said. With the impact of COVID-19 being displaced, and people looking for new career paths, we thought this might be the right time to try this program, she said. Jobs in that area are growing like gangbusters. Theyre high-paying jobs too. Legal cannabis supports 321,000 full-time jobs nationally, growing faster than any other industry in the country, according to the Leafly 2021 Jobs Report. Such growth has created a large and growing job market, and a tremendous opportunity for people in Nevada to find rewarding careers, said Daniel Kalef, Green Flowers vice president of Higher Education. Marijuana is still illegal at a federal level, and that includes direct research, consumption and any other direct use. A majority of states, however, have legalized marijuana in some capacity. Nevada was the third state to approve cannabis for medical use with the adoption of the Nevada Medical Marijuana Act in 1998. Nevadans voted to legalize cannabis for adult recreational use in 2016. Herzik said the university hasnt promoted the program heavily so as to have a soft launch this month, allowing the school to ensure its a good fit and doesnt need any tweaking. About 30 to 40 prospective students have expressed interest so far, many from the Las Vegas area and a few from other parts of the country, she said. The first session of online courses begins Nov. 15. The cost is $2,950 per certificate, but the university is offering a special one-time $500 discount for students who enroll in the November launch. Payment plans are available. Students will develop a portfolio of case studies and projects that can be used to demonstrate sector-specific cannabis knowledge, Herzik said. Upon successful completion of the program, students will earn a certificate of completion from UNR. Courses begin in six start dates a year and are scheduled to accommodate working professionals, she said. Enrollment is open at https://cannabiseducation.unr.edu. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Earthquakes continue on La Palma There have been 27 earthquakes detected by the National Geographic Institute (IGN) during the early hours of Monday in La Palma and they have occurred at depths of between 9 and 37 kilometres. The highest magnitude earthquake reached 3.4 at 1:00 a.m. in the municipality of Fuencaliente and at a depth of 13 kilometres. There is an ongoing debate about whether the practice of switching clocks twice a year should continue or be ditched. The system was first adopted in the US in 1918 but dropped the following year, only to be taken up again. In 1966 the act of changing the hour to take advantage of longer days in the summer months was made uniform across the US. However, not all the states went along with adopting Daylight Saving Time, a few holdouts kept Standard Time. It wasn't until 2006 that Indiana became the 48th state to conform with the practice, previously a large part of the state didn't bother with the time change. Now a number of states would like to do away with the twice annual time change and just stick with Daylight Savings Time. How does Daylight Savings Time work? Twice a year the majority of Americans change their clocks for Daylight Saving Time. The change happens on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November each year. The shift is always done on the weekend at 2:00 am to limit the amount of disruption caused. There is a saying to help remember which way to change your clock, Spring forward, Fall back, so in the springtime you turn your clock forward one hour and in the autumn you turn your clock back an hour. The time shift allows people to take advantage of extra daylight during summer allowing them to save energy, as well as reducing crime and traffic accidents. Residents in some states will not be changing their clocks The only parts of the US that do not have Daylight Saving Time are Hawaii, most of Arizona, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. Arizona experimented with the change beginning in 1918, but decided to permanently opt out of the Daylight Saving Time in 1968. Although the state observes Standard Time, the Navajo Nation, a Native American territory in the north-east of the state, which also crosses over into New Mexico and Utah, does make the twice a year time shift. Hawaii is the only other state that currently doesnt observe Daylight Saving Time. Along with the other US territories in the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea, they are close enough to the equator that there is no significant difference in sunrise and sunset times across the year so there are no benefits from changing the hour. States call for ending the practice, just one hitch, they want to go in the wrong direction For some the twice annual time change is a bother, which has led to calls to end the practice of Daylight Saving Time. 29 states have introduced legislation to do away with the twice-yearly switch, 19 have passed legislation in the past four years to take up Daylight Savings Time year round. However, the ultimate authority to do so has been under the Department of Transportation since 1966 and they would need Congressional approval. But, if those states chose to keep Standard Time all year, they wouldn't need to ask the federal government for its OK. One other problem, depending on which poll you look at, Americans can't agree on whether to ditch the system or which system to go with if it were nixed. A poll back in 2019 found that 71 percent of Americans dont like switching their clocks back and forth twice a year. The catch is that according to the 2019 AP-NORC poll more Americans, 40 percent, would prefer to have Standard Time year round. Add to that, another pool taken by CBS just four years prior found that Americans were split about down the middle about whether they wanted the twice annual time change or not. Why we change the clocks for Daylight Saving Time The first person credited with suggesting the idea of changing our clocks to take advantage of the longer summer days was Benjamin Franklin while he was living in Paris. But the man credited with getting the ball rolling was a British builder named William Willett who suggested the idea to Parliament as a way for the nation as a whole to make better use of daylight. However, Germany was the first to implement the practice of seasonal time changes, desperate to save energy during the First World War. The policy quickly caught on with most European nations, the US and the United Kingdom along with its allies adopting the Daylight Saving Time by 1918. However, many nations got rid of the system in the years after the war only to adopt it again when there was a need to conserve energy. Does Daylight Saving Time really conserve energy? The Daylight Saving Time is credited with reducing crime, people are doing activities in the daylight so there are less opportunities for criminals, as well as saving lives and preventing traffic accidents. However, the primary reason for the twice-yearly shift comes from the energy savings it is purported to have. According to the US Department of Transportation study in 1975, the US experienced nearly a one percent daily savings on energy use during the yearly Daylight Savings Time period. However, those findings have been contradicted by more recent analysis performed in 2006 when Indiana implemented Daylight Saving Time statewide. Researchers found that residential energy consumption actually increased by around one percent. They ventured that although less lighting is needed, the longer summer evenings caused a spike in AC usage in households throughout the state. With 17 free trade agreements (FTAs) whose negotiations have been completed or underway, Vietnam has become an open economy with a trade to GDP ratio of up to 200%. According to the Agency of Foreign Trade under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), Vietnamese firms have maximised advantages to boost exports and penetrate into new markets. The countrys total export-import value rose from US$84.7 billion in 2006 to US$545.3 billion last year. In the first 10 months of this year, the figure was US$537.31 billion. Vietnam has always recorded a trade surplus, from US$1.77 billion in 2016, to US$2.1 billion in 2017, US$6.8 billion in 2018, US$10.9 billion in 2019 and US$19 billion in 2020. The structure of exports has been improved significantly, with the turnover of processed industrial goods increasing from 80.3% in 2016 to 85.1% in 2019 and 85.2% last year. Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Tran Quoc Khanh cited a report by the WTO last year as saying that among the top 50 merchandise traders, Vietnam recorded the biggest increase in the world's rankings, leaping from the 39th place in 2009 to the 23rd position in 2019. The numbers reflect that Vietnam is an open economy after joining the WTO and seriously realising its commitments, he stressed. Moreover, the signing and implementation of FTAs have helped the country attract more foreign direct investment (FDI), creating momentum for the national economy, the official added. Ngo Chung Khanh, Deputy Direrector of the MoITs Multilateral Trade Policy Department, said apart from reducing administrative procedures, the ministry will continue with the communication work to raise domestic firms awareness of the FTAs. Notably, the ministry will speed up the building of the FTA Portal (FTAP), he said, adding that more than 20 ministries and agencies will join a working group to operate and upgrade the portal. Deputy Minister Khanh affirmed that Vietnam will further promote trade policies comprehensively and synchronously to boost economic development in tandem with sustainable development. Vietnam will work harder to effectively implement the present international commitments and FTAs, while seeking potential partners to conduct negotiations on new FTAs, thereby helping to expand trade ties in the future, he said. Vietnam's e-commerce forecast to surpass 11.8 billion USD Vietnamese e-commerce market is forecast to continue growing in the post-pandemic period, with revenue surpassing last year's figure, according to experts. Illustrative image. (Photo: congthuong.vn) The experts revealed the information at a workshop held recently on the future of the Vietnamese digital economy within the framework of Techfest Vietnam 2021, reported VNA. E-commerce revenue in Vietnam hit 11.8 billion USD last year, posting a growth rate of 18 percent. Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, head of e-commerce division of Voso E-commerce Platform, said that the Vietnamese e-commerce market recorded the fastest growth rate in Southeast Asia. E-commerce is expected to continue booming after the COVID-19 pandemic is controlled, creating new consumption trends. The demand for online purchases through e-commerce platforms has increased sharply since the outbreak of the pandemic. Up to now, more than 70 percent of Vietnam's population have accessed the Internet, of which nearly 50 percent of consumers have tried online shopping and 53 percent of them have used e-wallets and online payment. Thuy said that consumers' habits have completely changed during the pandemic, as they have reduced shopping activities and instead they have focused on essential goods and been interested in Vietnamese commodities. Tran Chi Dung, Head of Technology-Innovation Division of the Vietnam Logistics Business Association, said that a change in shopping habits has created great opportunities for e-commerce to develop. However, Vietnam's e-commerce still faces many challenges such as consumer trust when buying online products, forms of delivery and payment, information security and transportation infrastructure. Le Thi Mai Anh, Head of the E-commerce Postal Sales Department at Vietnam Post, said the rapid growth of the market is forecast to continue in the future. This growth will not only bring about major opportunities but also challenges for the development of logistics platforms to meet the increasing demand of customers and the market. Logistics enterprises for e-commerce are also facing a low rate of information technology application in e-commerce logistics, she said. Currently, only about 11 percent of businesses are applying basic information technology related to tracking and tracing goods, delivery and warehousing systems. Another challenge is the absence of a legal framework for e-commerce logistics, Anh said./. Plan on resumption of international flights proposed The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has proposed the Ministry of Transport a plan to resume international flights, including combo flights for Vietnamese citizens in routes connecting Vietnam with Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan (China), Singapore Thailand, Malaysia, France, Germany, Russia, and Australia, reported VNA. In the first phase of the plan, routes connecting Vietnam with Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan (China), Singapore Thailand, Malaysia, France, Germany, Russia, and Australia will be resumed (Photo: VNA) In the first phase, operations of flights to other markets will be re-open when there is demand for labour transport, according to the plan. The frequency of the flights will depend on the quarantine capacity of localities, it said, adding that flights will only be allowed after agreements on receiving and quarantine plans are reached with the localities. The CAAV also proposed the launching of pilot flights to carry foreign tourists to some tourist destinations like Phu Quoc, Khanh Hoa and Quang Ninh. The flights will not be limited by markets, but all passengers must show negative RT-PCR/RT-LAMP testing results against SARS-CoV-2 which is valid within 72 hours until the departure time of the first flight in their journey to Vietnam. They should also be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or show certificates of recovering from COVID-19 within six months. They are required to register for package tours provided by travel firms. There will be one flight per day on the average, with about 4,000-6,000 passengers served in the first month. The number of flights will be doubled in the following month. In the second phase from January next year, the CAAV proposed piloting regular flights that will only serve passengers who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or have recovered from the disease. No document-based acceptance for their entrance is required. Initially, four flights per leg will be operated each week on air routes between Vietnam and China, Hong Kong (China), Japan, the Republic of Korea, Taiwan (China), Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, France, Russia, Australia and other safe countries without recommendations of travel restrictions. The CAAV will suggested new markets as well as number of flights in line with the real situation. Meanwhile, in the third phase from April 2022, depending on the vaccination progress in Vietnam and the evaluation on herd immunity, regular flights to Vietnam will be resumed. Passengers on flights need not go to quarantine upon arrival, as vaccine passports are in place. In this phase, Vietnamese and foreign passengers are required to show their vaccination certificate or evidence of recovery from COVID-19. The markets will be opened following the demand of airlines, with seven flights per leg allowed for each airlines per week. In the final phase slated from July 2022, international flights will be operated in line with the market demand and the vaccination progress in Vietnam as well as the herd immunity in society./. Real estate market attracts more than US$2 billion in FDI Vietnams real estate market has attracted US$2.12 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) over the past 10 months, ranking third among sectors attracting FDI this year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, reported VOV. Vietnam's real estate market remains attractive to foreign investors despite the COVID-19 impact. (Source: VOV) The amount made up 9% of the total FDI Vietnam has attracted in the reviewed period. There were 44 newly licensed projects with a registered capital of nearly US$1.1 billion. Seventeen projects registered to adjust their capital worth nearly US$116 million, while, nearly US$912 million was generated from share purchase. The General Statistics Office reports the number of newly established businesses in the real estate sector remains modest compared to other sectors. Photo for illustration (Source: danviet.vn) Statistics show more than 5,900 real estate businesses have been established since the beginning of the year, up 7.8% year on year. In addition, the number of real estate businesses resuming operation has also increased by 13.8% to 1,161. Notably, the past few months has seen a rise in merger and acquisition transactions between foreign and domestic real estate businesses. Most recently, Nishi Nippon Railroad acquired Nam Long Investment Joint Stock Companys stock at Paragon Dai Phuoc Company Limited, signaling that the real estate market is gradually improving in Vietnam./. Another batch of the Pfizer vaccine numbering more than 1.3 million doses donated by the US Government has arrived in Vietnam. (Photo: US Embassy). We are excited to announce the arrival of over 1.3 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine this morning in Hanoi. More are on the way! the US Embassy in Hanoi said on its Facebook page on November 6. The US has so far donated both Moderna and Pfizer vaccines to Vietnam to help it control COVID-19, adapt safely to, and enter a new normal. The donation also demonstrates the US commitment to support Vietnam in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides vaccine donations, the US has committed US$26.7 million in grant to help Vietnam respond to the pandemic and more than US$1 billion to develop local health infrastructure. In June, US President Joe Biden pledged to share a total of 80 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccines worldwide. The US said about 75% of the vaccines will be delivered through the COVAX Facility, while the remaining 25% will be distributed directly. A videoconference organised by the Ministry of Planning and Investment identified the key locations of the expressway corridor, which will end at the Nam Soy border crossing with Vietnam, according to the Vientiane Times. Illustrative image. (Photo: AFP/VNA) The meeting assigned the Department of Roads of Ministry, Public Works and Transport, in collaboration with provincial and capital Departments of Public Works and Transport, to discuss and inspect the locations through which the expressway will pass in each district, taking into consideration local needs. Officials were also instructed to look at the proposed connecting points between provinces. They should then present a report to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, which will approve the key locations of the corridor. This will be used as the initial route for the contractor company to conduct a detailed study and select the next section of the corridor, following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding. The newspaper reported that last month, Laos Ministry of Public Works and Transport last month appointed technical staff from the Department of Roads to coordinate with Public Works and Transport Departments in Vientiane and the provinces involved to work together. They subsequently held an online meeting attended by the Deputy Director General of the Roads Department, Atnada Boulom, and representatives from the provinces concerned. The meeting agreed to determine the connection points of the expressway from Vientiane through Xaysomboun, Xieng Khuang and Huaphan provinces and to the Vietnam border crossing at Nam Soy, based on information provided by these provinces and in accordance with local needs. The expressway will begin at the intersection of National Road 13 South in Km21 village, Xaythany district. In Xaysomboun province, the road will pass through Longxan district, link to Anouvong district and then pass through Longcheng district. In Xieng Khuang province, the proposed connecting point will be Xieng Neua village in Phaxay district, connecting to Na Hoi village in Paek district, Khai Yot Ngum village in Paek district, and then Muang Kham village, connecting to Namnat village in Kham district. In Huaphan province, the road will run through Nasala village in Huameuang district, then through Xamneua district and Viengxay district. From Huayheung village in Viengxay district it will run to the Vietnamese border. The meeting agreed to ask the Ministry of Public Works and Transport to approve these connecting points and draw up the connecting lines of the initial route following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions./. Sudan's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and General Abdel-Fattah Al-Burhan signed an agreement in a public ceremony in the presidential palace in Khartoum on Sunday afternoon to end the month-old political crisis in the country. The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) approved the regulations that govern the instant payment network (IPN) services in the domestic market, the bank announced on Sunday. Each line is set to be implemented within two years, with the first to be concluded in 2023 On Thursday, Egypt signed a memorandum of understanding with Germanys Siemens for the construction of a high-speed electric train line linking Egypts eastern and northern coasts. The step came a day after President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi met with German Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser in Cairo. Ahram Online lays out some of the details of the project below. Not just a line The project is not just a train line; it is an integrated system of a high-speed electric railway network linking the whole country with a total length of 1750 Kilometres and a total speed of 250 Kilometres per hour. The project's goals Besides working side-by-side with the 1000 kilometer-long diesel-powered train network in transporting people, the newly signed project will help be part of the Egyptian development process through connecting the country's industrial districts together in order to transport cargo from and to ports nationwide. A number of trains will be designated to transport tourists to and from many destinations too. Also, the project aims to link the country with neighbouring countries. Four main directions The project comprises four lines, with the first to be completed in 2023. The first line - which is 460km long - will pass through the Suez governorates Ain Sokhna, the New Administrative Capital, Cairo, Giza, Six October city, Alexandria and New Alamein city. The second will link the Red Sea's main port with Alexandria's port as well as Matrouh's Gargoub port. While the third connects Hurghada and Safaga with Qena and Luxor. The last line will link Six October city with Luxor and Aswan. Project's duration The project will be implemented by Siemens along with other Egyptian companies. Each line is set to be implemented within two years. The total cost The total cost, estimated at EGP 360 ($23 billion), will be paid to Siemens and the Egyptian companies involved in the project. According to the deal, the cost will be paid six years after the beginning of construction work over a period of 14 years. The cost covers the maintenance work over 15 years. Easy trips for tourists The project will provide two-hour trips from Luxor to Hurghada for tourists. Helping Upper Egypt train lines The lines passing through Egypt south aim at alleviating pressure on the already overwhelmed traditional Upper Egypt train lines. Job opportunities The project will create 15,000 job opportunities and 2000 permanent jobs during the first stage only. Search Keywords: Short link: Transport minister says during inspection tour on Tuesday that the high speed electric rail will help transport cargo from Ain Sokhna port Egyptian Transport Minister Kamel El-Wazir has urged for the completion of construction and development work at the Ain Sokhna Port within two years to coincide with the completion of the first phase of Egypt's first high-speed electric railway linking the city of Ain Sokhna, Alexandria and New Alamein city. The minister said the railway, which will link Egypts eastern and northern coasts, will help transport cargo from and to ports nationwide, including the Ain Sokhna port, in addition to transporting passengers. The $23 billion railway project - comprising four lines - will be implemented by Germanys Siemens along with other Egyptian companies. Each line is set to be implemented within two years. El-Wazir's directives were made during an inspection tour he made on Tuesday to follow up on the construction and developmental work at the Ain Sokhna Port, an affiliate of the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCZone), according to a statement released by the transport minister. The overall cost of construction and developmental work at the port is estimated at EGP 20 billion (around $127million), the statement added. Head of the General Authority of the SCZone, Yehia Zaki and the presidents of 42 national contracting companies accompanied the minister on the tour. The ports project is currently being developed in cooperation with Dubai Port Operator DP World, an Emirati multinational logistics company under an agreement signed in 2017. In November 2017, Egypt's SCZone Authority and DP World signed a partnership agreement to develop an integrated industrial and residential zone in Egypt's Red Sea coastal area of Ain Sokhna. The agreement will establish a joint venture between SCZone (51%) and DP World (49%), with DP World managing the zone. The project, located 55 kilometres south of the Suez Canal entry point, will allow shipments to reserve passage through the canal directly from the port, avoiding anchorage in front of Suez. Egypt has been pushing forward with efforts to lure investors to its SCZone in recent years, highlighting the available opportunities for foreign corporations. Search Keywords: Short link: Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi denounced on Sunday an assassination attempt on Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi in Baghdad, urging all parties to renounce violence. The residence of Al-Kadhimi, former intelligence chief who has served as Iraqi prime minister since May 2020, in the heavily fortified Green Zone was hit by an explosive-laden drone on Sunday. In a Facebook post, El-Sisi said he "followed with deep concern the unrighteous assassination attempt" on the Iraqi prime minister, praying to God to protect Al-Kadhimi and help Iraq and the Iraqi people achieve security and stability. "I also urge all political parties and powers in Iraq to [exercise] calm, renounce violence, and combine efforts to achieve the state's stability and the aspirations of the brotherly Iraqi people," El-Sisi added. The assassination attempt comes after Iraq held parliamentary elections early in October, which saw pro-Iran groups losing elections. Calling the Iraqi election results "manipulation," supporters of Iran-backed armed groups reportedly attempted to storm the Green Zone to demand a recount of polls results. At least one was killed and scores were injured as anti-riot police clashed with protesters. Al-Kadhimi denounced Sundays attack as "cowardly," calling for "calm and self-restraint for the sake of Iraq". On Twitter, Al-Kadhimi said "thanks to God, I am fine and among my people," vowing that "the missiles of treachery will not discourage the determination of believers". He added that "not a hair will be shaken in the steadfastness and insistence of our heroic security forces to preserve the people's security, achieve justice, and set the law in place". The Egyptian Foreign Ministry also strongly denounced the attempt, urging all Iraqi parties to exercise self-restraint. "Egypt stresses that these miserable terrorist acts will not discourage sisterly Iraq from continuing on the path of national achievements, the latest of which was last months parliamentary elections," the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. The ministry affirmed Egypt's support to Iraq against all threats to its security and stability. "Egypt calls for Iraqi parties to exercise self-restraint and prioritise the national interest with the aim of preserving the security, stability, and sovereignty of sisterly Iraq," the statement added. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt is set to boast the world's sixth longest high-speed network after the completion of its first high-speed electric railway, Michael Peter, CEO of Germany's Siemens, which was awarded the venture, told Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi on Sunday during the inauguration of the TransMEA 2021. Peter revealed that the four-line network, which will extend over 1,800 kilometres and links the country's eastern and northern coasts, will serve up to 30 million citizens annually, cutting their travel time from an average of 4 to 2 hours. The $23 billion electrical system will reduce air pollution by cutting emissions by 70 percent, compared to car and bus transportation he noted. A consortium made up of Siemens Mobility, Orascom Construction and the Arab Contractors has signed a contract with Egypts National Authority for Tunnels (NAT) to deliver an Egyptian rail system that will feature the countrys first high-speed, electrified main and freight rail line. The first high-speed electric railway, whose first phase is set to be completed in 2023, is one of Egypts new transportation ventures meant to work side-by-side with the 1,000 kilometre-long diesel-powered train network. From his part, El-Sisi hailed the partnership with Siemens, stressing we seek for more fruitful development between the Egyptian state and Siemens, and hope to complete the companys projects on time. Representatives from Siemens, and a wide range of regional and international players in transport sector attended the 4th Smart Transportation and Logistics Fair and Forum for the Middle East and Africa (TransMEA 2021). Earlier on Sunday, El-Sisi inaugurated the four day-fair that features presentations about leading solutions, innovative products, and new technologies for more efficient and faster transport and logistics services. Under the theme "Road to 2030", the fair is being held at the Egypt International Exhibition Centre in Cairo, in cooperation with Egypts Ministry of Transport, from 7 to 10 November. El-Sisi toured the fair and listened to a detailed explanation from officials about a host of land and maritime transport related projects, including the upgrades and development now underway-- to public transportation network and developments of seaports. The TransMEA features a stellar line-up of speakers, presentations, case studies and panel discussions providing access to a wealth of industry leading knowledge, information exchange, cutting-edge insights and outlooks with actionable takeaways. El-Sisi was accompanied by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly and Transport Minister Kamel El-Wazir. The country pushes ahead with expanding new smart cities and building modern transport systems to upgrade road networks and reduce travel time, transportation costs and fuel consumption. The country also seeks to boost trade exchange, reduce accident rates, and protect the environment. Search Keywords: Short link: Morocco's King Mohamed VI said Saturday that Western Sahara is "not negotiable", as tensions flared with Algeria over the disputed territory. "Today as in the past, Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara will never be up for negotiation," the king said in a televised speech. Morocco sees the former Spanish colony as its own sovereign territory while Algeria backs Western Sahara's Polisario Front independence movement in the conflict. "If we engage in negotiations, it is essentially in order to reach a peaceful solution to this artificial regional conflict," the king said. On Wednesday, Algeria accused Morocco of killing three Algerian civilians on a desert highway through a Polisario-held area of the territory in a strike on their trucks. Morocco has not officially commented on the accusation, but an informed source from the kingdom said "it has never targeted and will never target Algerian citizens, regardless of the circumstances and the provocations". "If Algeria wants war, Morocco doesn't," said the source, who requested anonymity. The Western Sahara, 80 percent of which is controlled by Morocco, boasts extensive phosphate reserves and rich Atlantic fishing grounds. Algeria has long hosted and supported the Polisario Front, which seeks full independence for the territory and has demanded a UN-supervised self-determination referendum as provided for in a 1991 ceasefire deal. In November, the Polisario declared the truce "null and void" after Moroccan forces broke up a blockade of a highway into Mauritania, that the independence movement said was built in violation of the ceasefire. Hostile actions The Polisario has since launched multiple attacks on Moroccan forces, killing six Moroccan soldiers, according to an informed Moroccan source. Tensions between Morocco and Algeria further escalated in August, when the latter broke off diplomatic ties with Rabat citing "hostile actions" charges denied by Morocco. In December last year, Morocco normalised diplomatic ties with Israel as part of the so-called US-backed Abraham Accords while the administration of president Donald Trump recognised the kingdom's sovereignty over Western Sahara. Last Sunday, Algeria ordered state energy firm Sonatrach to stop using a pipeline that traverses Morocco for gas exportations to Spain. To stake Morocco's claim, the current king's father, Hassan II, sent 350,000 civilian volunteers on the iconic Green March into the territory in 1975. Saturday's speech by the king marked its 46th anniversary. It also came just over a week after the UN Security Council on October 29 called on all sides to resume negotiations towards a solution, as it renewed the UN mission in Western Sahara for one year. The resolution calls for a goal of "self-determination of the people of Western Sahara" and also "reaffirms the need for full respect" of a ceasefire that collapsed last year. It urged the parties to resume negotiations "without preconditions and in good faith" in search of a "just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution". Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita welcomed the text, saying it "specifies the real parties to the conflict by calling for Algeria to take part responsibly and constructively. But Algeria said it would not "support" the resolution, saying it was unbalanced. "Algeria will not support this biased resolution which has the effect of comforting the exorbitant claims of the occupying state (Morocco)," the foreign ministry said in a statement last Sunday. The Polisario's UN envoy Sidi Omar tweeted last week that "there will be no new ceasefire as long as Morocco persists in its attempts to forcibly impose a colonial fait accompli in the occupied territories of the Sahrawi Republic". Algeria has also rejected the "roundtable format" of talks. The last UN-led peace talks in 2019 involved top officials from Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and the Polisario. They were frozen after UN envoy Horst Kohler quit the post in May 2019. He was finally replaced this month by veteran diplomat Staffan de Mistura. Search Keywords: Short link: Sudanese security forces on Sunday fired tear gas at multiple anti-power grab rallies, with protesters in several cities joining a call for two-days of civil disobedience against last month's military takeover. Hundreds of protesters rallied Sunday in the capital Khartoum, as well as in its twin city of Omdurman, Wad Madni to the south, and the northern city of Atbara. "The authority belongs to the people", protesters chanted, calling "no, no to military rule", and demanding a "civilian government". Nationwide protests have occurred since the October 25 power grab by the army, but have been met by a deadly crackdown. At least 14 demonstrators have been killed and about 300 wounded, according to the Central Committee of Sudan's Doctors. "Protesters barricaded the streets, set car tyres ablaze, called out against the military rule, and chanted that civilian government is the people's choice," said Hoda Othman, who witnessed protests in Omdurman on Sunday. Almost two weeks ago Sudan's top general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the government, as well as the ruling joint military-civilian Sovereign Council -- that was supposed to lead the country toward full civilian rule. Burhan also declared a state of emergency and detained Sudan's civilian leadership. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was briefly detained, but later placed under effective house arrest. Burning barricades Sunday's rallies followed calls for two-days of civil disobedience made by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella of unions which were also instrumental in the protests which led to the ouster of longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. "The Sudanese people have rejected the military coup," the SPA said, vowing "no negotiation, no partnership". The SPA's appeals for the civil disobedience were circulated via text messages, to bypass internet outages in place since the putsch. In Khartoum's eastern Burri district, protesters built burning barricades of tyres. "Security forces later dispersed the protest by firing tear gas and began removing the barricades," said protester Mosab Abdalla. Earlier on Sunday, dozens of teachers also rallied against the army outside the education ministry. "Police came and fired tear gas at us, though we were simply standing on the streets and carrying banners," said geography teacher Mohamed al-Amin. There were no confirmed reports of casualties but about 87 teachers have been detained, according to the SPA. Universities suspend classes The teachers' rally came after the military leadership replaced heads of department at the education ministry, as part of sweeping changes it made in multiple sectors. "The protest rejects the return of remnants of the old regime" linked to now jailed ex-resident Bashir, the teachers' union said. Meanwhile, classes in two of Sudan's main universities have been suspended indefinitely. The University of Khartoum "denounced the military coup" and decried attacks on students by armed men on October 25, the day of the putsch. The Red Sea University, in the eastern city of Port Sudan, said Sunday it had suspended classes for "students' safety". The military takeover sparked international condemnation, including punitive aid cuts and demands for a swift return to civilian rule. Burhan insists it "was not a coup" but a move to "rectify the course of the transition." On Thursday, the military released four civilian members of the government. But other key officials are still under guard and, on that same day, security forces arrested other civilian leaders after they met with UN Special Representative for Sudan Volker Perthes. "We call upon the military leadership to cease arresting politicians and activists and to stop committing human rights violations," Perthes said afterwards. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypts security forces killed 12 outlaws and injured one on Sunday in a shootout in the upper Egyptian governorate of Aswan, the Ministry of Interior announced in a statement. According to the statement, security forces cracked down on the biggest armed criminal gang in Upper Egypt in an ambush for a convoy of two pickup trucks that held 12 gang members, leading to a several-hour episode of exchanging gunfire. The head of the gang, a fugitive convict called Hamdy Abu Saleh, is among the gang members that were killed in the firefight. Abu Saleh was given several life sentences as well as sentenced to death before on charges that include murder, drug trafficking, and thuggery. The ministry added that the gangs criminal activity focused on trafficking narcotics as well as extracting gold illegally in various areas in the Red Sea governorate, especially around Marsa Alam, in addition to committing a range of crimes like murder, kidnapping, and thuggery. The security forces seized from the gang a number of heavy weapons, including RPGs, 2 machine guns along with their ammunition, automatic guns, as well as drugs like hash and marijuana. Search Keywords: Short link: UK Ambassador in Cairo Gareth Bailey expects the number of British tourists visiting Egypt this winter to reach or surpass 500,000. In an interview aired on ON E channel on Saturday, Bailey said between 3,000 to 5,000 British tourists visit Egypt monthly, taking more than 45 flights per week. Bailey added that the number of British tourists visiting Egypt had reached nearly half a million before being interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. More than ten years ago, almost a million British tourists visited Egypt annually, he said, in an apparent reference to the time that preceded politically turbulent years in Egypt between 2011 and 2013. The UK is one of the largest tourist markets for Egypt. From 2010 to 2015, It was ranked as between the second and fourth largest source of tourists headed to Egypt. In October, Sharm El-Sheikh International Airport received its first tourist flight from London following the resumption of direct air travel between the UK and Red Sea resorts after more than a year's suspension due to the pandemic. Two weeks earlier, the UK announced the removal of Egypt from its "red list" for travelers to the Kingdom from countries deemed a coronavirus risk. The UK also halted direct flights to Sharm El-Sheikh in the wake of the downing of a Russian passenger jet in October 2015 over Sinai, which killed all 224 people on board, but lifted the ban late in 2019. Economic cooperation During the interview, the UK ambassador said his country and Egypt also closely cooperate economically, pointing out the British investments in Egypt are estimated at 50 billion, with over 2,000 British companies investing in the Egyptian market. Bailey said he looks forward to fostering investments in Egypt, noting the agricultural sector is the top priority for bilateral cooperation given that Egypt seeks to increase its agricultural exports to Britain. The ambassador underlined that his country seeks to invest in technology in Egypt, as well as renewable energy sources. London and Cairo are cooperating in the transport sector, especially on the monorail, the ambassador noted, adding the production line of the monorail's cars is in Derby. The monorail is being built to connect Cairo with the New Administrative Capital and 6 October City, and will be a symbol of Egypt's future as a great power in renewable energy. He added that his role as an ambassador is to invite British and European investors to think about the available opportunities in Egypt. The ambassador hailed the Egyptian government's recent measures to promote investment, saying Egypt has succeeded in improving its business climate. Egypts success is visible to all foreign ambassadors, and they are conveying that image abroad, he added, clarifying the Egyptian market is open for all. Search Keywords: Short link: Egypt's Senate the advisory upper house of parliament provisionally approved Sunday a new "General Unified Planning" law, which aims to streamline the country's economic planning policies and engage the private sector in the economic development. Hani Sarie El-Din, chairman of the Senate's Economic Affairs Committee, said the new law primarily addresses how the country's socio-economic development plans are drawn up. "It shows the rules and methods upon which the country's sustainable development plans are prepared at both national and provincial levels," Sarie El-Din said, adding that "the current 1973 planning law states that the public sector is the main player in economic development." "But under the new law, the private sector will be entrusted with implementing at least 25 percent of the country's economic development investments," he pointed out. Minister of Planning and Economic Development Hala El-Said said the new general planning law reflects Egypt's current public-private partnership in achieving the country's 2030 sustainable development plans. "It also encourages decentralization and gives local councils a greater role in mapping out economic development plans," said El-Said. For his part, Abdel-Khaleq Ayad, chairman of the Senate's Energy and Manpower Committee, said the new law aims to set up a Higher Council for Planning and Sustainable Development. "This council, which will be headed by the president of the republic, will help create coordination among all state authorities when it comes to forging economic planning policies," said Ayad. The council will make sure that no development projects are implemented without making sure first that they are economically feasible, he added. Search Keywords: Short link: The United States on Saturday condemned a drone attack on Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi, which it characterized as an apparent act of terrorism. Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted his residence early Sunday and officials said he was unharmed. The attack was a major escalation amid tensions sparked by the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results. The United States on Saturday condemned a drone attack on Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi, which it characterized as an "apparent act of terrorism." "We are relieved to learn the prime minister was unharmed. This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state," State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement. "We are in close touch with the Iraqi security forces charged with upholding Iraq's sovereignty and independence and have offered our assistance as they investigate this attack." Search Keywords: Short link: Sudanese anti-military takeover demonstrators built street barricades in and around the capital overnight Saturday following calls for civil disobedience to protest last month's military takeover. Sudanese anti-military takeover demonstrators built street barricades in and around the capital overnight Saturday following calls for civil disobedience to protest last month's military takeover. Activists were seen working in darkness to pile up bricks and large slabs to block streets in Khartoum and neighbouring cities, according to witnesses and AFP correspondents. Their preparation followed calls for civil disobedience made by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella of unions which were instrumental in the 2018-2019 protests which ousted the longtime autocratic president Omar al-Bashir. The SPA circulated its appeals via text messages to bypass internet outages since October 25, the day of the putsch. "The Sudanese people have rejected the military coup," the SPA said on Twitter, vowing "no negotiation, no partnership, no legitimacy". "We will start by barricading the main streets to prepare for the mass civil disobedience on Sunday and Monday," it said, urging protesters to avoid confrontation with the security forces. Nationwide protests including by tens of thousands on October 30 have been met by a deadly crackdown. At least 14 demonstrators have been killed and about 300 wounded, according to the independent Central Committee of Sudan's Doctors. By Sunday morning, some shops were still open but others were shuttered in Khartoum and its twin cities of Omdurman and Khartoum-North, according to witnesses. "Movement on the streets is less than usual but there is not full blockage of streets or closure of shops" after the civil disobedience call, said a witness from Omdurman who declined to give his name fearing reprisals. Almost two weeks ago Sudan's top general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the government as well as the ruling joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that was supposed to lead the country toward full civilian rule. He also declared a state of emergency and detained Sudan's civilian leadership, including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and members of his government. Hamdok was later placed under effective house arrest and the military has since Thursday released four civilian members of his government. Other key figures remain in detention. The military takeover sparked international condemnation, including punitive aid cuts and demands for a swift return to civilian rule. Burhan insists it "was not a coup" but a move to "rectify the course of the transition." Search Keywords: Short link: Pope Francis called Sunday for greater diplomatic efforts to end a conflict in Ethiopia, as rebels fighting the government threatened to advance into the capital city. The pontiff said he was following "with concern" the news from Ethiopia, "shaken by a conflict that has been going on for more than a year, and that has caused numerous victims and a grave humanitarian crisis". "I renew my appeal that fraternal harmony and the peaceful path of dialogue may prevail," he told faithful gathered in St Peter's Square for the Angelus prayer. Nine rebel groups said on Friday they would join forces in an alliance built around the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which has been locked in a year-long war with the Ethiopian government. The conflict has killed thousands and pushed many more into famine-like conditions. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, sent troops into Tigray in November last year to topple the TPLF, accusing them of attacking military bases. The rebels have claimed several cities in recent weeks and have not ruled out marching on Addis Ababa. The government, which has denied the capital is under threat, has nevertheless declared a state of emergency and local authorities have asked residents to organise to defend the city. The United States, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and other countries have all urged non-essential diplomats and their families to leave Ethiopia in the past week. Search Keywords: Short link: As COVID-19 ravaged Hungary in April, Budapest resident Akos Sipos received his second vaccine dose, believing he was doing the right thing for his own health and to help end the pandemic. But Sipos, 46, soon discovered that the vaccine he received, Russia's Sputnik V, disqualified him from traveling to a number of other countries where it hadn't been approved. The nations include the United States, which is pushing forward with a new air travel policy that will make Sipos and many like him ineligible to enter. 'I thought it's better to get Sputnik today than a Western vaccine at some uncertain future time', Sipos, who works as a search engine optimization specialist, said of his initial decision to receive the jab. 'But I couldn't have known at that time that I wouldn't be able to travel with Sputnik'. Starting Monday, the United States plans to reopen to foreign travelers who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. But there's a catch: non-immigrant adults need to have received vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or which received an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization. That leaves many hopeful travelers across the globe who have taken full courses of vaccines widely used in other parts of the world _ Sputnik V and the China-produced CanSino jab, in particular _ scrambling to get reinoculated with shots approved by U.S. authorities. Two other Chinese vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been approved by the WHO and will thus be accepted for travel into the U.S. Mexico received nearly 12 million doses of CanSino and almost 20 million of Sputnik V after shipments began earlier this year. Residents who got the required two shots of those vaccines now are looking to top up with shots of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines, hoping that will make them eligible to cross the border. 'They screwed those of us who got this vaccine', said Rosenda Ruiz, 52, a public relations manager in Mexico City who received Sputnik V. 'There are lots of Mexicans who want to travel, but we can't. I am thinking of getting whatever other vaccine I can get'. While Sputnik V is used in around 70 countries worldwide, it has still not been approved by either the FDA or the U.N. health agency. Nearly 1 million people have received the vaccine in Hungary, a Central European country of around 10 million. Hungary was one of only two countries in the 27-member European Union to roll out the Russian vaccine. Fewer than 20,000 people received it in Slovakia. Judit Molnar, president of the Association of Hungarian Travel Agencies, says so many Hungarians being unable to travel to the United States _ or even to some countries in the EU which don't accept the jab _ has had an effect on her industry. 'We see that in the last few months, travelers are increasingly asking us when they can travel to America', said Molnar, who is also president of the OTP Travel agency. 'These travelers are saying they really hope the situation will change and that the United States will accept the Sputnik vaccine. There are many people who would like to travel and in Hungary, many people were vaccinated with Sputnik', she said. Citizens of Russia, where use of Sputnik V is most widespread, also are seeking Western-approved shots so they can travel abroad. Faced with the prospect of being turned away from flights, Russians have booked tours to Serbia, which has authorized use of the Pfizer-BioNTech, China's Sinopharm and the AstraZeneca vaccines in addition to Sputnik V. Russia, which unveiled Sputnik V with much fanfare as the world's first registered vaccine in August 2020, criticized U.S. plans to leave the vaccine off its list of approved shots. 'There are exactly zero reasons for such decisions', Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Russian Duma, or lower house of parliament. 'The effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine has been proven not only by specialists, but also by its practical application'. But the World Health Organization still is reviewing the vaccine, and months of holdups make it unclear when Sputnik V might receive an emergency use listing. Hungary's government has made bilateral agreements with 24 countries _ including Russia, Serbia, Mongolia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan _ on mutually recognizing proof of vaccination, regardless of vaccine type. Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Associated Press that it is open to a similar agreement with the United States, but 'currently there is no ongoing negotiation'. Sipos, the search engine specialist, said that while he was confident in Sputnik V's efficacy, he recently sought a Western-approved booster shot, Moderna, so he could travel where he wants. 'I felt deceived because they accept Sputnik in more than 60 countries in the world, but in tons of other countries they don't', he said. Silvia Morales, 38, a public high school teacher in Monterrey, Mexico, said she recently received a Moderna shot after hearing that the U.S. government wouldn't recognize her CanSino vaccine. She said she 'needed to have peace of mind' about her level of protection against the virus. 'But I also love traveling to the United States', she said. Search Keywords: Short link: Directed by Fabio Omodei and performed by nine young actors -- six women and three men -- from the Theatre Academy in Rome, The Last Flowers interlaces mise-en-scene with large segments of physical expressions and choreography that aim at depicting a variety of emotions as well as eras that the viewers are taken into. In this dynamic presentation, the protagonist Sofia (played by Sofia Morabito), is perplexed in the world dominated by pandemic which, as we learn throughout the play, took toll on the world leaving only nine people, eight of whom represent beliefs completely opposite to that of the main character. However, the play is not about Covid-19 per se, rather it sheds light on an unknown disease that is an excuse to touch on todays reality led by technology and medical advancements, and lack thereof, on the account of emotional life aspects and human hearts. For the eight characters named Beta 2, Beta 3, Beta 4, etc, science is the solution to the world pains; it is an option that could save the humanity: the only valid path of rescue. Sofia however looks for happiness or rather a human heart, persisting against all odds that she can find it through different tools: emotions and peace. While all the Betas focus on replacing infected parts of the body with technological advancements and mechanical prosthesis as they hope to do with the heart Sofia searches for love to play a role in the healing process that would eventually restore the worlds perfection. Indeed, can a human heart find its perfect prosthesis? In her dreams, hallucinations or maybe through her recurring coma as this is left to the viewers interpretation Sofia visits distant cultures. She rotates the small world globe in her hands and is taken onto a time rather than geographical trip to different historical events. In Sofias journey, the characters form one theatrical fabric, one ideology, which surrounds her as she tries to oppose them, shifting between the 20th century wars and even further back, to the conflicts of Ancient civilizations. She finally finds her joy in the most distant times, those inhabited by monkeys. She finds out that in their world the word peace is not even comprehended by the characters, since conflict, wars or human disasters, do not exist either. It is there that she finds the seeds of humanity, possibly among the extinct forms of human species, prior to the advanced homo sapiens. The play relies a lot on the group scenes, performed by the eight characters abundant in choreography and change of simple costumes. An over 1.5 hour long play uses a lot of straight forward symbolism which makes the performance accessible to all cultures and ages. In this context, the work is a perfect material for international travels and its participation in festival targeting young audience and adult viewers will be always welcome. The images compensate the minimal language that is used by the actors. At the same time, the light approach to the subject matter topped with a few spoons of comedy, definitely diffuses the serious issues presented by the performers and makes the play even more enjoyable. It is however the duration of The Last Flowers that creates a fog over its interesting core values, since they are well read within the first half an hour of the play. The core concept is then repeated extensively on the stage, while a few anti-climax theatrical procedures give a false sense of multiple conclusive endings to the performance. In her role, Sofia Morabito gives a whole range of colors to the protagonist, showcasing confusion, anger, desperation, fear, but also joy, hope, carefree spontaneity and never ending enthusiasm. Had the group scenes, or the morbid fabric presented by eight actors been more rehearsed and perfected, they would have given the play a truly shining character. A reminder of importance of humanity, human heart and emotions is definitely well needed in todays world, especially as we are about to emerge from the long months of Covid-19 pandemic. Equally, the return of theatre activities across many stages, alongside of reinvigoration of festivals such as Sharm El Sheikh International Theatre Festival for Youth, is a hope that revival of theatre, arts and human life in general is actually taking place in front of our eyes. It is for the creative minds to continue stepping in with valuable artistic work. The competitive segment of the festival includes a total of six plays in its Main Competition, four plays in Monodrama Competition and four plays in a competition named Street Performances and Plays in Non-Traditional Spaces. The plays have been chosen from 302 submissions from local, regional, and international troupes. In its 6th edition launched on 6 November, the Sharm El Sheikh International Theatre Festival for Youth is yet to present over 15 plays from numerous countries, as well as hold seminars and workshops. The festival continues until 11 November 2021. Held annually, the SITFY is the first of its kind to be organized in Sinai. It was launched with the aim of providing opportunities to young theatre practitioners while decentralizing the artistic scene and reviving tourism in South Sinai. The SITFY's founder and president is Mazen El-Gharabawy, and the artistic director is Ingy El-Bastawi. Search Keywords: Short link: A girl learned how to weave indigo belts in Lingyun County, Baise City of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in this undated photo. [Photo: Xuexi.cn] Members of the Yao ethnic group wove indigo belts in Lingyun County, Baise City of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in this undated photo. [Photo: Xuexi.cn] A girl learned how to arrange lines while weaving belts in Lingyun County, Baise City of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in this undated photo. [Photo: Xuexi.cn] A general view of indigo belts woven by members of the Yao ethnic group in Lingyun County, Baise City of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The belt is also seen as a token for young people to express their love. [Photo: Xuexi.cn] A flurry of snow blankets the Chinese capital as it welcomes the advent of winter on Nov. 7 by donning a stylish winter suit. Known as "Lidong," the 19th of 24 terms on the Chinese lunar calendar marks the official start of winter. [Photo: VCG] A flurry of snow blankets the Chinese capital as it welcomes the advent of winter on Nov. 7 by donning a stylish winter suit. Known as "Lidong," the 19th of 24 terms on the Chinese lunar calendar marks the official start of winter. [Photo: VCG] A flurry of snow blankets the Chinese capital as it welcomes the advent of winter on Nov. 7 by donning a stylish winter suit. Known as "Lidong," the 19th of 24 terms on the Chinese lunar calendar marks the official start of winter. [Photo: VCG] KYODO NEWS - Nov 7, 2021 - 11:45 | All, Japan Japan's government will start offering training for would-be volunteers at disaster evacuation centers from the fiscal year beginning in April next year to improve the quality of such places and cut down on the mortality rate of those taking shelter. With the program, which will start on a trial basis, the government is hoping to compile a database of those who have completed the training so they can be dispatched to areas that have been hit by disasters and help maintain the hygiene and living conditions at evacuation centers, officials said. While municipalities are responsible for setting up shelters at school gymnasiums, among other places, they are often short of staff, and officials are forced to respond to many issues in the aftermath of a disaster. Reducing the number of deaths caused by illness or stress linked to disasters has been a pressing issue in Japan, where earthquakes and typhoons hit regularly. The Cabinet Office has been studying the specifics of the training with experts ahead of the expected launch of the project next fiscal year in some of the country's 47 prefectures. Volunteers who work at evacuation centers must have certain knowledge and skills, including a good grasp on the physical condition of the elderly and securing the privacy of those sheltering. Through the project, the government seeks to develop three categories of volunteers -- leader, adviser and coordinator. A leader will be on duty at an evacuation center at all times, while an adviser will offer counseling at several centers. A coordinator will be tasked with working with local government and welfare officials, as well as medical experts, to solve problems. "We would like to increase the number of people around the country who have know-how on assisting," said an official in charge of the program at the Cabinet Office. As of March, 3,774 people have died from disaster-related causes, such as illness triggered by evacuation, since the massive earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear disaster in northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011. A series of large earthquakes that rocked the southwestern prefecture of Kumamoto in 2016 resulted in 221 disaster-related deaths or about 80 percent of the lost lives. KYODO NEWS - Nov 7, 2021 - 20:05 | All, Japan, World The following is the latest list of selected news summaries by Kyodo News. ---------- German navy chief looks to send vessels to Indo-Pacific every 2 years TOKYO - The chief of the German navy has said he is looking to dispatch vessels to the Indo-Pacific every two years to help maintain peace and order based on international law in the region. Germany has been enhancing its defense cooperation with Japan and other partners amid China's military buildup and assertive territorial claims in the area. ---------- Japan reluctant to accept proposal to declare Korean War over WASHINGTON - Japan has shown reluctance to accept a proposal by South Korea to declare a formal end to the Korean War as a way to entice North Korea to negotiations on its denuclearization, diplomatic sources said Saturday, revealing gaps in the efforts also involving the United States. Tokyo has been concerned that such a preceding conciliatory move would complicate its position for resolving the issue of past abductions by North Korea of Japanese citizens at the same time as that of the nuclear and missile development programs pursued by Pyongyang in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the sources said. ---------- Japanese singer Hamasaki taken to hospital due to anaphylactic shock TOKYO - Japanese pop singer Ayumi Hamasaki was taken to hospital Saturday after performing at a concert in Nagoya, with her management later confirming she was suffering anaphylactic shock. Although Hamasaki, 43, fell unconscious temporarily, her life is not in danger from the severe allergic reaction, Avex Management Inc. said on her official website on Sunday. ---------- Figure skating: Japan's Kagiyama wins Grand Prix in Turin TURIN, Italy - Japan's Yuma Kagiyama stormed home in Saturday's free skate at the ISU Grand Prix Gran Premio d'Italia, overcoming a mistake-riddled short program to clinch the men's singles title. The 18-year-old world championship silver medalist came into the final day seventh after taking multiple tumbles in his short routine, but an outstanding free skate helped him top the table with 278.02 total points. ---------- Kishida to tap ex-education minister Hayashi as foreign minister TOKYO - Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has decided to appoint his close aide and former education minister Yoshimasa Hayashi as foreign minister when he launches his new Cabinet next week, a source close to the matter said Saturday. The appointment, slated for Wednesday, comes as Japan faces a host of diplomatic challenges such as China's assertive territorial claims in the East and South China seas, as well as North Korea's nuclear weapons development and missile launches, on top of strategic competition between the United States and China in the Indo-Pacific. ---------- At least 92 killed in fuel tanker explosion in Sierra Leone NAIROBI - At least 92 people died and dozens were seriously injured after a fuel tanker exploded near the capital of Sierra Leone late Friday, media reports said. The victims included people who were gathering to collect leaking fuel after the tanker crashed with a truck in a suburb of Freetown, the capital of the West African country, according to the reports. The number of deaths is expected to increase. ---------- Rugby: Japan swept aside by Ireland in opening match of European tour DUBLIN - Japan opened their European tour in disappointing fashion Saturday, conceding nine tries in a 60-5 rout against Ireland. Wing Andrew Conway ran in a hat-trick for the hosts, who left nothing to chance as they prepared for a meeting with the All Blacks in a week's time. ---------- Japanese snow crab fetches $7,000 at auction FUKUI, Japan - A snow crab fetched 800,000 yen ($7,050) at a fishing port auction in Fukui Prefecture on Saturday, as the fishing season began the same day in the Sea of Japan for the winter delicacy. The price was a record for a prime male crab marketed by the prefectural government under the "Kiwami" brand. The successful bidder, a local restaurant owner, said he purchased the crab so he could welcome customers with his "head held high." KYODO NEWS - Nov 7, 2021 - 09:21 | All, Japan Japan has shown reluctance to accept a proposal by South Korea to declare a formal end to the Korean War as a way to entice North Korea to negotiations on its denuclearization, diplomatic sources said Saturday, revealing gaps in the efforts also involving the United States. Tokyo has been concerned that such a preceding conciliatory move would complicate its position for resolving the issue of past abductions by North Korea of Japanese citizens at the same time as that of the nuclear and missile development programs pursued by Pyongyang in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the sources said. The United States and North Korea remain technically in a state of war as the 1950-1953 Korean War -- in which U.S.-led U.N. forces fought alongside the South against the North, backed by China and the Soviet Union -- ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Japan expressed its concern last month when its senior official in charge of North Korea met with his U.S. and South Korean counterparts in Washington. The United States then did not make its position clear, according to the sources. South Korean President Moon Jae In said in his speech at the U.N. General Assembly in September that he will seek to declare a formal end to the Korean War, naming China as a potential partner along with the two Koreas and the United States. He did not mention Japan. At the senior officials' meeting on Oct. 19, Noh Kyu Duk, the South's special representative for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, underscored the need to proceed with the proposal by Moon, the sources said. In response, Takehiro Funakoshi, head of the Japanese Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said it is "premature" to discuss the proposal, citing that North Korea has repeatedly test-fired missiles, said the sources. Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for North Korea, did not argue the pros and cons of the proposal, they said. After the meeting, a Japanese government source only said the three agreed to continue diplomatic efforts in dealing with North Korea and working toward beefing up regional deterrence. In its part, North Korea has said it will reject any South Korean proposal to declare a formal end to the war unless the United States withdraws its "hostile policy" toward the North, according to its state-run media. New Delhi: After reviewing the security situation along the Line of Control following the airstrike carried out by the Indian Air Force in Pakistan, the Indian Army is planning to move its air defence units to forward locations close to the border. "Some of the fighting formations including air defence and other defensive formations are now planned to be moved closer to the borders," top Army sources told ANI. "With these air defence units deployed closer to the border, we would be able to tackle any possible aerial strike from enemy side and thwart it close to the border itself," they said. The air defence units deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Gujarat and Rajasthan will be moved to forward locations to thwart aerial strikes from across the border, they said. The air defence unit of the Army, which comes under Corps of Army Air Defence (AAD) and is currently led by Lt General A P Singh, includes the indigenous Akash sir air defence missile systems, Bofors 40 mm guns, old generation S-125 Neva/Pechora, 2K22 Tunguska and will now receive the latest MR-SAM air defence system which has been produced by the DRDO-Israel joint venture. Following the airstrike carried out on terror camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir by IAF jets on February 26, Pakistan launched a major aerial attack through its F-16 fighter jets along the LoC. While the MiG-21a and the Su-30MKIs of the Indian Air Force thwarted the attack and shot down one of the F-16s, the IAF felt it would have been able to inflict heavy damage on Pakistan during its unsuccessful aerial raid on February 27. Pakistan Air Force has been consistently enhancing its air defence and offensive capabilities since the Kargil war in 1999 and there was a need for India to bolster its "technological asymmetry" for aerial combat. At present, Pakistan has some edge with its fleet of F-16 jets with AMRAAM missile fitted with them, said an official. However, the planned induction of Rafale aircraft with deadly Meteor beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) and S-400 air defence missile system will provide India a significant advantage over Pakistani Air Force. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: A 25-year-old make-up artist in Uttar Pradeshs Greater Noida was allegedly beaten-up by her employer over a dispute on the salary. The video of the victim, being thrashed by the owner of a unisex salon in Knowledge Park II where she used to work as a make-up artist, has gone viral on social media. Following the womans complaint, the police have arrested the salon owner. The woman claimed that when she reached the Knowledge Park police station to register her FIR, the police didnt take the matter seriously and took her complaint but didnt register an FIR. "When I reached the police station on Saturday, they took my complaint but did not act on it seriously," she alleged. They, however, registered the FIR against the salon owner, Waseem, on Saturday. According to her police complaint, the woman said that she had joined the salon as a makeup artist on March 16 on a monthly salary of Rs 17,000. However, when she asked for her salary, her employer Waseem demanded physical relations. On Saturday evening, they called me to collect my salary. When I reached the salon, Waseems friend Shera tried to rape me. I put up resistance and came out of the salon. Then all the four started thrashing me, she said. She claimed that Waseem and this three other friends beat her black&blue and fled the scene when local police arrived. The police team arrived late and the accused managed to escape, she claimed. "On Sunday, police registered a case against the accused under sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) of IPC. The four accused had fled away after the incident. The police arrested the main accused, Waseem, Monday," Vineet Jaiswal, superintendent of police (rural) said. New York: An Indian-origin woman in the US has been convicted by a jury of killing her nine-year old stepdaughter in 2016 and faces up to life in prison at sentencing. Shamdai Arjun, 55, of Queens, New York was convicted Friday of second-degree murder by a jury that deliberated for less than one hour before Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder, who indicated that he would sentence her on June 3. Arjun faces up to 25 years to life in prison. Arjun was convicted for the August 2016 strangulation death of her nine-year-old stepdaughter Ashdeep Kaur, who was left in her care. This is a horrifying case of a defenseless nine-year-old child, who was to be cared for by her stepmother but was instead strangled to death by her. Her actions are truly incomprehensible and deserve the maximum punishment allowed under the law, Acting Queens District Attorney John Ryan said. According to trial testimony, on the evening of August 19, 2016, Arjun was observed by an eyewitness leaving her apartment in Queens along with her ex-husband Raymond Narayan, and her two grandchildren ages 3 and 5. When asked about the nine-year-old victim's whereabouts, Arjun informed the eyewitness that the child was in the bathroom and was waiting for her father to pick her up. The eyewitness, who observed that the bathroom light had been on for several hours, called the victim's father Sukhjinder Singh and was instructed to break through the bathroom door, at which time she found Kaur's lifeless naked body in the bathtub. There were several bruises on her body. A report filed by the Medical Examiner's Office determined that the cause of death was manual strangulation. In 2016, Queens Assistant District Attorney Michael Curtis had said that Arjun repeatedly and on numerous occasions threatened to kill the young girl. Kaur's relatives had also said that the young girl had been previously abused by Arjun, who had been entrusted with her care while Singh worked in a local restaurant. Kaur had arrived in the US from India just three months before she was killed in August 2016 and was living with her father and Arjun in an apartment in Queens that was shared with another couple. The housemate had seen Kaur go in the bathroom with Arjun, who later came out alone and left the building. She allegedly said that Kaur was taking a bath. New York Police Department detectives had then gone to Narayan's residence and found him, Arjun and the two grandchildren inside the apartment. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: After Bengali philosopher and reformist Vidyasagars statue at the Vidyasagar Collage was vandalised in the clashes between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien and other party leaders changed their Twitter and Facebook display photos to Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar's image. The Trinamool Congress' official profile on Twitter and Facebook was also changed to display the picture Vidyasagar. Clashes erupted in Kolkata with supporters of both the BJP and the TMC clashing ahead of BJP president Amit Shahs roadshow in the run up to the polling on May 19, the last phase of the Lok Sabha elections. The clashes took place near College Square and Calcutta University's Vidyasagar College. At least two vehicles were set ablaze. The Kolkata Police resorted to lathi-charge to dispel the crowd of protestors and as many as 100 people were taken into custody. "What does Amit Shah think of himself? Is he above everything? Is he God that no one can protest against him?" Mamata Banerjee told reporters after visiting the Vidyasagar College in north Kolkata. "They are so uncultured that they have broken the bust of Vidyasagar. They are all outsiders. They BJP had brought them to be used on the day of polls," she said. There was also a scuffle when a group of people shouted slogans against Shah outside the Calcutta University campus and showed him black flags during the roadshow. Banerjee also visited the university campus. "Does he (Shah) know the heritage of the Calcutta University? Is he aware of the famous personalities who had studied here? He should be ashamed of this attack," she said adding that there will be a protest rally on Wednesday. "The attack was carried out by TMC workers, they carried out arson," Amit Shah said as reported by Zee News. "Mamata is frustrated as she is fearing defeat. This is a step taken because of their frustration." The BJP has lodged a complaint with the Election Commission and demanded strong action against TMC and its chief Mamata Banerjee. The Trinamool has also sought a meeting with the EC and will hold a protest rally on Wednesday. New Delhi : A 52-year-old businessman was stabbed to death outside his house allegedly for objecting to lewd comments made by some boys on his daughter. The incident took place in Basai Darapur area of West Delhi's Moti Nagar on Sunday morning at around 12:30 am, police said. Victimas 19-year-old son also got injured in the incident and is getting treatment at a hospital. Confirming the incident, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) Monika Bhardwaj said a case has been registered and four persons have been arrested. Delhi: A man was stabbed to death by his neighbours after he objected to their lewd remarks&molestation attempts directed to his daughter in Basai Darapur under Moti Nagar police station limits on night of Sunday,12 May.His son was also stabbed&is admitted in hospital. 4 arrested pic.twitter.com/AsoT426gmQ a ANI (@ANI) May 13, 2019 "A man was stabbed to death by his neighbours after he objected to their lewd remarks and molestation attempts directed to his daughter in Basai Darapur under Moti Nagar police station limits on the night of Sunday,12 May. His son was also stabbed and is admitted in the hospital. 4 arrested," the police official said. According to reports, the man had taken his daughter to a hospital after she complained of severe headache. While returning home on a two-wheeler some boys made indecent gestures and passed lewd comments on his 27-year-old daughter. The businessman dropped his daughter home, went to complain to the boys' father about their behaviour. His daughter informed her brother and mother about the incident, claimed a nephew of the businessman, who did not want to be named. aMy brother and his daughter were returning from the hospital. The lane was almost blocked by 4-5 men. When he honked at them they made lewd remarks and tried to molest her. After dropping her when he went back to them, they attacked him. Their families helped them in the attack,a deceasedas brother was quoted as saying by ANI. Hearing the commotion, some people came out of their houses, but no one intervened, instead they started recording videos on their mobile phones, the family member said. After a while, someone known to their family, rushed to help to take the father-son duo to a hospital, he said. Police said the businessman succumbed to injuries on Monday morning, while his son is battling for life. The man had sustained multiple injuries on the abdomen and stomach and his son on the shoulder and other vital parts of the body, the family member said. The family of the deceased claimed that the boys, who live in their neighbourhood, drink, smoke and pass comments on passersby and one of them were recently released from jail. The body was handed over to the family after an autopsy and a report is awaited, police said. With Agency Inputs For all the Latest Crime News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: US President Donald Trump on Monday warned Iran against any misadventure. "Well see what happens with Iran. If they do anything, it would be a very bad mistake," Trump told reporters at his Oval Office of the White House. He was responding to questions on US military build-up against Iran and if he was at war with Tehran. Im hearing little stories about Iran. If they do anything, they will suffer greatly. Well see what happens with Iran, Trump said, as his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stopped in Brussels to brief NATO allies on the latest developments with regard to Iran. Earlier, the deputy speaker of the Iran parliament said, Irans move to stop respecting some of the agreed limits on its nuclear deal proves that it is not in a position of weakness. The timely decision of the Islamic republic regarding its commitments in the (nuclear deal) showed that Iran is not in a position of weakness, said Ali Mottahari. Tehran announced Wednesday that it would stop respecting some of the curbs on its nuclear activities imposed under the landmark 2015 deal with world powers. Earlier, Irans top commander had said that Tehran will not talk with the United States. This came a day after President Donald Trump said hed like Iranian leaders to call me. Trump had told reporters, What I would like to see with Iran, I would like to see them call me. There will be no negotiations with America, Iranian media quoted Gen Yadollah Javani as saying. The Iranian commander also claimed the US would not dare take military action against Iran. President Hassan Rouhani had said that Iran would no longer implement parts of the deal and threatened to go further if the remaining members of the pact failed to deliver sanctions relief to counterbalance Trump's renewed assault on the Iranian economy within 60 days. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. Washington: NASAs next mission to the Moon will be called Artemis, the US space agency has announced, though its still looking for the money to make the journey happen by its accelerated 2024 deadline. In March, US President Donald Trumps administration moved the date for the next American lunar mission up by four years from its original goal of 2028 while pledging to get a female astronaut to the Moons surface for the first time. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told reporters on Monday the agency would need an additional USD 1.6 billion to pay for the new ground and space vehicles needed to meet the deadline. This additional investment, I want to be clear, is a down payment on NASAs efforts to land humans on the Moon by 2024, he said. Bridenstine said the mission was named Artemis after the Greek mythological goddess of the Moon and twin sister to Apollo, namesake of the program that sent 12 American astronauts to the Moon between 1969 and 1972. NASAs total annual budget is approximately USD 21.5 billion, and in the 2019 fiscal year, the agency spent about USD 4.5 billion on developing the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy rocket and a new lunar orbital mini-station, three elements essential to the Artemis mission. But many experts and lawmakers are concerned that NASA cannot meet the accelerated deadline, especially given the major delays in development of the SLS, which is being built by aerospace giant Boeing. Asked how much the new mission would cost in total, Bridenstine demurred, telling a reporter: I would love to tell you that." For all the Latest Science News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: Manabadi AP SSC Results 2019: The Board of Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh or BSEAP has announced the Manabadi AP SSC 10th results. The scorecards will be available on the official website of the board i.e. bseap.org soon. The candidates who have appeared for the examination are asked to keep all the details ready for the fast and easy access to the results. The students must note that they can check the results on this page as well by clicking on the link given below. We here at News Nation are in close contact with our sources and will be updating all the latest details here. CHECK AP SSC RESULTS 2019 HERE LIVE UPDATES: 11.40 am: The Board of Secondary Examinations, Andhra Pradesh (BSEAP) will not send the result by post to any individuals. 11.25 am: For fastest results, the candidates can check their scores by clicking on the above link. 11.18 am: East Godavari tops the districts. 5464 schools registered a 100 percent result in AP SSC examination 2019. 96.25% students have paaed in Mathematics. 11.14 am: BSE Andhra Pradesh SSC Result 2019 has been declared. The pass percentage is more or less same as last year. Pass percent of girls is 95.09 and the pass percent of boys is 94.68. The results have been announced and released on bseap.org. 11.12 am: AP 10th Result 2019 has been declared. 94.88% students have passed the examinations. 11.00 am: BSE AP has announced the AP SSC Result 2019. AP 10th Result 2019 link is active. Students are informed that the results have been announced but are not available on the link as yet. 10.51 am: The AP SSC Results will be announced in few minutes. 10.41 am: Candidates can apply for reverification of their answer scripts. The fee of reverification of valued answer script is Rs 1000/- per subject. AP 10th Result 2019 would be announced in a press conference at Vizag. 10.29 am: Candidates wait for only half an hour to check AP 10th Result 2019. This year more than 6 lakh candidates have appeared for the exam. The exam was conducted from March 18 to April 2, 2019. The exam was held at 2,839 test centres spread across 13 districts in the state. Check Andhra Pradesh Class 10 Result on bseap.org, bseap.ap.gov.in and manabadi.com at 11am. 10.08 am: Only an hour wait and the press conference will begin. Check AP SSC Result 2019 today at 11am. 10.01 am: The Board is all set to declare AP SSC Result 2019 today at 11am. The result will be released in the press conference to be conducted by the Board. This year 6,21,649 students have appeared for the exam conducted from March 18 to April 2, 2019 in the state and neighbouring state. 9.48 am: The declaration of the results will seal the fate of lakhs of students who have appeared for the examination. 9.27 am: According to the latest updates, the board officials have made all the arrangements and will be annoucing the results on time. 9.06 am: The candidates are asked to keep all the details ready for the fast and easy access to the results. 8.35 am: For the convenience of the students, we have mentioned the steps through which the candidates can check the results: Visit english.newsnationtv.com/board-results and click on AP SSC Result 2019 Enter the roll number/roll code in the space provided Click on the submit button Check your results 8.34 am: According to the latest reports, the scorecards will be made live at 11 am. 8.33 am: The AP SSC 2019 Results will be announced today at bseap.org. In 2018, more than 6 lakh students had appeared for the AP board Class 10 results with a total pass percentage of 94.48 percent. Last year, the AP board Class 10 results were declared on 29 April. This year, BSEAP conducted the Class 10 exams from 18 March to 2 April. The BSEAP is an independent agency that functions under the Ministry of Secondary Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh. It is responsible for the promotion, management and development of secondary-level school education in the state. About Directorate of Government Examinations, Andhra Pradesh The Directorate of Government Examinations is popularly known as the Andhra Pradesh SSC Board in the state. The Board of Secondary Education, Andhra Pradesh (BSEAP) is an independent agency working under the aegis of Ministry Of Secondary Education, Government of Andhra Pradesh. The SSC Board is responsible for promotion, management, and development of secondary level school education in the state. Similarly, the Intermediate Board Exams for Class 12 students are conducted by the Board of Intermediate Education, Andhra Pradesh (BIEAP). The Intermediate Education Board was set up in 1971 with the goal to regulate and supervise the intermediate level education in the state of Andhra Pradesh. As part of its various responsibilities, the BIEAP prescribes the syllabus and course curriculum for 1st Inter and 2nd Inter students. They also conduct the annual board exams for these classes in the month of February-March, every year. Islamabad: The US has imposed visa sanctions on three senior Pakistani interior ministry officials following a row between the two countries over deportation of dozens of Pakistanis in America for their visa overstay and other allegations. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday informed the National Assembly's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs about that visa curbs by the US. The officials who are facing the visa restrictions are an additional secretary and a joint secretary of the interior ministry as well as the director general passports, the Dawn newspaper reported. The sanctions on the officials have been put in place after a row between Pakistan and America over deportation of dozens of Pakistanis, currently in the US, because of visa overstay and other allegations, it said. Qureshi said the US authorities intended to deport more than 70 Pakistanis, but the government had asked them to fulfil the legal requirements. The US put the restrictions on three officials that are said to be overseeing the country's policy on accepting back nationals deported from other countries. The US has over the past 18 months deported over 100 Pakistanis, all of whom were accepted back. It is the first time that Pakistani authorities have insisted on a verification of the credentials of the deportees. The foreign minister, however, clarified that there were no visa restrictions by the US government on Pakistani citizens in general. He said consular operations of the US embassy in Islamabad were continuing and are granting visas to the eligible applicants. For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. New Delhi: US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin says it will not sell its newly rolled out F-21 fighter jet to any other country if India places an order for 114 planes, in an offer aimed at pitching itself ahead of its US, European and Russian competitors for the mega deal. Vivek Lall, vice president of Strategy and Business Development for Lockheed Martin, says if F-21 wins the contract, then India will be integrated into the company's global fighter ecosystem, which is a $165 billion dollar market. In an interview to PTI, Lall said the new combat jet is designed to operate across over 60 air force stations in India, and its key aspects include superior engine matrix, electronic warfare system and weapons carrying capacity. "We will not sell this platform and the configuration to anyone in the world. It is a significant commitment by Lockheed Martin and it shows importance of India and importance of unique requirement India has," he said. Last month, the Indian Air Force issued an RFI (Request for Information) or initial tender to acquire 114 jets at a cost of around USD 18 billion, which is billed as one of the world's biggest military procurement in recent years. The top contenders for the deal include Lockheed's F-21, Boeing's F/A-18, Dassault Aviation's Rafale, the Eurofighter Typhoon, Russian aircraft Mig 35 and Saab's Gripen. Official sources said the IAF is pushing for finalising the mega deal in the wake of the Balakot strikes and evolving security scenario in the region. Lall said if Lockheed wins the contract, it will not only set up a state-of-the-art F-21 manufacturing facility along with the Tata Group, but will also help India create an ecosystem for overall growth of the country's defence manufacturing. On observation that the F-21 is similar to Lockheed's F 16 Block 70 combat jet, he said such a view is unfair as there have been significantly differences between the two platforms. F-21 is different in terms of various aspects including its air frame, weapons capability, engine matrix and availability of engine options. "As for example, you are now looking at 12,000 hours of service life air frame in F-21 versus 8,000 hours previously (F 16 Block 70). The additional 40 per cent weapons carrying capability is new in F-21 which was not there in F 16 Block 70. The electronic warfare system is uniquely developed for India," he added. "Looking from a distance may make it look similar to F 16 Block 70, but it is different," he added. Besides having a traditional boom-delivered refueling facility, the F 21 also has an extendable hose-and-drogue refuelling probe. "This is the only fighter in the world which has both the capability," said Lall, adding the cockpit has a new large area display. "It is a modern cockpit and has a significant piece of ability to synthesise information. These are unique capabilities that we are not offering to other countries in the world," said the Lockheed executive. The jet has a Long-Range Infrared Search and Track (IRST), enabling pilots to detect threats with precision and Triple Missile Launcher Adapters (TMLAs) allowing it to carry 40 per cent more air-to-air weapons. Without giving any approximate price of each bare-bone aircraft, he pitched it as the most cost effective compared to the competitors in terms of life-cycle and operational costs. "If you look at the US government data, the advantage is 30-40 per cent in terms of cost effectiveness. This is lower compared to the competitors. If you aggregate with years and years of operations in the life cycle, it is a huge amount of saving for India if it goes ahead with F-21," said Lall. Lockheed, which has a longstanding relationship of 25 years in India, unveiled the F-21 during the Aero India show in Bengaluru in February, saying it will address the Indian Air Force's unique requirements. In sync with its priority for India, Lockheed, in September last year, finalised a joint venture with the Tata Advanced Systems to produce F-16 wings in India for export. "As we continue to expand our footprint, we are talking to more than 190 companies in India. The idea is to partner with India across a wide variety of interests," said Lall. He said the number of family members of the F 21 aircraft is around the world 3,000 (F 16), and if Lockheed wins the contract, then India will be linked to an ecosystem which is a 165-billion-dollar market. "This is world's largest fighter ecosystem. India will be integrated into the 165-billion-dollar market which is unparalleled," said Lall. The Indo-US defence ties are on an upswing and both New Delhi and Washington have said they are committed to expanding it further. In June 2016, the US had designated India a "Major Defence Partner" elevating the defence trade and technology sharing with India to a level commensurate with that of its closest allies and partners. For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps. A poor act of Pakistan has come to light. Pakistani Marines open fire on an Indian boat in a maritime area at Dwarka in Gujarat. One fisherman is said to have been died while the other was injured in the firing. The boat on which the Pakistani Marines opened fire was called Jal Pari. One person died in the firing. Police seized the body and conducted a postmortem. The injured have been admitted to a hospital in Dwarka. The boat is said to have been within the Indian border when the Pakistani Marines carried out the attack. Pakistan continues to carry out such acts along the maritime border. In April last year also, Pakistani Marines opened fire on two boats near the maritime boundary in Gujarat's maritime region. He was the one who was on the boat at that time. One person from UP was injured in the firing. Both these names were in the maritime area in Dwarka. However, the Dwarka SP said that the boats may have crossed the maritime boundary, after which Pakistani marines opened fire on them. The fishermen had informed the Indian Coast Guard from their radio sets. India then raised it with its Pakistani counterparts. Pakistan Marines confirmed they captured two boats. Then, it was brought back to India. Sanjay Raut furious over BJP leader's statement Man sentenced to death for raping minor in UP Criminal removing battery from car, beaten up by people Washington- The risk of the covid epidemic returning to many parts of the world, including Europe, has increased. In Russia, more than 1,000 lives were lost every day from Covid-19. The crisis in Germany has worsened. Several accused requested for implementation of the stringent laws. While it has been found that the number of covid infected people worldwide has crossed 24.9 crores, the death toll from the epidemic has crossed 50.3 lakh. Despite the imposition of strong restrictions in Russia, the rising epidemic cases have seen a fall. That is also being said Russia has seen 41,335 new covid cases in the last 24 hours, while 1,188 people have lost their lives in the meantime. A day earlier, nearly 12 people lost their lives due to the epidemic in Russia. With this, the number of corona infected people in Russia has gone up to 87,55,930 while 2,39,943 people have lost their lives due to the epidemic. With this, Russia has become the worst epidemic affected country in Europe. 793 deaths in Ukraine, 389 in Brazil: That's what Ukraine's corona epidemic has taken a terrible turn. In Ukraine, 793 people have lost their lives in the last 24 hours while 25,063 cases have been reported. In Ukraine, 30.6 million covid cases have been reported so far while 71,635 people have lost their lives. In Brazil, 389 patients have lost their lives due to the epidemic in a day while 13,321 new cases have been confirmed. In Brazil, 609,060 people have died of the epidemic so far while 2,18,62,458 cases have been reported. Opposition slams Imran govt, said- Pak is most backward in every field... Deadly attack on Iraq's PM, narrowly survived VIDEO: England opener Jason Roy bursts into tears in the middle of the field Islamabad: Interim Foreign Minister aamir khan muttaki of the Taliban government is scheduled to visit Pakistan in August this year. Afghans can visit the tour in the context of establishing relations with Pakistan after being captured by Taliban. Where it is learnt that Muttaki's visit was scheduled as both sides were in touch to finalise the details. This is scheduled to be the first visit of the interim Afghan Foreign Minister to Pakistan since the Taliban took control of Afghans on August 15. According to information received so far, the interim Afghan Foreign Minister has been invited to Islamabad to raise issues on bilateral relations with other officials. It is also said that last month Pak Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi visited Kabul and had a comprehensive conversation with the interim Afghan leadership. External Affairs Minister Qureshi has also invited his Afghan counterpart Amir Khan Muttaki to return. Sources said Muttaki will be accompanied by several senior Taliban officials and is scheduled to discuss a number of issues with Pak officials. However, he has said that the visit should not be seen as a formal recognition of the Taliban government. Let us tell you that Pak has not formally recognized the Taliban Government so far, but it is one of the few countries that has made envoys along with its diplomatic mission in the capital Kabul. In the meantime, the international community is not in a hurry to recognize the Taliban regime unless they fulfil their commitments. WHO warns of new coronavirus wave Corona wreaking havoc in these countries including Russia Opposition slams Imran govt, said- Pak is most backward in every field... Home Just In Going to Mardi? You cant afford to not meet Chiya Kaka on Nepals popular trekking route At around 3 am, he wakes up and walks towards the Mardi view camp. Walking fast, he surpasses the hikers on the way. On his one hand is a 15-litre water gallon and, on the other, a big bag of tea. When the hikers reach the top of the view camp, a hot cup of tea awaits them. This is how the day of Tanka Prasad Gautam (46) or Chiya Kaka, his alias, goes every day for the better part of the past eight years. The high camp is the last point with an accommodation facility you get during Mardi trekking. From here, trekkers walk for two hours and reach the view camp before dawn whereas the Mardi base camp is another one-and-a-half hour ahead of the view camp. From the view camp, one can see nine mountain peaks. When you reach the base camp, you get the opportunity to get close to the mountains, but they are not visible properly. That is why tourists return from the view camp itself, he says. At present, it is not foreign tourists but domestic tourists who throng there. In the last two years [due to the Covid-19 pandemic], tourists have seldomly trekked to Mardi Himal. The business seemed to have taken a turn for the worse. But this year, the trekking culture has flourished back. So is his tea business. His name is the brand Everyone calls Gautam Chiya Kaka (the Tea Uncle); it has now become his identity. Before he started selling tea, he was Tanka Prasad Gautam. But now, even Gautam answers his name is Chiya Kaka when anyone asks what his name is. Even those who have not met me in the past call me Chiya Kaka. Many, in their first meeting, leave a lot of love and compassion. I am happy to be able to serve [tea to] everyone. Tourists with Chiya Kaka at the Mardi view camp Sometimes, many tourists who reach the Mardi view camp to see the mountains up close return sadly after the heavy fog. But, they always get to have tea at Chiya Kakas place. Many have tea here and take photos of my tea stall. But, how did he become Chiya Kaka? His newfound identity can be credited to Sudeep Gautam, a pioneer businessman from Mardi and Chiya Kakas nephew. He also takes the credit for making Mardi a popular trek in a short time. Any tourist or trekker who reached Mardi stayed at Sudeeps hotel. Tanka Prasad would be at the view camp in the morning and frequently seen in Sudeeps hotel in the evening. An uncle of one became the uncle of all. Then following his new tea business, people added chiya (or tea) and called him Chiya Kaka that stayed with him as his new identity. When he first started the tea shop, no one was there. But, then with increasing tourists, over time, he alone could not cater to all. Other business persons also set up stalls and, at present, there are five huts of tea sellers in the view camp. Of the five, the first hut belongs to Chiya Kaka and many first stumble into his stall. Wanted to be a shepherd Chiya Kaka, who now sells tea and coffee at Mardi view camp, actually wanted to be a shepherd. Born in Siding near the mountain, his skill was to raise sheep and goats. His previous generation used to raise sheep on route to the Mardi trek and even had a shed there, shares Kaka. Tanka Prasad Gautam There were no other employment opportunities in the village, neither starting a business was easy. So, like many other villagers, he also made his passport and went abroad to the Gulf countries for foreign employment and worked in Malaysia, Qatar and the UAE. In the beginning, it was Rs 25,000, then I earned up to 35,000, says Kaka. At that time, Rs 35,000 was a big amount for him, he started sending money to the family. It was only a matter of time, and he returned home. Upon return, he first thought he would go to the village and raise sheep. But, then, he saw that the number of tourists trekking in Mardi Himal had been increasing. Tourists had to walk more than two hours from the high camp to the view camp, and there was no accommodation, nor a source to drink water. A batch of tourists returning from the view camp talked on the way about how wonderful it would be to have tea at the upper camp. So, he took the opportunity and started selling tea there. After starting the business, he has never had to look back with a decent income from the start. What I earned in a month in the Gulf country, I can earn here in four/five days now, shares Chiya Kaka. The worth of the work Nonetheless, his business is not as smooth during the off-season for tourists. Yet, he is now happier to at least work in his own country. For tourists who reached the mountains in the harsh cold winter, it was a great relief for them to be able to have tea. There was once a couple from Switzerland who reached Mardi. Sitting in my hut, they ordered two cups of tea. That winter was very cold and the tourists were shivering from the cold. Tears were dripping from the mans eyes and had a runny nose, Chiya Kaka shares, I put their tea nearby but they could not hold the cup of tea. It was so cold that their hands stopped working. But, my tea was so helpful to them. There is no water in the view camp. He always carries water from the high camp in the wee hours every day. In winter, the water freezes and I make tea by breaking that ice, he says. *** Moon is setting and the sun is red in the east. The mountains including Annapurna, Machhapuchhre and Mardi are covered with fog. As the fog leaves, the mountains are left glistening and the tourists start taking pictures of and with the mountains. When it gets foggy again, it covers the mountains and the tourists are disappointed. Then, they resort to sipping tea. Kaka, make nine cups of tea for us, says a young man. Tea or coffee? asks Chiya Kaka, noting that coffee is also available as an alternative to tea. The young man questions, How much does it cost? and Kaka replies, 150 for black tea, 200 for coffee and the young man orders nine cups of coffee. Another team comes, Kaka, make four cups of tea for us. And, the process continues. So does Chiya Kakas business. Kathmandu, November 7 Sangya Malla of Nepal, currently serving in the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), will receive the 2021 United Nations Woman Police Officer of the Year. Superintendent Malla will be presented the award by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at a virtual ceremony on November 9, the United Nations Department of Peace Operations announced recently. Superintendent Malla currently serves as the chief of the MONUSCO Police Health and Environment Unit, which she helped establish in the countrys capital, Kinshasa, the UN department says. She helped establish and now leads MONUSCOs Health and Environment Unit, enhancing the safety and welfare of our peacekeepers by mitigating the risks from Covid-19 and other threats, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has been quoted in a statement. And, she represents something far larger the many contributions of women police officers in advancing peace and security around the world. Through her work, Superintendent Malla embodies the best of the United Nations. I am honoured to receive this award, and I hope it will encourage more young women in my country and around the world to pursue careers in policing, which is still too often viewed as mans work, Superintendent Malla, a medical professional in the training, has been quoted. The United Nations Woman Police Officer of the Year award was established in 2011 to recognise the exceptional contributions of women police officers to UN peace operations and to promote the empowerment of women. Malla had joined the Nepal Police in 2008 as an inspector. The award will be presented during the 16th United Nations Police Week from 8 to 12 November. The award ceremony will be held virtually on November 9, at 12:30 EST and broadcast live on UN webcast: http://webtv.un.org/. Americans love turkey so much we buy over 40 million for Thanksgiving every year. This means that one out of every three American households serves a beautifully roasted whole turkey, most likely with all the fixings, proving that the nearly 80-year-old iconic Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving feast image, Freedom From Want, still resonates today. Here are 10 practical tips to ensure your turkey not only looks as pretty as a picture, but tastes amazing, too. +6 Why pasture-raised turkeys are getting so much attention this Thanksgiving We travel to one of the nations leading regenerative farms to explore the world of pasture-raised turkeys. 1. Choose the best bird Whether you plan to purchase a fresh or frozen turkey breast or an organic heritage bird, it helps to plan in advance. Keep in mind your budget and guest list. Many organic and heritage breed turkey farms require orders well in advance. As a general rule, based on a whole turkey, estimate purchasing one pound of uncooked turkey per person; that will give you enough for the meal, plus leftovers the following day. 2. Menu matters A great number of recipes including this weeks provided by White Oak Pastures and the USDAs recommend roasting a turkey at 325F. Will the oven accommodate the turkey and the other desired side dishes for the menu? Do they all bake at the same temperature as the turkey? Perhaps the sides can bake at a higher temperature while the turkey rests? Or maybe this year consider smoking or deep-frying the bird to make room in the oven. It helps to keep your oven capacity in mind when choosing the rest of the menu. 3. Pan Perfect Once you've purchased the bird you want to roast, make sure you have a roasting pan large enough to hold the turkey and then some. The pan should have enough space around the sides to allow heat to circulate around the bird so that it doesnt steam. A roasting rack is ideal to lift the turkey off from the bottom of the pan, but aromatic vegetables, such as quartered onions, carrots and celery, do the trick as well, and they will season the drippings for the gravy. 4. Dont forget the other supplies To truly know when the turkey is done, the best tool is an accurate thermometer. The pop-up thermometer included with some store-bought birds are not 100% reliable. An instant-read thermometer is recommended to easily test both the breast and thigh temperatures. A programmable digital probe thermometer is another excellent option. Additional wares to have at the ready are an extra-large cutting board, sharp carving knife and serving platter. 5. Thaw the bird well in advance Give yourself plenty of time to thaw the turkey in the refrigerator. Never defrost it at room temperature; the safest method is in the refrigerator. Allow yourself 24 hours for every 4 to 5 pounds of frozen turkey. Remember, once thawed, it can remain in the refrigerator 2 more days. So, for the average 16 pound frozen turkey, begin the thawing process the Friday before Thanksgiving. Place it in its roasting pan on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator to ensure water nor juices drip onto food below. 6. Prep school Getting the bird ready to roast can be a time-consuming process. Consider prepping the turkey first thing in the morning. Remove the neck and giblets from the turkeys cavity and pat the inside and outside well with paper towels. It is unnecessary to rinse the turkey, and the USDA does not recommend it as the process can easily spread bacteria in and around the sink. Place the turkey, breast side up, on its rack or over vegetables in a large roasting pan. To flavor pan juices, fill the cavity with herbs and more aromatics or halves of lemon. For a nice appearance, tie the drumsticks together with kitchen string; tuck the wingtips under the turkeys back so they say in place and dont overbrown in the oven. If you plan to fill the cavity with a bread or rice stuffing, do so just before roasting. Wrap the turkey well in plastic wrap and refrigerate until later. 7. Trim off some time Take the turkey out of the refrigerator an hour before you plan to roast. Remove the plastic wrap to allow the skin to dry out a touch which helps it become crisp while it bakes. If youd like, brush the turkey with oil or melted butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. This step will take the chill off the turkey and reduce the roasting time. 8. Keep tabs on temperature The USDA recommends roasting a turkey at 325F or above, as lower oven temperatures can promote bacteria growth. Roasting time will vary depending on ones oven or the cooking method, the size of the turkey, the depth and color of the roasting pan and whether the turkey is stuffed. Plan on 12 to 15 minutes per pound of turkey. Start checking for doneness 30 minutes before the recipe suggests. 9. Is it done? Check for doneness by inserting the thermometer into the thickest part of the thigh without touching bone or pockets of fat as both will render higher temperatures than the meat. To keep the turkeys juices intact, try to avoid poking the bird too frequently or cutting into the thigh to see if its done. If the breast is becoming too dark towards the end of roasting, place a foil tent loosely on top to protect it. Remove the turkey from the oven once the thighs internal temperature reaches 160F. A turkeys stuffing must reach 165F. 10. Let it rest Once the turkey is out of the oven, transfer the turkey to a large carving board or platter. Allow it to rest 20 to 30 minutes. The internal temperature will rise 5 degrees thanks to the turkeys residual heat, and the juices will be reabsorbed and distributed throughout the entire bird. This is the perfect time to prepare the gravy. Once you carve into the turkey, if the meat near the thigh or breastbone has a rosy tinge, it is likely from nitrates in the birds feed or water supply, or oven gases may react chemically with the meat turning it pink. If the internal temperature registers safe and juices run clear, the meat is perfectly safe to eat. If the meat has a raw, gelatinous appearance, then it is underdone, and requires additional roasting. Bonus Tips: Its always easiest to remove any leftover meat from the bones while it is still warm or at room temperature. If you are lucky enough to have leftovers, turkey and the trimmings can keep three to four days in the refrigerator. Make sure they are reheated to 165F. And dont discard the carcass. Cover it with cold water, heat to boiling, then simmer for several hours. Strain it to create a rich turkey broth incorporating any small bits of turkey meat that may remain for any favorite fall soup. Travis Scott performs on day one of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park, in Houston 2021 Astroworld Festival - Day One, Houston, United States - 05 Nov 2021 Amy Harris/Invision/AP/Shutterstock Travis Scott A security officer is believed to have been pricked in the neck at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival in Houston, according to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner. Medical staff that treated the unidentified security guard informed police that the man was reaching over to restrain or grab a citizen when he felt a prick in his neck, Finner said at a news conference on Saturday. The security guard "went unconscious" while being examined. Medical staff administered Narcan to save him. "He was revived, and the medical staff did notice pricks that were similar to when somebody's trying to inject," Finner told reporters. RELATED: At Least 8 Dead After Travis Scott Astroworld Festival Mass Casualty Incident in Texas, Houston Fire Department Confirms Finner later said there were "several instances" when Narcan was administered at the Astroworld Festival on Friday. For more on the tragedy at Astroworld, listen below to our daily podcast on People Every Day. Mayor Sylvester Turner confirmed at a news conference on Saturday that eight people died in the mass casualty event at NRG Park in Houston. Among the dead are a 14-year-old, a 16-year-old and a 27-year-old. Two were 21 and two others were 23. Another victim's age has not been identified. Turner said of the 25 people initially transported to the hospital, 13 remain hospitalized. Travis Scott performs during 2021 Astroworld Festival at NRG Park on November 05, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Erika Goldring/WireImage Travis Scott performs during 2021 Astroworld Festival RELATED: Travis Scott 'Absolutely Devastated' by Incident at Astroworld Festival That Left 8 People Dead Turner said roughly 528 Houston police officers and 750 "fire persons representing private security" were at the event. Shortly before Saturday's news conference, Live Nation released a statement: "Heartbroken for those lost and impacted at Astroworld last night. We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation." Story continues "[There is] nothing of this magnitude that any of us can recall, certainly that I can recall, that has taken place in this city," Turner told reporters at Saturday's conference, adding that the incident is being "thoroughly investigated and reviewed." Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo is calling for an independent investigation into what occurred Friday evening and how it could have been prevented. Never miss a story sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. In an interview with CNN, concertgoer Billy Nasser said he watched a victim's eyes "roll into the back of his head" as he attempted to help. But when he checked his pulse he "knew he was dead." "I just had to leave him there," Nasser said while describing the chaotic situation. "There was nothing I could do. I had to keep going." Travis Scott performs on day one of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park, in Houston 2021 Astroworld Festival - Day One, Houston, United States - 05 Nov 2021 Amy Harris/Invision/AP/Shutterstock Travis Scott Nasser added that he was "frustrated" when the concert continued despite the chaos on the ground. "I wanted the music to stop, and I wanted everyone around me to realize what's going on. But people didn't have very much self-awareness. Kids were just going crazy and partying for the festival, and they weren't actually paying attention to the bodies dropping behind them." He later added, "There wasn't enough security guards, and there wasn't enough EMTs or people helping out in the crowd. The paramedics couldn't even reach the crowd." RELATED: Pregnant Kylie Jenner Safe After Attending Travis Scott Astroworld Festival Where 8 People Died, Says Source Scott, 29, said in a statement Saturday that he is "absolutely devastated" by the events that occurred, adding that his "prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival." "Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life," the rapper added on Twitter. "I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need." Scott also thanked Houston Police and Fire, as well as NRG Park, "for their immediate response and support" during the incident. London, United Kingdom--(Newsfile Corp. - November 7, 2021) - Doge King, the UK-based meme token, is proud to announce a successful ILO session. The ILO, which began on November 6th, lasted only a few hours, seeing the platform hitting the target hard cap. While announcing their success, Doge King also mentioned their audit and KYC scanning. Figure 1: Doge King Token Completes ILO After Successful Audit and KYC Doge King Announces a Successful ILO Session The Doge King network recently conducted a successful presale. Doge King is a meme token idea introduced in 2021. This community-driven token instils ways for investors to earn passive income. According to their web page, they intend to provide a self solvent meme token inspired by Doge. Doge King(DOGEK) leverages BEP-20 smart contracts based on the Binance smart chain. Doge King started its presale intending to create a huge community backing. They planned to run this session till Thursday 11th. Unicrypt hosted this ILO whose target soft cap was around 100,000 BUSD, and the hard cap stood at 150,000 BUSD. But, the presale session ended shortly after starting on the 6th. DOGEK announced their success on their telegram and Twitter pages. It hit the hard cap. Since this platform used the Unicrypt launchpad, locking liquidity was a must. According to Doge King's Twitter, 60% of the total BUSD raised in the ILO goes to Unicrypt lockers. Unicrypt will be holding a liquidity ock of around 90 thousand BUSD raised. There were restrictions imposed on ILO participants. But, Unicrypt shows that this entire BUSD amount was bought by about 142 holders. While the presale participation was low, the numbers increased vastly on Pancakeswap. BSC scan statistics show that there are close to 2000 holders, and over 21 thousand transfers. According to their website, Doge King intends to ensure this token has a 2000x potential. That is possible considering the price improvements in the past few hours. Dextool's analysis shows that the coin has already gained over 300% value since its launch. Story continues Of course, the increasing numbers of investors contributed to the growth. But, there is more to this growth, according to Doge King. The token has a system that makes it deflationary while having excellent price floors. The 5% transaction tax used in rewards will help increase the value and demand of this token. Furthermore, by holding DOGEK investors stand a chance of earning daily rewards. Announcing Audit and KYC Aside from the ILO, Doge King announced the completed audit and KYC scanning. It may be hard for investors to have confidence in the project as a meme token. But, the audit helps increase trust in the long-term sustainability of the project. Solidproof released the audit and KYC reports on November 3rd. On auditing, SolidProof did not discover any issues that could threaten users' investments. Hence, that shows DOGEK is a very secure contract. Besides the audit, Solidproof also conducted a KYC scan on the Doge King team. The scan was done to ensure that the team has no connections to money-related frauds. Consequently, the KYC certification proved that DOGEK has a genuine team. Connect with us: Website: https://dogekingtoken.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dogekingbsc Telegram: https://t.me/dogekingen Media Contact: Tanvir Rahaman info@dogekingtoken.com To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/102342 NEW YORK, Nov. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Rosen Law Firm, P.A. Logo WHY: Rosen Law Firm, a global investor rights law firm, reminds purchasers of the securities of Hoegh LNG Partners LP (NYSE: HMLP) between August 22, 2019 and July 27, 2021, inclusive (the "Class Period") of the important December 27, 2021 lead plaintiff deadline in the securities class action first filed by the firm. SO WHAT: If you purchased Hoegh 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 Hoegh class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2140.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@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 December 27, 2021. 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. Be wise in selecting counsel. The Rosen Law Firm represents investors throughout the globe, concentrating its practice in securities class actions and shareholder derivative litigation. Rosen Law Firm has achieved the largest ever securities class action settlement against a Chinese Company. Rosen Law Firm was Ranked No. 1 by ISS Securities Class Action Services for number of securities class action settlements in 2017. The firm has been ranked in the top 4 each year since 2013 and has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for investors. In 2019 alone the firm secured over $438 million for investors. In 2020, founding partner Laurence Rosen was named by law360 as a Titan of Plaintiffs' Bar. Many of the firm's attorneys have been recognized by Lawdragon and Super Lawyers. Story continues DETAILS OF THE CASE: According to the lawsuit, defendants throughout the Class Period made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose: (1) Hoegh LNG Partners LP (the "Partnership") was facing issues with the PGN FSRU Lampung charter; (2) as a result, the PGN FSRU Lampung charterer would state that it would commence arbitration to declare the charter null and void, and/or to terminate the charter, and/or seek damages; (3) the Partnership would need to find alternative refinancing for its PGN FSRU Lampung credit facility; (4) the PGN FSRU Lampung credit facility matured in September 2021, not October 2021 as previously stated; (5) the Partnership would be forced to accept less favorable refinancing terms with regards to the PGN FSRU Lampung credit facility; (6) Hoegh LNG would not extend the revolving credit line to the Partnership past its maturation date; (7) Hoegh LNG would reveal that it "will have very limited capacity to extend any additional advances to the Partnership beyond what is currently drawn under the facility"; (8) as a result of the foregoing, the Partnership would essentially end distributions to common units holders; (9) the COVID-19 pandemic was not the sole or root cause of the Partnership's issues in Indonesia, in 2019, before the pandemic, there were already a very low amount of demand in Indonesia for the Partnership's gas; (10) the auditing, tax, nor maintenance of PGN FSRU Lampung were not the sole or root cause(s) of the Partnership's issues in Indonesia; and (11) as a result, defendants' statements about its business, operations, and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times. When the true details entered the market, the lawsuit claims that investors suffered damages. To join the Hoegh class action, go to http://www.rosenlegal.com/cases-register-2140.html or call Phillip Kim, Esq. toll-free at 866-767-3653 or email pkim@rosenlegal.com or cases@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 investor's ability to share in any potential future recovery is not dependent upon serving as lead plaintiff. Follow us for updates on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-rosen-law-firm, on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosen_firm or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rosenlawfirm/. Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Contact Information: Laurence Rosen, Esq. Phillip Kim, Esq. The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. 275 Madison Avenue, 40th Floor New York, NY 10016 Tel: (212) 686-1060 Toll Free: (866) 767-3653 Fax: (212) 202-3827 lrosen@rosenlegal.com pkim@rosenlegal.com cases@rosenlegal.com www.rosenlegal.com Cision View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rosen-a-longstanding-law-firm-encourages-hoegh-lng-partners-lp-investors-with-losses-in-excess-of-100k-to-secure-counsel-before-important-deadline-in-securities-class-action-commenced-by-the-firm--hmlp-301417872.html SOURCE Rosen Law Firm, P.A. Of those 16, 10 were unhoused and six were housed. Those familiar faces are definitely a big portion of the Mobile Support Teams time and effort, Neal said. The team was able to divert people from going to the emergency room 169 times, and they were able to divert clients from being taken to jail 13 times. That saved taxpayers about $252,000, according to Neals conservative estimate. When she surveyed local police officers and sheriffs deputies, most had positive things to say about the program, Neal said. Some didnt think the program reduced their workload because they often had to wait on scene for a team member to show up, but others said they were able to walk away from a scene quicker. Almost all officers agreed that the team increased the effectiveness of the mental health response and got better resolutions for clients, Neal said. John Petroff of the Missoula Fire Department is the operations manager for the team. Its been fully staffed from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m., seven days a week, for the past six months, he said. TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) Bumping their elbows in greeting, European lawmakers met with Taiwan's premier on Wednesday in the first official visit of a European Parliament delegation to the self-ruled island, which is also claimed by China. Seven members of the European Parliament committee on foreign interference in democratic processes are visiting Taiwan, after the parliament passed a resolution last month calling for the body to intensify EU-Taiwan political relations." Although we are geographically very far away, between our two sides, we share the same values, such as freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law. ... In those regards, we are actually very close, Taiwan's Premier Su Tseng-chang said. The European delegation will also meet President Tsai Ing-wen and Digital Minister Audrey Tang, and visit Taiwanese think tanks, NGOs and others working on countering disinformation. The visit comes amid growing support for the democratic island, which China claims as part of its territory to be annexed by force if necessary, and rising negative perceptions toward Beijing in Western countries. A polio vaccination drive across Afghanistan, the first of its kind in years, is scheduled to be launched on November 8, the United Nations Childrens Fund announced. "Vaccinate your #children against polio and protect their future!" the UN agency urged families in Afghanistan via Twitter on November 7. UNICEF and another UN agency, the World Health Organization (WHO), announced last month that the Taliban leadership had given its support to resuming house-to-house polio vaccination across Afghanistan. The nationwide vaccination campaign was negotiated with the Taliban leadership by the WHO and UNICEF, but security concerns still exist as polio vaccination teams have been attacked in the country in the past. The Taliban in the past accused polio vaccination teams of gathering intelligence on their militants, but they are now the de facto government of Afghanistan after toppling the internationally backed Kabul government in August. The inoculation campaign "will be the first in over three years to reach all children in Afghanistan, including more than 3.3 million children in some parts of the country who have previously remained inaccessible to vaccination campaigns," the WHO and UNICEF said in a statement on October 18. Health officials say the drive aims to cover nearly 10 million children under the age of 5 against the virus, which can cause paralysis and death. Afghanistan and Pakistan are among only a few countries in the world where polio is still endemic. With reporting by dpa Houston officials say they will ask tough questions in their investigation of a crowd surge at a music festival that killed eight people 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. Two Ward Lockwood murals at Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College will be removed due to racist content and damage, said administration and staff members. The removal has sparked some controversy. Jim Raughton, former Chair of the Trustees of FAC, disagrees with the removal and claims of damage, and believes the murals should stay in place with information that provides historical background. Colorado Springs welcomed the annual Veterans Day Parade back to downtown Saturday after the event was canceled due to the spread of COVID-19 last year. It marked the first time Colorado Springs did not have the event since its inception in 2000. The parade didnt miss a beat Saturday with attendance nearing pre-COVID numbers with roughly 40,000 people, despite the parade featuring around 30 fewer entries in the parade totaling about 1,000 fewer people, Colorado Springs Veterans Day Parade Board President Roger Ehrke said. There were around 70 entries in the parade this year. Jay Bowen, a 20-year army veteran and department state commander of the Neal Thomas Jr.-Centennial Post 209 of the American Legion, was simply excited to celebrate veterans with the Colorado Springs community again. [The Energy] was so high. In fact I heard many, many comments [saying], Thank God were back doing this again, he said. We all were kind of in a funk last year not being able to get out and do anything because of COVID, so everybody is so excited and hyped about the opportunity to just get back out into the streets and be among the citizens again. The theme for this year was the greatest generation, honoring World War II veterans. It was supposed to be last years theme but the board kept it, wanting to celebrate World War II veterans in the region for what could be a final time. Ehrke said about 6 to 10 people over 100 years old were either in the parade or in the honorary guest bleachers located on Tejon Street at Pikes Peak Avenue. The parade route runs down Tejon beginning at St. Vrain Street down to Vermijo Avenue. The parade featured entries from military and military adjacent organizations in the Pikes Peak Region as well as school marching bands and their junior ROTC programs including Daughters of the American Revolution, Fort Carson Mounted Color Guard, U.S Air Force Academy Cadet Honor Guard, USAA, Veterans of Foreign Wars and more. Bringing the parade back was challenging this year, administrative assistant Eileen Howe said. The board lost its secretary who oversaw duties like getting insurance and sponsorships, and many of the other responsibilities that keep the parade running. Howe, who moved from Colorado Springs to Charlotte, N.C. in 2015, picked up the slack and helped remotely. Howe said that she and members of the board took on additional responsibilities to make the parade happen this year. The daughter of a veteran who was in the Minnesota National Guard and the mother of an Air Force Academy graduate, Howe said putting the parade together is a labor of love. I love the parade, I love working for those men and women, she said. Its what we need to do for our military. We need to celebrate them. Howe thanked the community for doing its part to bring the parade back downtown. From Flex Tec which provided stickers which were miniaturized versions of the parade poster to Colorado Springs Utilities who send 20 people each year to help the board staff organize the parade lineup. Bowen echoed that sentiment. We love doing this because it shows that not only does the city support [veterans] but we support the city, he said. That love and support could be felt by Brianna Bebb, who was in the parade as a member of the Vista Ridge High School Air Force Junior ROTC. Bebb, fighting back tears, expressed what she enjoyed about this years parade and what Veterans Day means to her. It brought everybody together. Everybody came together to support and celebrate the people who have served in the past, she said. My grandpa was in Air Force 22 years. It means a lot to my family. The Colorado Springs Veterans Parade in downtown Colorado Springs was held on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021. The theme is The Greatest Generation, which pays homage to the troops who served during World War II. The parade began in the year 2000 and continues to be a Colorado Springs tradition. The parade was canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Elections Division of the Secretary of State filed a lawsuit Friday against Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters. The lawsuit, filed with the Office of Administrative Courts, alleged Peters failed to file campaign finance reports, failed to register as a candidate for re-election and accepted donations above the state's legal limit, as she continues to solicit contributions for a re-election bid. Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts The Devils Advocate with Jon Caldara on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics. A new federal law, the Family First Prevention Services Act of 2018, takes effect Friday with changes that boots-on-the-ground workers like Brian James, who runs a therapeutic foster home in Colorado Springs, say will prevent foster kids from falling through the cracks and give them a better chance at becoming successful adults. The pandemic fostered more than a few panicked, confused and wasteful responses by the feds and the states on the dubious premise it was better to act rashly than be sorry later. Silly me. The other day I was watching Morning Joe, the early-morning political talk show co-hosted by Joe Scarborough, former conservative congressman from Florida who now leans further left than right. Scarborough was talking about the problems of the Minneapolis police department and said that apparently, Iowa nice has not made its way north to Minnesota. Never mind that a former southern politician who now hosts a television show in New York probably knows little about life in Iowa or Minnesota but television these days is filled with people who talk endlessly about things they know little about. What struck me about this is the notion of Iowa nice. What is it? What does it mean? To Iowans, it means immeasurable friendliness: church suppers and parades, farmers giving each other the two-finger wave as they pass each in their vehicles; farmers helping ailing neighbors bring in their crop; everyone knowing everyone on a first-name basis; having entrance signs at state borders that read, The People of Iowa Welcome You: and of course, the Field of Dreams and the classic line from the move: Is This Heaven? No, Its Iowa. Thats how we view each other in our state and it all adds up to Iowa nice. But people in other states, including former Iowans, dont see it quite that way. For many, we are the land of hogs and corn and weve screwed up the Iowa caucuses three times in a row. NBC newsman Harry Smith, a graduate of Central College in Pella, once did a commentary on traveling by car through the state and described the scenery this way: Sometimes the corn is on the left, sometimes its on the right. Former Iowan Maria Reppas, who grew up in Cedar Falls and now lives in Virginia, recently wrote an op-ed for the Iowa City Press-Citizen in which she said Iowa Nice disregards the fact that Iowans are generally complacent white people who would rather avoid conflict than take courageous stands on righteous issues. She points to two words that she says demonstrate the oxymoron of Iowa Nice Steve King. Lets not forget the controversy in Mason City a few years ago over the proposed building of a hog-processing plant. There was much opposition to it because of environmental concerns, but there was an underlying concern about immigrants infiltrating our community alleged racism even confirmed by a City Council member at the time. I mentioned in this space a few weeks ago the sighting of a F*** Biden banner on someones home. In fairness, it should be pointed out that not far from that banner is one on someone elses property that says, F*** Trump. Iowa nice, indeed. The lesson from all of this is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And, just to rub a little salt in the wound, some researchers say that the slogan Iowa Nice is a take-off of a phrase that originated in Minnesota. In other words, we stole it. Thats not nice. Silly me. John Skipper retired from the Globe Gazette in February 2018 after 52 years in newspapers, most of that in Mason City covering North Iowa government and politics. Love 1 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 They had a lot of houses made of mud, he said. It was a really nasty country, no electricity. We ran everything off generators. Haraway recalled sleeping inside a hut on a cot, as well as in the sand and in an abandoned horse stable. While in Afghanistan, he learned to appreciate lifes basics. You cant go there and just buy a bar of soap over there, he said, adding that such items were difficult to come by. We got care packages from home, from friends and family. My Mom sent me a lot of care packages. He and his fellow Marines would get into fire fights with the enemy, who would run away when Haraway and others would shoot back. Sometimes they would shoot mortars, rocket-propelled grenades, he said. Haraway remembered when he was almost hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. He and a gunner, a lieutenant and an Afghan interpreter were patrolling an area, talking to members of the Afghan army who were engaged in a fire fight with the Taliban. It was a close call, he said. You could hear it explode behind the truck. It was maybe 50 yards away. We all jumped back in the truck. Virginia War Memorial curator Jesse Smith, who heads the team responsible for the new exhibit, said that it features the profile of sailor John A. Hildebrand, Jr. of Augusta County, a victim of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. The exhibit also includes the story of two cousins, Alfred and Leslie Gregory from Buckingham County, who enlisted in the Army on the same day and who both died on the same day during the Korean War. The youngest veteran profiled in the exhibit is Leslie Jackson from Richmond, who was only 18 years old when she was killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom on May 20, 2004. Smith has a personal connection to one of those profiled his great-uncle Robert Long from Buena Vista. Long was part of a US Army Air Forces crew who was lost in the English Channel when his badly-crippled B-17 bomber attempted to return to base after a mission over Germany. Dont let your guards down; this continues to be a serious and dangerous virus, and will likely be with us for several more months, Spillmann told the Register & Bee on Friday. Simply put, we arent yet to the pre-COVID business as usual stage, he said. Danville and Pittsylvania County are averating about 21 new COVID-19 infections per day. Also, a one-time clinic is planned from 8 a.m. to noon Friday at Three Arc Family Life located at 427 E. Thomas St. in Danville that will offer booster shoots, along with first and second doses of all three vaccines. If youve already completed your initial vaccine series and are eligible for a booster, please consider getting a booster as well, Spillmann said. Boosters are now available for all three vaccines. Anyone 18 and older who received the Johnson & Johnson version at least two months ago may receive a booster dose. For those who received the Pfizer or Modera shot at least six months ago, the CDC recommends boosters for those 65 and older, those who live in long-term care facilities or anyone with an underlying medical condition. RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) The North Carolina General Assembly completed redistricting maps Thursday for the next decade, carving boundaries that would likely give Republicans at least two more U.S. House seats and help the GOP retain its state legislative majorities. The House and Senate voted along party lines for districts drawn on the basis of 2020 census figures. Each of the three maps for the House, the Senate and the congressional delegation had already passed one chamber by Wednesday. Democratic Gov. Roy Coopers veto stamp cant block redistricting plans, leaving Democrats and their allies with lawsuits as their remaining tool to fight them. In the 2010s, they successfully challenged GOP maps as illegal partisan and racial gerrymanders problems they believe exist again now. One lawsuit already has been initiated. Is it going to come down to litigation being filed? Yes and what the courts have to say about it, said state Sen. Jay Chaudhuri of Wake County, the Democrats' No. 2 leader. If the maps are upheld, they would get first use for the March 8 primary. Candidate filing begins Dec. 6. WENTWORTH The Rockingham County Division of Public Health has begun offering a series of drive-thru vaccination clinics to offer Moderna booster shots, the agency recently announced. According to the CDC, the following groups are eligible for a booster shot six months or more after their second dose: People 65 years and older People 18 and older who live in long-term care settings People 18 and older with underlying medical conditions People 18 and older who work or live in high-risk settings County health officials advice those people who are unsure if they should receive a booster vaccine to consult their physician for additional guidance. Dates for drive-thru Moderna booster vaccinations are from 9 a.m.4 p.m. on Nov. 4, Nov. 6, Nov. 18, and Nov. 20. Clark had arrived at work and was getting ready to settle in, but the first hijacked plane had just hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Several staff members were watching the news on a large television in his bosss office. As they watched, Clark said to another person, This doesnt look like an accident and they showed the second plane hitting the second tower. I said to myself, this is going to shape up to be an interesting day just as another officer came running up and said a bomb has just gone off at the Pentagon. Five years later, while serving under Inspector General Lt. Gen. Stanley Green, Clark retired from the Army with 28 years of service. The son of Jim and Ann Clark, James was born at the naval hospital in Quantico, Va., where his father was in the Marine Corps. His family later moved to Greensboro, where his father worked for Federal Home Bank. They moved to Georgia in 1972 when the bank operations were transferred to Atlanta. Clark graduated in 1976 from McEachern High School in Powder Springs, Ga., and four years later from Georgias Kennesaw State University with a bachelor of arts degree in business administration. When I say there is some debate about the inflection point, I mean that some researchers think its around 2,000 to 4,000 students. Others think its in the low tens of thousands. Alas, North Carolinas largest systems exceed these thresholds. Wake Countys district enrolls nearly 160,000 students. Charlotte-Mecklenburg has 140,000. Guilford (69,000), Forsyth (51,000), and Cumberland (49,000) are also quite big. While I have long advocated dividing the gargantuan Wake and Mecklenburg systems into three or four districts, Im open to the idea that the other urban systems should be subdivided, as well. My main argument has long been that giving parents more choices among district-run public schools would improve academic quality and the return on taxpayer investment. Two recent studies show the promise of such a strategy. In a 2017 paper, Katie Sharron of Florida State University and Lawrence Kenny of the University of Florida exploited the fact that some states require there to be only one school district per county while others impose no such requirement. That allows for a robust test of whether school-district competition has educational benefits. We find strong evidence that restricting competition among public school districts has an adverse impact on student learning, they found. As a patrol sergeant for more than 14 years, Willis said the most memorable thing he did was having the ability to supervise some of the best men and women this state has to offer. That was the most gratifying thing I could have ever done. I enjoyed working hand in hand with the road troopers, getting to know their families, getting to know their children, getting to know thembeing their direct supervisor and having the knowledge of being able to help them, he said. The one thing that meant the most to me was seeing the men and women that worked underneath me get promoted and start their careers and just be successful. Seeing my subordinates become successful in their lives was my greatest accomplishment, Willis said. One the other hand, the hardest thing about his chosen career was knock on the door of a family member to tell them their loved one was not coming home. That was the most horrific part I have ever done. Even though it is hard on the family, its also hard on the officer. Like the Board of Commissioners, the Board of Education has eight members who are elected by district and an at-large member who is elected by the entire county. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Board member Deborah Napper, a Democrat, said that, to her knowledge, it was a coincidence that all six Democrats on the board voted against the resolution while all three Republicans voted in favor. She said she wanted to take a closer look at how the new commissioners map would impact her district and she was also troubled that she hadnt had a chance to see or hear the text of the resolution to adopt the map until it was read during Saturdays school board meeting. According to the school boards attorney, Jill Wilson, the county Board of Elections has requested the school board submit its choice of redistricting by Nov. 18 so that ballots can be printed and potential candidates can find out which district they qualify to run in before deciding whether to file. County commissioners and school board members currently share the same electoral district boundaries, but they dont have to do so. Similarly, according to a 2012 study by the National Center for State Courts, this state spends less per capita on its court system than any other state in the Union. Other critical needs, such as affordable housing, are not being met. In other words, there are squirrels in this states attic, mold in its basement and sagging beams under its floors. And yet most of the money just sits there, in a big pile, doing mostly nothing, as lawmakers dance a jig around it. Even the rainy day fund. Whats that, you say? The rainy day fund is meant only for emergencies? You mean, like crumbling schools, a housing crisis and a pandemic? What more are we waiting for? An alien invasion? Just to remind you, this is not state lawmakers money. Its ours. And should people who say they believe in smaller government accumulate a mountain of money the peoples money and not spend it on the people? Back in my house, there is still a big hole in the first-floor ceiling. Tyrannical Turkish occupation attacks are still continuing against NE, Syria, which is aiming to occupy more Syrian lands. So, the schemes must be confronted by all ways by reinforcing Fundamental Protection Forces On this subject, the member of Democratic Society Movement Coordination, Youssef Kotti, talked to ANHA agency. Youssef kotti explained that the Turkish occupation attacks had intensified on NE, Syria, due to the escalation the diplomatic movement of the Autonomous Administration of North and East, AANES, on the other hand the Tyrannical Turkish occupation state seeks to undermine the people s will via special war and media then eradication the democratic nations project of Rojava. Kotti pointed out that the people of NE, Syria must be fully ready to prevent the Turkish occupation attacks, stand by the military forces and defend the land to protect the current achievements and block the way for the attacks of the tyrannical Turkish state. Kotti also referred to the attacks of mercenary groups on Rojava in 2012, and said, "At that time the Community Protection Forces were established, and all segments of society joined them, because the defense of land and dignity was required of everyone." Leader Abdullah Ocalan says about "Fundamental Protection is the moral and political protection policy of society. What is right is that a society that cannot protect itself will lose its moral and political meaning. That society is either occupied or rendered fragile and destructive. If it wishes to restore its moral and political identity again, it must resist. Youssef Kotti drew attention to the importance of the peoples revolutionary war, and explained that with Fundamental Protection it faces the attack with resistance, and martyred the resistance of Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in Aleppo, and continued, The people showed their will at that time and then showed it in Kobani, then they resisted in Afrin for 58 days, and this means The people of NE, Syria are aware of the reality of the people's revolutionary war. Our people also struggled in al-Bagouz with all its components." Kotti stated that there was a need for political, cultural and military protection. He said, "I trust that the people of NE, Syria in all their components will be ready against attacks on various sides, and that they will stand up to the Turkish state's attacks and its attempts at occupation. Our people proved in Rojava Revolution that they could defend themselves in every way. " "The Syrian regime in 2004 wanted to provoke discord between the Kurdish and Arab peoples, when the Kurdish people of Damascus and Aleppo took to the yards and expressed their displeasure and opposition to this. To show that they can stand up to anyone for their own will. " Kotti pointed out that in Syrian history, the Kurdish people wanted to have their right to learn in the mother tongue and to teach Kurdish in schools, like all peoples. But this faced rejection from the Damascus Government and said, "But despite the Damascus government's rejection of Kurdish, we were able to make it an official language along with Arabic and Syriac in the revolution of Rojava, which was a product of the resistance of the people. We have achieved many achievements as a result of resistance, the greatest of which was AANES. " And he concluded his speech by saying, "The role of women in the resistance was also very big. The mothers of northern and eastern Syria gave the greatest value, sacrificing their daughters and sons for the sake of their homeland and achieved these achievements." T/S ANHA " " Georgios Nikolaou Papanikolaou presented the findings of his first cervical smear tests in 1928, forever changing the course of female reproductive health screening and cancer prevention protocols. traveler1116/Getty Images/HowStuffWorks For better or worse, few of us have inherently positive associations with routine medical exams. But while you'd be hard pressed to find any woman super stoked to receive a cervical cancer screener known as the Pap smear (or Pap test), learning about the procedure's game-changing introduction into modern medicine might give you a newfound appreciation for its significance. And behind the unprecedented test is a man who collaborated with his wife in an effort to save women's lives: Georgios Papanikolaou. Born on the Greek island of Euboea in 1883, Papanikolaou followed in his doctor dad's footsteps and graduated from medical school with top honors at the age of 21. Compassion played a major role in Papanikolaou's professional endeavors from the start; after working as an assistant surgeon in the military, he spent two years caring for socially isolated leprosy patients outside of his hometown. In 1910, he received a Ph.D. in zoology from Germany's University of Munich and married Andromache Mavroyeni (Mary), the daughter of a famous military family, soon after. The couple moved to the U.S. in 1913 and desperate to make ends meet, Papanikolaou temporarily strayed from medicine to sell carpets and play violin in restaurants while his wife sewed buttons for $5 a week. Advertisement It didn't take long, however, for Papanikolaou to land a research position in the pathology department of New York Hospital and the department of anatomy at Cornell University. With his wife by his side as a technician and sometimes-test-subject, Papanikolaou began studying sex determination in guinea pigs, and quickly found that some cells in the vagina and uterus changed throughout the menstrual cycle. Curious to know if the same changes could be observed in humans, he performed the same examinations on his wife and several (clearly very trusting) female friends, collecting cell samples from the outer opening of each test subject's cervix. After scraping a few cells from the area, Papanikolaou smeared the samples onto a glass slide and examined them under a microscope. What the doctor observed through his lens changed the landscape of female health care: One of the friend's samples was made up of mutated, malignant cancer cells. In 1928, Papanikolaou presented the findings at a medical conference, a year after a Romanian scientist named Aurel Babes had demonstrated a similar technique. But because Papanikolaou implemented the method first and introduced a unique way of applying the cells to slides, he's the one credited with the innovation (although in Romania, the test is called Methode Babes-Papanicolaou). Scientific circles weren't quick to accept Papanikolaou's modern ideas, though due to widespread skepticism, it took a full decade for a clinical trial to take place at New York Hospital. The results of the study, however, were undeniable: Papanikolaou was able to detect a significant number of early cancers with his method, and in 1952, the first mass screening program launched in Tennessee (773 of 10,000 women were diagnosed with cancer thanks to that test). The Pap smear remains an important staple of female health care, typically performed every three years for women ages 21 to 65. During the short and simple test, a doctor gently inserts a speculum into the vagina to hold the vaginal walls apart and expose the cervix before using a soft brush and flat scraping device to painlessly swab cervical cells. The whole procedure is completed within minutes, but the impact can be profound: the test is the only way to detect cervical cell changes that may indicate the development of future cancer. According to research, women with cervical cancer who were diagnosed via Pap smear had a 92 percent cure rate, while those diagnosed by symptoms alone only had a 66 percent cure rate. Although it took years for the medical community to widely accept Papanikolaou's groundbreaking work, his contribution to medicine (and the contributions of his wife and friends) continues to affect the lives of patients and their loved ones to this day. Learn more about the Pap test in "Your Cervix Just Has a Cold: The Truth About Abnormal Pap Smears and HPV" by Dr. Brandie Gowey. HowStuffWorks picks related titles based on books we think you'll like. Should you choose to buy one, we'll receive a portion of the sale. Now That's Interesting Before becoming a doctor, Papanikolaou felt drawn to the arts, studying French and later violin for eight years. " " When was the last time you even thought about changing or cleaning your hairbrush? Peter Cade/Getty Images You probably have a pretty standard morning routine that includes showering, brushing your teeth and then applying some makeup or at least you did pre-pandemic. Now, though, at a bare minimum, you're likely to mindlessly run a brush through your hair to look presentable for those Zoom meetings. And you probably replace your toothbrush roughly every three months because your dentist tells you to, but have you ever asked your stylist the same about your hairbrush? If you're like most of us and haven't really given it much thought, here are a few guidelines and why you should care. Advertisement When to Replace Your Hairbrush Overall, replacing your hairbrush about every six to 12 months is a good baseline for most value-priced brushes; higher quality ones can last years with proper care. That said, the actual length of time they last will depend on other factors such as your hair type, the type of brush and how often you clean them. You might not think using the incorrect brush for your hair type affects the life of the brush, but it can. Those with thick or curly hair may see wear sooner than others. An old, dirty or otherwise broken-down brush isn't just unattractive on your countertop, it can actually cause a few issues beyond aesthetics. Gerard Cunningham, a retired cosmetologist and master colorist from Atlanta, says an old hairbrush can contribute to split ends and hair breakage. And bristles with oily buildup can make your just-washed hair look lackluster and weighed-down. Perhaps more concerning is that a poorly maintained hairbrush can hide mold, yeast and bacteria. Eww! Those are NOT natural ingredients you want on your head. Brushing with that means you're basically just putting the ick you washed out right back onto your hair and scalp, which can further exacerbate issues like dandruff or cause redness and itching. Advertisement Caring for Your Haircare Tools To help extend the life of your brush therefore the health of your hair you should remove hair from the bristles after every use and clean your brush once a week, either with a clarifying shampoo or baking soda solution and toothbrush if it shows product buildup. If you're not into making such a fuss about hair tool maintenance, a quick and dirty sign that it's time to replace your hairbrush is when the bristles start to bend, separate, look melted or just fall out, depending on the type of brush. For combs, look for missing teeth, caked-on residue or a melted chalky appearance. Now That's Interesting While there are tons of brushes that are available for different types of hair, those with boar hair bristles are ideal for daily use for most any hair type, because they distribute natural oils from your scalp down to the ends of your hair, for a healthy-looking, natural shine. GENEVA (AP) A new project trumpeted by U.S. President Joe Biden in which companies underpin development of low-carbon technologies through their buying power amounts to a "big transformation," U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said Thursday. The " First Movers Coalition ", spearheaded by the U.S. government and the World Economic Forum, aims to help meet an increasingly difficult target laid out in the 2015 Paris climate accord to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. So far, almost three dozen global companies in many sectors have committed to changing their purchasing practices to favor development of zero-emission technologies by 2030. The idea is to jumpstart budding or not-yet-existent technologies that can reduce how much CO2 is spewed into the atmosphere by leveraging the market specifically the purchasing power of the companies to encourage their suppliers to clean up, so they can too. Biden spoke of the project as the U.N.-backed climate conference in Glasgow known as COP26 got under way. "This is a big transformation. It's a big deal," Kerry told many corporate leaders behind the project in Glasgow on Thursday. "Everybody I've talked to when they learn about it, they say: 'Wow, that makes sense. That's great.' And all of you understood that instinctively, and without an arm-twisting." Designers of the project say half of the emissions reduction projected between now and 2030 will stem from innovations like capturing carbon out of the air that aren't operating at a large scale. Pushing suppliers of the large companies to cut CO2 will help create bigger markets and ultimately lower costs, the thinking goes. "If we don't get enough reduction somewhere in the 45% range over the next 10 years, we are blowing by 1.5 degrees and that's a hard target," Kerry said, crediting the private sector for leading "in a way that even some governments are not." A first phase focuses on aviation, shipping, steel and trucking, and three more industries aluminum, cement and chemicals are to come on board later. The seven industries account for about one-third of total global carbon emissions, WEF says. "Volvo says we're going to buy X% 10% of our vehicles are going to be made with green steel," Kerry said. "And so, all of a sudden, people making green steel know, 'Hey, there's somebody out there waiting to buy this.'" But even participant companies aren't revolutionizing their plans just yet, committing to make the changes in at least one of their purchasing areas so not necessarily company-wide. Questions also remain about both the metrics and monitoring, which could amount to attempted "greenwashing" if firms try to quietly wriggle out of their commitments. "We are going to have very strict metrics and strict follow-up on this," said Borge Brende, president of the Geneva-based WEF, which is best known for organizing the annual conference of government and corporate leaders in Davos, Switzerland. "Rest assured: we're on it," he said in a phone interview. He said the initiative is no substitute for government regulation to help curb global warming, which will still be needed, and putting pressure on suppliers could lead the companies to face higher prices. The idea builds on commitments in the finance sector already, exemplified through carbon-reduction strategies at investment companies like Blackrock and Carlyle, Brende said. The coalition hopes to broaden that effort in finance to many more sectors. U.S.-based companies including Amazon, Apple, Boeing and Delta airlines are taking part, as are European plane maker Airbus, Germany's Deutsche Post, Swedish energy company Vattenfall and India's Dalmia Cement. "This means that they will be pretty tough even the hard-to-abate sectors -- in the years to come," Brende said, referring to sectors in which cutting carbon is especially difficult. "And if you want to sell to these companies, you have to reduce your carbon footprint. And I'm pretty sure that that signal will be received and it will lead to new technology breakthroughs." Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 St. Peters Health officials said in a recent community forum the hospital is coming out of an especially difficult month in dealing with COVID-19 patients. They also mentioned that they are continuing to look for a full-time oncologist and commented on competition coming to town. Wade Johnson, chief executive officer and president of St. Peters, was joined Tuesday by Dr. Todd Wampler during the online forum. They both discussed issues and fielded questions about the hospital. Wampler, president of the St. Peters Health Medical Group, said October was an exceptionally difficult" period for the hospital. Its been a traumatic month, he said, noting they have been providing mental health support, group and individual counseling to staff. We have tried to wrap them in as much love as possible, Wampler said. He said a few weeks ago there was a peak of 44 COVID-19 patients at St. Peter's, which accounts for over 50% of in-patient beds, and record oxygen use. He said there was a day when usage got so high that they brought in a consultant to see if oxygen tanks were leaking. It turns out there wasnt a leak in the oxygen system, we were really using that much oxygen, Wampler said. There were 27 COVID-19 deaths at the hospital during October, the most ever, he said, noting it was also the deadliest month in the state. He said the number of COVID-19 patients is now in the 30s, but warned it may just be a data point and cannot be called a trend yet. On the horizon we do have hope, he said. Wampler said operational changes were made to deal with the influx of people. Nurses were moved from clinics to help at the hospital, and some of these nurses stepped up and volunteered for extra shifts. People have been pushing themselves to work at the highest level of their credentials, he said. He thanked the National Guard for helping the hospital and said there are now 13 members helping at St. Peters. They have worked as patient sitters, helping to clean rooms, do laundry and bring meals. They have been so willing to help us out and I have been so proud of them, Wampler said. Wampler was also hopeful about new vaccines to help younger people. He urged people to "please" get vaccinated against COVID-19, adding that people who are vaccinated are less likely to end up in the hospital. Wampler also said people should get a flu shot. Wampler said urgent care wait times are now posted online and people can register there. He said lab draws can also be done online. Johnson, toward the end of the nearly hourlong forum, discussed Great Falls-based Benefis Health Systems growing presence in Helena. The health care provider recently opened an urgent care center in town, announced it had just purchased Helena Imaging, which includes two outpatient radiology locations, and is now planning a 60,000-square-foot surgery center and specialty clinic on the former Capital Hill Mall site. We are not surprised we have a competitor coming to town," he said. "Over the past number of years we have been anticipating this will happen as Helena continues to grow. As other markets struggle, perhaps, they look for other opportunities where they can generate income in other communities We feel very good about where we are and where were going and what were doing, Johnson said, noting earlier that every dollar that St. Peters generates in Helena goes back into the organization to recruit more providers and get more equipment. He said the community will have the opportunity to choose where they get their care. And were going to do everything we can to hopefully be the preferred choice, he said. Johnson also talked about a 200-unit senior living retirement community being planned through a joint venture of St. Peters Health and Immanuel Living. He said the project, which includes cottages and long-term nursing care, will take five years to go from start to finish and said construction could begin within a year. Johnson also noted that St. Peters has a partnership with Logan Health, formerly Kalispell Regional, for neurosurgery and spine surgery in Helena. He said the Cancer Treatment Center at St. Peter's has undergone remodeling and talked about the hospital's affiliation with Huntsman Cancer Institute in Utah. Wampler said they are still looking for a permanent oncologist in Helena. He said they have made inroads. "We have some candidates who are interested, but they are not right for our community," he said, adding he expected an announcement on other new hires to be made soon. Johnson thanked the community for the food, drink and words of encouragement they have offered staff during the pandemic. "Those are the things that make peoples day," he said, adding later, "Those gestures really really mean a lot." Assistant editor Phil Drake can be reached at 406-231-9021. Love 9 Funny 5 Wow 4 Sad 3 Angry 9 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DECATUR A Decatur member of the Mafia Insane Vice Lords street gang has been sent to prison for 14 years. Octavius R. Howse, 36, took a plea deal negotiated by his defense attorney, Steve Jones, and admitted to being a felon in possession of a weapon. An additional possession charge and a charge of being an armed habitual criminal had then been dismissed by Macon County Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey Geisler. Howse appeared in court and announced he would accept the plea deal Oct. 14; his case had been scheduled for a jury trial Oct. 19. Sworn affidavits from Decatur police about the case against Howse said he had been discovered sleeping in a car about 3:38 a.m. April 24 with an illegally-owned gun cradled in his lap. Police had not been searching for Howse and were responding to an unrelated domestic violence call when they came across him, according to Patrol Officer Eric Havens. Howse had been on parole at the time following a 2018 conviction in Piatt County for being a felon in possession of a weapon. He also had a previous conviction out of Peoria County for aggravated battery with a firearm. Recommended for you The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration lists the Mafia Insane Vice Lords as being part of Vice Lords Nation, a Chicago-based gang association with affiliated groups in 27 other states. The DEA accuses the association of being heavily involved in narcotics distribution. Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. CHICAGO - Four people are dead, and at least 14 others were wounded, including a 4-year-old boy, in city shootings since late Friday afternoon, Chicago police said. The latest homicide happened happened shortly before 3:30 a.m. on the Southwest Side in the Little Village neighborhood in the 2600 block of South Keeler Avenue. Officers found a 31-year-old man lying unresponsive on the ground with gunshot wounds to the head and body. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital where he was pronounced dead. Shortly before midnight Saturday, a 21-year-old man was fatally wounded in the 5200 block of West Adams Street in the South Austin neighborhood, police said. The man was outside around 11:50 p.m. Friday when he was shot by an unidentified gunman. He suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body, and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Around 9:50 p.m., a 36-year-old man was fatally wounded during an altercation that spurred from someone blocking him out of his garage, police said. A vehicle was blocking his garage in the 2600 block of North Mobile Avenue in the Belmont Central neighborhood. The 36-year-old attempted to ask that the vehicle be moved, and someone inside the vehicle exited, and began pushing the 36-year-old, police said. Recommended for you A physical struggle broke out, and the assailant pulled out a weapon and shot the man before getting back in vehicle and fleeing. The unidentified man suffered one gunshot wound to the back, and was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood where he was pronounced dead. Around 6 p.m. Friday, a 29-year-old man was fatally wounded in the West Englewood neighborhood in the 2100 block of West 71st Street, police said. He was driving when a car pulled up behind him, and two people exited and fired shots through the rear window, striking him in the back of the head. The man was pronounced dead on the scene. No one was in custody for any of the homicides, and detectives were investigating, police said. In non-fatal shootings: About 5:15 a.m., a 27-year-old woman was shot in the leg in the 2600 block of East 85th Street in the South Chicago neighborhood. Police said the woman was involved in an altercation with three females when a male fired shots, striking the woman. she was taken to Advocate Trinity Hospital where her condition was stabilized. Shortly before 4 a.m. Saturday, a 23-year-old man was outside in the 5500 block of South Sawyer Avenue in the Gage Park neighborhood when he heard shots and felt pain. He was taken with multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body to Mount Sinai Hospital where he listed in critical condition, police said. Shortly before 2:30 a.m., a 34-year-old woman was wounded in a drive-by shooting in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood in the 2600 block of West Le Moyne Street. The woman was standing outside when someone in a silver sedan fired shots, grazing her back. The woman refused to go to the hospital, and was treated on the scene. Shortly before 11:50 p.m. Friday, a 17-year-old boy was shot while he was standing in front of a store in the 8600 block of South Cottage Grove in the Chatham neighborhood. Police said a person dressed in all black shot the teenage boy who fled into the store for cover. He was shot in the leg and back, and was taken to U of C Medical Center where his condition was stabilized. Around 11:30 p.m., a 45-year-old man was shot in the 2800 block of West 26th Street in the Little Village neighborhood. He was shot by someone traveling in a white Saturn. The man suffered a graze wound to the head, and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in good condition. Shortly before 10:45 p.m. Friday, a 37-year-old woman was shot while she was sitting inside a parked car in the 1000 block of West 87th Street in the Gresham neighborhood. She suffered two wounds to the neck, and was taken in serious condition to the University of Chicago Medical Center, police said. Around 10:15 p.m., a 46-year-old woman shot a 42-year-old man who was inside her apartment and threatened her with a knife in the 3000 block of North Kilpatrick Avenue in the Kelvin Park neighborhood. The man reached for her weapon, and during a struggle the woman discharged the weapon, striking her to the right leg. The man was shot in the left leg. He was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, and she was taken to Stroger Hospital. Both were listed in good condition, police said. Around 9:50 p.m., a 30-year-old man was shot when he exited a house in the 1200 block of East 72nd Street in the Grand Crossing neighborhood. The man suffered a wound to the buttocks and two wounds to the torso. He was taken to U of C Medical Center and listed in good condition, police said. Shortly before 8:50 p.m., two men, 18 and 19, were both shot while standing outside in the 300 block of South Kilbourn Avenue in the West Garfield Park neighborhood. The older man was shot in the buttocks, and the younger man suffered a wound to the right arm They were both taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, police said. Shortly after 7:45 p.m., a 27-year-old man was shot in the 7800 block of South Ashland Avenue in the Gresham neighborhood. The man was walking outside when he heard shots and felt pain. The man saw someone inside a vehicle shooting at another vehicle before fleeing the scene. He suffered a wound to the right leg and was taken to Provident of Cook County Hospital where he was listed in good condition, police said. Around 5:45 p.m., a 4-year-old boy was shot in the 8300 block of South Saginaw Avenue in the South Chicago neighborhood. Police said the boy suffered wounds to the right thigh and both hands. He was taken to South Shore Hospital and listed in good condition. Shortly before 5:30 p.m., a 28-year-old man was shot while he was pulling into a parking spot in a residential parking lot in the 9600 block of Calhoun Avenue in the Jeffrey Manor neighborhood. Police said a Chevy pulled up, two people got out and opened fire at his vehicle, striking the man, who was taken in good condition to the University of Chicago Medical Center. No one was in custody for any of the shootings, and detectives were investigating. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CHICAGO A 21-year-old Chicago man has been arrested and faces a first-degree murder charge in the slaying of a pregnant woman whose body was found this summer in Lake Michigan. It was not clear Friday if the man has been been arraigned. Yarianna Wheeler's body was recovered Aug. 15 after an angler saw it floating in the water 3 miles southeast of Waukegan Harbor. Her body was identified later that month. Wheeler was about six months pregnant. An autopsy showed she had been stabbed. Detectives determined the man who was arrested had met with Wheeler near a beach and that it appears they were in some sort of relationship, authorities said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 More Information Visit bristoltn.org/BristolVAlandfill BRISTOL, Tenn. Bristol Tennessee City Council plans to host a public meeting once it receives an assessment of tests being conducted at the Bristol Virginia landfill, which for months has drawn odor complaints from residents of both Bristol cities. City leaders announced last month that they received permission to visit the landfill and collect samples to try and assess whether theres a public health threat from odors or other emissions. Once the results of those samples are available and assessed, the City will hold a public meeting with Dr. Laura Green, an independent toxicologist. Dr. Green will share the findings of the public health assessment and address questions that community members may have, according to a city statement on social media. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Information about the meeting will be posted on the city website along with answers to a series of frequently asked questions, the post states. Additionally, city leaders are looking at ways to assist residents, according to the statement. Bristol, Virginia officials continue to express sympathy for those affected by the citys malodorous landfill. The city has also accepted responsibility for the poor decision-making and lack of proper reporting and maintenance that led the area to this sad situation. But sympathy isnt enough. So far, the city has been averse to taking any steps to provide direct aid to those affected. City Manager Randy Eads said in a meeting with Bristol Herald Courier representatives Friday, Oct. 8, the city didnt want to provide any form of compensation to those affected by the smell because it could cause legal issues. I think you have to be very careful when you do that because it could be an admission of guilt, the city manager, who concurrently serves as the city attorney, said when asked about the possibility of providing HEPA filters, air purifiers or hotel vouchers. As soon as anyone starts doing that, that could be used against us later in a potential lawsuit. The room felt tense as Jordan Finley recounted his time in the Marines. He is proud to have served his country, but his time overseas left a mark on him. Finleys strongest memory was leaving the base and being prepared to fight. Each time I left the wire was particularly memorable, Finley said. Chambering a round into your rifle and putting your weapon in the ready position; that was a stark reality that you may not come back. From 2007 to 2011, Finley, 33, served in the United States Marine Corps. He served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and was a corporal in the Marines. I was a team leader of a fire team, so I was an infantryman in the 1st Battalion 8th Marines Regiment, Finley said. It was a really great privilege and honor. It was some hard work, but it was good work. Finley joined the Marines because he wanted to make an impact in the world. He said he thought the Marines would be a great place to start. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Kerry Penley, 49, was inspired by his grandfather, Carmie Cook, to join the military. He instilled a sense of service to the nation into me, he said. You listen to him reflect on the stories it kind of drives you. He is a big influence in my life. Cook is a World War II veteran who served at Normandy and received a Purple Heart. Penley worked on an aircraft carrier while in the U.S. Navy for four years, from 1992 to 1996. He was stationed on the USS Nimitz and completed two tours to the Persian Gulf in 1992 and 1993. We were homeported on Bremerton, Washington, he said. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} Penley described being on the carrier as similar to living in a small city. Youre looking at 6,000 people on there, 100 aircraft, kitchen, post office, barbershop, everything you need, he said. For two years he was on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier assisting with landings. It was a great job. They say its one of the most dangerous jobs in the Navy because theres a lot going on there with the aircrafts landing, he said. By age 21, William J. Sturm was married with two children and in the habit of quitting every job he started. He joined the Army, and his life changed. In the year 1999, I had over 25 W-2s, which means I quit a lot of jobs. So, when I got into the Army, it was a desperation move. I had to find a job I wasnt allowed to quit. That is, no kidding, the reason I considered the military, Sturm said. I knew I would get paid every two weeks, whether I was in the brig or if I was a functional soldier, and I needed a job that I wouldnt quit. I was a 22-year-old that was addicted to quitting. I didnt quit my wife; I didnt quit my Lord, but everything else that resembled work I quit. Sturm, 44, is the senior pastor at Sandy Ridge Baptist Church. He has devoted 21 years of his life to the Army. He was deployed to Iraq twice during his career. He served as a chaplains assistant in Iraq. It was my job to keep the chaplain from getting killed or lost. I was there (in Iraq) when my third child was born, Sturm said. I was in Baghdad when she was born in 2003. I met her when she was 3 months old. She just graduated high school in May. When Da Nang Air Base in Vietnam came under siege in 1965, Ron Harris and the 1st Marine Combat Battalion were deployed to defend it. They woke us up at two in the morning (in Okinawa) and flew us into Da Nang Air Base. We secured Da Nang Air Base, because it was under siege in 65. I was there for the full tour, Harris said. When I got there we were at Da Nang Air Base, and when I left at the end of 65, we were 32 miles from Da Nang. We had secured out that far. Harris said he was a rifleman and operated a rocket launcher. After serving in the Vietnam War, Harris came back to the United States and started a new military occupation giving entrance exams to flight school. Thats what I did for the last 17 months I was in, Harris said, because I didnt have enough time to do another tour in Vietnam, and I didnt want to. Harris enjoyed his time as the testing instruction supervisor in Baltimore. He would help draftees through the entrance exam process and convince them to do their best. He said a lot of guys would try to fail the exam in some way to avoid going to war. Harris said in reality the test would just decide what job someone would be placed in after boot camp. The sound of shotguns echoed through the fields at Bended Knee Outdoors as veterans and friends competed in skeet shooting. The skeet shooting is just one of many events that Bended Knee Outdoors hosts throughout the year to help veterans and their families. The organization also offers activities for children and adults with disabilities. Bended Knee Outdoors is a nonprofit organization that operates out of Link Farms in Granite Falls. The farm has been in Wayne Links family for four generations and he is the president of the nonprofit. The first thing visitors see as they pull into the farm is a big blue house that was built in the early 1900s. When Links grandparents owned the farm, they provided a home for children in need. After Army veteran and North Carolina Wildlife Officer Jon Kiger asked to hunt with some fellow veterans at the farm, Link and Kathy Freeman, vice president of the organization, were inspired to start hosting events. They had originally partnered with Fallen Outdoors three years ago to host some hunting events, but decided to branch out as Bended Knee Outdoors this year. Powell did not make the decision to go to war with Iraq. Bush ultimately did as commander in chief, urged on by Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others. When Powell made the speech at the United Nations, the United States was already on course for going to war with Iraq. A refusal to give the speech or resignation would have perhaps decreased public support for going to war, but the invasion would still have likely gone ahead nonetheless. Despite Powells speech, Bush and others in his administration should be given more of the ownership for the Iraq War than Powell. For a balanced perspective of Powells legacy, it is important to recognize additional areas where he made an impact. As a first African American in key leadership positions, he broke racial barriers. Powell formulated a doctrine for conducting military operations following the United States failure in Vietnam that was successfully applied in the brief and low-cost Persian Gulf War of the early 1990s. He was ideologically moderate, a Republican who later opposed Donald Trumps virulent populism, resisting the polarizing tendencies of the United States current political environment. Powell personified the American dream, as the child of immigrants, rising to the upper echelons of the United States military and government. And throughout, he was a man who carried himself with dignity and gravitas. The Old Courthouse Theatre is participating in MTIs All Together Now! a brand-new musical revue featuring 15 beloved songs from MTIs shows with a show at 2:30 p.m. The event opens with Be Our Guest and closes with Seasons of Love. There also are songs from Mamma Mia!, Frozen, Fiddler on the Roof, Godspell and others in this family friendly event. This is a fundraiser for OCT. Masks are required. Tickets are available at octconcord.com . The annual HOLIDAY FUN EXPRESS hosted by the Cabarrus County Extension and Community Association (ECA) and the Family and Consumer Sciences Program will be in the Cabarrus Rooms at the Cabarrus Arena and Events Center in Concord. Doors will open at 9:30 a.m. with coffee and hot tea available. The program begins at 10 a.m. ECA members and friends will be sharing quick and easy holiday decorating ideas, gifts and recipes. ECA members will host a Win-Me event for holiday shopping that will benefit Cabarrus County ECA nonprofit community programs. Win-Me tickets will be available for purchase at the event. Attendance will be limited, and masks and hand sanitizer will be available. Cost is $5 per person. Preregistration is required. Register online at www.cabarruscounty.us/register, in person at the N.C. Cooperative Extension-Cabarrus Center, 715 Cabarrus Ave. W., Concord, on workdays, or by mail. Make checks payable to Cabarrus County. For more information, call 704-920-3310 weekdays. Badges are becoming more difficult to achieve in the higher ranks. Scouts tend to procrastinate because of this and because they become involved in other activities in high school. They are required to achieve the award before the age of 18. Banks chose to build a handicap ramp for Restoration Deliverance Church in Kannapolis. The old ramp was replaced and designed for people to go in on either side of the church entrance. Glenn Keller, a contractor and the leader of the Mens Ministry at Hes Alive Church, mentored Banks and guided him through the project. Fellow Scouts and friends helped too. Banks put in 17 hours of labor, but it took 150-200 total man hours to complete the project. He raised the funds for the project through donations and sending out virtual flyers on social media. Banks shared a few stories about his Scouting experiences. One of his favorite places was traveling to Sand Rock, Alabama. His troop was there for six days. He made the trip twice. They climbed and set up rappels in an abyss that was 150-200 feet off the ground. This was the biggest rappel ever. Another climbing trip in a canyon left Banks with a broken rib and a collapsed lung. It knocked the wind out of him, but thankfully he was able to walk about a mile out of the canyon uphill to get the help he needed. Another memorable trip was when his dad took him to Atlanta to show him where he grew up in Scouting. Banks said, It was great seeing the pictures of dad and grandpa. Stragglers and lightly wounded men were gathered into an ad hoc machine gun platoon utilizing captured German machine guns. The order came to attack, but to do so they had to cross over the German-defended French Nationale Route 2, just west of a small village named Ploisy. In the ensuing attack, Sams senior officer was wounded with shrapnel and could not lead. Major Huebner transferred command to Sam Parker with the words, Take my maps and carry on. As the soldiers began their attack, a German high explosive shell struck near Sam. He was thrown into the air and, as he landed, he felt pain in his right foot. He took off his boot and bound his own wound, refusing evacuation despite the pain. Their advance across and beyond the road had been a failure. But this is total war and advance they must! Orders were received to attack across the road toward the Ploisy Ravine. There was a 1,000-meter gap (3,281 feet) between his troops and the French to the north. Sam had only 120 riflemen and had to crawl because of his painful foot wound. The platoon was inspired by his gallantry and determination, and this time the attack was successful. Sam chose not to leave his command until a composite command had been drawn up later that evening when other officers reached his position. On the morning of July 20, 1918, Sam made his painful way to an aid station near the Ploisy Ravine. ROCKFORD Two women were sexually assaulted within a short time of each other at a Rochelle senior citizen apartment complex during the spring of 2001. Police had no leads, no suspects, "and we didn't know if the offender was going to stop," said Rochelle Police Chief Eric Higby, who was a young detective at the time. Authorities did have a fingerprint recovered by Joe Rangel, a state crime scene investigator, who submitted the print to the state crime lab in Rockford. Within two hours, forensic scientist Ed Rottman identified a potential suspect using the state's automated fingerprint identification system and handed that person's name over to Rochelle police. A short time later, Rochelle police had Philbert Pendleton in custody. The then-25-year-old was charged with home invasion and aggravated criminal sexual assault and later convicted. Pendleton is now serving a 75-year prison sentence in the Big Muddy River Correctional Center. Rottman, who was recently recognized as the Illinois State Police's 2020 Forensic Scientist of the Year, said the 20-year-old case is still memorable to him because of the severity of the crimes, the urgency of the case and because police had so little to work with, the Rockford Register Star reports. That case is one of many the latent fingerprint analyst has has worked on across his 31-year career. "I think the most rewarding part of this job is giving the answers to the investigating officers, so that they can give answers back to the victims," Rottman said Tuesday from the fourth-floor of the E.J. "Zeke" Giorgi Center in Rockford where the Illinois State Police houses one of six crime labs. Typically, when police turn evidence into the lab, they have a suspect or suspects in mind, Rottman said. The scientists' job is to either confirm the person's identity and their connection to a crime or exonerate them. "There's times that exonerating people from crimes, at least with the evidence that we have, is just as rewarding as trying to identify somebody," Rottman said. Testifying in court as an expert witness remains a challenging part of the job, Rottman added. "Even after all these years it still gets you a little nervous going in there," he said. "But the man who trained me and other examiners who I have nothing but respect for said if you don't get a little nervous going in there, then you know that something's not quite right." Rottman, 57, of South Beloit, said his interest in law enforcement stems from his father's career as a 23-year officer retired from the Des Plaines Police Department. The 1987 Southern Illinois University grad said he was hired by the ISP in January 1990 and trained for two years in Carbondale before landing a job in Rockford. "I'm fortunate that I'm working at a job that I really enjoy," he said. "The people in this lab have been phenomenal to work with ever since I got here in '92." While his latest recognition as Forensic Scientist of the Year speaks to the quality of his work in 2020, the medallion just as easily could have been substituted with a lifetime achievement award. "Throughout his career, Mr. Rottman has been a model of professionalism, knowledge, and service," said Beth Hundsdorfer, ISP's chief public information officer. Rottman has been lauded by police agencies throughout northern Illinois for his role in solving crimes from the Lee County Sheriff's Department, which was able to solve a string of car burglaries last year in Ashton, and the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department, who linked an individual last year to a double homicide. "Mr. Rottman has consistently been a highly productive analyst and his commitment to providing high-quality services to the criminal justice system has been exceptional," Hundsdorfer said. Rottman also is vice president of the South Beloit School Board. He and his wife, April, are parents to two adult daughters, Meagan Walker and Sara Rottman. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 He added, Part of my work is looking into the USDA payments that these individuals have received for their tobacco production. I select individuals who since 1995 have received substantial sums of payments. The work imagines an alternate reality where those payments dry up, and they cant make money off their tobacco production. Theyre kind of left in this alternate reality of a bygone affluence. He creates his shelters typical rooms in a house using found and natural materials with the goal of showing how the tobacco farmers try to build an assemblance of the affluence they once had. His installation in Sarasota will feature sculptures and paintings. Two of his pieces are General Electric, a sculpture, and Debbies Bounty, a painting. General Electric is based on the aesthetic and dimensions of a mass-market GE electric range found in many homes across America, Washburn said. It is made of various cuts of sapling trees and found industrial wood, and is finished with a white milk paint. GE is a popular American brand with price points that skew toward a middle-class income. The painting Debbies Bounty is a triptych of panels with oil, paper, ink and quarters. The Independence Fund is a leading national veterans organization and North Carolina nonprofit that partners annually with the brothers of Kappa Alpha Order at HPU on their Operation K.A.R.E initiative. This year, they have teamed up to change the lives of two U.S. veterans. During HPUs Annual Veterans Day Celebration, which will welcome more than 1,000 veterans and their families at 8 a.m. on Nov. 11, these HPU fraternity brothers will present two track chairs to two veterans, who will be in attendance. The veterans are: Sgt. Joey Aguilar, who lives in Hillsborough and served in the Army infantry during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Sgt. 1st Class Randy Stone, who lives in Midlothian, Va., and served in the Army, deploying for Operation Desert Storm and for several tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The veterans were identified by The Independence Fund as people whose lives would be improved by the unique and durable track chairs, which increase outdoor mobility. * * * * Dear Dr. Fox: I want to thank you for an earlier column where you advised retired seniors to consider adopting an older dog. I did just that, taking in 8-year-old Max, an Australian heeler mix whose owner could not take him into assisted living. Max rescued me from depression and thoughts of suicide since my wife had died, and we never had any children. Max is my devoted savior. I have someone to get up for every morning to care for, and he cares for me, too, starting my days with a wild wagging tail and a happy face. He gives me a sense of purpose in living. G.L., West Palm Beach, Florida Dear G.L.: Thank you for sharing your story. Max gives you a reason to get up in the morning, and no doubt gets you outdoors for walks in addition to keeping you company in-home. For a fine collection of stories about how rescued animals have helped people, see Richard D. Rowlands book A Glimpse Behind the Veil: Stories About the Human-Animal Connection and the touching book Mutual Rescue: How Adopting a Homeless Animal Can Save You, Too by Carol Novello and Ginny Graves. A Winston-Salem woman has been cited after three dogs were accused of attacking another city resident while the dogs were running loose near Old Town Shopping Center. Shawonda Denise Wright, 37, has been cited with three counts of permitting an animal to run at large and three counts of possessing a vicious or dangerous animal within the county, according to the citation. The sheriffs office is pursuing the case as civil violations of county ordinances against Wright, said Christina Howell, a spokeswoman for the Forsyth County Sheriffs Office. Wright said that her sister, not her, owns those three dogs. Wright will legally challenge the citation, she said. Wright faces $300 in civil penalties for her dogs actions, according to the citation. The citation against Wright arose from an Oct. 8 incident in which Peter William Fieschko, 68, of Velinda Drive was attacked by three dogs in the citys northwestern section. Fieschko suffered a deep bite wound on his right leg as well as bites to his left leg and both feet, Fieschko said. I am an old man, and these dogs could have killed me, Fieschko said. These dogs (were) running wild. Sen. Bergers statement takes a wrecking ball to separation of powers and demeans Lee. From our founding, our state constitution has given an independent judiciary the solemn duty to declare what is the law for every case that comes before it, including whether or not an act by either the executive or legislative branches violates the constitution. The judiciary is accountable to the rule of law and not to the legislative or executive branches. Once the judiciary has established the rule of law for the case, the legislative and executive branches of government hold the companion duty to assure the rule of law is fully implemented. This principle is fundamental to our democracy. That legislators believe they can ignore constitutional obligations without check by the courts should profoundly disturb all citizens. That some legislators demeaned a judge acting in accordance with law, thereby undermining judicial independence and authority, is equally disturbing. Article I, Section 35 of the N.C. Constitution provides: A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty. Fundamental principles include the doctrines of separation of powers, judicial review and the rule of law administered fairly and impartially by an independent judiciary. We, the people, must insist that our elected officials and the judiciary abide by, and honor, these principles. We, the people, must defend these principles against all attacks, including attacks against the last line of defense of our democracy the judicial branch. Burley B. Mitchell is a retired chief justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina of Raleigh. Henry P. Van Hoy II is a practicing attorney in Mocksville. Let us imagine momentarily that the investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is nothing more than a partisan witch hunt; in the words of writer Gertrude Stein, Theres no there there. Even then, would it not require more than partisan suppositions to reach a judicious conclusion? The aftermath of Jan. 6 is a barometer that ascertains our collective commitment to democratic principles. It doesnt matter on what side of the political aisle one aligns, the process by which we seek to understand must possess collective agreement. Back in March, according to a Pew Research poll, 79% of Republicans said it was important that federal agencies find and prosecute those responsible. By September, that number declined to 56%. The numbers on Capitol Hill appear more strident than the Pew findings, as support for and opposition against the Jan. 6 investigation runs practically parallel with the partisan representation in the legislative branch. For those keeping score at home, none of this is surprising, revealing or groundbreaking. It does display how far adrift we are from our democratic norms. When I say there is some debate about the inflection point, I mean that some researchers think its around 2,000 to 4,000 students. Others think its in the low tens of thousands. Alas, North Carolinas largest systems exceed these thresholds. Wake Countys district enrolls nearly 160,000 students. Charlotte-Mecklenburg has 140,000. Guilford (69,000), Forsyth (51,000) and Cumberland (49,000) are also quite big. While I have long advocated dividing the gargantuan Wake and Mecklenburg systems into three or four districts, Im open to the idea that the other urban systems should be subdivided, as well. My main argument has long been that giving parents more choices among district-run public schools would improve academic quality and the return on taxpayer investment. Two recent studies show the promise of such a strategy. In a 2017 paper, Katie Sharron of Florida State University and Lawrence Kenny of the University of Florida exploited the fact that some states require there to be only one school district per county while others impose no such requirement. That allows for a robust test of whether school-district competition has educational benefits. We find strong evidence that restricting competition among public school districts has an adverse impact on student learning, they found. Before we begin, lets see if we can get ahead of some rumors: Children who take the childs dose COVID vaccine will not grow gills. They wont become buoyant and fly into space. Nor will the vaccine turn them into mutants and give them superpowers though they may like that. The only superpower it will provide is significant resistance to becoming infected and the ability to better withstand the deadly effects of COVID if they do become infected. Just like the grown-up versions. We feel it important to offer reassurances because of all the unhinged misinformation unleashed on the American public, believed by way too many gullible people, when the adult versions of vaccines were released and promoted earlier this year. It turns out there are no satanic, magnetized microchips in any version of the vaccine. Children may suffer the same temporary soreness in their arms, and slight flu-like symptoms, that their parents and other vaccinated folks experienced. But thats a whole lot better than winding up on a respirator in a childrens ward. That can be life-changing, he said. Njuguna has one clear advantage in the Kenyan coffee business: Although he grew up middle-class, he has coffee farmers in his family. He knows the hardships of that life working tiny, non-mechanized farms, usually only a handful of acres; picking, drying and sorting the fruit of the coffee trees by hand; delivering the harvest to the mill. Bad Seed Coffee and Supply in Omaha was already serving Kenyan coffee from an importer in California when its owner, Matt McCrary, met Njuguna. McCrary wanted to work closer with foreign farmers, but didnt think Bad Seed was big enough. When he shared a little about his plan, I got really excited. He was bringing my barista dreams to my doorstep. The company got plenty of help along the way. Dave Taylor, president of the Grand Island Area Economic Development Corp., traveled with Njuguna to Kenya, to learn and to help build relationships crucial to the venture. When Kenyan visitors came to Grand Island, local businesses offered special rates to house and feed them, and showed them the area, he said. Local editor's pick topical alert top story Hope for hemp: Lincoln-area farm trying to reshape Nebraska ag GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Jared Eucker, a Malcolm-area farmer, harvested an acre of hemp for Reed's Green Growers in early August. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Jared Eucker, a Malcolm-area farmer, was hired to harvest an acre of hemp at Reed's Green Growers northwest of Lincoln. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Reed's Green Growers grew two types of hemp at the farm north of Lincoln. Courtesy photo The acre of hemp yielded about 4 1/2 round bales. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Dakota Dzerk (left), farm manager for Reed's Green Growers, and Rosemary Reed, chief operating officer, talk to farmer Jared Eucker, who harvested their acre of hemp in early August. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Jared Eucker, a Malcolm-area farmer, used a '64 Farmall with a sickle bar to harvest an acre of hemp at Reed's Green Growers. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Mowed hemp lays on the ground to dry at Reed's Green Growers. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Reed's Green Growers posted a sign by their hemp, to eliminate any confusion. GWYNETH ROBERTS, Journal Star Rosemary Reed, chief operating officer of Reed's Green Growers and owner of Double R Productions, works from her home office at the farm northwest of Lincoln. After their half-acre test plot started drawing too much attention they could hear cars slowing on the gravel road, and then stopping the family farmers put up a sign. This is not marijuana. They didnt blame drivers for their confusion. A year ago, and for about 15 years before that, the patch of land along Northwest 27th Street a couple of minutes north of the Kawasaki plant in northwest Lincoln had been planted in brome grass. But as this summer unfolded, the plot appeared to be packed with pot a thick, lush crop standing taller than a man, its distinctive seven-pointed leaves drawing double-takes. We had lots and lots of people looking at it, said Rosemary Reed, one of the farms co-owners. And lots of people stopping. Their sign elaborated: This is industrial hemp. It was more than that. That half-acre by the road, and a similarly sized plot behind it, represented a grand experiment: Can a fifth-generation, 310-acre farm long dependent on corn and soybeans like so many other Nebraska farms change directions, and pursue what its owners see as an environmentally friendlier and more sustainable future? Can it say goodbye to four-digit anhydrous ammonia bills and the need for pesticides and the volatility of commodity prices? Its trying, said Alice Reed, another co-owner. Thats what were working toward; were trying to come up with something we can plant that will make us some money and that isnt harmful to the soil. Lets make the planet a healthier place. Lets grow a crop that is useful to people, and not just used for cow feed and gasoline. * * * The farmers daughters grew up on Stratford Avenue, in Lincolns Country Club neighborhood. My mother was adamant; she wanted her girls to be city girls, Rosemary Reed said. So my dad would commute and do farm work with our grandfather. Their father had been born on the farm northwest of Lincoln, and before he died in 2001, he gave it to his daughters. They werent ready to be farmers yet. Rosemary Reed left Lincoln to work as a teacher at several schools in the Southwest, ended up as a news reporter at an Oregon rock music station, transitioned to TV and landed at WTTG in Washington, D.C., creating and producing its hour-long weekend news installments and working with a younger Maury Povich. The entire news staff lost their jobs when Rupert Murdoch bought the station. So in 1987, Rosemary Reed started her own production company, creating corporate and small-business videos, documentaries and public service announcements. Alice Reed would raise her family in the farmhouse on Northwest 27th Street, but her role as head gardener at the Sunken Gardens has kept her busy for 36 years. Another daughter, Julie, restores and sells high-end violins in New York. Another, Jane, recently retired from the Wichita Symphony. But the daughters didnt need to work the land their father had given them. Decades ago, Ralph Reed had shaken hands with a neighboring farmer, allowing the man to grow and harvest and sell the yields as a sharecropper, an arrangement that has been handed down through the next generations. Still, the sisters had plans for the future of the farm, which held so much of their familys history. In 2009, they formed a limited liability company Off the Grid: Reeds Green Growers. Reefer sadness: The promise of Nebraska hemp farming runs into harsh reality Some producers envision a future when this crop, used to make wildly popular CBD oil and dozens of other products, could turn into a small but mighty industry in a state known for corn. But the barriers to success are daunting. * * * They were busy with their other careers, so revolutionizing traditional agriculture was just a seed of an idea at the time. But theyd long been interested in the promise and potential of industrial hemp. It grows like a weed, Alice Reed said. Its a great crop for Nebraska. We thought it would be a great thing for the future of farming. They traced their belief to their father, she said. He knew its value. Hed show his daughters a pile of ditchweed and say, This is what they grew for rope. That would stick with them though at the time, they might have been tempted by its telltale leaves. We learned quickly that wasnt the way to do it, she said. Its very harsh. Hemp fiber could strengthen more than rope. Manufacturers could use it for fabric, canvas, car upholstery, shoes, paper and other products. But they had to import it from other countries because U.S. farmers were forbidden from growing it. So more than 20 years ago, Rosemary and Alice Reed tried to lobby lawmakers in Washington, pushing for the legalization of hemp production. They couldnt get an audience with any members of Nebraskas congressional delegation, though they did get time with Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley. It had been a little bee in my bonnet for a while: Lets make this farm a little more diverse, and we think hemp is quite diverse, Rosemary Reed said. We just didnt have the means to do it. A few things had to happen first. Lawmakers had to realize you cant get high on low-THC hemp. And in 2018, the U.S. Farm Bill legalized the plant, striking it from the Drug Enforcement Agencys list of controlled substances and opening the door for a 2019 Nebraska law allowing regulated production. And the next year, a pandemic had to rearrange the world and its work habits for Rosemary Reed to wonder why? Why was she still running her production company from Washington? She could run it from anywhere. I thought, Why am I leasing a very expensive space when my staff has scattered to the winds? I said goodbye to my lease and moved to Lincoln to help get things going. * * * Dakota Dzerk didnt know what to expect from the two half-acre test plots. Alice Reeds son had worked for a flower distributor, ran a landscaping crew and had graduated with honors with a horticulture degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. But hed never grown hemp. He talked to others in the industry and chose two types of fiber-forward seeds, one for each plot. He plowed, tilled, tested the soil, added compost and, in May, planted 50 pounds of seed at each site. And then he waited. I was like, I hope this works. I was kind of watching the field daily, just making sure something was going to pop up. Watching the field was about all he had to do as the summer unfolded. He didnt need to water the hemp, or fertilize it, or weed it; the stalks grew so dense they allowed no room for neighbors. We didn't do anything after I planted it until we had to cut it down. By July, he could see ribbing on the stalks a sign the fiber was building and the pollen sacs were opening. They were ready for their first hemp harvest. But first, they had to test its THC levels, to make sure it was impotent. State law prohibits the plant from having more than 0.3%, and theres no margin for error. In 2020, 27 of 150 samples failed the test, and the state destroyed more than 24 acres. This years failure figures wont be released until after Jan. 1. Reeds Green Growers first hemp attempt passed the test, and they hired a farmer from Malcolm to help with the harvest. Rosemary Reed also hired a film crew. In early August, with cameras recording from the ground and a drone hovering above, Jared Eucker climbed onto his 1964 Massey Ferguson Super 90. He lowered his sickle bar and dropped the crop in less than 15 minutes. Doesnt feel like much to me, he said after. But its a lot to us, Rosemary Reed said. They wouldnt know how much or how little for at least two more months. Hemp crop too hot for new Pleasanton plant Hemp plants testing above the THC limit must be destroyed and disposed of. For those involved in industrial hemp production and processing, there is a fine balancing act in selecting harvest time. * * * They never intended to make money with their first hemp harvest. On a self-serving level, it was a test, an experiment to see if they could do it, to learn how to do it better, to try to reinvent their farm. The neighbor who works their land gets 60% of the crops proceeds, and the Reed familys remaining 40% barely covers its property taxes, Alice Reed said. At the time, shed just finished paying their anhydrous bill more than $6,000. Thats a lot of money to be putting on something you dont make anything back on, she said. Were trying to come up with something we can plant that will make us some money and that isnt harmful to the soil. They know they cant replace the states traditional crops. But what if they devoted 100 acres a third of their land to hemp? What if others did the same thing? And that would be the hope, Rosemary Reed said. That thats what local farmers do. Theyre not going to replace corn and soybeans. We know that. That would help their broader goal to show other farmers hemp is viable, and to have enough harvested hemp to justify opening a processing plant. That would solve the Catch-22: Farmers are reluctant to supply hemp until theres a processing plant to sell it to. But until theres enough supply, a processing plant is cost-prohibitive. The pros: Their farm is on a rail line, close to highways and zoned agricultural-commercial, Rosemary Reed said. The con: They dont have the $3 million to $5 million needed for a building and equipment, and they dont have other farmers ready to commit their crops. Its a chicken-and egg-thing. Do you build a processing plant first and just hope they will come with product? It worked for a fourth-generation farm near Great Bend, Kansas. It started adding hemp to its crop rotation in 2019 a good learning year but not a great production year, said co-owner Melissa Nelson. And then it had a good crop in 2020, but the buyer bailed. We were like, we've got farmers that say they would grow if they had a place to take it. And we've got manufacturers reaching out to us, asking where we're taking our hemp to get processed because they want it. South Bend Industrial Hemp bridged the gap this year, opening a processing plant with 1,600 acres under contract including 1 acre from Reeds Green Growers. Nebraska hemp plan approved; license applications to be accepted Monday The plan calls for the state to collect $236,000 in license fees to administer the program for 270 cultivator licenses, 30 processor-handler licenses and 15 broker licenses. It allows for 400 cultivation sites. * * * They left the plants on the ground for two weeks, a process called retting letting time and moisture and micro-organisms help separate the fiber from the stalk. A nearby farmer scooped it all up, leaving them with four large round bales and a smaller fifth the future of their farm, all bundled up. But they would have to wait nearly two more months to see what kind of grade their test crop would earn. Finally, in mid-October, after hiring someone to load the bales on a flatbed and haul them more than 250 miles to the processing plant in Kansas, the family learned the results: Just less than $500 for an acre of hemp. Less than the farm grosses on an acre of corn. This year's harvest was an experiment, Rosemary Reed said. And we did not expect to make any money. And we didnt. I mean, sadly we didnt. In fact, they spent about $500 on the seed itself. But Dzerk, the farm manager, realizes now he overseeded, and could have probably put half as much down for the same result. And if the farm scales up and plants more acres, he could cut its cost-per-pound seed prices by buying in bulk. And to make this first crop possible, they paid others for the cutting, baling and shipping. But if they could grow enough to justify buying their own equipment and if they had their own processing plant nearby those contracted costs would disappear, Rosemary Reed said. So theyre moving forward. They plan to try again next year, and plant at least another acre, maybe more. They need to negotiate with their sharecropper, she said. He's going to have to be convinced that we can make some profit if we take 20 acres out of the corn and soybeans and put it into hemp. Just like they have to convince other farmers to replace some of their bread-and-butter crops with hemp, to help make their familys plan and their plant possible. But theyre prepared. Its a selling job, Rosemary Reed said. Thats what were doing right now. Were selling a concept. Related LPD's Southwest Team captain described the neighborhood's spate of break-ins as a microcosm of a trend that's rampant in all corners of the city and has been for at least two decades. Dilsaver described the path that two suspected thieves, caught on video and believed to be teenagers, took through the West A neighborhood Oct. 7, trying car doors and rummaging through those vehicles found unlocked. He said the pair was "shopping." "And this happens every night in the city of Lincoln," he continued. "That's not an exaggeration. Every night." Like most larcenies from vehicles, LPD has not solved the string of break-ins that occurred in the West A neighborhood Oct. 7. Dilsaver said it's not for lack of trying. Officers have gathered video evidence from victims. They have collected fingerprints from the door of a truck the suspects are known to have entered. They've run the prints against a number of people who have been pointed to as possible suspects, but so far, Dilsaver said, there hasn't been a match. "I like to know the subject," Dorn said, and now he would welcome email communications and visits with his new constituents to learn more about what they think. Dorn, who has represented southeastern portions of Lancaster County along with Gage County prior to redistricting, now represents a jagged new District 30 that extends north to Old Cheney Road in south Lincoln. Clements' new district extends west as far as 70th Street. "I can tell you about farming," Dorn said, while his new constituents in Lincoln are invited now to inform him about what's important in their lives. Dorn interrupted work on the farm where he was "combining and working cattle" to discuss the changes in his district that resulted from approval of legislative and congressional redistricting plans during a special session of the Legislature this fall. A former Gage County commissioner who was chairman of the county board, Dorn already has delivered big-time for his constituents since he has been in the Legislature. In 2019, he won approval of a bill that allows Gage County to collect a sales tax to help fund payment of a $28.1 million federal court judgment in the so-called Beatrice Six case that resulted in six people being wrongfully convicted of a 1985 murder. A third person, J. L. Davison, is also credited with being the countys first settler. Davison created the village of Camden and became its first postmaster in 1862. Davison is perhaps best known for having been appointed by the territorial legislature to lay out a territorial road to connect Nebraska City/Old Fort Kearny with New Fort Kearny. The road, which was south of Milford and east of Camden, crossed the Blue River on a bridge financed by a Nebraska City faction. On Jan. 3, 1862, the Nebraska Territorial Legislature, in a three sentence act, changed the name of Greene County to Seward County. The county was thus named for William Henry Seward, U.S. senator, governor of New York, secretary of state for President Abraham Lincoln, and himself a presidential candidate. Again, no mention was made as to who the deleted Mr. Greene was. The American Guide/WPA reference on Nebraska later said it had been named for General Greene of Missouri but changed when he joined the Confederacy during the Civil War. A. E. Sheldon of the Nebraska State Historical Society said in 1904 Greene proved a traitor to the Union in the Civil War and A. T. Andreas noted in 1882 that Greene was tarnished with the dark stain of treason. No mention was made of Manly Greene of Cass County. Lincoln residents lined K Street on Sunday to celebrate veterans during the city's third annual Veterans Day Parade, which included five Lincoln high school marching bands and more than 50 other local groups. Former city councilman and veteran Roy Christensen said this year's theme Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans aimed to "honor those who were not honored then." Resident Ronda Hilker stood in front of the state Capitol with her husband to view the parade and show support for local veterans. "I come from a long line of Marines including my brother," Hilker said. "I came to remember those who gave us our freedom." Dionray Macias also sat in the front row with his wife, kids and other family members. "I'm proud of my country; we want to show veterans that we are proud of them," Macias said. In addition to the marching bands and 59 other local groups that marched past the Capitol, the parade also included two large inflatables. University of Nebraska President Ted Carter, who served in the U.S. Navy for 38 years, rode in a Mustang convertible led by the Marine Corps League Color Guard as part of the parade. A few days earlier, while in Rome for a meeting with G20 leaders, Biden ignored another question about the alleged plan. The president looked away from the reporter and scratched his forehead. Meanwhile, at ACLU headquarters in Manhattan, you can bet there is more head-scratching going on as a result of Biden's defensiveness. In a statement, Romero suggested Biden needed to catch up to his own administration. He also demanded that the Democrat right the wrongs of the Trump administration - as Biden has promised to do. "President Biden may not have been fully briefed about the actions of his very own Justice Department as it carefully deliberated and considered the crimes committed against thousands of families separated from their children as an intentional governmental policy," Romero told Fox News. "But if he follows through on what he said," he cautioned, "the president is abandoning a core campaign promise to do justice for the thousands of separated families." I found Thad Emersons letter to the editor ("Time for oil independence," Oct. 28) interesting, but his only option for oil independence was to ramp up U.S. oil production. Driving through eastern Colorado recently, I saw numerous new oil wells and huge new storage tanks, so it looks to me as if U.S. oil production is already up. Nov. 1-5 This list is not comprehensive. Municipalities are listed as they appear on the criminal complaint. Suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. To see mugshots of the accused, visit journaltimes.com/gallery. Additional information about the complaints can be found at: journaltimes.com/news/local/crime-and-courts. Lozamar Alexis, 3300 block of Kentucky Street, Racine, threats to injure or accuse of a crime, stalking. Jamica R Aliemenious, 1600 block of Perry Avenue, Racine, operating a motor vehicle without owners consent, possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia, felony bail jumping, misdemeanor bail jumping. Timothy C Anderson, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, possession of narcotic drugs, possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, felony bail jumping. Kamari J Andrews, 200 block of North Memorial Drive, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct. Cesar Ascencio, 1900 block of Racine Street, Racine, manufacture/deliver THC (less than or equal to 200 grams), maintaining a drug trafficking place. Carlos A Butler Jr., 2000 block of Hickory Grove Avenue, Racine, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct. Lindsay J Druschke, 2300 block of Hamilton Avenue, Racine, theft using false representation (special facts), fraud against financial institution (between $500-$10,000), misdemeanor theft, forgery. Michael D Emerson, 9600 block of Riverview Lane, Caledonia, disorderly conduct (domestic abuse assessments). Juan A Espinoza, 1600 block of South Memorial Drive, Racine, possession of child pornography. Joshua S Foulk, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, false imprisonment, second degree recklessly endangering safety, disorderly conduct, misdemeanor bail jumping. Isaac W Gallegos, 100 block of Accipiter Court, Burlington, strangulation and suffocation (domestic abuse assessments), misdemeanor battery (domestic abuse assessments), substantial battery (domestic abuse assessments), disorderly conduct (domestic abuse assessments), felony intimidation of a victim (domestic abuse assessments, use of a dangerous weapon). Qwonshae D Garrett, 4000 block of Marquette Drive, Racine, manufacture/deliver cocaine (less than or equal to 1 gram, possession with intent to deliver/distribute a controlled substance on or near a school), maintaining a drug trafficking place, manufacture/deliver cocaine (between 1-5 grams). Alphonso Kearney, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, carrying a concealed weapon, possession of a firearm while intoxicated. Denielle K Kossack, 1100 block of Oakes Road, Mount Pleasant, disorderly conduct (domestic abuse assessments). Kyle L Kraft, 1100 block of Ohio Street, Racine, possession of cocaine, possession of drug paraphernalia. Madeline R Krueger, West Allis, Wisconsin, misdemeanor retail theft (intentionally take less than or equal to $500). Danielle E Kruger, 5900 block of 16th Street, Racine, possession with intent to deliver or manufacture THC (between 1,000-2,500 grams, possession with intent to deliver/distribute a controlled substance on near a school), maintaining a drug trafficking place, possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia. Jaiden Taylor Kruger, 1600 block of Roosevelt Avenue, Racine, manufacture/deliver THC (less than or equal to 200 grams), maintaining a drug trafficking place, possession with intent to deliver/distribute/manufacture THC (between 200-1,000 grams, possession with intent to deliver/distribute a controlled substance on or near a school), possession of drug paraphernalia. Donte Lamont Livingston, 500 block of Shelbourne Court, Racine, felony bail jumping, misdemeanor bail jumping, obstructing an officer. John Paul Martens, 6800 block of Douglas Avenue, Racine, physical abuse of an elder person (intentionally cause bodily harm, domestic abuse assessments), false imprisonment (domestic abuse assessments), criminal damage to property (domestic abuse assessments), disorderly conduct (domestic abuse assessments), misdemeanor bail jumping. Deonte T Moses, South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, possession of a firearm while intoxicated. Jennifer K Nesvick, 32200 block of 45th Street, Burlington, misdemeanor theft, felony personal ID theft (financial gain), financial transaction card (fraudulent use less than $2,500). Elsander Phillips, 500 block of Sixth Street, Racine, burglary of a building or dwelling, misdemeanor theft, misdemeanor bail jumping. Jahkaeveon D Rucker, 1600 block of 61st Street, Kenosha, manufacture/deliver cocaine (between 1-5 grams), felony bail jumping, maintaining a drug trafficking place, delivery of schedule I or II narcotics, manufacture/deliver cocaine (less than or equal to 1 gram), possession with intent to deliver cocaine (between 15-40 grams). Sovann Soun, Green Bay, Wisconsin, possession of a firearm by a felon (firearm mandatory minimum enhancer), possession with intent to manufacture/distribute/deliver THC (between 2,500-10,000 grams, firearm mandatory minimum enhancer), possession with intent to deliver narcotics (firearm mandatory minimum enhancer), unauthorized use of an entitys identifying information or documents, obstructing an officer, carrying a concealed weapon (firearm mandatory minimum enhancer), possession of drug paraphernalia. John Allen Spratt-Perry, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, operating without a license (2nd offense within 3 years). Dexter S Stewart, 1400 block of Douglas Avenue, Racine, operating a motor vehicle without owners consent, possession of drug paraphernalia. Andrew D Sullivan, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, possession with intent to deliver/distribute/manufacture THC (less than or equal to 200 grams, use of a dangerous weapon), possession of drug paraphernalia, carrying a concealed weapon. Antonia D Taborn, 1200 block of Highland Avenue, Racine, misdemeanor retail theft (intentionally take less than or equal to $500), obstructing an officer, possession of drug paraphernalia, misdemeanor bail jumping. Jessika Alexandria Tobias, 1500 block of Wolff Street, Racine, possession of narcotic drugs, misdemeanor theft, misdemeanor bail jumping. Marielena Topete, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, possession with intent to deliver/distribute/manufacture THC (between 200-1,000 grams), possession of drug paraphernalia. John E Vanhara, 700 block of Lake Avenue, Racine, misdemeanor battery, disorderly conduct. Steven E Woolf Jr., 1400 block of 11th Avenue, Union Grove, battery to a law enforcement officer, disorderly conduct (domestic abuse assessments). Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CALEDONIA Now the children get their turns to roll up their sleeves and strike a blow against the COVID-19 pandemic. Quote "I don't have faith I have science." Lisa Mau of Pleasant Prairie Parents in the Racine area did not wait long to get vaccinations for their young kids, after the federal government approved the vaccines for children as young as 5 years old. Voicing confidence in the health experts urging vaccinations, parents took their kids for shots over the weekend as the first vaccine shipments for small children arrived in the Racine area. Lisa Mau of Pleasant Prairie said she had been nervous about her 6-year-old son, Christopher, attending school in an environment where the contagious COVID-19 virus could spread. This is kind of peace of mind for us, Mau said after Christopher got his shot Saturday at the Walgreens store at 5005 Douglas Ave. Christopher wore a T-shirt that read, Go, Science. His mother said she feels assured that vaccinating kids is the best approach to protecting them from COVID-19. She pointed out that public health experts support vaccinations, and that government regulators agree. I dont have faith I have science, she said. COVID-19 vaccinations previously were approved only for people aged 12 and older. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week lowered the age to 5, making vaccinations available to another 28 million Americans. While fewer than 600 of the U.S.s 750,000 COVID-19 deaths were kids ages 0-17, according to the CDC, children are as susceptible as anyone to spread the coronavirus especially with schools being in-person. Side effects of the vaccine do exist, including the serious heart condition myocarditis, which is usually temporary if survived. But experts say the risks of contracting COVID itself are much higher than the risks of the vaccine. About 20-30% of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 show heart problems, Cardiologist Nayereh Pezeshkian, of the University of California, Davis, wrote last month. Rare heart inflammation cases around one in 6,000 were reported in teenagers after their COVID-19 vaccination. These cases have been mild and self-resolving. However, the chance of developing severe illness and death after a COVID-19 infection is much higher, (from) 2-10%. There is a higher risk of myocarditis from COVID itself than there is from the vaccine. At this time, most hospitalization particularly to critical care and deaths are related to unvaccinated groups. So, I tell my patients to get vaccinated. Back to normal The Walgreens pharmacy on Douglas Avenue was among the first in the Racine area to offer the shots for young kids over the weekend. Store managers declined to comment, and they barred a Journal Times reporter from going inside the store. Some parents in the Racine area remain skeptical about getting their kids vaccinated, despite top government health officials and experts urging it with only a few exceptions, such as a rare allergy to ingredients in the vaccines. In a discussion on Facebook, parents expressed skepticism and said they would not get their children vaccinated. Some even said they would allow their kids to decide the matter. Something doesnt sit right with me when it comes to that vaccine, Shakita Moore posted. Another parent, Adam Michael Smith, posted: My kids will absolutely not be jabbed. At the Walgreens in Caledonia, other parents happily brought their children for shots Saturday, and they voiced gratitude that kids now enjoy the same protection as adults and teenagers. Jenelle Isaacson of Caledonia drove all four of her kids aged 6 to 10 to get their vaccinations. Isaacson said the family wants to feel safe to visit with friends and family this winter holiday season, without concern about the kids spreading COVID-19. Weve been waiting for this day, she said. Its a key way that were all going to get back to normal. Asked about the skeptics who are out there, Isaacson said, We trust the scientists, and we trust the science. Another parent was Alyson Weiss of Racine, a longtime area school administrator who now serves as school superintendent in Milwaukee suburban Glendale. Weiss brought her 11-year-old daughter, Natalie, to get vaccinated at Walgreens. Weiss said she is excited to see younger children eligible for COVID vaccines now. She said that she and her older children have all been vaccinated already. Were very much a family of: This is common sense, she said. Although the vaccinations are being offered free of charge at Walgreens, some parents Saturday passed up the chance to get their kids taken care of. Most of those parents declined to comment. Angelika Szygula of Caledonia, who was shopping with her daughter, Mildred, 10, said they would come back another time for Mildreds vaccination. Szygula said she was unaware that the shots were being offered for younger kids. Szygula said her 12-year-old son has been vaccinated, and she planned to have Mildred vaccinated soon, too. I trust the people whose job it is to keep us healthy, she said. Mildred nodded in agreement, saying she is anxious to get vaccinated so she can stop wearing a protective face mask so often. Im ready, she said. Stef Strauss-Thompkins of Racine said she did a lot of reading and other research about the vaccinations before bringing her daughters Finley, 10, and Rhemy, 8 to get their shots Saturday. The family would like to enjoy the winter holidays and do some traveling without worrying about the virus, Strauss-Thompkins said. She said her family wants to be fully vaccinated so we can get on with life. She added: We are looking to get this done and get it over with. Concerned about COVID-19? Sign up now to get the most recent coronavirus headlines and other important local and national news sent to your email inbox daily. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. The city of Philadelphia has not always lived up to its moniker, the city of brotherly love. But it showed a little love for motorists this week, and particularly black motorists, when it passed a law making it the first major U.S. city to ban police from stopping drivers for low-level traffic violations. The law, which has the support of the citys police department, earmarks seven low-level violations for which traffic stops will be prohibited including broken taillights, minor obstructions like those hanging from a rear-view mirror, a license plate that is not visible or clearly displayed or lacking current tags and bumper issues. The low-level violations are still illegal, but will be dealt with by citations issued by mail. Yes, race is a factor. In signing the new law, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said: This legislation establishes Philadelphia as the first large U.S. city to ban minor traffic stops with the goal of healing police-community relations. The driver equality bills, which passed the city council on a 14-2 vote, came out of the Bailey pilot program, a 2011 settlement agreement of Bailey vs. the City of Philadelphia, a lawsuit that alleged that thousands of people in the city were being illegally stopped, frisked and detained by police officers. The settlement required the police department to collect data on all stop-and-frisks. Data collected in 2018 and 2019, showed that black drivers, who comprise 48% of Philadelphias population, accounted for 72% of Philadelphias 310,000 police traffic stops. Data from this year showed black drivers accounted for 67% of traffic stops, while white drivers accounted for just 12% of traffic stops. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, the population of Philadelphia County is 44.8% white; 43.6% black; 15.2% Hispanic or Latino; and 7.8% Asian. In the city, black drivers are more than five times likelier to get pulled over by police than white drivers, according to news reports. In an earlier statement, the Philadelphia Police Department said: We believe this (car stops modification) is a fair and balanced approach to addressing racial disparity without compromising public safety. Philadelphia is not alone in trying to ease police-community racial tensions by re-examining pretextual traffic stops for minor infractions. According to news reports, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey in his 2022 budget is proposing similar restrictions on city police that would disallow stops for expired plates, expired tabs or items dangling from a mirror. Last spring, Virginia disallowed traffic stops for driving without a light illuminating a license plate, without brake lights or for some sun-shading or tinting window films. Nobody, no driver anywhere, likes to see the red glare of police lights flashing in their rear-view mirror and the uh-oh reaction it often brings. Well be watching Phillys initiatives in showing a little bit of brotherly love toward motorists to see if they can, in fact, improve police-community relations without compromising traffic safety. Maybe then the City of Brotherly Love will live up to its name. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 A brief review of recent events: A. Robin Vos opens an investigation of the 2020 election, though conceding that Joe Biden won a free and fair election. B. Donald Trump calls out Vos by name for not supporting the Big Lie. Toss Vos signs immediately show up carried by Trumps Big Lie true believers. C. Sheriff Chris Schmaling calls a press conference to announce results of a fraud investigation at a local nursing home. However, the investigation leads to no charges being filed and Schmaling recommends none to the District Attorney. D. The same day as this press conference, Donald Trump praises Schmaling for creating these bogus fraud claims. If Schmaling has actual evidence of fraud he should pass it to the DA and let the justice system take it from there. The courts have been consistent in knocking down claims of fraud that have no merit, regardless of whether the judge was appointed by a Democrat or a Republican. In the 11+ months since the 2020 election, the other 71 Wisconsin counties have filed charges in just four cases. Casting doubt on our elections was the goal here, with an eye squarely focused on 2024. Across our great country there is an effort under way to take actions that will allow states to reject the voting results in presidential elections. Casting false doubt on election results is the first step down that path. Dave Fogarty, Mount Pleasant Editor's Note: Mr. Fogarty's letter was sent before Sheriff Schmaling referred charging recommendations to the district attorney. Love 2 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Killeen, TX (76540) Today Overcast. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 71F. NNW winds at less than 5 mph, increasing to 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 44F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. 1. Yes. Nonprofit youth organizations are underfunded in the city. Its a good decision. 2. Yes. In conjunction with city-run programs, it will provide needed opportunities. 3. No. The money should be used to benefit all residents, not just the citys youth. 4. No. The funds should be invested in the area where the project is being developed.. 5. Unsure. Its hard to say whether its an appropriate use of the money. Vote View Results In 2005, Peek won a Fulbright Award. He and Nancy spent six months at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China. I had a choice of two places, one being Beijing, but I wanted to go somewhere else, he said. In Changchun, few people spoke English, but we loved it. We almost stayed another semester, but Nancy and I had grandchildren, so we came home. He returned to China to train teachers in 2008, the same year he retired from UNK. I retired partly because, after being in China, I found some students to be disappointing. Chinese kids are not encouraged to think for themselves, but they do get assignments in on time. Our students are so independent. Some of them didnt like to do much work, he said. Shortly after he retired, he served for four years as rector at St. Stephens Episcopal Church in Grand Island. They said theyd wanted to bring me on board 15 years ago, Peek said. He also published three books of poetry. Starting Kearney Creates A few years ago, he lit the fire under his dream project, Kearney Creates. Its a website listing all the writers, artists, musicians and other artistic people in Kearney. Q: I recently began having a problem swallowing foods. I cant tell if its a problem in my throat or lower down. What could this be? It is really starting to bother me. A: Swallowing difficulty (doctors call it dysphagia) can happen for a variety of reasons. It is not always caused by a serious medical problem, but it is always a problem that needs to be sorted out. It can interfere with your eating comfort and, if it is severe, can prevent you from getting adequate nutrition. Dysphagia is an urgent problem if you are losing weight or if you are coughing or choking after eating. If thats the case, call your doctor immediately. Sometimes swallowing difficulty can be a side effect of a medicine. Several medications (particularly those used to treat psychiatric symptoms) can interfere with your mouth and throat muscle coordination. Some medicines also cause significant dryness of the mouth, which can contribute to swallowing difficulty. This symptom could also come from inflammation or scarring (also called a stricture) in the esophagus. These problems usually come from acid reflux or from pills that are causing irritation in the esophagus. A stroke, Parkinsons disease or other less common neurologic illnesses that affect the function of muscles or nerves can also cause swallowing problems. Sometimes a feeling of a lump in the throat can interfere with swallowing. This can happen if you have acid reflux, but it may also be a symptom of anxiety. Its possible for a lump in the throat to be caused by cancer, but very unlikely without other symptoms. You should schedule a visit with your doctor so that all of these possibilities can be considered. Tests that your health care provider might recommend include: A video swallowing study. This test uses an X-ray technique called fluoroscopy to videotape your swallowing while you consume samples of foods or drink containing a material that can show up on an X-ray. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD). EGD allows your doctor to view the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum (the first part of the small intestine). For the test, a camera on a flexible, narrow cord is inserted down your throat. Barium swallow. For this X-ray test, you swallow a liquid that shows up on X-rays, so your doctor can view your esophagus. Laryngoscopy. This test allows your doctor to see your larynx. For the test, a camera on a flexible, narrow rod is inserted into your nose or mouth. (Howard LeWine, M.D., is an internist at Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. For additional consumer health information, please visit www.health.harvard.edu.) Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Child evacuees from Afghanistan residing in Fort McCoy will have new toys to play with thanks to the handiwork of UW-La Crosse staff and faculty members. Scott Cooper, professor in the Biology Department, Kurt Grunwald, laboratory manager in the Biology Department, and Mark Sandheinrich, dean of the College of Science and Health, used their woodworking skills to create about 200 toy houses. The houses are covered in blackboard paint, allowing children to decorate them with windows, doors and anything else that enters their imagination. This week, Catholic Charities of La Crosse delivered the toy haul to Fort McCoy. I dont know how to explain it. Theres just something about having a new toy, Grunwald says. Often, donated toys are used, and not very gently used. We thought it would be nice if kids could have something new to call their own. This has become a longstanding tradition for Cooper and Grunwald, who have been making and donating toys, usually to the Salvation Army or the Family & Childrens Center of La Crosse, for more than two decades. Cooper and Grunwald both grew up with an interest in woodworking. About 20 years ago, they were volunteering at a Thanksgiving food drive through the Salvation Army when they noticed that many children only had access to secondhand toys. Looking back on that day, Grunwald remembers one boy who wanted to test out a refurbished bicycle. This kid wiped out on the concrete, bonked his head. But he didnt cry, because he wanted the bike so badly and didnt want to make a scene, Grunwald says. I thought, This is probably the only newish thing this kid could get all year, and he didnt want to ruin it. That pulled at my heart. Their first year in the workshop, Cooper and Grunwald made 50 wooden grasshoppers. The next year, they made 50 dump trucks. The year after that, 50 tugboats. To date, they have made and donated more than 1,000 toys. Their operation has grown as well, with Sandheinrich, senior lecturer of biology Renee Redman and others joining the cause. With the recent arrival of 13,000 Afghan evacuees roughly half of whom are children at Fort McCoy, the group knew they could make a difference. We know that kids appreciate new and handmade toys, Cooper explains. They like something more earthy compared to plastic. And since most toys today are plastic, they probably dont have many of those. Redman, who calls herself the accessorizing elf in this operation, puts the finishing touches on the toys whether that means buying dolls to go with wooden cradles, or buying chalk so the children can customize the wooden houses. A lot of care was put into these toys, Redman notes. They wont just break because your sibling took it and dropped it. Theyre the kinds of toys that will last, that an older child could maybe pass on to their younger sibling someday. The group insists their work for the year is not done. They also plan to make their annual donation to the Family & Childrens Center around the holidays. Well definitely be making more toys, Cooper says. Its something we plan to keep doing. Additional efforts to help evacuees This is the latest example of UW-Ls efforts to help the community welcome Afghan evacuees to the Coulee Region. In early October, the university completed a toy drive that collected more than 400 toys for children at Fort McCoy. Along with collecting toys, UW-L has partnered with Viterbo University and Western Technical College to offer educational programming about Afghan people and culture. The third event in this series, Voices of Uprising: Refugees and the 20-year Conflict in Afghanistan, will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, in room 1309 of UW-Ls Centennial Hall. For more information about the event, visit www.uwlax.edu/community/afghan_support. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 While reflecting on his nearly seven months in office, La Crosse Mayor Mitch Reynolds said that his top priority has remained tackling housing and homelessness in the city. Its an issue that Reynolds campaigned on frequently as a candidate, and the first-time mayor has already taken some actions to address the growing issue in the community, including new funding for a temporary winter shelter and identifying a city park as a space where those without housing can seek shelter without repercussions. The No. 1 priority for me right now, and its been since I got to office, is really making sure that were effectively addressing the issues of homelessness within the city of La Crosse, Reynolds told the Tribune Editorial Board last Tuesday. Thats really been the top the thing Im spending the most time on, he said. Reynolds said about a fourth of his day is typically spent working on the issue, saying it was tremendously challenging, but said that he wasnt the only one in City Hall who shared the sense of urgency for the situation. Obviously our city council is significantly different in makeup than it was just a year ago, and so there is a sense among most of the city council that this is exactly the issue we need to address, he said. But its been La Crosse Parks, Recreation and Forestry Department director Jay Odegaard who Reynolds said has been at the head of finding solutions as the city has gone through some of its recent transitions. Since Ive got on the job, Jay has been the one who has been at the forefront of addressing all the issues with homelessness within our city, just because we dont have another person to do that, Reynolds said. When Reynolds assumed office the city had two vacancies for community development and economic development administrators, positions who would typically handle a lot of the citys housing issues. The role of community development administrator has since been filled by Diane McGinnis, who Reynolds said has been taking on a larger role now. But Jay has been the one working on this, Reynolds said. Specifically, Reynolds said that Odegaard has been in communication with colleagues in Madison to evaluate what tools and strategies the city is using to tackle its similar issue with homelessness. People make remarkable differences in their community, Reynolds said. Its a city government thats taking a leadership role and trying to get all of our service agencies together, trying to coordinate the effort, and thats whats been tremendously lacking here within the city of La Crosse. So I really feel like thats a really positive step forward. One solution to this ever growing problem of housing in the city simply looks like adding more housing, Reynolds said, but also the messaging and communication around new projects. The city has made an offer to hire a new homeless services coordinator another promise from Reynolds campaign who would be a staff member that could help with this messaging, but Reynolds has also shown interest in hiring a public information officer, or implementing stronger public relations strategy for the city. The citys current messaging, which has been at times fumbled or unclear, has often gotten in the way or dragged down the process to implement new housing in the city. Reynolds pointed to a housing development at the corner of King and 11th streets as an example a project that received a lot of pushback from neighbors and eventually was scrapped. Where we struggle the most is when theres something new coming and were not communicating ahead of time to stakeholders. And traditionally the city has done a very poor job of that, Reynolds said. Often times, though, even when the messaging is there, the content of what is said is what muddies the situation. For example, the term affordable housing has shown to have a negative public connotation when attached to recent housing projects in the city. In the public, it does tend to turn people off a little bit when you start to talk about affordable housing, Reynolds said, stressing that affordability can mean different things to different people. That may be, again, part of that public communication, he said. As a city, as a government we need to work better in terms of communication. The city is also looking to models from other communities on how it may be able to address its crisis with housing and homelessness. Reynolds said staff had been in communications with Madison, where the city has recently erected a village of 30 tiny shelters for those experiencing homelessness. Reynolds said the city has also looked to the Chelsea Hub program near Boston that is focused on regional cooperation to tackle the precursor issues that can lead to housing insecurities. Overall, Reynolds said leading the city of La Crosse has been challenging, and while much of it was what he expected, he has been thrown some curveballs as well. It takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of work, and its incredibly fulfilling and gratifying and tremendously challenging, he said. Theres a remarkable opportunity for making improvements in lives for the people within the city, and that definitely mayors, the city of La Crosse thats what keeps us going because its not an easy job. He said he has to remind himself to relax and be patient as he adjusts to how excruciatingly slow government can sometimes move. I do tend to have an action bias. And so stopping, considering, postponing decisions, that type of thing is not what Im acclimated to, so Im having to reorient and train myself to be a little bit more patient with how the process works, Reynolds said. Love 0 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Ithaca, N.Y. (AP) Multiple unfounded bomb threats were made over the weekend at Ivy League campuses, university and law enforcement officials said. Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities had alerted students to threats Sunday and deemed campuses safe a few hours later. Evacuations were ordered in some buildings on the campuses. Two days earlier, a bomb threat at Yale forced the evacuation of several buildings as well as nearby businesses in New Haven, Connecticut. The university resumed normal operations Friday evening. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 ROME (AP) A German humanitarian ship with more than 800 rescued migrants, including 15 very young children, steamed into a Sicilian port on Sunday after being granted permission by Italian authorities following days of waiting in the Mediterranean Sea. VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Francis on Sunday decried the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia and pressed for dialogue to prevail over the protracted war. Temperatures are dropping. Can snow be far away? What is the La Crosse community doing to assist the homeless, many of whom are outdoors camping at Houska Park? What resources can the county, city and local agencies provide? Where are there unmet needs? What can you do? Tune in to the Zoom program presented by the League of Women Voters of the La Crosse Area on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 11:30 to 1 p.m. to hear the issues around homelessness, what our community is doing to address various needs of this population, and what we can do to alleviate this crisis. Speakers include Kim Cable (Couleecap), Cheryl Hancock (Coulee Recovery); Lauren Journot (YWCA), and Julie McDermid (The Exchange); and Mayor Mitch Reynolds. Registration is free; the link for the program can be found on the LWVLA website, lwvlacrosse.org. Can you be part of the solution to this complex problem? Join us on Nov. 9, or view the program at a later date. Ellen M. Frantz League of Women Voters of the La Crosse Area Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Britain Hill Venue & Vineyard, which has a winery south of Quarryville, has opened a new tasting room in West Lampeter Township. The new Britain Hill at the Livery offers seating for about 65 in an event space added in 2017 to the 1702 Lampeter Road property. Before opening, owners Ken and Debbie Helm installed a bar and new shelving in the Livery, which is next to the former Lampeter Cafe, which they are also leasing. Britain Hill at the Livery features the winerys 30-some labels, including white, fruit and dessert wines as well as port-style and sparkling wines. Pastries, chocolate, pretzels and other snacks are also available. Wine slushies and a handful of local beers will also be served. The Helms said they are still considering what to offer long-term in the former Lampeter Cafe building. Until the end of the year it will host Tempting Treats, a bakery that offers cakes, cookies and cupcakes. Upstairs rooms at the cafe building will be available for rentals, and the building will also host a variety of other events, including a 17-vendor makers market around Black Friday. Debbie Helm said a vendor marketplace is a possible long-term use for the building, which could also become a coffee shop or sit-down restaurant. Customer suggestions will be factored into any decision about what to do with the space, the Helms said. Lampeter Cafe first opened in October 2017 following extensive renovations and additions to a circa-1765 house by Keith and Lisa Reinhart, who bought the property in 2012. The Reinharts operated the roughly 90-seat cafe until Ryan and Janae Dagen, owners of Speckled Hen cafe and Bespoke Brewing in Strasburg, took over in November 2019. The Dagens ended cafe operations in September 2020. Please enable JavaScript to properly view our site. This Halloween, I got sucked into a thriller. This horror story was so gripping because it followed the quiet terror of a woman teetering on the edge with no support network. Maid is not just about a young mother trying to make a better life for her toddler. Its about our countrys social safety net, the hard work of low pay and trying to break free from abuse. Scary stuff indeed. If you havent watched the limited series on Netflix, dont worry: No spoilers ahead. Maid is based on the bestselling memoir by Stephanie Land. The books been described as Nickel and Dimed (Barbara Ehrenreichs dive into life on a minimum wage) meets Evicted (Matthew Desmonds look into poverty and housing). The book hasnt made it to the top of my reading list. But that bestseller gave me a clue that the Alex I was watching and rooting for had a real-life avatar that eventually would write a book. But how would she get there? And how many more knocks would she take? We first meet Alex (a fictionalized character based on Land) as she waits for the moment when her boyfriend falls fast asleep, giving her time to pick up their daughter and leave. She has no home, no job and no plan, but theyre safe. Theyre away from Sean and his temper. One by one, Alexs few resources disappear. And her challenges pile up. Theres a path for shelter and a job but who will take care of 2-year-old Maddy? Theres subsidized child care, but to qualify, Alex needs to prove shes worked for weeks. I need a job to prove that I need daycare in order to get a job? she asks. This Kafkaesque situation isnt so unfamiliar. The fear of COVID-19 broke our ties, even if we werent homeless. When our community went into lockdown, daycares closed. We stayed apart to stay safe, so family or friends couldnt lend a hand. The series lands this fall, as our countrys still reeling and still showing the importance of that caregiving scaffolding. In Lands book, she deals with all of this alone. That doesnt make for great television, so the creators of the series added a few characters. Each one offers a possible lifeline, but things are never that easy, are they? And if one of these new characters looks familiar, Andie MacDowell (Alexs mother) is the real-life mother of Margaret Qualley, the actress who portrays Alex. In one scene, Alex explains the power of writing to a group of women in a domestic violence shelter. Sometimes, its the only way she can drill down and confront her feelings. Through writing, she can be honest about how she feels and write the truth that cant be said aloud. In contrast, Alexs clients cant hide their true selves in the houses she cleans. Theres a couple living parallel lives under one roof. In another home, the nurserys staged for the open house, empty after multiple miscarriages. Land, whos now writing a book about college education, says she hopes people who watch the series and read Maid walk away with some empathy for people who are in poverty. As I watched these episodes, I found myself calling out to Alex: Dont do that! and What are you thinking? I havent talked back like that since I saw scary movies in a West Philly theater or watched the women of Orange is the New Black land in jail. This came up in an interview from Covering Poverty, a resource for journalists from the University of Georgia Journalism Writing Lab. Greg Jaffe, a Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist, shared tips on better reporting about poverty. What does this have to do with Maid? Jaffe warns reporters not to judge peoples mistakes. Dont underestimate the stress that poverty causes. But its never a simple story, he said. People make mistakes and we shouldnt judge them, but we shouldnt shy away from putting them in the story. He points to a recent New York Times story that doesnt shy away. When Dasani Left Home, follows a teenager as she tries to escape poverty at the Milton Hershey School. Its a lot easier to see the boogeyman behind the door when the storys laid out on your TV screen. Maid is a chapter in Lands real life. As she goes through ups and downs, I kept rooting for her. Donald Kraybill has spent 40 years researching, writing about and teaching college-level sociology classes about the Amish. But with his latest book, the Elizabethtown College professor emeritus and senior fellow at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, focuses on what the Amish have taught him. What the Amish Teach Us is a short collection of 22 highly readable essays that follows the cycles of typical Amish life including essays on child care, education, spirituality, entrepreneurship and death. Its not an analytical book, says Kraybill, who has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books on the Amish. Its reflective, almost closer to memoir. These are things the Amish taught me over the last 40 years while I was researching them. What the Amish Teach Us offers glimpses into the thought process behind much of the Amish way of life, but it does more than that. Reading the book, youll learn about Amish life, but youll probably also find yourself thinking about your own life, what things you value and what things you might want to reconsider. says Steve Nolt, a professor of history and Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College and interim director of the Young Center. Riddles Like many Lancaster County natives, Kraybill, 76, grew up being familiar with the famously tight-knit, and often tight-lipped group, but still had some misconceptions about the Amish. I grew up in a Mennonite farming family and we didnt have any close Amish neighbors, says Kraybill, of Elizabethtown. Our family viewed them as sort of stuck in the mud pretty much like everyone else on the outside and thought they were going to die out with all the new changes that are coming. As Kraybill began to study the Amish through the lens of sociology, he found out his previously held assumptions were wrong. He became intrigued by what he saw as riddles in their way of life. One of the things that got me into Amish research was what looked like inconsistencies in their lifestyle, says Kraybill. For example, why would you go to a doctor but refuse to let your children go to higher education and become a doctor? Why would you get a tractor and keep it at the barn, and use horses out in the field to pull modern machinery? And why would you pay a neighbor to take you somewhere but not own or operate a car? Kraybill accumulated thousands of hours of field work and interviews eventually making friends with many people in Amish communities inside, and outside of Lancaster County. Suddenly I began to see a pattern that these things might seem silly to us from the outside, but if you look at these practices from their perspective, they make a lot of sense, Kraybill says. He also learned the Amish are thriving. Theyre doubling about every 20 years in North America in about 31 states, Kraybill says. Out-Ubering Uber The essays on the Amish and technology are, surprisingly enough, where the English people people outside the Amish community may be able to learn the most. Kraybill says one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding the Amish is that they shun technology. They dont completely avoid technology; rather, they selectively use it in ways that work with their values and traditions. As one Amish person says in the book, they Amishize it; as Kraybill puts it, they hack it. They look for ways to do bypasses around some of the church regulations so that they can still honor those regulations but also make some progress in terms of tapping some of the fruits of progress and science for their own lives, Kraybill says. Theyre more careful and thoughtful with technology than we are. I think in some ways they are more savvy about technology than we are. Kraybill says there are many Amish groups, but one of the sociological litmus tests to determine whether a group is Old Order Amish is whether they drive a horse and buggy. The car, according to Kraybills book, was one of the first cases of the Amish negotiating with revolutionary technology. Wanting to keep their communities tight-knit, the Amish held on to the horse and buggy as their primary means of day-to-day transportation, but also began hiring non-Amish neighbors to give them rides in their cars when it was necessary. I say the Amish have out-Ubered Uber, Kraybill says. Learning more about the Amish and their thoughts on technology could help cut down on screen time, too. With the rise of social media and easy access to smartphones and TVs, people are glued to screens now more than ever before. Kraybill says the Amish arent ignoring the latest technology, theyre just a little warier of it. I think one of the issues they are struggling with now is the smartphone, Kraybill says. And that varies greatly across Lancaster County, but its a point of discussion and debate. In the past, theyve emphasized the importance of separation from the world, and with the smartphone, you have the whole world in your pocket. So it is a huge question to know how to respond to that kind of technology. Some of the same sentiments the Amish have for technology can apply to other subjects like business. In one of the essays an Amish businessman tells Kraybill bigness ruins everything. The key to Amish life, according to Kraybill, is in maintaining a small-scale localized community with tight-knit relationships. Life lessons There are lessons to be found in every essay in What the Amish Teach Us. Kraybills interactions with the Amish illuminates how their views on child care and education successfully prepare their children for Amish life and strengthen their communities. In an essay about parenting, one of Kraybills Amish friends feels some pity when he learns that English young adults were taking classes to learn basic life skills like changing a tire or doing laundry. Then he remarks its funny and ironic that the English and Amish probably pity each other about a lot of things. There are also essays that share anecdotes about family life and practical essays about how the Amish hack technology and deal with retirement. But What the Amish Teach Us also explores some of the more spiritual aspects of Amish life, like patience and forgiveness. Kraybill, along with Nolt and David L. Weaver-Zercher, is the co-author of the book Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy about the 2006 Nickel Mines shooting and the response from the Amish community. People wonder how they could forgive so quickly, Kraybill says. I asked one of the bishops why they decided to forgive and he said it was an already decided issue its just what our people do. Thats one part of the story but the second part is if you live in a tight community, it takes a lot of forgiveness to get along. Basically, forgiveness is at the heart of Amish faith and culture. According to a recent poll conducted by Pew Research Center, only 17% of those surveyed in 16 countries believed that democracy in the United States is a good model to follow. Nearly 60% say the U.S. used to be a good example, but has not been in recent years. Americans themselves share the worlds concern, but for partisan reasons. A national survey taken last month indicated that over three-fourths of those polled believed American democracy is under threat. One-half of the poll saw major danger to democracy. Interestingly, almost three-fourths of Donald Trump supporters and Republicans perceived major risk. About one-third of Democrats and Joe Biden voters shared that belief. Not coincidentally, around 60% of Republicans believed former President Trump won the 2020 election, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Another sign of democratic decline was the failure of the U.S. Senate to pass two voting rights bills last week. One was the Freedom to Vote Act, a measure that would provide national standards for early voting and mail-in voting, make dark money contributions more transparent and declare Election Day a holiday. The other was the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which aims to strengthen federal efforts to combat discriminatory voting restrictions. Actually, the Senate could not agree to even debate voting rights, due to near-unanimous opposition from Republicans and the rules of the Senate that empower obstructionists. The role of citizens Concern about the state of democracy in America is nothing new. The framers of the U.S. Constitution opposed democracy, defined as direct citizen participation in government. For years after the Constitutional Convention, many delegates in Philadelphia despaired of a growing trend toward citizen involvement. Resistance to expanding political involvement was so strong, it required a civil war and several constitutional amendments to extend citizen privileges, including the vote, to African Americans and women. Subsequently, reaction to the exercise of the voting franchise by Blacks led to Jim Crow laws. The so-called reforms of the Progressive Era weakened the urban party organizations that mobilized the mushrooming immigrant population in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Throughout much of the 20th century, political theorists debated whether mobilization of the citizenry was good or bad for democracy. As contradictory as it may seem, this question arose from the rise of antidemocratic, popular movements that produced fascism and Soviet communism. In the United States, support for Sen. Joseph McCarthys ruthless crusade to purge the government of suspected communists revealed a lack of citizen concern for civil liberties. According to political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels in their 2016 book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, belief in Americans capacity to govern themselves, which the authors call the folk theory of democracy, has been undermined by the poor performance of American voters. There is no shortage of evidence of civic illiteracy. For example, only one-third of adults are able to correctly name the three branches of government. Furthermore, reforms designed to maximize citizen control have backfired. For example, 26 states have popular initiative and referendum options, which were intended to involve citizens directly in making public policy. In practice, special interests drive issues to the ballot, and voters know little about whats at stake. Faced with such disappointing results, democratic theorists attempted to redefine democracy to emphasize the importance of enlightened elites and limit the responsibilities of citizens. Writing in 1942, the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter famously classified democracy as that institutional method for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the peoples vote. Elected leaders, Schumpeter implied, should have ample room to set the agenda and negotiate deals. Citizen involvement should be restricted to holding officials accountable through elections every few years. Subsequent scholars, such as the Yale political scientist Robert Dahl, elaborated on the importance of interest group representation, the moderating role of Americas two-party system, and the emerging influence of the courts in the civil rights struggle. Atticus Finch, the fictional lawyer in Harper Lees 1960 novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, became a model of the tolerant leader willing to defy the ignorant and murderous townsfolk. A mobilized public The 1960s shattered the complacency of elitist theories of democracy. Mass movements against the Vietnam War and for civil rights reflected demands by marginalized groups for recognition. Intensely heard were criticisms of corporate power, the military-industrial complex and the establishment politicians and groups that monopolized party nominations and decision-making in Washington, D.C. The rise of progressive movements led some observers to believe that a highly mobilized public could bring about a more inclusive American democracy. A desire for social justice led to landmark legislation, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the Clean Air Act of 1970. Reforms in the Democratic Party after the explosive 1968 national convention in Chicago opened the presidential nomination process to women, minorities and young people. On the other hand, rapid social change and the violence that accompanied it produced a divided America. Meticulously described by historian Rick Perlstein in a four-volume series, a counter-movement emerged, consisting of supporters of U.S. senator and 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, white Southerners, anti-taxers, anti-busing ethnic groups in the North, Stop ERA advocates, white evangelical Christians and Cold Warriors, just to name a few. Conservative mobilization culminated with the election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980, and a new political era began. Democracy falters Moving to the 21st century, we have experienced a level of citizen activism not seen since the 1960s. Voting turnout in the post-9/11 period, which encompassed the Barack Obama and Trump presidential campaigns, rivaled that of the John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon elections. Aided by digital technology and social media, new social movements appeared Iraq War opposition, the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo and March for Our Lives. Unfortunately, increased popular engagement also activated the political fringe. Hate crimes and white supremacist activity increased the latter including here in Lancaster County. School board members and election officials, many of whom are volunteers, have been harassed. The Jan. 6 insurrection challenged the peaceful transfer of power. Led by Republican officials, organized efforts at voter suppression and election subversion are well underway in the states. If GOP quislings succeed, they will have people and mechanisms in place to annul a Democratic presidential victory in 2024. Even by Schumpeters lean definition of democracy as rule by accountable elites, American democracy is falling short. Notably, the Republican Party has radicalized. Fear of Trump, his allies in the media and his millions of followers has tongue-tied most GOP leaders. They refuse to condemn acts of domestic terrorism and embrace the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 election. They deny science, invent their own truth and politicize lifesaving vaccinations. To raise campaign dollars, media engagement and, most disturbingly, racial animosity, they manufacture crises, such as the critical race theory that is not being taught in K-12 schools. Democrats see the threat from the far right, but have done little to counter it. Obsessed with passing his ginormous social spending bills, President Biden sees the GOP antics as distractions. Wedded to the traditions of the legislative chamber in which he served for 36 years, the president vacillates on the filibuster, an unconstitutional procedure that is enabling Republicans to block his agenda. Mildly concerned about a reactionary-dominated U.S. Supreme Court, engineered by Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Biden appoints a presidential commission that is guaranteed not to recommend major reform of judicial selection and tenure. In addition, Bidens Justice Department was criticized by a federal judge for treating the occupants of the U.S. Capitol on 1/6 as petty offenders. Meanwhile, his attorney general, Merrick Garland, shows little interest in prosecuting the ringleader of the insurrection. What lies ahead The debate over whether more citizen involvement strengthens or weakens democracy continues. Despite unprecedented amounts of information available to citizens, political knowledge has not improved. In choosing a candidate for whom to vote, say Achen and Bartels, most citizens rely on party and group identity. In fact, voting is increasingly detached from incumbent performance. At best, voter rationality is myopic i.e., what have you done for me really lately? Sadly, empirical studies of American democracy in action paint a dismal picture of popular influence. From an examination of outcomes covering more than 1,500 issues from 1981 to 2002, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page argued in 2014 that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups (unions and membership organizations such as AARP) and average citizens have little or no independent influence. In particular, when fairly large majorities of citizens favor policy change, they generally do not get it. Putting it another way, people need to see that their participation in politics can make a difference. Trust in government and political efficacy belief that ones involvement in politics matters remain at low levels. The current fights in Washington, D.C., over President Bidens infrastructure and reconciliation bills, which contain popular items such as increasing the child tax credit, lowering Medicare prescription costs, paid family leave, universal pre-K, access to high-speed internet, and taxing the very rich, are key tests of whether democracy can work. Also important were the many local contests at stake in last Tuesdays elections, in which conservative activists challenging anti-COVID-19 mandates and diversity education asserted themselves. Except for those who intimidate candidates and officials, this activism is also democracy in action. Those who oppose these efforts have no choice but to enter the political arena. While MAGA insurgents won school board seats in places such as Elizabethtown, they were defeated in Camp Hill, Cumberland County, by people determined to defend the truth and stop racial and gender exclusion. In either case, whether progressives or conservatives prevail in elections and government, it is essential that losers in the struggle accept the results and pledge to fight on peacefully. Given what happened on 1/6, concession by the loyal opposition is no longer guaranteed. Without popular resistance and decisive legal action against authoritarian tactics, it is likely we will see more insurrections, as Big Lies descend to the state and local level. The threat to democracy is here and it is now. It is up to enlightened leaders and ordinary citizens of both parties to embrace values of both liberty and equality and demand a return to basic ground rules of fairness, decency and respect for those who disagree. The future of the American experiment depends on us. E. Fletcher McClellan, Ph.D., is a professor of political science at Elizabethtown College. Twitter: @mcclelef Take a walk through the main museum building at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial campus in Jerusalem, and youll come across an early 20th-century German writer by the name of Kurt Tucholsky. He is quoted as having said, A country is not just what it does it is also what it tolerates. It is long past time for the people of Lancaster County to stand up and publicly say what we are willing to tolerate. Just last week, in this very newspaper, we learned of a nascent, hate-filled and hateful political party built on racism and antisemitism that planted its roots in a meeting here in our county. Lancaster County residents: What are you willing to allow in our community? What are the values that we stand for? What must we vocally and forcefully reject? For Jews, the timing of last weeks Sunday LNP | LancasterOnline investigative report was particularly and sadly ironic. It was a few days after the anniversary of the murders at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and now, this coming week, we will remember the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, the pogroms that we view as the beginning of the Holocaust throughout Germany and other Nazi-occupied lands in 1938. It is a time for remembering. Several people have asked me why this white nationalist meeting in August 2020 in Lancaster Township was such a big deal. They say, The meeting took place 14 months ago. Nothing has come of it. We must answer these questions on several levels. First, this is not your run-of-the-mill antisemitism. Every Jew has heard the jokes, been told they cant have Jewish holidays off from work, been preached to in their places of employment, and questioned why they need days off from school. Every Jewish child has been looked at with pity this time of year when explaining, No, were Jewish. Santa doesnt come to our house. Many Jewish kids have had to endure singing deeply religious Christian songs at their schools winter concerts. Weve been told were going to hell for not accepting Jesus, and that so-and-so jewed down a merchant, meaning got a good price. But the tone of this white nationalist meeting was different. It proclaimed that we are a virus, we are oppressors, that our presence in certain professions should be legally limited. This is nothing short of Nazi ideology. This is another level of antisemitism entirely. We also have to consider why Lancaster County was considered fertile ground for such a movement. Can it be because a Ku Klux Klan chapter has held rallies in Lancaster County and rears its ugly head every few years to see if it can gain any traction? When the KKK makes an appearance, a few hundred people rally in opposition, while most county residents dont even acknowledge that this is going on. Can it be because far-right rhetoric regarding race and LGBTQ concerns is part of the soundtrack of local school board meetings? Its not hard to see the allure of Lancaster County for such groups. What about the ignorance of anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers who have the gall to compare their plight to Jews being forced by the Nazis to wear yellow stars? Perhaps its because parts of Lancaster County are willing to elect Stop the Steal protesters to our school boards. Our county isnt unique in these regards, but its easy to see why this community would be tempting, especially when it offers places to meet that are outside of the public eye. Lets go back to Tucholsky and the question of what we are willing to tolerate. Lets hear your voices, Lancaster County residents. With deep gratitude to our political officials who have already shared their condemnation, which other elected leaders are willing to publicly state that hatred is not welcome here? What policies are you prepared to put in place? Which faith leaders will speak out? Whos going to stand up, on the record, and say, unequivocally, Not in my community! Not anywhere in my country! The rest of us need to demand responses. These are not rhetorical questions. Send me your statements. Send them to this newspaper. This cant be a time for appeasement or equivocation. Nothing less than direct condemnation is acceptable. This past week was Election Day. We have incumbents and newcomers to the political arena. This is where they must show us who they really are. Jewish tradition strongly suggests that we try to end with a message of consolation and hope. Even while the fungus of hate continues to grow in this petri dish, we remember that our county has always had a heart. What we learned about last week and about the ground from which it grows is in stark contrast to Lancasters reputation for welcoming the stranger, a reputation so strong that the BBC dubbed Lancaster the refugee capital of America. Im personally grateful that Lancaster County became home to dozens of Jewish refugees fleeing Germany in the 1930s. This is the Lancaster County we need to protect. This is the Lancaster County we need to celebrate. Jack Paskoff is rabbi at Congregation Shaarai Shomayim in Lancaster. Email: jpaskoff@shaarai.org. What do you call four walls and a mortgage? For many Pennsylvanians, thats called home. You take pride in your investment and you work to maximize that investment over time. Home is also the clearest example of an individuals rights as a property owner. But if, like me (and more than 1 million other Pennsylvanians), you live in a neighborhood with an association, your rights come second to the whims of boards and policies written decades ago. That is why I believe Pennsylvania needs a solar access law. If you are responsible for your own roof, you should be free to use it to produce energy. Fortunately, there is a bill awaiting consideration in Harrisburg, Senate Bill 826, that curtails an associations rights in this specific case. SB 826 would remove an associations jurisdiction over roofs owned and maintained by homeowners. In 25 other states, legislatures have limited associations rights to reject solar. Solar systems are safe, cost-effective, silent and can be used to reduce or eliminate homeowners electricity bills. They also improve a homes resilience against power outages via backup batteries. All the while, solar diversifies Pennsylvanias power grid and produces good jobs and skilled workers. Pennsylvania does not currently have a solar access law on the books, but SB 826 is waiting for a vote. Call your state senator and ask them to support and co-sponsor SB 826. Send the message that Pennsylvania respects the rights of property owners, supports a diverse energy portfolio and produces good jobs for its citizens. Bobby Perrotti West Hempfield Township STORY UPDATED: check for updates below. Cops Said Fake Did the FBI arrest Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in Scarsdale, New York, on the morning of November 5, 2021? No, that's not true: Scarsdale police said there was no FBI raid there and that Bourla no longer lives in the famous bedroom community of New York City. Bourla made multiple live appearances on network television the day he was purported to be arrested and held. The claim appeared in an article (archived here) published by ConservativeBeaver.com on November 5, 2021. It was titled "CEO of Pfizer arrested, charged with fraud - media blackout - Conservative Beaver." It opened: Beaver Exclusive Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was arrested at his home in the affluent suburb of Scarsdale, New York Friday morning by the FBI and charged with multiple counts of fraud. Bourla is bein Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail: CEO of Pfizer arrested, charged with fraud - media blackout - Conservative Beaver Beaver ExclusivePfizer CEO Albert Bourla was arrested at his home in the affluent suburb of Scarsdale, New York Friday morning by the FBI and charged with multiple counts of fraud. Bourla is bein In a November 5, 2021, telephone call, the Scarsdale Police Department said the Conservative Beaver story about Bourla is false. No ... There's been no FBI activity in Scarsdale. He does not reside in Scarsdale, the house has been sold. Pfizer's media staff said the same: "This is a false claim," Pifzer's senior director of global media relations Jerica Pitts wrote in a November 5, 2021, email to Lead Stories. "We had media interviews he was participating in live all day - CNN, CNBC, Fox, etc.," Asked to confirm Scarsdale Police's report of Bourla's home sale, Pitts said the company does not disclose where employees live. Here, for example, is a link to the CNBC interview with Bourla on November 5, 2021, which aired live. Scarsdale, described by the New York Times as "a pricey suburb with an Old World air," is 25 miles from midtown Manhattan, making it popular with corporate executives like Bourla. His vaccination status was the focus of a report on a local news website, Scarsdale 10583. Pfizer's headquarters is on 42nd Street in Manhattan. Conservative Beaver publishes false reports on major news figures and events, claiming, for instance, that actor Alec Baldwin was arrested on child porn charges (he wasn't), the late Brian Laundrie was found in Mexico (he was found dead in Florida, Canadian Premier Justin Trudeau's younger brother was arrested on child sex abuse charges (he wasn't) and a half-dozen more, which Lead Stories has debunked. Lead Stories has requested FBI information about the claim and will update this report when the agency replies. So, do you think learning all 1,500 words in the VOA Learning English Word Book is hard? We have got news for you. American publisher Merriam-Webster announced it has added 455 new words to its dictionary for October 2021. The publisher said, Just as the language never stops evolving, the dictionary never stops expanding. The 455 new words came from what the publisher called extensive and established use. Merriam-Webster said the quick and informal nature of messaging, texting and tweeting online has increased during the pandemic. That, in turn, has given rise to a vocabulary filled with shortened forms of words and expressions. Listen to the conversation below to hear some of these new words in use: Person A: Our social media professional just asked me what FTW is. Person B: TBH, an expert in social media should really know the meaning of FTW, amirite? FTW is an abbreviation for for the win. It is often used to express approval or support on social media. TBH is short for to be honest. And the word amirite is a shortened way to spell am I right? Coronavirus The COVID-19 pandemic that started in early 2020 gave us terms like contact tracing, flattening the curve, and social distancing. Even with record-setting vaccination programs, we know the pandemic is still not over. And new pandemic-related words have been added to our daily vocabulary. Here are some of those phrases that Merriam-Webster has added to its dictionary: breakthrough is often used to describe an infection occurring in someone who is fully vaccinated against an infectious disease like COVID-19 super-spreader is an event or place at which a large number of people contract the same communicable disease long COVID is a condition that is marked by the presence of symptoms such as headache and shortness of breath that continue for weeks or months following a person's recovery from COVID-19 And a vaccine passport is now required to enter many countries and places. This is a document providing proof of vaccination against infectious diseases (such as COVID-19) Tech, Science, Culture, etc... Digital technology has helped many of us continue with our daily lives during the pandemic. The use of technology has led to new ways to describe technology-related risks. When digital information in an image or audio recording cannot be read, it is called a bit rot. And zero-day is a term to describe weakness in computer systems that cybercriminals discover. From political events, we have whataboutism. This is the act or practice of responding to an accusation of wrongdoing by claiming that an offense committed by another is similar or worse. And vote-a-rama describes the unusually large number of debates and votes that happen in one day in the United States Congress. Other new words come from foods and drinks. One such word is fluffernutter. This is a sandwich made with peanut butter and marshmallow between two pieces of white bead. Another is horchata a cold drink made from ground rice or almonds, with spices like cinnamon or vanilla. Eating too many fluffernutters could give you a bit of a dad bod. The dictionary publisher describes a dad bod as the body of an average father, especially, it says, one that is slightly overweight and not extremely muscular. In todays program, we have only had time to tell you about 16 of the 455 new words from Merriam-Webster. And this is not even the first time this year it has added hundreds of new words. Last January, the dictionary publisher added 520 new words. That is a lot of new vocabulary for you to study. I'm Ashley Thompson. Hai Do wrote this story for VOA Learning English with information from Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Ashley Thompson was the editor. ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story evolve - v. to change or develop slowly informal - adj. relaxed in tone and not suitable for serious speech or writing abbreviation - n. a shortened form of a word or name that is used in place of the full word or name respond - v. to do something as a reaction to something that has occurred sandwich - n. two pieces of bread with something in between marshmallow - n. a soft, white, sweet food made of sugar and eggs spice - n. a substance that is used in cooking to add flavor North Korea has demonstrated the use of educational robots to help students in subjects like English, math and music. A report by the countrys state-run television station KRT showed several different robots being used in the classroom. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been pushing for educational reforms in recent years. These have included increases in technological and scientific innovation. One robot that used a female voice could be heard in the TV report saying, "I help teach educational technology that enhances children's intelligence." The 80-centimeter tall machine moved its arms when it spoke. A second robot with a white round head showed a happy face on its screen. Another wore a blue plastic suit and had white glasses, the KRT video showed. Park Kum Hee is a professor at a university in Pyongyang. She told KRT that the development of the educational robots faced some difficulties in the beginning. For example, the robots would often shake their heads when asked questions in both Korean and foreign languages. "Upgrading this robot's intelligence was difficult for me as someone who majored in psychology," Park said. She added that the advice of Kim Jong Un to use artificial intelligence in educational settings had always guided me on the right track." The KRT footage showed young students repeating after a robot in subjects related to English, math and music. Two children shown at the front of the class reacted to the robot. "Hello? Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too. What's your name?" the students said. The students shown were wearing masks. North Korea reopened schools in June of 2020. But a requirement was established for children to wear masks in class and washing stations were set up. The secretive country has not officially reported a single coronavirus case. But it has ordered several anti-virus measures, including closing borders and limiting travel within the country. Im Bryan Lynn. Reuters reported on this story. Bryan Lynn adapted the report for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. ____________________________________________ Words in This Story innovation n. the act or process of introducing new ideas, devices, or methods enhance v. to improve something screen n. the part of a television or computer that shows images or writing suit n. a matching jacket and pants that are worn on the body on track phr. making progress and likely to succeed mask n. a face covering In cities across America, property owners are turning office buildings into homes at an increasing rate. Online housing services company RentCafe.com reports such conversions are at an all time high in the United States. The companys research considered thousands of U.S. properties that had been remodeled for new purposes. In the last two years, the report says, 32,000 homes were created that way. Forty-one percent of them were in former office buildings, RentCafe found. Strachan Forgan is an architect with a national building design company, Solomon Cordwell Buenz. He says repurposing buildings saves the energy that went into their creation. As long as we can get them a new lease on life, then that can be a very sustainable thing to do, Forgan said. Slow recovery The National Association of Realtors, NAR, recently said some property markets are seeing a strong recovery from COVID-19 effects. These include multifamily home, industrial and business space markets. But it reported hotel and office property markets are still suffering. The real estate organization said continuing COVID-19 concerns have slowed the return of workers to their offices. The travel business has also not recovered well. In addition, office rents, the amount of money businesses pay to use space, have gone down. An inflection point? We're at an inflection point possibly, Forgan said. In business, that means a major change in direction. His company has converted a tall office building in San Francisco into apartments. The company is working on a similar project in Hawaii. He said, Employers have not made radical changes in the amount of space that they need. But Forgan noted that if some workers do not want to return to their offices, the demand for office space will go down. Sustainable and sometimes simpler Converting old buildings is a sustainable way to add new housing. That is because needed road and public transportation systems are often already in the same place. Conversions can also simplify legal approval processes because the buildings are already officially registered in most cases. It's maybe faster or easier to get a conversion project approved, Forgan said. But there are also barriers. Those barriers are the common reason why office-to-apartment projects are not more common. Zoning and permitting are probably two of the biggest costs, said Doug Ressler. He is with Yardi-Matrix, a company that provided some of the data for the RentCafe report. Zoning describes local rules for the use of property and are different for every area of the country. Most have been started from local ordinancesand built up, said Ressler. Some areas, for example, are not zoned for multifamily housing, only single-family housing. Also, requirements for living spaces differ from those for employment space, including levels of natural light. Older buildings can present problems. They often require new mechanical, electrical and pipe systems. Historic office buildings, however, are often good candidates for conversion because of their design. Conversions elsewhere An NAR opinion study of its members in the business property market found that 84 percent of them use the same amount of office space as before the pandemic. But 11 percent reported a decrease in office space. People have not made decisions yet, architect Forgan said. I don't think the office market has really reacted to that yet. But he noted that it is possible a lot of office space may become available in the future. NAR reports that retail spaces, led by shopping centers, marketplaces with many nationwide stores, are continuing to recover. Big department stores which have been disappearing might also be getting a new lease on life. These spaces are being turned into places where companies can store and send products that are bought online. Similar but smaller and more local shopping centers are known as strip malls. The NAR said they are also coming back to life. Part of that recovery might be linked to the willingness of owners to get new businesses to use their space. Ressler said strip malls are being converted for new use by medical offices and health care providers. He said hospitals that are looking to reduce costs might create urgent care centers in strip malls where stores have closed. Im Dan Friedell. And Im Caty Weaver. Dora Mekouar reported this story for VOANEWS. Mario Ritter Jr. adapted it for VOA Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor. ____________________________________________________ Words in This Story new lease on life noun phrase a chance to continue living or to become successful or popular again sustainable adj. able to last or continue for a long time architect n. a person who designs buildings retail adj. related to selling things directly to people for their own personal use inflection point n. a point where a major change takes place radical adj. very new and different from what is traditional or ordinary We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page. Schools in Uganda have been fully or partly closed for more than 77 weeks because of the coronavirus pandemic. The United Nations cultural agency says that is the longest break anywhere in the world. Many countries around the world moved their school lessons to the internet. But most schools in the East African country were unable to offer virtual schooling. Without school, some Ugandan students got married. Some are dealing with unwanted pregnancies. Others have found jobs. Efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 have upset the lives of children around the world. It has caused difficulties for parents. It has also removed many safeguards. The aid group Save the Children said the pandemic has led to the biggest global education emergency of our time. The group identified 48 countries, including Uganda, whose school systems are at extreme or high risk of collapse. Most are in sub-Saharan Africa. This part of the world has long struggled with high dropout rates among students and a shortage of well-trained teachers. Around the world Some other countries that saw long closures also struggled to teach children. Mexico has low internet connectivity in many places. It chose to use educational programming by television. The pandemic has been disastrous for children in Mexico. It has led to millions leaving school as well as increases in child murder, teen pregnancies, and violence in homes. In Iraq, virtual learning is limited and unequal, the World Bank has reported. Some wealthier countries did better. Public schools in Kuwait did not have what they needed to go virtual when the pandemic first struck. All schooling was suspended for seven months. But the oil-rich Gulf Arab state spent $212 million to create virtual school programming. The costly effort has been considered a success. Ugandan lockdowns Uganda first closed it schools in March of 2020, shortly after the first coronavirus case was confirmed on the African continent. Some classes were reopened to students almost one year later, in February. But a total closure happened again in June as the country faced its first major increase of coronavirus cases. Today, Uganda is the only country in Africa where schools remain closed. President Yoweri Museveni announced last week that schools would reopen in January. His announcement comes as the country has seen a decrease in virus cases in recent months. Experts at Johns Hopkins University say the country is now recording an average of 70 new infections each day. So far, Uganda has fully vaccinated about 700,000 of its 44 million people. First lady Janet Museveni is the countrys education minster. She has rejected criticism that the country is not doing enough to teach its children. In a speech in October, she asked why our children cannot be safe at home. What happened to the family? Some Ugandans say the problem is that the government has not found a successful way to keep up learning during lockdown periods. One suggested solution was to broadcast lessons through free radio sets. But that plan did not happen. In rural areas, many children do not have learning materials of any kind. Lost hope In the Ugandan town of Busia, it was common to see children selling goods in the streets even before the pandemic hit. Things have only gotten worse. The Associated Press recently spoke with some children there. Many of them expressed hopelessness during the long lockdown. Mathias Okwako is one of those children. He searches for gold with other children to pass the time. He wears his school clothing while searching for the valuable metal because he has nothing else to wear. He regrets that he must work; the tiring days leave him little energy to study on his own. No time (for) reading books, he said. If you try to open a book, you just go asleep, and sleep up to tomorrow. Children work alongside adults at the unofficial gold mine. Some of the adults are their teachers. Observers say the risks and feelings of doing dangerous work have led to fights. Some children have broken bones while digging. A usual day can bring in just over $2, enough for a child to buy a used pair of shoes. At Okwakos Mawero school, teacher Emmy Odillo said he expects a small number of the 400 students to return next year. Bosco Masaba is the director of studies at Busia Central Primary school. He said he normally sees some students in the streets selling fruit or eggs. He heard that some girls become house workers for families across the border in Kenya. Masaba said, Some, they have lost hope completely. Im Gregory Stachel. Rodney Muhumuza reported this story for The Associated Press. Gregory Stachel adapted it for VOA Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor. ______________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story virtual adj. existing or occurring on computers or on the Internet global adj. involving the entire world qualified adj. having the necessary skill, experience, or knowledge to do a particular job or activity remaining of Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. SPOKANE Miranda Newell, 36, was in the darkest moment of her life when she sought help from Union Gospel Mission. Please register or log in to keep reading. No credit card required! Stay logged in to skip the surveys. The higher a Social Security benefit you start out with, the more monthly income you can expect to enjoy throughout retirement. And if you're behind in the retirement savings department, it especially pays to do what you can to boost your Social Security benefits. Now you may be aware that delaying your filing beyond full retirement age will result in a more generous benefit. But here are some surprising ways you can achieve a similar goal. 1. Boost your total income with a side job The Social Security benefit you're entitled to collect in retirement will hinge on how much you earn during your 35 highest-paid years in the labor force. But it's not just your income from your main job that counts in that equation. If you work a side job, and you report your earnings from it to the IRS (which, let's face it, you're required to do), then that additional income will count toward your wage history as well. The result? More money from Social Security during retirement. 2. File for spousal benefits It may be the case that you worked for many years but didn't have the highest earnings. Or, it could be that you earned a decent wage, but that your spouse out-earned you considerably. Even if you're entitled to a Social Security benefit based on your own earnings history, if you're married, you can claim a spousal benefit in retirement instead of your own benefit. And that's a move that will make sense if your spousal benefit is higher. Let's imagine that based on your own wage history, you're entitled to a monthly Social Security benefit of $1,000. If your spouse is eligible for a $2,400 monthly benefit, then by claiming a spousal benefit instead of your own, you can boost your monthly Social Security income by $200. 3. Check your earnings statement every year Each year, the Social Security Administration (SSA) issues workers an earnings statement summarizing their annual wages and estimating their future benefits. If you're at least 60 years old, that statement will come in the mail. If not, you can access it on the SSA's website (you'll need to create an account to view yours online). It's important to look through your earnings statement carefully, because if you spot missing wages, reporting that could result in a higher Social Security benefit. Say there's a year in which you switched jobs, but only your second employer reported your earnings. If you're missing $40,000 in wages from that first job, that could result in a lower retirement benefit once all of your income is accounted for. Correcting that mistake could therefore raise your benefit up. Get the most from Social Security Even if you enter retirement with a respectable nest egg, you may still end up relying heavily on Social Security to cover your various bills. It pays to explore different strategies for getting more money out of Social Security so you can enjoy your senior years to the fullest and steer clear of financial stress. The $16,728 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,728 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Saving for retirement in a Roth IRA is a smart move for many reasons. Not only do Roth IRAs enjoy tax-free investment gains, but Roth IRA withdrawals are also tax-free, allowing seniors to access more of their money when they need it. Roth IRAs are also the only tax-advantaged retirement plan to not impose required minimum distributions. This allows savers to enjoy more years of tax-free growth in their accounts and also affords them the option to more easily leave wealth behind to their heirs. But the one drawback associated with Roth IRAs is that higher earners can't always contribute to one of these plans directly. The IRS recently announced the income and contribution limits for 2022, so here's what you need to know. Roth IRA contribution limits aren't changing Currently, workers under 50 can contribute up to $6,000 to a Roth IRA. Workers aged 50 and over get a $1,000 catch-up contribution option that brings their total to $7,000. In 2022, these limits are holding steady. Roth IRA income limits are changing To be clear, Roth IRAs aren't automatically off the table for higher earners. Anyone who's ineligible to fund a Roth IRA directly can contribute to a traditional IRA and convert it to a Roth afterward. Still, it's helpful to know who's allowed to contribute directly to a Roth IRA in 2022. For single tax-filers, Roth IRA contributions in 2022 start to phase out at an income of $129,000. And once earnings exceed $144,000, contributions aren't allowed. Married couples filing joint tax returns get more leeway next year. Contributions start to phase out at $204,000 and are barred completely once earnings exceed $214,000. Here's how Roth IRA income limits compare to 2021: Tax Filing Status 2021 Roth IRA Income Limits 2022 Roth IRA Income Limits Single $125,000 (phase out begins) to $140,000 $129,000 (phase out begins) to $144,000 Married filing jointly $198,000 (phase out begins) to $208,000 $204,000 (phase out begins) to $214,000 As you can see, savers will get more leeway to fund a Roth IRA in 2022. Should you save in a Roth IRA? The downside to funding a Roth IRA is that you lose the up-front tax break that comes with contributing to a traditional IRA. If you're in a higher tax bracket, that could be a major drawback. But despite not getting tax-free contributions, Roth IRAs offer a host of benefits. And if you think you'll end up in a higher tax bracket during retirement than you're in today, then a Roth IRA absolutely makes sense. Remember, too, that while we know what tax rates look like right now, there's no telling how they'll evolve between now and when you're ready to retire. And so by saving in a Roth IRA, you effectively get to lock in your current tax rate on that money rather than face an unwanted surprise down the line. Either way, it pays to consider funding a Roth IRA in 2022 if you're able to. And if not, you may want to discuss your options for a conversion with a tax professional. The $16,728 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,728 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 If you have access to a 401(k) plan, you have a prime opportunity to save well for retirement. That's because 401(k)s come with generous annual contribution limits. And also, many employers that sponsor these plans match worker contributions to varying degrees. Contribute enough money out of your own paycheck, and you may be in line for a bundle of free cash. But the money in your 401(k) shouldn't just sit there doing nothing. If you want your retirement savings to grow, you'll need to invest that money. And target date funds are a popular means of doing just that. Target date funds adjust your investment mix automatically based on how far or close you are to a specific milestone. In the case of retirement, a target date fund would start you off with riskier investments, like stocks, that have the potential to generate higher returns. Then, as retirement nears, that fund would shift toward less volatile investments to minimize your risk. Vanguard reports that as of the end of 2020, 80% of its 401(k) participants were using target date funds. But is that a good idea for you? The upside: Simplicity There's a benefit to putting your 401(k) into target date funds, and it's not having to spend too much time figuring out where to invest your money. When you use target date funds, you're effectively putting the process on autopilot. In fact, 401(k)s commonly default to a target date fund so that if you put money into one of these plans but don't select specific investments, you'll land in a target date until you say otherwise. The downside: High fees and an imperfect investment mix While target date funds may be convenient, they have their drawbacks. For one thing, you'll often pay high fees when you keep your money in a target date fund. Those fees could eat away at your returns over time, leaving you with less money by the time your career wraps up. Furthermore, when you invest in target date funds, you get no say in your investments. That may be OK with you, but it could also mean having your money invested in a manner that's too aggressive or too conservative for your taste. What's the alternative? The tricky thing about 401(k) plans is that they generally don't let you buy individual stocks. To do that, you'll need to open an IRA. As such, you may have to put your money into a fund whose investments you don't get a lot of say over. But if you're going to go that route, it pays to look at index funds over target date funds. Index funds are passively managed funds that aim to match the performance of whatever benchmark they're tied to. An S&P 500 index fund, for example, will have the goal of matching the performance of the S&P 500 itself. While it's true that you can't choose your investments within index funds, the benefit is that their fees can be significantly lower than what you'll pay to put your money into target date funds. And you may find that certain index funds better align with your risk tolerance than target date funds. Convenient isn't always best Target date funds are unquestionably convenient. And they're clearly very popular. But does that make them the ideal choice for your 401(k)? Not necessarily. Before you settle on target date funds, explore the alternatives. You may find that there's a better way to put the money in your 401(k) to work. The $16,728 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,728 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 BOISE For the first time in its 89-year history, a majority of Boise State Universitys first-year undergraduate students have come from outside Idaho. Enrollment continues to evolve at the states largest university as Boise States price point helps attract out-of-state students, while many students in rural Idaho continue to sit out the pandemic. Idahos go-on rate, which is already one of the lowest in the nation, was negatively impacted by the pandemic, like states across the country with large rural populations, Boise State President Marlene Tromp said. What happened at Boise State this fall isnt new. In 2020, an uptick in out-of-state enrollment helped to offset a pandemic-driven dropoff in Idaho enrollment. And the same enrollment trends are playing out across Idahos higher education system. Idahos other four-year schools all reported increases in out-of-state enrollment this fall, helping the University of Idaho and Idaho State University erase some of their losses in student numbers from 2020. Out-of-state enrollment is helping Idaho universities recover from pandemic-related enrollment losses and is helping with the schools balance sheet, since these students pay higher tuition costs. But for years, Idahos education, political and business leaders have been pushing to encourage the states high school graduates to continue their education, to little avail. At Boise State, resident student numbers have been dropping since at least 2017 and in all categories: Category Residents percentage, 2017 Residents percentage, 2021 First-time undergraduates 55.2% 47.4% Undergraduates, transfers 65.3% 51.7% Undergraduates, total 74.9% 67.1% Graduate students, total 65.3% 57.0% The surge in out-of-state admissions is not squeezing out Idaho students. Boise State says it still has space for any in-state student who meets the universitys admissions requirements. But getting those students to show is the lingering challenge, and one that has forced Boise State to rethink its financial aid strategy. We have significantly modified our scholarship protocols to direct even more resources to in-state students and to special populations like rural students, rather than simply providing scholarships based on merit alone, Tromp said. With this additional support, we hope to encourage Idaho student attendance. And while affordability is an obstacle for many in-state students, affordability is a selling point for out-of-state students who find Boise State a relative bargain, even at nonresident tuition and fees. Boise State froze its nonresident fees at $22,452 this fall partly in hopes of keeping out-of-state students on campus. Resident undergraduate fees are $8,068, after two successive years of freezes. While Boise State and Idahos other four-year schools are hoping to attract more in-state students to campus, Tromp said out-of-state recruiting pays long-term economic dividends as well. About 68 percent of Boise State University graduates stay in Idaho after graduation, where they benefit the states economy by filling desperately needed roles in fields, including education, nursing and engineering. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 TWIN FALLS Jay Panopolos is a jokester with a giant personality. Standing in his Twin Falls kitchen, he laughed about his official Navy picture taken more than 75 years ago. I said, God you was a good-looking guy at one time, he said smiling. In the picture, he is just 17 years old, about to leave Idaho for the first time to serve in World War II as a gunners mate. Can you imagine that? Seventeen years old he said. Heck, I didnt own a car till I was almost 25. Panopolos served for three years in the Navy before joining the reserves for 17 years. During those three years he traveled from Idaho to the eastern United States, then the Gulf of Mexico, the South Pacific, and all across Japan before returning to the United States and eventually home to Pocatello. While in Norfolk, Virginia, for boot camp, he realized how far away from home he was. Where are you from? Oh, I am from Idaho. Where is Idaho at? he said, repeating early conversations. No such thing as Idaho Pocatello especially. A majority of his time in service was spent on an LST or landing ship tank. With a top speed of 13 mph, Panopolos said sailors called them low slow targets. He remembers reaching the South Pacific and moving from one island to another to drop off tanks and marines. Panopolos recalls suicide planes flying above the LST during the battle of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. It was called Iron Bottom Bay because so many ships sank there, he said. One of the more memorable moments of his military career was visiting Nagasaki, Japan. On Aug. 9, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Everything within a mile of the detonation site was annihilated. People close to the blast were vaporized and those further away suffered burns and radiation poisoning. It was just barren all the way. If people see that, they never want to see another war in their lives, he said. As a gunners mate, his job was managing the operation and maintenance of weapons and the systems used to launch them. I can almost take a gun apart and put it back together blindfolded, he said. The job requires attention to detail and meticulous steps to ensure safety. After leaving the service, he spent time working at the Pocatello Navy Ordnance Plant, Montgomery Ward, and Osco Drug. When I got back out of the service I should have went to college or university, he said. He married his wife, Verna, and together they had one daughter, Linda. His wife passed away in 2009. Veterans Day is an opportunity for the public to think about what veterans went through and appreciate their service, Panopolos said. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 TWIN FALLS Magic Valley voters went to the polls Tuesday for elections. The numbers may seem low but were about normal for an odd-year election. In Twin Falls County, about 15.2% of registered voters cast ballots, according to unofficial numbers. The election results will be official after they are certified Nov. 12. Twin Falls County Clerk Kristina Glascock says there were no surprises in the number of people who showed up to the polls. We expected about 15%, Glascock said. And here we are at about 15% County turnout varied by precinct, depending on the significance of the races. Some precincts saw a higher turnout. Twin Falls Precinct 23 had the highest turnout 29% in the county. Elections held in odd-numbered years typically have municipal races, while elections in even years have congressional and statewide elections, which typically prompt higher voter turnout. For the previous odd-year election in 2019, the Twin Falls County voter turnout was higher, with 22.4% of registered voters casting ballots. National elections draw higher numbers of voters. Eighty-two percent of registered voters in the county voted in the 2020 presidential election. In the more rural Lincoln County, 14.6% of registered voters cast ballots this month, according to unofficial results. A water bond passed in Shoshone, where 17.5% of the 897 registered voters cast ballots. Richfield had a higher turnout, where 30.8% of the 548 registered voters showed up to vote in fire district elections. You might not think the smaller communities would have that kind of turnout, but the voters there are very engaged, Lincoln County Elections Director Jana Frazier said. Lincoln Countys turnout shrank from 2019 when 37.9% of registered voters cast ballots. In Minidoka County, 21.79% of voters turned out to the polls. Heyburn saw 29.05% of its registered voters cast ballots in contested municipal races. Fourteen percent of Jerome Countys 4,400 registered voters went to the polls, casting 620 ballots. In Gooding County, 194 ballots representing 20.2% of the 962 registered voters were cast in Wendell and 426 ballots representing 29% of the 1,467 registered voters were cast in Gooding. In eastern Magic Valley, 20.53% of Cassia Countys 6,806 registered voters cast 1,397 ballots. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 BOISE After months of record-breaking numbers, Idaho in the past few weeks has seen a drop in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and its test positivity rate. The state might finally have seen the worst of its fourth COVID-19 surge. But Idaho still might have a long way to go before its ready to deactivate statewide crisis standards of care, or health care rationing that allows providers to make decisions based on chance of survival if necessary. Even though the number of patients has declined, the caseload has not dropped enough so as not to overwhelm providers, public health officials say. Dave Jeppesen, Idaho Health and Welfare director, has said the state is looking for improvements on factors that brought him to first activate crisis standards. Those include hospitals no longer needing to use nontraditional spaces to admit patients, boarding patients that must be admitted in emergency rooms or seeing staffers overrun by the patient volume. Believe me, nobody really wants to be in crisis standards of care, Jeppesen said during a media briefing Tuesday. We are excited for the possibility to get out, looks like were headed in the right direction. Idaho reported 435 COVID-19 patients hospitalized statewide as of Wednesday, down from its peak of nearly 800 on Sept. 24 but still about as high as the peak toward the end of last year. In intensive care units, there were 138 COVID-19 patients on Wednesday, down from 213 on Sept. 24. Hospitals struggling with backlog of procedures, doctors say Health care systems are now struggling through a backlog of delayed surgeries and other procedures since the latest COVID-19 surge began around July, according to St. Lukes and Saint Alphonsus. Dr. Steve Nemerson, Saint Als chief medical officer, said theres been only a slight decline in COVID-19 patients admitted to ICUs. And while COVID-19 cases might have reached a plateau, the number of patients needing hospitalization and ICU beds because of other things remains high, he added. Weve reached record numbers in the past month that we literally have never seen in the history of the Saint Alphonsus hospital system, Nemerson said. Part of that is delayed care, Nemerson said and now that the non-COVID patients are being brought back, their conditions can be more complex than they might have been a month ago. Nemerson said more than 1,000 patients are waiting for procedures, either surgeries or other interventions, at Saint Als. Nemerson said staffing is a major factor in determining whether Saint Als would be ready to transition from crisis standards down one level, to contingency standards. Saint Als is currently using about 150 additional staffers sent by FEMA and the state to help take care of patients, particularly in the ICU. We just barely have enough workers now, Nemerson said. If the health care system exits crisis standards too quickly, and the federal government pulls its support of additional staffers, it could easily fall right back into needing crisis standards again, he said. Nemerson said he expects Saint Als to no longer need the crisis standards designation before the end of the year, and hopefully within a matter of weeks. At St. Lukes, anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 surgeries and procedures have been delayed, said spokesperson Christine Myron. Dr. Frank Johnson, chief medical officer at St. Lukes Boise, said the system has had to delay care for all kinds of patients, including those with cancer and gastrointestinal problems, neurosurgical cases and childrens procedures. Its heartbreaking that we havent been able to get those procedures done, Johnson told the Statesman on Friday. We need to get them done. What will deactivating crisis standards look like? Exiting out of crisis standards will be a similar process to when the state entered it, Jeppesen said. He said he will look at input from hospitals on whether they would be ready to deactivate the standards, but likely would need multiple hospitals to report that theyre no longer strained. The crisis standards activation committee then would reconvene to decide whether to recommend exiting crisis standards. Jeppesen would take that recommendation and decide. Jeppesen said the state also could choose to deactivate the statewide designation but maintain crisis standards in a certain region. Elke Shaw-Tulloch, Idahos public health administrator, said hospitals in the state are still experiencing a high flow of patients. Every Idaho county but one is still classified as a community with high transmission, Shaw-Tulloch pointed out. The statewide positivity rate has fallen for seven straight weeks and was 10.3% for the week ending Oct. 30, but thats still more than double the goal of 5%. Johnson said the decline in COVID-19 cases is encouraging, but he pleaded with the public to continue efforts to get the COVID-19 vaccine, take care of chronic conditions to remain out of the hospital and support health care workers who remain exhausted. The jobs not done, Johnson said. We are not at the mission accomplished stage. Veterans Day Stories Leading up to Veterans Day this year, the Times-News sought out stories from veterans in our community. Reporters interviewed four veterans, two who served in WWII and two who served in the Iraq war. Their memories and experiences were vastly different, but the service they gave is the same. Please enjoy the stories. TWIN FALLS At 6 years old, Talon Slead already had a backup plan. I knew that by the age of 18, if I didnt have a good career going into the civilian sector, I would join the military, he said. The desire to serve his country shouldnt come as much of a surprise especially for someone named after the T-38 Talon jet. So when he turned 18, he enlisted in the Army. Thus began a journey that would span six years, three months and 12 days of active service. Sleads first step included nine weeks of basic training in South Carolina. Boot Camp is all about how to mess with the mind, to test you, he said. One particular event that stands out in his memory happened shortly after he arrived. Recruits were brought into a room and told to drop their bags in perfect unison. If the drill sergeants heard a bag drop out of order, all of them would do push-ups. An hour and a half later, were still dropping our bags, Slead said. Training is designed to break you down and rebuild you. Recruits are given a minute to eat. Theyre told when to sleep, when to wake, what to do and wear, he said. Its all psychological games that affect everyone. That first night, there wasnt a dry eye there, he said. Everyone was emotional. After basic training, Slead went on to Advanced Individual Training. This is where the Army designated his occupational specialty. Because of his test scores, Slead was chosen for 25 Lima, a cable systems installer-maintainer. From there, he was deployed to Korea in a platoon with 20 other 25 Limas. For a base that was already set up and operational. You know what it means when youre in a big platoon with the same MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) and you have no use? Slead said. Whenever a job comes up, youre going to be the platoon they look at. Slead spent a year in Korea doing whatever jobs he was assigned, from driver to mail clerk. Camp Stanley, where he was stationed, was the closest base to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea. In Korea, we were occupying, he said. Were there, were present, but we had no active missions. Most of the days its very boring. During his time there he achieved the rank of Private First Class. He also reenlisted, committing to four more years of military service. After his first deployment, Slead went to Fort Bliss in Texas. There he was designated to a field artillery unit and achieved the rank of specialist. Then he was deployed to Iraq. They sent us to Iraq with one slide that said The Restoration of Iraq. Thats it, he said. We spent three months trying to figure out what that means. Sleads unit specifically focused on guarding experts working on adding infrastructure to the country. From transportation to power grids, the experts job was to figure out what was needed. Imagine someone looking at the infrastructure of France, England or America the train systems, our flight systems and vehicles. Then they decide they want all that infrastructure at once, he said. Its all conflicted and nobody knows what they want or what theyre doing. Fortunately, Slead wasnt responsible for designing these systems. His job was to keep the experts in charge alive. But that job did not come without risk. I faced death every time I went outside the gate, and we rolled out six days a week, he said. For a mobile unit that spends a lot of time driving, one of their biggest threats was IEDs improvised explosive devices. These were bombs hidden in the road designed to disable or destroy vehicles and their occupants. Slead remembers one of these moments vividly. I woke up one morning and I had a sense this day was going to be interesting, he said. His unit left the base with Slead driving the second vehicle in the convoy. He was driving fast and an EFP explosively formed penetrator missed his vehicle and detonated on the car behind him. Think of metal bent like a cymbal with explosives put behind it, he said. It blows and creates a hot spear that cuts like butter through metal. Probably one of the most dangerous IEDs that they have. Luckily, it had recently rained and the water offset the aim of the device. The blast went over the head of the gunner of that vehicle. But IEDs werent the only issue they faced. In Iraq, missile attacks were incredibly frequent. Slead said the explosions were as normal as lightning. A common technique was for enemies to put ice at the bottom of a tube, load a missile and then go home. The ice would melt down, the missile rocket would launch, and it would either hit somewhere or it didnt, Slead said. After his tour in Iraq, roughly five years into his service, Slead made the rank of sergeant. He switched his MOS again to a Stinger Missile Operator. Then he departed on his third and final deployment, this time to Qatar. As a stinger missile operator, Slead worked on the front line running security for the patriot missiles while they created an Iron Dome for the country. An Iron Dome is a missile defense system that locates and destroys incoming rockets. After his third deployment, Slead was eager for a change. By the time I hit six years, I was ready to get out, he said. His active duty ended in June 2013, with his reserve status timing out two years after that. During that time he purchased land in Montana, which he eventually sold, and started utilizing the free education opportunities afforded to veterans. He became a horse farrier, studied horse massage therapy and gained certifications in permaculture and wilderness tracking. The only thing he couldnt find was a job. For nine months he received rejection after rejection, with many businesses refusing to offer even an interview. The problem is, military experience isnt quantifiable in civilian sectors, he said. I burned through my savings trying to get a job. Slead was turned down by a book store because he didnt have enough sales experience. He applied to be a security guard and was told patrolling in Iraq is not the same as patrolling a college campus. Theres a judgment when it comes to the military and everyone throws around PTSD, he said. PTSD has been around for a long time. We didnt invent it. Some people come out changed, but some people come out just as they came in. When Slead left the Army, he was assessed by Veterans Affairs. They determined he did not have post-traumatic stress disorder. Furthermore, Slead couldnt get a Veterans Affairs loan to assist him because a prerequisite of those loans is one continuous year of civilian employment, which he did not have. And all of this took place while he was still trying to transition back into a civilian lifestyle. Simple things like choosing what to wear or when to sleep can be an adjustment because, for the past six years, Slead had no say over any of those things. When I joined the Army, I had my uniqueness, but the Army likes uniformity, he said. I had to take a humorous part of me and I had to shove it down deep. I suffocated a part of me for so long that when I got out, it disappeared. For five years I had to discover who I was again. And so he did. Slead tried out new hobbies, took classes in multiple schools. He even started playing the violin, an instrument his great-great-grandfather was skilled at playing. I wanted to redefine myself, he said. Eventually, he found an opening with the TSA, which brought him to Twin Falls. He worked for the airport for seven months before moving on to other jobs. He currently works as a safety and security aid at an elementary school in town. Its a job he thoroughly enjoys, especially when it comes to working with children on conflict resolution. With Veterans Day approaching, many people are looking for ways to show their appreciation for the men and women that defend this country. Slead said hes often thanked for his service, but a thank you is not what veterans need. Appreciation is nice, but it doesnt pay the bills. For soldiers who risk their lives for the sake of this country, actions speak louder than words. What we really want is job opportunities, he said. We want you to stop thanking us for our service and just give us a shot at an interview. Let us show you what we can do. Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 TWIN FALLS Army veteran Christopher Stine was run over by a truck while serving his second tour in Iraq. Looking back, he thinks its one of his funniest memories during his nine years of service. I pull myself out from under the vehicle and I get surrounded by everybody that was there, he said. And they are looking up and down me going, wait a minute, we just saw you get run over by a vehicle, and I had no injuries. The truck was a PLS or palletized load system vehicle, weighing more than 53,000 pounds without cargo. Stine spent a lot of his military career around vehicles, serving as a diesel mechanic. He was sitting on the ground behind the vehicle attempting to get the lights to work when the backup alarm went off. I had just enough time to glance up and see the vehicle roll towards me, he said. Quick thinking saved his life. Instead of attempting to stand up, he kept his legs together and laid flat on the ground while it rolled over the top of him. After it stopped, still beneath the truck, he yelled for the driver and the ground guidance personnel to drop into the pushup position. Everyone was just in shock and awe, Stine said. Everyone was almost pale from what they thought they saw. Its one of his favorite memories to share because now he laughs at the situation and how lucky he was. Raised in Idaho, Stine joined the military straight out of high school at the age of 19. I did all of my growing up in Idaho and I was like I know there is more or a world out there, he said. And I really didnt want to go to college. After enlisting in 1999, he was shipped to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for basic training and then Maryland for individual training. His first duty station was Fort Lewis, Washington. All the way up till September 11th it was nice, I was learning my job and the military lifeways, Stine said. After 9/11 he was deployed to Iraq for his first of two tours. In between Iraq tours he spent time in Korea close to the demilitarized zone, the border separating North Korea and South Korea. Leaving the U.S. was a mixture of emotions, but going as a company made it easier. It was like, (being) scared, but not scared, at the same time, he said. Stine is part of the one in five Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who report dealing with PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder. Talking about his service does, in fact, help heal wounds of the past, he said. Granted, my wife understands that I still have some stories that she wont know about and its not that I dont trust her or love her, its just that those are deep scars, Stine said. After leaving the military, he took advantage of the GI Bill and studied at Idaho State University. Graduating with a degree in civil engineering, he now works for the Bureau of Land Management. He encourages any veteran who is contemplating going back to school to get in contact with veteran student services or veterans clubs. Resources for veterans are crucial. Stine recently joined the local Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2136. A national organization, the mission of the VFW is to foster camaraderie among veterans of overseas conflicts, provide support and advocate on behalf of all veterans. They know ways and avenues to get you to advocates, to health, to different services, he said. Veterans Day reminds Stine of the camaraderie among veterans veterans of all backgrounds, viewpoints and ways of life fighting for freedom. Its knowing that were going to stick together. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) Costs to clean up a massive nuclear weapons complex in Washington state are usually expressed in the hundreds of billions of dollars and involve decades of work. But one project on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation is progressing at a much lower price. The federal government is moving forward with the cocooning of eight plutonium production reactors at Hanford that will place them in a state of long-term storage to allow radiation inside to dissipate over a period of decades, until they can be dismantled and buried. Its relatively non-expensive, Mark French, a manager for the U.S. Department of Energy, said of cocooning. The cost of trying to dismantle the reactor and demolish the reactor core would be extremely expensive and put workers at risk. The federal government built nine nuclear reactors at Hanford to make plutonium for atomic bombs during World War II and the Cold War. The site along the Columbia River contains Americas largest quantity of radioactive waste. The reactors are now shut down and sit like cement fortresses near the southeastern Washington city of Richland. Six have already been cocooned for long-term storage, and two more are headed in that direction. The ninth reactor was turned into a museum as part of the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. While World War II ended in 1945 and the Cold War ended in 1989, the United States is still paying billions of dollars per year for the disposal of the nuclear waste produced by the atomic weapons that played a big role in ending those conflicts. The biggest expense is dealing with a massive volume of liquid wastes left over from the production of plutonium, a key ingredient in nuclear weapons. While the liquid wastes stored in 177 underground tanks will take decades of work and hundreds of billions of dollars to clean, efforts to secure the nine plutonium reactors are much closer to completion. The last two reactors, shut down in 1970 and 1971, are about to enter the cocooning stage, when they are covered with steel and cement to prevent radioactivity from escaping into the environment, French said. The cocoons are expected to last about 75 years, by which time the radioactivity inside will have dramatically decreased and there presumably will be a plan for final disposition of the remaining parts, French said. Every five years, workers enter the reactor building to make sure there are no leaks or rodent or bird infestations, he said. Cleanup of Hanford, which has about 11,000 employees and is half the size of Rhode Island, started in the late 1980s, and now costs about $2.5 billion per year. The work has been slowed by technical issues, lack of funding, lawsuits from state regulators, worker exposure to radiation and turnover of contractors on the complex job. But the handling of the old reactors is a bright spot. The nine reactors called B Reactor, C Reactor, D Reactor, DR Reactor, F Reactor, H Reactor, K-East Reactor, K-West Reactor, and N Reactor were built from 1943 through 1965. They were constructed next to the Columbia River because of the abundance of hydropower and cooling water needed by the reactors during operation. All have been cocooned except K-East and K-West. Work on cocooning the K-East reactor has already started and should be finished by 2023, French said. Work on the K-West reactor is scheduled for completion in 2026. The cocoon plan for K-East and K-West is to basically construct steel buildings around them. Each building is 158 feet (48.2 meters) long, 151 feet (46 meters) wide and 123 feet (37.5 meters) tall, French said. The two steel buildings will cost less than $10 million each. The government also operated five plutonium production reactors at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina during the Cold War. All of those are also shut down, although three of the reactor buildings are being used to store radioactive materials Two of the reactors at Savannah River are closed but under a different procedure than the Hanford reactors, said Amy Boyette, a spokeswoman for Savannah River. Future generations will decide the final disposition of the eight Hanford reactors, French said. They will likely be dismantled and buried in the central area of the Hanford site, away from the river. Robots may be deployed in the future for that work, French said. Hanford watchdogs generally agree with this process, said Tom Carpenter, director of the Seattle-based watchdog group Hanford Challenge. Nobody is raising any concerns about cocooning, Carpenter said. Were all worried about the tank waste that needs immediate and urgent attention. The bigger question is whether future generations will be willing to pay the massive costs of Hanford cleanup, he said. Carpenter said the estimated cost to completely clean up just the tank wastes at the Hanford site is around $660 billion. Its rather grim. Its multigenerational, he said. This will cost more than anyone thought possible, Carpenter said of the tank wastes and other wastes that were dumped into the ground at Hanford. Its a hidden cost of the (nuclear) buildup. By then, there might be bigger budget concerns such as dealing with the effects of climate change, Carpenter said. The most intriguing of the old reactors is the B Reactor, the first one built during World War II. It will not be cocooned, and can be visited by tourists at the national historical park. B Reactor, which shut down in 1968, was cleaned up enough to allow some 10,000 tourists to visit each year and learn the history of Hanford. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark. Plutonium from Hanfords B Reactor was used in the testing of the worlds first atomic bomb in July 1945. Called the Trinity Test, the bomb was blown up in the New Mexico desert. Hanford plutonium was also used for the bomb that was dropped over Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Ralph Waldo Emerson told about a dinner guest in his home who spent the entire evening prattling on about his belief in virtue, honesty and his own integrity: The louder he talked of his honor, Emerson wrote, the faster we counted our spoons. Today, America has not one, but six guests in our national home babbling about their integrity. They are the extremist Republican judges who now control our Supreme Court, and theyve recently been loudly proclaiming the purity of their judicial impartiality. For example, their newest cohort, Amy Coney Barrett, had barely donned her black robe of judicial authoritarianism when she suddenly blurted out at a public forum in September that this court is not comprised of a bunch of partisan hacks. Whoa better count our spoons! In fact, each of the six were installed on the court by right-wing Republicans (SET ITAL) specifically (END ITAL) because they had proven to be devout partisan hacks. Interestingly, Barrett made her unprompted and strained assertion of judicial integrity at the McConnell Center in Louisville, Kentucky a hall named for Mitch McConnell, the rabidly partisan GOP senator who pulled a fast one last year, getting Barrett nominated by then-President Donald Trump and rushing her onto the bench just before Trump was defeated and Republicans lost control of the Senate. Indeed, the person who introduced her at the McConnell Center was old Moscow Mitch himself, grinning proudly at the pure hackery of his partisan protege. Another hardcore partisan on the court, Justice Samuel Alito, whined in October that critics accuse the GOP majority of being a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its way. Well golly, Sam, yes, we do think that, because again and again you partisans sneak up on the Constitution and We the People to twist the law to fit your political biases and personal whims. If you dont want to be considered political hacks stop being political hacks. Really, what is so supreme about the Supreme Court? Yes, it is housed in an imposing marble building; its the final stop on Americas judicial train; and the nine members get to look photogenically authoritarian in those full-body black robes. And, yes, its existence is written into the Constitution but so is Congress, and no one thinks of it as anything supreme. Yes, we 330 million Americans are told we must obey the law as defined by a half-dozen unelected lawyers on the court. Why should we democratic citizens do that? After all, these legalistic elites have no actual power to force their personal beliefs on us theres no Supreme Court army and they have no taxing authority. In fact, their sole source of power is one that is intangible, extremely fragile and easily frittered away: Public trust. We should go along with their rulings only as long as they appear to be fair and honest, not based on personal whim or partisan ideology and not meant to extend plutocratic power over the people. As Justice Elena Kagan rightly put it, The only way we can get people to do what we think they should do is because people respect us. Thats where the present majority of far-right-wing appointees have failed so abjectly. Rather than meeting a lofty standard of judiciousness, all six have pulled the Supreme Court down into the mire of crass Republican politics. Theyve corrupted the system and jiggered the law to decree that corporate campaign cash is free speech, that the state can take over womens bodies, that the Republican Party can unilaterally shut millions of voters out of Americas voting booths ... and so awful much more that enthrones the few over the many. Respect? Trust? The Republican court is already down to 40% public approval rating, surrendering its legitimacy as a governing authority over us. Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes The Hightower Lowdown, a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by Americas ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org. Love 3 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2 After his time in Germany, he was an instructor at Drill Sergeant Academy, First Sergeant Advanced Course in Fort Benning, Ga. He said he remembers receiving civilians that did not know their left from their right from military standards and then 8 weeks later seeing them be proficient. I left there and went to Bemidji, Minnesota, and was an advisor from the Army to the National Guard - there for four years, then rotated to Fort Ord, California. Kipfinger said he was Post Operations Non-commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC) of the post G3 office for three years. He went back to Germany and was the Community NCOIC for Public Relations. Next, Kipfinger was in Presidio San Francisco as Post Operations in NCOIC, until his retirement. Kipfinger said he returned to Martinsville after his father had a massive stroke, to help take care of him. He bought a house in Mountain Valley for his mother, father, and sister, who have all passed away. He still lives in that house and got involved with Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and the M/HC Honor Guard. Now that the smoke has cleared from last weeks municipal election in Missoula, its time to think about where we go from here. First, congratulations to the winners! Serving in a local publicly elected role is often a thankless task, and running for office in the first place requires a thick skin and the patience of Job. We salute those who want to make Missoula a better place and have stepped up to do so. The voters were very emphatic in saying that housing, the pandemic and homelessness are the top issues. City spending is also a major topic. One clear indication of the will of the voters is that progressive candidates swept the slate. Mayor John Engen was reelected for a fifth term, all six city council winners were endorsed by the Missoula County Democratic Central Committee, and the three new municipal court judges are former public defenders who ran on a platform of a less-punitive approach. That cements Missoulas status as a progressive bastion in an increasingly red state, and gives some idea as to the philosophical approaches our elected leaders will likely take to solve problems. On homelessness, for example, we wont let unhoused people freeze to death, we wont create chain gangs for forced labor, and we wont give them bus tickets to make the problem go away. We have addressed homelessness with stopgap measures, but long-term solutions, as Engen points out, will not be achieved until we successfully confront the three challenges of housing, addiction and mental illness. Homelessness will only be solved by treating the underlying causes. Regarding the pandemic, weve shown that we are a community that cares for the public welfare. Most of us are willing to take the tough measures to make the scourge go away. If our states elected leaders would get their heads out of the sand and get out of our way, wed be in a much better place instead of the state leading the nation in per-capita COVID-19 cases. And on housing, we face an existential threat. The character of our community will drastically change if working-class people cant afford to live here. Plans are in the works to build a lot more affordable housing, but it cant go up quickly enough. The solutions (plural) will require creative thinking, community-wide buy-in and a no-obstacles-tolerated approach. Going forward, here are some other areas not to overlook GROWTH: The housing crisis is reflective of a bigger challenge Missoulas growth. A major hurdle for our new elected officials is to get accurate projections for the coming years. Are the present plans in place adequate to handle the growth from traffic, to services, to infrastructure, to recreational opportunities, to the environment or do we need to update or revamp long-range plans? INCLUSIVITY: Is Missoula a welcoming city for all? It was just the summer of 2020 when Black Lives Matters protesters gathered at the Missoula County Courthouse, some calling for the Missoula Police Department to be defunded. This last legislative session left many in Montanas LGBTQ community feeling unwelcome. Now, the community and state are split on whether to allow Afghan refugees into our state and communities. How do we ensure that Missoula is a city where all residents feel welcome and are confident they receive equitable treatment? HIGHER EDUCATION: The University of Montana, our signature institution and employer, has long had a productive relationship with the city of Missoula. It is a symbiotic relationship, for better and for worse higher enrollments help our citys economy, higher housing costs drive up the cost of attending college, and so on. We need more affordable housing for students and that needs to be addressed by the city, the Montana Legislature and Montana Board of Regents. Working with UM and Missoula College to help make this Montanas city of choice to pursue degrees, whether that be in much-needed two-year trade degrees or advanced degrees, needs now more than ever to be a focal point. THE BIGGER PICTURE: As we tackle community issues, we also need to weigh what is the citys role in confronting global issues such as climate change. Missoula prides itself on being Montanas most-progressive community, but our city needs to be a leader in actions, not just words. This editorial represents the views of the Missoulians editorial board Publisher Jim Strauss and Executive Editor Jim Van Nostrand. You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 1 Funny 3 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Will Lackey says after nearly three decades in the military, hed still sign up again tomorrow if he was needed. Lackey, 46, enlisted in the Army in 1993, the branch he would stay with for 26 years before retiring as a first sergeant. It seemed like a good way to get out and see the world and serve, in my opinion, the greatest nation on the face of the earth, Lackey said. His military service saw him deployed on the initial invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, plus another two combat tours in Iraq and some smaller deployments in Central America. A decorated soldier, Lackey has been awarded a Bronze Star, Meritorious Service Medal, an Army Commendation Medal with four oak leaf clusters, an Army Achievement Medal with three oak leaf clusters, a Global War on Terror Expeditionary Medal, a Combat Action Badge, a Presidential Unit Citation, and a Meritorious Unit Citation. Thats just a handful of the 26 medals and ribbons Lackey has received. Theres stuff that I wouldnt want to go through again, but Id sign up again tomorrow even knowing what I know now, he said. The Army gave him the chance to be a part of something bigger than himself, and bigger than anything he could accomplish on his own. The women screen mothers for post-partum depression. They make home visits. They link families with community resources for housing, transportation, food, health, employment, counseling and development services. They encourage literacy by providing books for the babies, as well as giving child-rearing books to new mothers. They help parents become more self-sufficient. They hold get-togethers with other participants, the largest their annual Christmas party. They are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The team loves what they do, they agreed. The problem is were not that visible, Carswell-Worley said. Often new parents are unaware of their existence. Anyone can make a referral, but its up to the family if they want to participate, added Carswell-Worley. Transforming experience Scott, leery of accepting help because of pride, hesitated about calling the agency. But she was 27 and had never changed a diaper or sterilized a bottle. I was afraid to make a mistake, she pointed out. Its not that babies come with instruction manuals. Someones life depended on me. I had a great fear of the unknown. Some momentous 50th birthdays occurred this year. Much to the delight of children everywhere, Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, opened its doors 50 years ago. Edith and Archie Bunker made their first television appearance in the sitcom All in the Family, and Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with Gene Wilder made its way to the big screen. On the small screen, Masterpiece Theatre premiered as well. The Eagles, an iconic rock-and-roll band, hit the airwaves for the first time, as did National Public Radio. Closer to home and more importantly, at least for Butte residents, Arctic Circle, now known as Royses, opened for business. Thats right in days gone by a place teens cruising the drag would stop by to get a lime squeeze, along with a burger and some fries has turned the big 5-0. Even better, its where generations of customers for a half-century have asked for extra fry sauce while placing small or large orders. The memories would not have come to fruition had not Bud and Donna Royse, a couple from Corvallis, Oregon, taken a chance, packed up their four children (Judy, Nancy, Doug and Dan), and hit the highway headed for Butte. According to a 1976 Montana Standard interview, Bud, a driver/salesman for Gamble-Robinson, had wanted in on the Arctic Circle franchise, a chain of burger restaurants throughout the West, for several years. It took some time, but he and Donna were able to purchase the franchises newest addition located in Butte, even though it had yet to be built. But on Nov. 5, 1971, the doors to the restaurant would open and the family-owned business had begun a legacy that has been a constant for the past five decades. By February 2008, the name of the restaurant was permanently changed to Royses. The name may have changed, but the menu and reliable service remained the same. Bud and Donna, who passed away this past July, handed over the reins to their son Dan and his wife Tracy in September 2008. According to Tracy, the older couple was ready to let go and knew the business would be in good hands. Dan and Tracy just picked up where Bud and Donna left off. The two worked side by side until Dan passed away from pancreatic cancer July 7, 2012. Dan grew up knowing the business, explained Tracy. He started when he was 6. Admittedly, the former day care and pre-school teacher had a lot to learn. She had never worked in food service before meeting Dan. Dan was the best of teachers, said Tracy. He was very patient. The two had come up with a system that worked for them Dan running the kitchen and Tracy working out front. Well meet in the middle, Dan would tell Tracy. Dan had been part of the business for so many years, there were no surprises for him. He knew all the ins and outs. Tracy did not. I didnt realize until I started working here what a tradition Royses is, she said. Its one of the Butte places to go to. Since Dans passing, Tracy has run the business, located at 2340 Harrison Ave. What Bud and Donna started 50 years ago, well they set the bar high, Tracy explained. They created a place to come to a place to meet. She has found she likes coming to work each day. This is where Dan and I connected, she explained. I cherish that. COVID has, of course, affected how Royses now does business. The restaurant, which employs 11 people, is no longer open on weekends and the dining room is closed to the public. Right now, I dont have enough staff to reopen the dining room, explained Tracy, and the hours have changed as well. The restaurant owner freely admitted COVID has made running the business challenging and she wishes things were different. She laughed as she shared a story about one woman who recently asked her why Royses is no longer open on Saturday. When Tracy truthfully explained the lack of staff, the woman told her oh, youre just lazy! Curbside delivery has become popular during the pandemic. Even then, humor can be found. The restaurant owner explained that some customers have unique answers when asked what car they are in so a worker can bring the food out. My grandmas, one young man replied. My moms, said another. Tracy laughed as she said Maybe thats what keeps us going. Despite COVID and lack of staff, Tracy wouldnt be anywhere else but Royses. This is still where I want to be, she said. This is still where I am closest to Dan. Love 12 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Add whitetail deer to the list of animals that can contract and carry COVID-19. A recently released Iowa study found about one-third of 280 captive and free-ranging deer had tested positive for the infection, raising concerns about deer being a reservoir for the virus to mutate. An estimated 30 million whitetail deer live in the United States. "What's the highlight of this research is that this is a free-ranging animal we don't have reason to suspect has any intimate human contact," Rachel Ruden, a coauthor of the paper and member of the Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine, told the Duluth News Tribune. "But they're still getting this infection." Prior to the release of the study, in early August the U.S. Department of Agricultures Animal Plant Health Inspection Service published information showing COVID-19 antibodies in 33% of 481 samples collected from deer in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania. The presence of antibodies means the animals had been exposed to the virus but not necessarily infected. We do not know how the deer were exposed to SARSCoV-2, APHIS wrote in its report. Its possible they were exposed through people, the environment, other deer, or another animal species. Then in late August APHIS confirmed COVID-19 in wild whitetails in Ohio, the first deer confirmed with the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide, the agency wrote on its website. Jennifer Ramsey, wildlife veterinarian for Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks, called the recent research concerning because theres a lot of uncertainty about how deer are getting exposed, and what this will mean for wildlife and humans over time. Caution Earlier research has revealed that other animals including cats, dogs, otters and lions held in captivity have tested positive for the virus. In the U.S. alone, the coronavirus is responsible for the deaths of 750,000 people. Worldwide, 5 million people have died from COVID-19 infections. APHIS, which also monitors diseases like brucellosis found in bison and elk in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, said there is no evidence that animals, including deer, are playing a significant role in the spread of SARS-CoV-2 to people, calling the risk low. Still, as with other wildlife diseases like brucellosis and chronic wasting disease, hunters are advised to be careful when butchering, gutting or hauling an animal theyve killed. Wearing latex gloves is advised and properly disposing of any waste material. In the instance of an animal testing positive for CWD, hunters are advised not to eat the meat. No such warning is being given for consuming an animal that tests positive for COVID-19 in Iowa, although testing for the virus has only been conducted as part of the recent research. Samples Montanas and Wyomings wildlife management agencies conduct testing for chronic wasting disease to help track and identify its spread. Testing for the always fatal infection in deer, moose and elk requires removal of glands in the animals neck the retropharyngeal lymph nodes. The same lymph nodes provide information on COVID-19 infection. So we have an archive of lymph nodes from 2019-present, and will continue to collect more throughout this season, Ramsey noted. Those archived samples could potentially be used for Covid research. The good thing is we have samples collected from both pre and post pandemic. Shes communicated with scientists at USDA, who conducted the earlier work, to see if they wanted additional samples. Although interested, there is no plan yet in place for testing wildlife for COVID-19 across the United States, Ramsey added. We will be collecting serum samples from live animals captured this winter and banking those in a serum archive assuming they can probably be used at some point for antibody testing if needed, she said. CWD The news about coronavirus infections in deer comes as states are already struggling to find funding to help fight, study and monitor chronic wasting disease. Chronic wasting disease is one of the greatest threats facing deer, elk, and moose populations across the country, jeopardizing hunting opportunities, ecosystems, and our nations outdoor economy, Mike Leahy, director for wildlife, hunting, and fishing policy for the National Wildlife Federation, said in a press release. Recently introduced legislation, the Chronic Wasting Disease Research and Management Act, would help fund research that has so far been piecemeal. The bill would allocate $35 million each to research and management efforts and requires 75% of the management funding be directed to state and tribal wildlife agencies, according to the Boone and Crockett Club. The research could include the development of live animal or environmental testing and ways to decontaminate infectious prions, the misfolded proteins that cause the disease. Chronic wasting disease is a significant threat to many of our countrys native big game species, a challenge that affects both future hunting opportunity and the health of these ecologically important wildlife species, said James Arnold, president of the Boone and Crockett Club, in a press release. So far CWD has spread to 26 states and three Canadian provinces, as well as Sweden, Norway, Finland and South Korea. Testing Even without congressional funding, recent advances are being made in CWD research. A study at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Hamilton identified a field test for live deer to detect CWD. This is important since the disease can take up to two years before an animal shows symptoms or dies. Using similar technology, the University of Minnesota has developed a test to identify CWD in cuts of meat from infected deer. Montana and Wyoming hunters are encouraged to submit the heads from any deer, elk and moose they kill during hunting season to state wildlife agencies for free CWD testing. A list of sampling stations can be found online and include game check stations in both states. Montana and Wyoming hunters can also take the samples themselves (directions can be found online), fill out the hunter submission form available on FWPs or Wyoming Game and Fish Departments website and mail the samples in. Results will take two weeks in Montana, three weeks in Wyoming, although the processing there can be sped up with a $30 fee. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. (AP) The leader of the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. signed legislation Saturday to ban indoor smoking in many locations, including the tribe's casinos. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez called the ban a "monumental achievement and bold step in the right direction to promote healthy living among our Navajo people. It is a fundamental right to protect our Navajo peoples right to breathe clean air," he said in a statement. Tribal lawmakers approved the bill in October that prohibits the use of cigarettes, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and other commercial products in public buildings and workspaces, including a 25-foot (7.6-meter) buffer outdoors. The ban will not apply to the ceremonial use of tobacco or in people's homes unless they are being used as day care centers, adult care centers or as business offices. Nez had until Sunday evening to act on the legislation. Enactment of the ban followed 13 years of work by a coalition to educate the public on the dangers of secondhand smoke. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has called a meeting with South Africas mobile network operators to settle an acrimonious dispute over precious cellular network capacity. TechCentral reported on Saturday that Icasa hopes to broker an agreement before the matter heads to court on 16 November. Icasa is currently facing legal challenges from Telkom and MTN, which filed papers in the Pretoria High Court when the regulator announced plans to claw back radio frequency spectrum assigned at the start of South Africas Covid19 epidemic as an emergency measure. Spectrum represents raw network capacity and is the lifeblood of wireless carriers, especially mobile network operators. Icasa instructed network operators to give back the spectrum by 30 November, and gave them three months to decommission the services they launched in the temporary frequency bands. To de-escalate the situation, Icasa CEO Willington Ngwepe reportedly sent letters to Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, Liquid Intelligent Technologies, and Rain, inviting them to an online meeting on Monday at 14:00. MyBroadband has independently confirmed that the meeting is taking place. Icasa has proposed an amendment to the current Covid19 regulations that radio frequency spectrum issued on an emergency basis be re-issued under a new provisional assignment scheme. The new applications will cover the 700MHz, 800MHz, 2300MHz, 2600MHz and 3500MHz spectrum bands. Icasas proposal is in-line with communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavhenis comments in October that government was considering interim spectrum assignments to bridge the gap between the end of November and March next year. March 2022 is a significant date because thats when Icasa hopes to have concluded an auction and licensing for the sought-after spectrum. Ntshavheni explained at the time that many legal complexities need to be navigated for such an interim spectrum proposal, and that Icasa would have to agree to it. The temporary spectrum was assigned in April 2020 to help mobile networks cope with the anticipated influx of data traffic on their networks as people were told to isolate themselves at home. Icasa handed out unused spectrum without going through the usual formal application process. As expected, data traffic on South Africas mobile networks grew substantially. MTN told MyBroadband that over the last 18-months, data consumption on its network has more than doubled in volume. The operator said data volumes jumped during the initial Alert Level 5 lockdown restrictions, especially in the day, compared to pre-lockdown trends. Even as lockdown restrictions eased, the growth in traffic on its network continued to increase, MTN said. Vodacom said that it saw the same trend on its network. Telkom told MyBroadband that its mobile network data traffic jumped from almost 72 petabytes (1.024 million gigabytes) in March 2020 to more than 87PB in April 2020. This set a new growth baseline in the network, with four months in 2021 exceeding 85PB by August 2021, said Telkom. On average, the monthly data traffic on Telkom Mobiles network has grown approximately 70% year-on-year compared with pre-Covid19 levels. Even though demand for data remains high, and that experts forecast that South Africa would experience a fourth wave of Covid19 from the start of December, Icasa announced that it was taking back the temporary spectrum. At the same time, Icasa conceded defeat in its legal battle with Telkom, MTN, and E-TV owner eMedia over specifics in its plans to permanently licence the spectrum. MTN, Telkom, and Vodacom immediately warned that Icasas decision to take back the temporary spectrum would have dire consequences. Icasa doubled down on its decision, setting the stage for another set of legal battles with Telkom and MTN. Not all network operators agree, though. Rain has backed Icasa, saying that there is a danger that the temporary spectrum assignments would become de facto permanent as Icasas attempts to licence spectrum permanently are constantly being challenged in court. Rain explained that Icasa handed out the emergency spectrum without considering the competitive implications for South Africas cellular industry because it was always meant to be temporary. For example, Rain was at a disadvantage because it did not ask for lower frequency 700MHz and 800MHz spectrum, which the major players in the market are now hoarding. If the temporary assignments effectively become permanent, Rain will be at a significant disadvantage to established operators like Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom. Rain said that one of the compromises it would consider is asking operators to re-apply for the temporary spectrum. This way, Rain and Telkom could have a chance to gain access to lower frequency spectrum that they dont currently have. The 6.0 magnitude South Napa earthquake tore through city streets and busted up buildings more than seven years ago, leaving scenes of destruction that have persisted for years throughout downtown Napa. But most of the damage caused by the quake isnt apparent today. Many of the damaged buildings have been either repaired or demolished. Those visible earthquake wounds arent entirely gone yet, however, because three major damaged downtown Napa buildings are still vacant, and have remained stuck in largely the same state for years. Quality journalism doesn't happen without your help. Subscribe today! Support local news coverage and the people who report it by subscribing to the Napa Valley Register. Special offer: $5 for your first 5 months! The 1933 Art Deco Franklin Station post office building, located at 1351 second St. in downtown Napa, is perhaps the most visibly prominent reminder of earthquake damage. The building now has a planned future as part of a 175,000-square-foot, five-story, 156-key hotel. That wasnt always the case: facing an estimated repair bill of $8 million, the U.S. Postal Service originally considered razing the building for a half-million dollars. But, after considerable outcry from Napa residents, the federal government put the building up for sale. Napa developer Jim Keller bought it for $2 million in 2017. Kellers plans to build the hotel have gradually moved forward, and were approved by the Napa City Council in 2018. But progress has stalled out for nearly the past two years because of the pandemic, Keller said in an email. Several approved Napa projects have faced delays related to the pandemic, including the proposed 253-room Marriott Hotel in the Napa Valley Commons, and a proposed four-story building at First and Main Streets formerly attached to Bounty Hunter Rare Wine & Spirits. (The Main Street building would fill an empty lot that previously held the earthquake-damaged Don Perico and Tuscany restaurants.) But hospitality has rebounded powerfully in Napa, Keller wrote, and hes hoping to have something to announce publicly about the hotel project in the near future. Unfortunately this caused a pause in progress by a year plus, but provided time to re-evaluate the project with new plans and programming, which should make for a better project, Keller said in an email. The 19th century Center building at Third and Brown streets is another historic building that suffered serious damage and has remained vacant since the 2014 earthquake. Owner Brian Silver stabilized the building in 2015, but hasnt repaired it for occupancy. Silver said in an interview that he plans to eventually incorporate a renovated Center building with surrounding buildings, a project which would also involve building a replication of a Napa Masonic Temple demolished in the early 1970s to make room for the Second Street Parking Garage. That project would also involve rebuilding the York building next door to the Center building, Silver said, which was demolished about a year after the earthquake. The finished project would help bring tourists to downtown Napa, he added. Silver has had this plan at least since 2017, according to a Register article that year about lingering damage from the earthquake. The Center building was included in a Napa County Landmarks 10 Threatened Treasures list last year. According to the list, Landmarks board members have been told Silver has an architect for a planned rehabilitation, but no apparent progress has yet been made. Napa Mayor Scott Sedgley said Silver hasnt yet submitted any plans to the city related to rehabilitating the building. Napa quake wounds remain on 5th anniversary Wounds both visible and invisible remain on the fifth anniversary of the 2014 earthquake that delivered a heavy blow to Napa. If the owner is unwilling to get that project moving, I imagine there will have to be some form of action to try to get something going there, Sedgley said. Despite the severe damage to many historic properties, perhaps the greatest lingering impact of the earthquake was the loss of a downtown grocery store. Napas former downtown Safeway, located at 1620 Clay St, remains shuttered seven years after first closing down as a result of the earthquake. Theres been interest from developers in transforming the site into affordable or mixed income housing, possibly including a grocery store at the bottom of the building, said city development project coordinator Neal Harrison. But whether a project actually happens will depend on whether property owner Hagstrom Properties negotiates a deal to either sell the property or commit to a joint venture with a developer. Its looked like it looks now for seven years, said city community development director Vin Smith. And thats kind of long enough. Safeway is still under lease for the property, and will be for several more years. A 2016 story said Safeways lease stretches for more than 10 years, putting the end of the lease at around 2026. Sedgley said he talked with Safeway executives when the Napa City Council was debating requiring larger grocery stores pay hazard pay during the pandemic. They told him the property owner refused to negotiate a buy-out of the lease, he said. According to city representatives in a 2016 Register article, Safeway is requiring a non-compete clause to prevent another grocery store from opening at the space before they allow the building to be released to a new tenant. Former downtown Napa Safeway site languishes since 2014 earthquake Soil contamination from a dry cleaners that once operated next door is being cleaned up. Urban legend was that Safeway had kept it vacant to avoid competition. Thats the furthest thing from the truth, Sedgley said. The fact that the building is privately held and the owners, they refused to negotiate a buy-out of the lease. Safeway is legally bound to this lease and the owners are comfortable just having whatever monthly payment comes out on that. A representative of Hagstrom Properties didnt respond to a request for comment. A Safeway representative said in an email: We continue to market the former downtown Napa store for sublease to both grocery and non-grocery retail tenants. At this time, its premature to comment or disclose the status given the confidential nature of any business negotiation. Smith said hes been making efforts to encourage conversations between the property owners and possible developers of the Safeway site. A number of businesses interested in the site have come and gone over the years, he said, but the property owners havent been willing to work with them. Its a long-time family ownership, Smith said. I would imagine the money that theyre making is providing for some comfortable lifestyles and so they dont want those amended. I get that but were kind of at the point where were really anxious to see something better happen with that site than whats been happening for the last seven years. Environmental remediation related to a former dry-cleaning site next door is ongoing, but Harrison said the cleanup appears to be on the right track, according to conversations he's had with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, the responsible agency. Harrison said a healthy downtown includes housing and walkability, which involves people having access to needed goods and services within walking distance of where they live. Right now, he said, people living downtown generally have to drive to buy groceries. That means traffic is increased, which isnt good for the environment and makes the downtown a less attractive place to live, Harrison said. I think theres several properties around downtown or so that are just a little stuck, Harrison said. You have the situation here where Safeway still has several years left on their lease; theyre obligated because they have a lease to continue to pay. The property owner is getting money from that and doesnt have to do anything. And then you have developers that are coming in, circling, being like, hey this is a great site. You have a city and a community that wants to see more housing, wants to see a grocery store back in, but theres limited amounts of things that the city can and wants to do to a private property, Harrison added. Were not going to, at this point, do anything super drastic, nor would we want to. So its just sort of stuck. You can reach Edward Booth at (707) 256-2213. Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Japan concerned over joint air patrols of Russia and China near country's borders In Mexico, 600 migrants were found in two trucks US is going to build a nuclear power plant on the moon Biden's son helps Chinese company buy mine in Africa China lowers level of diplomatic relations with Lithuania Russia and US confirm their intentions to send joint mission to Venus Putin and Pashinyan discuss situation in Nagorno-Karabakh and measures to stabilize it Honored Art Worker of Armenia, composer Ruben Altunyan passes away 492 new cases of coronavirus confirmed in Armenia Armenian Foreign Minister and Otto Luchterhandt discuss Nagorno-Karabakh settlement Armenian contract soldier dies amid violation of rules for handling weapons Man, 29, jumps from Yerevan bridge Armenia MFA confirms PM Pashinyan's readiness to meet with Azerbaijans Aliyev on December 15 Quake shakes coast of Vanuatu State minister: Nationwide quarantine, specific restrictions planned to be imposed in Karabakh Artsakh President convenes National Security Service consultation Opposition MP: Armenia FM stated that Turkey has proposed new precondition: corridor Armenia military expert: US Embassy warns its citizens to avoid Karahunj-Davit Bek, Kapan-Chakaten road sections Armenia opposition MP: Air carrier operating flights from Syunik Province cannot have any security guarantees Singapore is good example for Armenia, says President Sarkissian Iran seizes foreign ship in Persian Gulf 2 Azerbaijanis injured in anti-tank mine explosion at Karabakh conflict zone US, Turkey presidential advisors discuss situation in South Caucasus Synopsys boss pays tribute to Armenian Genocide victims Russia peacekeepers escort 15 convoys to, from Artsakh in one week Catholicos Karekin II to Patriarch Kirill: We appreciate your warm attitude towards Armenian Church, people China fines Alibaba for violating antitrust law 36 new cases of coronavirus reported in Karabakh UK Premier Johnson considering boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics Artsakh President visits Askeran city, meets with regional capitals youth President to Russia Patriarch: Armenian people highly value your efforts aimed at achieving peace in our region 870 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia 8 injured in tragic accident on Yerevan-Gyumri motorway are discharged from hospital China, Russia, US agree to promote political dialogue on Iran Azerbaijan mother, son commit suicide on same day One pedestrian dies on the spot, other hospitalized after hit by car in Armenia village area US beauty consultant is accused of killing woman by injecting silicone into her butt Brazil Amazon deforestation reaches highest level in 15 years Newspaper: Armenia soldiers are prohibited from filming episodes from their service, posting them on internet Newspaper: Armenia opposition is forming large-scale resistance network Armenia President visits National University of Singapore Gia, wanted by French law-enforcement authorities, found at Armenia's Bagratashen checkpoint Leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia agree to meet in Brussels European Council: Pashinyan and Aliyev agreed to establish direct communication line at level of defense ministers Armenia's Representative to OSCE speaks about Azerbaijan's recent attack at Permanent Council's session Armenia serviceman Meruzhan Harutyunyan, killed in Syunik Province, was buried at Yerablur Military Pantheon Armenian News-NEWS.am's special report: Drive from Kapan to Tchakatashen is 150 km instead of previous 8 km 3 Armenian servicemen killed during Nov. 16 Azerbaijani attack posthumously awarded presidential medals Left-wing trade unions hold protest against Turkey's Erdogan in Izmir Armenia FM presents situation following Azerbaijani attack during meeting with Lithuanian Seimas Vice-President Armenia delegation covers Azerbaijan's Nov. 16 attack during online meeting of CSTO PA Permanent Commissions Armenia PM receives delegation led by Vice President of Lithuanian Seimas Lavrov, Cavusoglu discuss bilateral ties and regional issues Karabakh: Azerbaijani side, in Shushi, transfers bodies of 3 Armenian soldiers killed on Nov. 16 NEWS.am daily digest: 19.11.21 Armenian Embassy in Russia: Armenia citizens - mother and child - evacuated from Afghanistan Georgia refuses to be a part of '3+3' format with regard to South Caucasus The occupied Hadrut of our days (PHOTOS) Arabologist: Photo of map of Turkic world shown by Erdogan and Bahceli is simply a gift for Armenian diplomacy Situation is tense in Armenia's Kasakh, residents protesting against acting village head (LIVE) Opposition With Honor legislature faction MP: No one knows if Armenia petitioned to Russia for military assistance Armenia opposition MP: There is a threat that Baku will always get what it wants through use of force Lavrov is certain that the Russia-Armenia-Azerbaijan summit will take place Ann Linde: OSCE working very closely with Russia to resolve Karabakh conflict Karabakh FM congratulates newly appointed Abkhazia counterpart Dollar relatively stable in Armenia Armenia parliament majority members do not deny possibility of exchange of territories with Azerbaijan Armenia ruling party MP: Public and competent authorities need to know circumstances behind captures of soldiers Armenia ruling party MP assures that situation on the border is currently stable Armenia ruling party MP: Confidentiality of process of preparing for demarcation is strictly necessary Armenia PM: Citizens of EEU countries will be able to receive loans in all territories of member states Armenian serviceman, 19, dies in Georgia's Akhalkalaki Armenia legislature majority faction lawmaker: Russia military intervention is not end in itself High commissioner: Diaspora is considering ways to help hundreds of Ethiopia Armenians Opposition With Honor parliament faction: Armenia authorities trying to push territorial losses issue to backburner Legislature majority faction MP: Armenia authorities do not make any demands on Russia Opposition Armenia Faction in parliament: Authorities are unable to distinguish between priority and secondary issues 3 more die of coronavirus in Artsakh Bruno Retailleau: France must support Armenia more firmly against aggressions by Azerbaijan Armenia parliament majority faction: Border delimitation preparation process will start from point zero PM: Armenia exports to other EEU countries increased by 27.8% Armenias Pashinyan: Azerbaijan provocations are aimed at disrupting arrangements reached by trilateral statements California Armenian couple accused of fraud flee leaving their 3 children behind 799 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia Katherine Clark: Azerbaijan must acknowledge and respect Armenian sovereignty Eurasian Intergovernmental Council enlarged meeting underway in Yerevan Russia peacekeepers patrol along Karabakh border delimitation line MOD: According to current data Armenia has 6 military casualties as result of Tuesdays attack by Azerbaijan Turkish Islamic preachers organization denies reports of his death Newspaper: What happened to missing Armenia soldiers during recent hostilities? Armenia MOD dismisses reports about not allowing officers with higher rank than major to go up to combat positions US virtually completes development of new tactical nuclear gravity bomb B61-12 Newspaper: Officers with higher rank than major not allowed to combat positions during recent hostilities in Syunik Opposition MP: Granting corridor to Azerbaijan through Syunik Province will be gravest crime against Armenia US Department of State representative says why Azerbaijan is not invited to Summit for Democracy Armenian human rights activists to submit letters to ECHR regarding soldiers captured and considered missing Armenia FM stresses importance of addressable response to Azerbaijan's actions during talk with Greek counterpart Ex-ruling party official: Armenia authorities found reason for MOD's resignation after his visit to Karabakh Republican Party of Armenia spokesperson: Nikol Pashinyan gave a confessional testimony in parliament yesterday Armenia President talks about states' collective responsibility at Bloomberg New Economy Forum Austin Lane, chancellor of SIU Carbondale, and Loretta Graham, chief executive officer of Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois, sign a memorandum of agreement that will provide opportunities for girls. SIU Carbondale, Girl Scouts pact opens opportunities for girls CARBONDALE, Ill. An agreement between Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois will provide mentoring and educational opportunities, summer camps and potential scholarships for junior high and high school students and encourage them to pursue STEM careers. On Monday, Oct. 25, Austin Lane, chancellor of SIU Carbondale, and Loretta Graham, chief executive officer of Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois, signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA), which will help diversify STEM fields. Nationwide, women made up 29% of those employed in science and engineering occupations in 2017. The MOA fits well with SIU Carbondales Imagine 2030 strategic plan, which include pillars to foster student success, support diversity, equity and inclusion, and build partnerships, Lane said. We are excited to partner with Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois and to encourage these young ladies to imagine themselves pursuing a college education and making an impact after they graduate, particularly in STEM fields, he said. With this agreement, we can reach out to them as young as junior high and plant the seed early. We hope they will see that a world-class education, personal attention and unique, hands-on learning opportunities are in their backyard. This is SIUs fifth agreement this year with a school district or youth organization. It is similar to those with Carbondale Elementary School District No. 95, Girls Inc. of St. Louis, East St. Louis School District 189 and Cahokia Unit School District No. 187. One of every seven school aged girls in Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois 40-county mostly rural jurisdiction is a Girl Scout. The four pillars of Girl Scouting are STEM, life skills, entrepreneurship and the outdoors. I am excited to work in partnership with Southern Illinois University in providing opportunities for Girl Scouts within Southern Illinois to gain exposure, teaching, mentoring, program and scholarship opportunities with Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Graham said. Through this partnership, we are building girls of courage, confidence and character, who make the world a better place. The agreement includes: EU ambassador to discuss challenges, opportunities next week CARBONDALE, Ill. Stavros Lambrinidis, the European Unions ambassador to the United States, is the next guest in a series of virtual conversations hosted by Southern Illinois University Carbondales Paul Simon Public Policy Institute. Lambrinidis will join John Shaw, institute director, at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Nov. 2. In addition to discussing the EUs relationship with the U.S. and the EUs challenges and opportunities, Shaw will also ask the ambassador about his nearly 30-year career in public service and government. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required to receive the link to the Zoom webinar. More information and registration is at paulsimoninstitute.org. Lambrinidis was appointed EU ambassador to the U.S. in March 2019. He previously served as the EUs special representative for human rights, as foreign affairs minister for Greece, and was elected twice as a member of the European Parliament where he served in a variety of leadership roles. A native of Athens, Greece, Lambrinidis started his career in the 1980s as an attorney in Washington, D.C., specializing in international trade. Ambassador Lambrinidis is one of the most respected and engaging diplomats in Washington, D.C., Shaw said. We are eager to learn more about his career and the European Unions important role in global affairs during this turbulent time. The event is part of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institutes Understanding Our New World virtual conversation series with government and private sector leaders, policy experts, political analysts, authors and journalists. Attendees are encouraged to submit a question for Lambrinidis with their registration or send questions to paulsimoninstitute@siu.edu. Jia Liu, associate professor of civil engineering, second from left, works with graduate students Sushmita Regmi, Nafeesa Khan and Sudip Baral, left to right, in her laboratory at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The group is working with a second round of funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop a process that uses light to remove a contaminant from water. (Photo by Russell Bailey) SIU nets $44.7M in research grants and contracts in 2020-21 by Tim Crosby CARBONDALE, Ill. Southern Illinois University Carbondale in the last fiscal year remained a powerhouse of research, funded by millions of dollars in grants and contracts from government and private sources. Despite the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty researchers on the Carbondale campus brought in more than $44.7 million in outside research and service-based grants and contracts. That amount was an increase of more than $7 million beyond the previous five years following the state budget impasse. The success kept SIU firmly included among Carnegie doctoral research universities in the country, as well as cementing it as the top-ranked high research activity institution in its class in Illinois. Gary Kinsel, vice chancellor for research at SIU, said that the funding does much more than allow faculty to pursue their individual interests. These research dollars provide both graduate and undergraduate students opportunities to experience career-relevant, faculty-mentored research, service and scholarly work outside routine classroom instruction, Kinsel said, and undergraduates get opportunities often reserved for grad students elsewhere. Ultimately, such experiences can have life-changing impacts on the future ambitions of these students. The $44.7 million total excludes another $20.9 million the university received in one-time federal Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) as well as $16.5 million in external awards received by the SIU School of Medicine in Springfield. If all funding is combined, the total external funds received in fiscal year 2021 (July 2020-June 2021) was $82.1 million. System-wide, SIU also ranks highly for its size in one important market value measurement of its research, Kinsel said. In terms of raw intellectual property licensing income, the SIU System ranks about 100th of all university systems including many with much larger research expenditures that were included in a 2020 report by the Association of University Technology Managers. However, if that income is divided by research expenditures to find a return on investment, the SIU university system would find itself in the top 50 of those rankings, Kinsel said. I interpret this to mean that, despite our smaller footprint, the work our faculty is doing has remarkable market value, Kinsel said. The funding pays for important research and public service efforts on behalf of SIU faculty researchers. Among those projects last year were: Keith Gagnon and Koushik Sinhas $360,000 grant for a genome survey of the SARS-CoVID-2 viruses collected in the Chicago area, which led to early identification of a particular mutation of the virus that was rapidly spreading through the country and brought both national and international attention to research on campus. Research grants in the areas of fish and wildlife management totaled $5.65 million in awards given to the Cooperative Wildlife Research Laboratory and the Center for Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences. One notable award in this area was a $1.4 million grant for Assessing and Improving Harvest as a Control Measure for Bigheaded Carp in the Wabash River Basin, a study headed by Jim Garvey, David Coulter and Alison Coulter. The School of Education received $19.5 million for a broad range of services from early childhood development, to Head Start programs, to health education and other awards. One notable award in this area and also a collaboration within the SIU System was a $2.65 million Illinois Science Assessment Partnership-Item Development and Scoring, headed by Harvey Henson. The SIU Research Park and the Office of Innovation and Economic Development continued to provide confidential business consulting to emerging and expanding businesses, as well as training and development opportunities. These services directly support economic development in the Southern Illinois region and across the state. One notable award in this area was a $1.07 million grant for the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center FY2021, headed by Lynn Andersen Lindberg. Agricultural research efforts totaled more than $4.03 million from various state agencies and private foundations, as well as numerous commercial partners such as Monsanto, BASF and Syngenta, among others. One notable award in this area was a $31,000 grant for Oilseed Pennycress A new cash cover-crop for the Midwest (I-PREFER), headed by Jason Bond, Ahmad Fakhoury and Dane Hunter. Basic research in the College of Science (now part of the College of Agricultural, Life and Physical Sciences), the College of Engineering (now part of the College of Engineering, Computing, Technology, and Mathematics), and the School of Medicine on the Carbondale campus collectively brought in $5.28 million in research grants. Notable awards in this area included a $328,000 grant for Ultrafast Dynamics in Enzyme Catalysis, led by Sean Moran, and a $442,000 grant for Single-Molecule Approaches to Study Epiblast Stem Cell Fate Decision, led by Farhan Chowdhury. Alan Walters, professor of vegetable science at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, works in one of the high tunnels he uses to grow butterhead lettuce. Walters recently set out to investigate the potential for farmers to bring butterhead lettuce to local tables, using such growing facilities to get a jump on springtime planting. (Photo by Yenitza Melgoza) Alan Walters, professor of vegetable science at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, works in one of the high tunnels he uses to grow butterhead lettuce. Walters recently set out to investigate the potential for farmers to bring butterhead lettuce to local tables, using such growing facilities to get a jump on springtime planting. (Photo by Yenitza Melgoza) Soprano Monica Dewey to perform at Shryock Auditorium Nov. 6 by Pete Rosenbery CARBONDALE, Ill. Acclaimed soprano Monica Dewey is the featured artist for the 2021 Art Song Festival next month hosted by Southern Illinois University Carbondales School of Music. As part of her visit to campus Nov. 5-6, Dewey will present a recital at 3 p.m. Nov. 6 in Shryock Auditorium. The recital is free and the public is welcome to attend. SIU is committed to protecting the community, so all those attending must follow current campus and state pandemic safety protocols and wear masks in shared indoor spaces. Dewey will be performing works by French mezzo-soprano and composer, Pauline Viardot, French composer Maurice Ravel and American classical composer Libby Larsen. She will be accompanied by Barbara Noyes, collaborative pianist with the School of Music. On Nov. 5, Dewey will be on campus giving a masterclass with several SIU voice students, said Brittany Benningfield, a lecturer in the School of Music. Deweys visit if funded by the SIU Fine Arts Activity Fee. Having Ms. Dewey on campus is exciting because she is an acclaimed international soprano and a wonderful teaching artist, Benningfield said. Her love for the art form spills over into her work with students and her colleagues. Our students will learn about vocal technique, how to move on stage, and receive some behind-the-scenes tips and tricks for opera performance from someone who actually walks the walk. Additionally, the fact that they get to work with her at no cost is outstanding. Dewey is described by Opera News as having an endearing timbre bursting with warmth as close to perfect as opera gets. Her credits include the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, San Francisco Opera, and Michigan Opera Theatre. For the 2021-2022 season, Dewey will join the roster of the Metropolitan Opera in their productions of Ariadne auf Naxos, Rigoletto, and Brett Deans Hamlet. Dewey received a bachelor's degree in music and arts administration from the University of Kentucky and a master of music from Indiana University. She was awarded the Georgina Joshi International Fellowship and worked as an associate instructor of voice while at Indiana. For more information, contact the School of Music at music@siu.edu or 618-536-8742. SIUs Arianna Goss earns McGaw health administration scholarship by Christi Mathis CARBONDALE, Ill. Arianna Goss, a junior in Southern Illinois University Carbondales Health Care Management program, is the recipient of the 2021 Foster G. McGaw Scholarship from the Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA). Goss, who also has minors in Long Term Care Administration and Health Information and Informatics and in communication studies, is on track to complete her bachelors degree in May 2023. She then plans to pursue a career in health law or public health. Ms. Goss is an exceptional student and shows great promise as a future health care leader, said Sandra Collins, professor and program director of health care management. Active Saluki Goss, of Sainte Marie, Illinois, is involved in a variety of activities on campus and excels academically. The daughter of Larry and Christina Goss, Arianna is an Undergraduate Student Government senator at large and active in the University Honors program, the Chancellors Scholars program and the Researched Enriched Academic Challenge (REACH) program. She is also a member of the Student Health Advisory Board, the Student Legal Board of Directors and the Committee on Umbrella and Constituency Organizations. Goss is a leader as well, serving as vice president of administration for the Delta Zeta sorority, director of communications for the honors assembly and as president of the Student Healthcare Management Association. She also works as a remote English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher for Palfish, a company based in Beijing, China. Along with juggling all of these activities, interests and duties, Goss has also managed to earn a spot on the deans list every semester. Evolutionary experience Goss has been enjoying her college experience and said her involvement has diversified my skillset and connections around campus. Goss said she was drawn to SIU because of its beautiful campus, affordability, the quality accredited HCM program, her scholarship and other opportunities. She is open to any opportunities to learn and evolve. My interests are heavily aligned with public health, community outreach and health education, but I love exploring the numerous paths available to my major. Program has supported hundreds The McGaw Award includes a $500 prize. The scholarship is presented annually by AUPHA to support undergraduate and graduate students in the field of health administration. Since the award was established in 1975, more than 900 awards have been presented. Foster G. McGaw, founder of the American Hospital Supply Corporation, endowed the scholarship award because he recognized the importance of health administration education and AUPHAs contributions to the field. University faculty recommend students for the award. (Releads with Johnson call with Kadhimi) LONDON, Nov 7 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi on Sunday he strongly condemned an attack on his home in Baghdad, Johnson's office said. Kadhimi escaped unharmed in an assassination attempt by armed drone in Baghdad, officials said on Sunday, an incident that raised tension in the country weeks after a general election disputed by Iran-backed militia groups. "He strongly condemned the attack on the prime ministers home in Baghdad and offered his sympathies to those injured," Johnson's office said following a call between the pair. "He made clear that the UK stands by the Iraqi people and supports Prime Minister Khadimis efforts to form a government following elections, which is vital for the long term stability of Iraq." Earlier on Sunday foreign secretary Liz Truss said Britain supported Kadhimi's call for calm and restraint. (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Catherine Evans and Edmund Blair) Palestinian digital activists say social media platforms, especially Facebook and Instagram, have censored criticism of Israel in response to government pressure. Now, they're launching a campaign to bring attention to their cause. Social media user Tala Ghannam says she's among those affected. "When they used to remove my posts or reduce the reach of my stories, I felt that I didn't have even the basic rights to freedom of opinion, I didn't have freedom of expression. I felt that I was being chased (online) and that it was a violation of my rights - my basic right of expression. The right to express an opinion. I can't understand how the words 'Save Sheikh Jarrah' for example, could be harmful, or against the guidelines for any social media website." The student claims her posts have been removed from Facebook and Instagram for violating community guidelines, especially those tagged "#SaveSheikhJarrah" in support of Palestinian families at risk of eviction. The 7amleh digital rights organisation launched a website on Monday (November 1) saying it has documented 746 rights violations so far this year. Ahmad Qadi, monitoring and documentation coordinator at 7amleh, says the group is ''aiming to change the policies of the different social media platforms''. Facebook responded to a request for comment by referring to the work of its independent Oversight Board. The board called in September for moderation of Arabic and Hebrew content to be reviewed for potential bias. The company said it would implement recommendations from that review. Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (L) and Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo are seen at the Eastside Heliport in Midtown on August 10, 2021 in New York City. Gotham/GC Images via Getty Andrew Cuomo's daughter shared a post dismissing her father's sexual-assault allegations as a "manufacture #MeToo-style PR offensive." The Substack post describes the allegations, which led to Cuomo's resignation, as "curiously choreographed." Michaela Cuomo-Kennedy, 24, campaigned against sexual assault while at college, according to her LinkedIn. The youngest daughter of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo has shared an article dismissing her father's sexual-assault scandal, which led to his resignation, as a "manufactured #MeToo-style PR offensive," the New York Post reported. Michaela Kennedy-Cuomo, 24, shared a Substack post titled "Unprecedented Abuse Of Power: What The Media Still Isn't Telling You About The Cuomo Debacle" on her Twitter account on Friday. "Finally. Please read," Kennedy-Cuomo tweeted to her 5,700 followers. The post, self-published by journalist Michael Tracey, describes sexual assault allegations against Cuomo as "curiously choreographed." It also suggests that New York State Attorney General Letitia James had a "conflict of interest" in launching an independent investigation into Cuomo's alleged wrongdoing because she is running for governor. The independent investigation found that Cuomo sexually harassed nearly a dozen women, Insider previously reported. Cuomo rejected the sexual misconduct allegations by 11 women in a 165-page report released by James in August. The post also said that the "anti-Cuomo putsch" was "spearheaded by people with manifestly dubious motives." Kennedy-Cuomo, who describes herself as an "experienced social activist" on her LinkedIn profile, has previously campaigned against sexual assault while a student. According to her LinkedIn, she was the founder and president of "CUSP: Cultivating Upstandares for Sexual Assault Prevention" - a Brown University club that "identifies the attitudes and behaviors in a given community that allows sexual assault to occur." Insider reached out to Kennedy-Cuomo for comment, but did not immediately receive a response. Read the original article on Business Insider There are a few key trends to look for if we want to identify the next multi-bagger. Ideally, a business will show two trends; firstly a growing return on capital employed (ROCE) and secondly, an increasing amount of capital employed. This shows us that it's a compounding machine, able to continually reinvest its earnings back into the business and generate higher returns. With that in mind, the ROCE of ARB (ASX:ARB) looks attractive right now, so lets see what the trend of returns can tell us. Return On Capital Employed (ROCE): What is it? For those that aren't sure what ROCE is, it measures the amount of pre-tax profits a company can generate from the capital employed in its business. Analysts use this formula to calculate it for ARB: Return on Capital Employed = Earnings Before Interest and Tax (EBIT) (Total Assets - Current Liabilities) 0.28 = AU$152m (AU$658m - AU$113m) (Based on the trailing twelve months to June 2021). So, ARB has an ROCE of 28%. That's a fantastic return and not only that, it outpaces the average of 17% earned by companies in a similar industry. View our latest analysis for ARB roce Above you can see how the current ROCE for ARB compares to its prior returns on capital, but there's only so much you can tell from the past. If you'd like to see what analysts are forecasting going forward, you should check out our free report for ARB. How Are Returns Trending? ARB deserves to be commended in regards to it's returns. Over the past five years, ROCE has remained relatively flat at around 28% and the business has deployed 117% more capital into its operations. Returns like this are the envy of most businesses and given it has repeatedly reinvested at these rates, that's even better. If these trends can continue, it wouldn't surprise us if the company became a multi-bagger. What We Can Learn From ARB's ROCE ARB has demonstrated its proficiency by generating high returns on increasing amounts of capital employed, which we're thrilled about. And the stock has done incredibly well with a 244% return over the last five years, so long term investors are no doubt ecstatic with that result. So while investors seem to be recognizing these promising trends, we still believe the stock deserves further research. Story continues Before jumping to any conclusions though, we need to know what value we're getting for the current share price. That's where you can check out our FREE intrinsic value estimation that compares the share price and estimated value. High returns are a key ingredient to strong performance, so check out our free list ofstocks earning high returns on equity with solid balance sheets. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. Thousands of people on Saturday celebrated the progress made in Argentina by LGBTQ and women's rights groups with hours of music and marches in downtown Buenos Aires. The demonstration had a festive atmosphere, but the head of the state anti-discrimination office, Ornella Infante, told reporters: "We celebrate the victories obtained, but we also demand Congress deal with" trans rights and anti-discrimination bills that have been proposed. The square in front of Congress and the historic Plaza de Mayo were packed with activists for the 30th Pride march. People danced in the streets, musicians performed, and people in elaborate costumes held a parade of floats to celebrate a wide range of identities. "We ask for the law as historical reparation. We have elderly women who have been persecuted. They have not been able to study or access health care," Mary Robles, 60, a leader of the Association of Transsexual and Transgender Transvestites of Argentina (ATTTA), told AFP. "They are 30 years of struggles, resistance, achievements such as the equal marriage law and gender identity law," said Marcela Romero, another ATTTA leader. People at the march also carried signs that read "Missing Teruel," referring to Tehuel de la Torre, a 22-year-old trans man who disappeared in March when he left home for a job interview. Marchers demanded more information on his whereabouts. Argentine President Alberto Fernandez also took part in the march, writing on Twitter, "The LGBTI+ flag flies all over the country with great reasons to celebrate. A collective that has our commitment to continue working for a more just, free and equal society." His government also set up a truck from the health ministry to give out Covid-19 vaccines to marchers. Argentina has recorded 5.2 million cases of the coronavirus with more than 116,000 deaths. Of its 45 million people, 35 million have received at least one vaccine, and 26 million are fully vaccinated. dm/gm/to/mtp Ryan T. Fulmer Many car enthusiasts and investors have watched Teslas stock price grow from $30 or $50 per share in late 2019 to over well over $1,000 today. An electrifying price move to say the least! Investors may be wondering what is the next great electric vehicle investment? It doesnt take long to find a handful of unprofitable and unproven companies. Allocating money to these unprofitable companies is not investing, but rather speculating. Interestingly enough, many popular automotive magazines highlighted the dramatic changes undergoing at General Motors and Ford. Both companies expect all of their production to be electric by 2035 and looking at the recent line-up, many of the most popular choices will have full or partial electric options very soon. By 2025, General Motors anticipates bringing 30 new plug-in models, and Ford recently debuted an all-electric F-150. Electric vehicle market share currently stands at only 3%, with Tesla representing over 55% of the EV market share a first-mover advantage. Investors need to carefully consider how much of the good news is priced into Teslas stock price of 391x current earnings. If Tesla maintains its leadership, perhaps it can grow earnings quickly enough to sustain its current stock price. On the other hand, General Motors and Ford both trade at price-to-earnings multiples far less than the broad stock market at 8 and 9.5x next year's earnings. To be clear, neither of these traditional automakers are expected to grow earnings-per-share as quickly as Tesla, but the risk-reward certainly looks more compelling. Automakers, similar to airlines, have historically been lousy investments. Tremendous amounts of price competition, heavy reinvestment every year to develop new models, and low returns on capital. Will the high expectations built into the EV stock prices be followed by the growth and profits needed to propel the stocks higher? Only time will tell. Beese Fulmer Private Wealth Management was founded in 1980 and is one of Stark Countys oldest and largest investment management firms. The company serves high-net-worth individuals, families, and non-profits, and has been ranked as one of the largest money managers in Northeast Ohio. This article originally appeared on The Repository: Ask the Rational Investor: Time will tell if it's safe to invest in electric cars ZURICH (Reuters) - Austria's latest measures to tackle the spread of coronavirus will likely stay in force over Christmas and New Year, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg was quoted as saying on Sunday, as the country posted a record number of infections. The country reported 9,943 new infections within a 24 hour period on Saturday, surpassing the previous worst day of Nov. 13 2020 when 9,586 cases were recorded. To stem the virus, the government said on Friday that it will bar those not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 from cafes, restaurants and hairdressers, effective Monday. The '2G' rule, which requires proof of full vaccination or recovery, will also be in place for hotel and cinema visits or events for more than 25 people. 2G takes its name from the German words for immunised and recovered. In workplaces a 3G rule has applied since Nov. 1 which means that employees must be vaccinated, recovered or tested (geimpft, genesen, getestet). "I am not assuming that in six weeks the situation will be such that we can take the measures back. So it will probably be a 2G Christmas," Schallenberg told Kronen Zeitung in an article published on Sunday. "Most likely we will still have 2G for Christmas and New Year's Eve," Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler told the newspaper. New infections on Sunday declined slightly to 8,554 according to data from the Interior Ministry. Austria, which has a population of 8.9 million people, has reported 883,887 COVID-19 cases and 11,502 deaths since the pandemic broke out last year. (Reporting by John Revill; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky) Handing over a piping hot meal at exactly the time promised, Chinese food delivery driver Zhuang Zhenhua triumphantly tapped his job as complete through the Meituan app -- and was immediately fined half of his earnings. A glitch meant it inaccurately registered him as being late and he incurred an automatic penalty -- one of many ways, he said, delivery firms exploit millions of workers even as the sector booms. Authorities have launched a crackdown demanding firms including Meituan and Alibaba's Ele.me ensure basic labour protections such as proper compensation, insurance, as well as tackling algorithms that effectively encourage dangerous driving. But more than a dozen drivers told AFP there has been little change on the ground. Often the only way to complete orders on time is to "go really fast... speed past red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road," Zhuang said. "At the beginning, (the app allocated) 40 to 50 minutes to complete an order -- now for an order within a distance of two kilometres, with the same distance and time as before, we are given 30 minutes," he explained. The coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdowns sent demand for meal delivery services soaring: the sector is now worth 664 billion yuan ($100 billion), according to a report from the China Hospitality Association. The nation's competitive app-based services have expanded into nearly every aspect of modern life, with digital-savvy consumers used to instantaneous service and fast delivery due to a ready flow of cheap labour. But after years of unrestricted growth, China's Big Tech is coming under fire from Beijing with Tencent, Didi and Meituan all targeted over anti-monopoly rules. Earlier this year, Alibaba was fined a record $2.8 billion after an investigation found it had abused its dominant market position. - Lives at risk - There is mounting public concern over the amount of data handled by popular apps, including food delivery platforms, and Chinese authorities have directed the cyberspace watchdog to look at how algorithms are used by tech conglomerates. Story continues Shortened delivery times have also caused more accidents in recent years, amid promises of swift service. Globally, the sector is facing scrutiny over its treatment of predominantly freelance workers, who endure low pay, few employee rights, and are often hired through agencies to avoid providing benefits. China's gig economy now accounts for almost one quarter of its workforce -- 200 million people are in "flexible employment", according to government figures. The plight of food delivery and truck drivers caught public attention after little compensation was offered to the family of one courier who died delivering meals for Ele.me in Beijing, and a second set himself on fire in a dispute with the firm over pay. Despite being hailed as an essential service, particularly at the height of the pandemic, drivers earn just 7,700 yuan a month on average. Zhuang said many feel they are putting their lives at risk because of algorithms used by apps to determine the route and travel time allowed before drivers incur a "late delivery" penalty. Another rider, who gave his surname as Liu, told AFP that the allocated delivery time included the period it took for the food to be prepared, something beyond his control but that could impact his pay. "If there are delays, riders take the blame," the 40-year-old said, adding that the system made it hard to reject orders from slow merchants. "It's useless to complain," said rider Chen Mingqiang, 50. - 'Nobody wants to pay' - Meituan, which has more than 628 million users, said it calculates the time needed for a journey in four ways and allocates the longest from those options and includes a buffer. In a written statement, the firm insisted such decisions were made "considering rider safety as the first priority, and also to satisfy consumers' needs" and that drivers could contest unfair fines. Last month, after China's cyberspace regulator outlined plans for tighter controls on tech companies, Meituan said it would optimise its "algorithm strategy" and roll out greater allowances to help couriers avoid dangerous work conditions. Kendra Schaefer, at Beijing-based consultancy Trivium, said a lack of transparency on how platforms were coded to determine driver requirements and compensation was a serious issue. "An algorithm is intended to maximise efficiency, unfortunately as we're finding as society modernises, algorithms maximise efficiency at the expense of humans," she said. "Everybody wants drivers to get treated better but nobody wants to pay for it." The sector relies heavily on migrant workers -- who are often low-skilled and have come to cities from rural provinces in the hope of making money. For many, there are few employment alternatives. Zhuang conceded: "If I had the choice, I definitely wouldn't work as a delivery driver. It's a dangerous job, with high risk." yhz-bys/rox/lto/qan Freddy McConnell and India Willoughby spoke to Insider about their experience of transphobia in the UK press. Danny Burrows/Getty/India Willoughby/Insider Transphobia in the UK press has been rising over the past few years, trans people say. Two told Insider about what this has felt like and how it has affected them. One man has been targeted by a major newspaper and is considering legal action. Looking at Freddy McConnell's GoFundMe page, you'd assume it's like any number of the fundraising pages for expecting parents - until you scroll down. Amid the well-wishes are references to an article and its backlash. One giver says their donation is partly to "send a big 'fuck you' to all the transphobes." That's when the shadows over McConnell's joyous event begin to emerge. McConnell, 35, is a trans man from Kent, England, who's giving birth to his second child - and he wants legal recognition as his child's father on the birth certificate. But this isn't possible in the UK, so he's raising money to give birth in Sweden, where he can be documented as his children's father. McConnell has been public about his pregnancies and family life, writing columns about the journey and starring in an award-nominated documentary, "Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth." Freddy McConnell. Ingrid Mur As he reached the third trimester of his second pregnancy, he opened his phone to an alert about a collection of letters to the editor from The Times titled "No right to be thought a man," published on October 30. The first line describes McConnell as "a biological woman." The article goes on to use the wrong pronouns and disregard McConnell's identity and lived experience as a man. It is distressing, McConnell told Insider. He said that it's part of the UK's rhetoric of transphobia ingrained within the media and that he's now considering taking legal action against The Times. The Times did not respond to Insider's call for comment. "I became a journalist in 2013, and for two or three years everything was just normal," McConnell told Insider. Story continues "I could be a trans person working at a major national newspaper, and my transness never felt particularly relevant, except for when I might be asked to write the 'Trans Guide 101' style piece." But now, he says, there's a "fear-mongering moral panic" against the trans community in the press - a "campaign of misinformation" stopping trans people from being safe in the hands of UK media. India Willoughby, 56, a trans TV broadcaster, told Insider that her career as a newscaster and one of the "Loose Women" on the hit ITV daytime show had been plain sailing. But that changed in 2021, she said. "The intensity of the hate has been ratcheted up so highly by mainstream media that it's rendered [trans people] unemployable," she said. "You have organizations like the BBC and The Times - these are places that everybody believes and trusts are now publishing rhetoric daily that trans people are bad, trans people are dangerous, don't help trans people," she added. India Willoughby. India Willoughby "I now feel like I'm a disease, a problem, something that needs to be gotten rid of, because every story that features in the British press about trans people is negative," Willoughby told Insider. "And that probably reached the height this week with the outrageous, trumped-up story on the BBC." The BBC article The issue of transphobia in the British media is not new. But a recent BBC article titled "We're being pressured into sex by some trans women" has sparked heated conversations. The article described cisgender lesbians who claimed to have been forced into sex by transgender women only to be met with anger and violence when they did not want to. The BBC said one person interviewed said she had been "described as transphobic, a genital fetishist, a pervert and a 'terf'" - a trans-exclusionary radical feminist - because "she is only sexually attracted to women who are biologically female and have vaginas." Another source for the article was a woman called Lily Cade who professed to be "Porn Valley's Gold Star Lesbian." After her interview was published, she said in a blog that all trans women were "vile, weak, disgusting, whiny, fake-victim" and encouraged people to "lynch" them. While the blog post is unavailable, Newsweek published an article detailing it. The BBC edited its article to remove Cade's involvement. After the article's publication, trans porn performer Chelsea Poe said on Twitter that she too was interviewed by the author of the BBC piece on the same topic but did not feature in the article. In a recent podcast she described feeling uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation, and expressed surprise that Cade had been included Other criticism of the article included that it used data from a self-selecting survey with 80 people, a sample not big enough or representative enough to create valid data. In a statement to Insider, the BBC said: "This is an important piece of journalism that raises issues that should be discussed. "We have updated this article, published last week, to remove a contribution from one individual in light of comments she has published on blog posts in recent days, which we have now been able to verify. "We acknowledge that an admission of inappropriate behavior by the same contributor should have been included in the original article." Willoughby told Insider that she believes the BBC "is now institutionally transphobic," saying it would be "impossible for a trans person to have a high-visibility role at the BBC." She also highlighted reports claiming the BBC is planning to withdraw a partnership with Stonewall, the LGBT advocacy group. Vice News said in October that BBC staff anticipated its departure from the Stonewall Diversity Champions scheme. A BBC spokesperson did not directly answer Insider's questions about it had left the scheme, but did say the group "provides advice that we are able to consider." Negative representations of trans people in the press are prevalent. A 2019 study by Mermaids, a UK charity supporting transgender children and their families, found an increase from 2012 in negative portrayals of trans people within the UK print press. "Over the last few years, we've seen an explosion in media stories relating to children and gender issues and, while some of it has been responsible and understanding, much has been misleading, ill-informed and even, at times, cruel," Mermaids CEO Susie Green said when the study, conducted by Paul Baker of Lancaster University, was published. -Tell MAMA UK (@TellMamaUK) November 2, 2021 In a statement to Insider, Stonewall said: "It's extremely concerning to see misinformation about trans people in the news, particularly in major media outlets. "Trans people exist, which has been settled in law in the UK since 2004, and they should not be subjected to degrading 'debates' about whether their identities are real or an 'ideology.' Such discussions only serve to fuel division instead of moving us forward to a better, more inclusive world." What's the impact? McConnell and Willoughby told Insider that the often negative framing of the trans community in the UK press is incredibly harmful. A study published in January found that repeated exposure to transphobic content - such as articles that misgender people or trivialize trans issues - was associated with "clinically significant" symptoms of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and global psychological stress. The UK government has estimated that trans people make up less than 1% of the population, but their sheer existence is a contentious topic for the media. Sitting in his home and talking to Insider, McConnell spoke about what trans people want from the press. "Really, we want nothing," he said. "It's not because we're trying to hide anything. It's because there's literally nothing to talk about. We're just completely normal, boring people. And that's such an unsatisfying answer, but it's the truth. "When I talk about being a man, it's not because I'm engaging in magical thinking or I'm trying to will something to be true - it's just because it is true. That's how I move through the world. It's how I see myself." Editor's note: This story was updated on November 8 to add details of the BBC's relationship with Stonewall and to clarify Chelsea Poe's comments about the contentious BBC article. Read the original article on Insider Recently, I had my first meeting with new Akron Childrens CEO Chris Gessner for an article I was going to write introducing him to the community. More: 'The perfect opportunity': New Akron Children's CEO Chris Gessner ready for challenges During the COVID-19 pandemic, my colleagues and I have been working remotely from home. We continue to cover the community while utilizing a lot more virtual tools like video interviews and going out to meet our sources or cover an in-person story when allowed. The Summit County Public Health Department and Summit County Public Library branches are giving away free BinaxNow COVID-19 home tests. Supplies at the libraries have been going quickly, so call ahead. For me, the medical reporter covering the COVID pandemic as well as the consumer columnist, the area hospitals are for the most part still not allowing the media on site or allowing them only outside. For my interview with Gessner on his first day of work on Oct. 18, hospital spokeswoman Holly Pupino had arranged for a Beacon Journal photographer and me to meet him outside for photos. We were then possibly going to go inside to an office with masks for our interview because we weren't sure about the fall weather. The night before my meeting, I started sneezing up a storm out of the blue. I had no fever and didnt feel like it was a cold. It felt like a mini allergy attack, which caused me to blow my nose a lot. I am fully vaccinated and had not been exposed to anyone, though I also know there are breakthrough cases of COVID with little to no symptoms. I took some nasal decongestant and went to sleep wondering what I should do about the next morning. Whats the new COVID pandemic work or life etiquette if you have the sniffles and are pretty sure it isnt COVID? Do you wear a mask and sniffle through it or change to a virtual meeting? Before COVID, we all know people went to work or to a meeting feeling a little off and powering through. Betty Lin-Fisher I really didnt want to meet virtually since its just not the same as meeting a CEO in person for the first time for a profile story. But I certainly didnt want to give the new CEO COVID or even a cold. Story continues When I woke up, my nose didnt feel stuffy, though I still had some sniffles. As I ate breakfast, I told myself Id see if I could go 15 minutes without sneezing or sniffling. When I could, I still wasnt sure what I should do. I phoned Pupino to ask her opinion. She suggested we could go virtual or if I still wanted to come, wed be wearing masks inside the building. I suggested maybe we stay outside for the photos and the interview since it was a bit brisk, but manageable. We agreed. As I was getting ready, I remembered I had picked up some free At-Home COVID testing kits from the Summit County Public Health Department in early September. More: Here's how to get a free rapid at-home COVID-19 test kit in Summit County The BinaxNOW antigen kits are part of partnership among the state of Ohio, Abbott and eMed and are a good way to test for exposure to mitigate the spread of the virus, said Cory Kendrick, policy and legislative affairs director who has been overseeing testing at the health department. The rapid tests screen for the COVID-19 antigen. These can be done with a nose swab and typically have results within 15 to 30 minutes. They are approved for use by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Antigen tests are different then PCR or polymerase chain reaction test, which is considered the gold standard of testing and looks for the actual genetic material of the virus. Those test results can sometimes take one to three days, but several pharmacies are offering Rapid PCR tests, which can offer results quicker. The CDC has said the antigen tests are 92% accurate for symptomatic individuals and almost 80% for asymptomatic people, Kendrick said. Taking the test Up until that point, I had yet to take a COVID test because I hadnt been exposed to anyone or felt any symptoms at least when testing was readily available. Early on in the pandemic, Im not sure if what I thought was a very bad cold was COVID; reported symptoms early were changing and there was no availability of testing unless you were ill enough to go to the hospital. I grabbed one of the test kits and started searching online how long the test results would take. The proctored test, which you take while a person at the test company watches, would take about 15 minutes for results. But the instructions said I needed to take the proctored test on a computer with a camera. I was due at Akron Childrens in about 30 minutes and I lived about 20 minutes away. I have since found out from Kendrick that I must not have received the updated instructions when I picked up my free tests, which say you can take the proctored test on any Apple or Android device that has access to Google Chrome or Safari, so I could have used my phone. I got changed really quickly, downloaded the app to create an account and pulled out onto my driveway so I could connect my laptop to my phone's hot spot. I took the test and asked the proctor if I could drive for the 15 minutes while awaiting my test results. She was going to log off and someone else would come on in 15 minutes anyway, she said. The test itself was very easy. Kendrick said people also have the option not to take the proctored test, but then the results are not official. People may want the results if they need to show proof of a negative COVID test, for instance. I texted Pupino to tell her I was taking a COVID test and was on my way to the hospital, but would not get out of my car if my test results came back positive. My results were ready about three minutes from the hospital, so I pulled into a parking lot. It was negative. I told Gessner about my interesting morning, saying Id never forget the morning I met him and took my first COVID test on the way to give myself the all-clear. I still requested we stay outside for the interview to be safe. Ironically, I never sniffled during the interview or after. That evening, I posted on my personal Facebook page about my adventure and wondered aloud if this was a new paradigm in the post-COVID world. Several friends said they had similarly taken tests before going to work or school. One said she took a test before she got on a plane since she had a cough and wanted to make sure she was safe when people eyed her, even though there were no rules that required a test. Another vaccinated friend recently picked up some tests at the local library and planned to take one before Thanksgiving to make sure she was safe to eat dinner with her 92-year-old vaccinated mother. Yet another friend asked how to get a test and said she had heard supplies were low for the free ones and the same tests sold at stores. When I called Kendrick last week to relay my story and ask him for an update on the supplies, he said I used the test exactly the way the department wanted. A lot of times, especially for the vaccinated individuals, the symptoms are very mild, said Kendrick. Weve heard a lot of people especially during our [contact-tracing] interviews who thought it was allergies and it was COVID. It just takes one person thinking its just allergies and that can cause a whole lot of issues for others. Thats how potentially outbreaks have started, he said. How to get tests The free BinaxNOW COVID-19 home tests are available at Summit County Public Health's walk-up Vital Statistics window, located at the departments headquarters at 1867 W. Market St. in Akron. There were some initial supply issues in late August and September, but Kendrick said there are plenty of tests available now. The department pulled back the limit to one per person or household to make sure there were enough, but Kendrick told me that as of Nov. 15, the health department will increase the limit to four per person to help people test themselves to mitigate any exposure during holiday gatherings. The kits are available 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. No appointments are necessary. The test can be used for anyone 4 and older. All Akron-Summit County Public Library branches and the main downtown Akron library also have free at-home test kits, but supplies have been limited and run out quickly before being replenished. There is a limit of four, and people must call ahead to reserve the kits to pick up the same day, said Pam Plumley, library executive assistant who has been coordinating the program. There are no holds online. A library card is not needed. All branch locations and phone numbers can be found at www.akronlibrary.org/locations or check the librarys Facebook page (www.facebook.com/AkronLibrary) for updates. Plumley said there are 215 libraries across Ohio participating in the program to give out free at-home COVID testing kits. Beacon Journal staff reporter Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her @blinfisherABJ on Twitter or www.facebook.com/BettyLinFisherABJ. To see her most recent stories and columns, go to www.tinyurl.com/bettylinfisher. This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Betty Lin-Fisher: Free at-home COVID test offers peace of mind White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday said President Biden's polling numbers have fallen after "a rough and tough year" that left many Americans "tired." The big picture: Klain said Democrats losing the Virginia governorship last week was a message from voters, who want to "see more action in Washington," and that lawmakers responded by passing Biden's bipartisan infrastructure bill. Stay on top of the latest market trends and economic insights with Axios Markets. Subscribe for free Klain said Democrats would aim for passing the president's social spending package when Congress comes back from its Veterans Day break. State of play: The administration is still buoyant after a report Friday showed the U.S. economy added 531,000 jobs last month in an apparent hiring rebound, and the unemployment rate came down to 4.6% a new pandemic-era low. What he's saying: "In my opinion, it's been a rough and tough year and we knew it would be," Klain said Sunday. "We're in a yearlong effort to dig out of the holes we were left. We inherited a debt economy, 50,000 jobs a month," he added. "We're now finally back to 500,000 jobs a month. We inherited a country where 4,000 people a day, 4,000 people a day were dying from COVID. That's now down 75%." "So I understand that voters are tired. Americans are tired of how long it's taken to get the economy moving, to get COVID under control. ... But I think what the American people are going to see is we have put in place the strategies, the actions to turn that around." "[Voters] are in a show-me-don't-tell-me mode. I think we are going to show them in the weeks and months ahead that we have made this progress on COVID, we have made this progress on the economy. We are past now, the infrastructure bill." Ron Klain on "Meet the Press" Like this article? Get more from Axios and subscribe to Axios Markets for free. COP26's first week saw keynote pledges to end deforestation, phase out coal, and mobilise trillions for green investment. But observers say there is a gulf between host Britain's proclamations and the emissions cuts that must be achieved. Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based climate think tank Power Shift Africa, told AFP that there had been "two realities" at the global climate conference in Glasgow. "One is the world of press releases by the UK Government announcing a host of initiatives such as 'an end to coal', which suggest all is well and we've as good as cracked the climate crisis," he said. "The other reality is outside this PR bubble. The climate deals in cold hard facts." The conference aims to implement the Paris Agreement -- including the goal of limiting temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. British organisers are pushing to solidify 1.5C as the summit's unequivocal temperature target. They have also pushed for their much-repeated priorities -- "coal, cars, cash and trees" -- shorthand for actions to phase out polluting fuels and internal combustion vehicles, provide money to help the world decarbonise, and protect forests. There was movement toward that end at COP26 this week. A COP26 spokesman said there had been "real momentum for climate action" including "commitments on ending our reliance on coal, increasing climate finance, tackling deforestation and plans to cut emissions." But experts say there is actually a glaring disconnect between what some called "inflated, rehashed pledges" and genuine progress on reducing fossil fuel emissions. - End of coal? - On Wednesday, for instance, COP26 president Alok Sharma announced: "A 190-strong coalition has today agreed to phase out coal power". Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng tweeted: "The end of coal is in sight." Story continues The 190 figure was given to the media under embargo on Tuesday night, but a list of signatories was not released until the following day. It contained only 77 new signatories, including 46 countries, on top of others that had already signed on to a previous alliance to end coal. Out of these, COP26 organisers said 23 countries had issued new pledges to phase out coal during the summit, including major users South Korea and Vietnam. But in the list of countries with new commitments obtained by AFP, 10 nations use no coal at all in their energy mix, according to data from the Ember climate think tank. All told, national signatories to the COP26 coal pledge account for around 13 percent of global output. - Unprecedented? - On Monday, Downing Street said that countries representing 85 percent of global rainforests had signed an "unprecedented" pledge to end deforestation by 2030. But it was similar to the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests, signed by 40 countries and more than 150 organisations and indigenous groups, to strive to end deforestation, also by 2030. An assessment this year on the declaration's progress found that out of the 32 biggest forest nations, only India had translated the pledge into concrete action. Damian Fleming, deputy lead at WWF's Global Forest Practice, said the COP26 deforestation pledge was "unprecedented in scale... but not in ambition." "We have been here before. Yet since (the New York declaration) a forested area greater than the size of France has been deforested," he said. "The pledges are coming fast and furious. But they all seem to be just business-as-usual wearing a green cloak of trees," Doreen Stabinsky, Professor of Global Environmental Politics at the College of the Atlantic, told AFP. "There aren't enough trees on the planet to just keep blindly carrying on emitting." - How much? - Finance is a crunch issue at COP26, with developing nations demanding rich emitters make good on decade-old promises to provide $100 billion a year to help them cope. That figure is a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated $4 trillion needed annually to decarbonise the economy by 2050. On Wednesday, former Bank of England governor Mark Carney said that a net-zero alliance made up of hundreds of lenders with assets totalling $130 trillion on their collective portfolios was ready to help the global transition to carbon neutrality. "The money is here if the world wants to use it," said Carney. But observers noted that fund investors only needed to allocate a small percentage of capital to green projects to qualify as net-zero lenders, nor were they restricted from investing in fossil fuels. That means only a fraction of the $130 trillion actually goes to green projects. - 'Pinch of salt' - Experts say an accord by more than 100 nations to slash methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 could have a real impact on short-term heating. And India, the fourth biggest emitter, announced its intention to ramp up renewables and reach net-zero by 2070. International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol said this week that the pledges announced at COP26 -- if fully implemented -- could see warming limited to 1.8C. He stressed however that this required "governments to turn their pledges into clear and credible policy actions and strategies today". British sources are already trailing the 1.8C figure as a possible COP26 achievement. But scientists say it is based on vague net-zero plans with few or no short-term emissions targets. A senior diplomat told AFP that "most of the net-zero pledges are void of content". Countries such as Australia and Saudi Arabia announced net-zero goals with "no plans to implement them and emissions going massively in the wrong direction," Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London and the University of Leeds, told AFP. "It's logical to take all pledges and convert them into a best estimate," he said. "But you've got to take it with a huge pinch of salt and an enormous banner saying: Warning! This is unlikely to happen." The UN says that the latest round of net-zero commitments will see emissions rise 13.7 percent by 2030. To be 1.5C compliant, they must fall 45 percent by then. Daniel Willis, from Global Justice Now, said COP26 had "failed to adequately address the climate crisis". He said the summit had instead produced "inflated reporting of financial sums, rehashed spending pledges spun as new, and bizarre claims that leaders have managed to limit warming to 1.8C based only on pledges without action." pg/mh/klm/mbx The procession for 57-year veteran of the Dallas Fire Department Howell Eugene "Gene" Jones moves slowly along Main Street in Dallas Saturday afternoon, Nov. 6, 2021. A Dallas area firefighter paid one last trip to a place he loved on Saturday. Howell Eugene "Gene" Jones, 84, died on Thursday, Oct. 28 at Atrium Health-Charlotte after suffering a stroke the previous Tuesday. Following a funeral service at Dallas Church of God, more than a dozen vehicles holding members of Jones' family, flanked on either end by police and fire department personnel, rode through Dallas, sirens wailing the whole way from the church to Hollywood Cemetery, where he would be laid to rest. In the middle of that procession rode Jones, his casket on the back of the fire engine he drove at the start of his career. Before going to the cemetery, that truck brought Jones into the fire department one final time. "Gene came to the fire department two or three days a week every week, unless he was sick and in the hospital or something like that. He came to every meeting and he prayed over all of us. So we as a fire department wanted to pay that respect back to him," said Earl Withers III, fire chief at Dallas Fire Department. Born in Gaston County in 1937, Jones was an institution in Dallas. He enjoyed spending time at the Dallas Fire Department where he served as Chaplain. He was a member of the fire department for more than 57 years. The department even named a fire truck in his honor. In addition to his time in the fire service, Jones was a charter member of the Dallas Rescue Squad. The procession for 57-year veteran of the Dallas Fire Department Howell Eugene "Gene" Jones moves slowly along Main Street in Dallas Saturday afternoon, Nov. 6, 2021. Jones also worked at Gaston County Animal Control and later transferred to the state prison in Dallas where he worked as a Control officer and retired after many years of service. He also served as a dispatcher for the Dallas Police Department. He was a member of Dallas Church of God and adored his church; especially Pastor D.R. Shortridge and the Rev. Matthew Shortridge. He is survived by his family, son David (Leah) Jones, daughters, Dorothy (Craig) Hall, Donna (Donald) Mulwee, Patricia (Steve) Frisbee; grandchildren, Joseph (Carly) Toney, Matthew (Shelly) Toney, Zachary (Kala) Mulwee, Casey (Cliff) Williams, Megan (Wade) Holder, Jacob Byrd, and Justin Jones; 12 great-grandchildren; and many wonderful friends. Story continues In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Dallas Fire Department Firefighter's Fund, 210 N. Holland St., Dallas, NC 28034. The procession for 57-year veteran of the Dallas Fire Department Howell Eugene "Gene" Jones continues onto Main Street in Dallas Saturday after a brief stop inside the Dallas Fire Department. Online condolences may be made at: www.withersandwhisenantfuneral.com This article originally appeared on The Gaston Gazette: Dallas Fire Department honors life, legacy of fallen chaplain SYDNEY Cassandra Elliott can freely leave Australia for the first time in more than a year and a half, but theres still no getting into her home state. Last week, Australia began loosening controls at its international border, which closed early in the coronavirus pandemic. Fully vaccinated Australian citizens, residents and family members can enter parts of the country quarantine-free, while those who are in Australia no longer have to get government permission to travel internationally. But states and territories have also restricted entry to one another for much of the pandemic, and many of those restrictions remain. The internal border closings have kept Elliott, 32, a writer who lives in the state of Victoria, from seeing her father in Western Australia, on the opposite side of the country. My dad is my best mate, she said. As Australias two most populous states reopen to the world, others are staying firmly shut even to fellow Australians. Western Australia says its internal border wont be fully open until next year. So my dad and I wont be spending Christmas together, Elliott said. It was really disheartening to find that out. A divided reopening Australia closed its international border to noncitizens in March 2020, requiring returning Australians to quarantine for 14 days, if they could return at all. When virus cases cropped up, officials responded with swift lockdowns, while interstate quarantine requirements kept them from spreading across the country. The strict policies meant that, except for one state, much of Australia stayed Covid-free until the middle of this year. But then the delta variant hit. In June, an outbreak appeared in New South Wales, which includes Australias largest city, Sydney, before spreading to neighboring Victoria and its capital, Melbourne. Both states entered lockdowns, but case numbers continued to rise. Victorian COVID-19 Restrictions Ease Further As State Reaches 80 Per Cent Vaccination Milestone (Asanka Ratnayake / Getty Images) Other Covid-free jurisdictions, citing public health laws, closed their borders completely to both states, threatening fines or jail time if people crossed over. Case numbers in those states and territories have remained at or near zero. Story continues Ian McAllister, a professor of political science at the Australian National University in Canberra, the countrys capital, said the patchwork of internal borders is unprecedented for Australia and unique globally. Internal border are easier to close in Australia than in countries, like the U.S., he said, because the population is more dispersed. With about 26 million people, Australia has a smaller population than Texas, but it is 11 times its size. Many Australians who have been largely shielded from the virus are now reluctant to follow the Covid states of New South Wales and Victoria in accepting its spread. Both states recently ended monthslong lockdowns after hitting their vaccination targets. COVID-19 Lockdown Restrictions Lift In Regional Victoria (Darrian Traynor / Getty Images) Like the government of New Zealand, which is also moving away from its zero-Covid policy, officials in the two Australian states say the country has to find a way to live with the virus, even if that means more cases. We need to rejoin the world, New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet told reporters last month. We cant live here in a hermit kingdom. Weve got to open up. While states such as Queensland and South Australia are set to reopen to the countrys Covid hot spots in time for Christmas, Western Australia has other plans. Premier Mark McGowan said Friday that the state will reopen to the entire country only once 90 percent of residents 12 and older are fully vaccinated, which is projected for late January or early February. I acknowledge some people will be frustrated they may not be able to be reunited with family from New South Wales or Victoria over Christmas, he said. To rush it increases risk and increases harm. Perth And Peel Regions Of Western Australia Enter Lockdown As New COVID-19 Cases Detected In Community (Matt Jelonek / Getty Images file) For Elliott, an Australia with hard borders between Covid states and Covid-free states is bizarre, even laughable. I was actually laughing with one of my girlfriends here the other day, she said. We were saying that she will be able to travel to her home country of India, but I cant travel to Perth, the capital of Western Australia. She can go home and see her family, but mine are in Australia and I cant see them, she said. Enormous mental stress Western Australias border rules have been incredibly popular within the state, helping McGowan to a landslide re-election victory in March. A recent poll found that 82 percent of Western Australians favored keeping the state closed. Supporters say the numbers speak for themselves: With a population of 2.7 million, Western Australia has reported just over 1,100 cases and nine deaths during the pandemic. (Kansas, which has a similar population, has had about 440,000 cases and almost 6,500 deaths.) Even Elliott said she could understand the governments perspective. They want to keep the people safe, she said. But some Western Australians say the state is going too far. State officials recently reclassified New South Wales and Victoria from high risk to extreme risk, removing an exemption that had allowed people to enter for compassionate reasons if they first quarantined for 14 days. AUSTRALIA-HEALTH-VIRUS (William West / AFP via Getty Images) Dr. Luigi DOrsogna, a pediatric cardiologist in Perth, said the change was totally uncalled for. I know of no medical evidence that says extreme restrictions like this are necessary, when we already had in place perfectly adequate ways of protecting our state, he said. DOrsogna said he was particularly concerned about people who arent able to visit sick or dying relatives. Youre taking people at some of their most vulnerable moments and now exposing them to enormous mental stress and anguish, he said. With case numbers dropping in New South Wales, the state moved from extreme risk back to high risk on Saturday. Victoria is set to remain in that category for the foreseeable future. International criticism Tensions around Australias pandemic response arent confined to within the country. Prominent U.S. conservatives are also taking aim at Australian leaders over lockdown restrictions, border closings and vaccination mandates. Last month, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused Australia of Covid tyranny, saying it was disgraceful and sad. Responding on Twitter, Michael Gunner pointed out that there had been zero Covid-19 deaths in the Northern Territory, where he is chief minister. We dont need your lectures, thanks mate, he said. You know nothing about us. Conservative commentator Candace Owens went further, jokingly asking when the U.S. military should invade Australia to free an oppressed people. Her comments were met locally with bewilderment and ridicule. McAllister, the political science professor, said that in the debate about the rules, Australia shouldnt lose sight of how well it has performed overall during the pandemic. There have been about 174,000 Covid cases and fewer than 1,800 deaths in Australia. That compares with upward of 46 million cases and almost 750,000 deaths in the U.S. What is happening overseas, theres nothing like that here, McAllister said. In the meantime, Elliott and her father are trying to stay positive. My dad has actually been building himself a big truck, and he wants to drive it across the country to see me, she said. You know the saying If you build it, they will come? He keeps saying, If I keep building it, the borders will open! CORRECTION (Nov. 7, 2021, 7:30 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated when Australia began loosening coronavirus restrictions at its international border. The controls were loosened last week, not this week. Jacksonville firefighters, with the help of Anniston, Alexandria, and Weaver fire departments, contained a large structure fire at Pheasant Run Apartments this morning. Eight units were destroyed and two people were injured jumping from the second story. A large structure fire at Pheasant Run apartments destroyed eight units Sunday morning, according to the City of Jacksonville Public information Officer Benjamin Nunnally. Two people leaped from the building's second story to escape the fire and were flown to UAB by Life Flight for treatment. Their injuries are not believed to be life-threatening, Nunnally said in a Facebook post. Jacksonville firefighters responded to the call at 5:23 a.m., according to Chief Marcus Wood, to a report that one of the buildings at the complex in the 200 block of Greenleaf Street SW was on fire. Wood said the damage was extensive, but that all residents appear to have evacuated safely. Injuries still are being assessed at the scene, though no life-threatening injuries are apparent. As of 6:30 a.m. the fire mostly was out, he said. "The fire department is still putting out some hot spots right now," Wood said in an update to the Facebook post. By 8:24 a.m., Nunnally said the Red Cross was on-site to help people displaced by the fire. To get in touch with Red Cross, he advised calling 1-800-RED-CROSS (733-2767) and chose "fire notification option 4" for help. The Jacksonville Christian Outreach Center will be at its offices located at 206 W Francis St. behind McDonald's, in the First United Methodist Church parking lot at 1 p.m. Sunday to offer assistance to those affected by the fire. Fire officials continued to investigate the site to determine the cause of the fire. Family members and friends were advised to avoid approaching the apartment complex so that the single access road to the complex can be kept clear for first responders. "Stay at CVS or Johnson's and allow family to come to you," Wood said. In addition to Jacksonville firefighters, Anniston, Alexandria, and Weaver fire departments responded. This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Jacksonville apartments heavily damaged; two injured escaping fire We are rapidly approaching a beautiful time of the year when our hearts and minds turn to thankfulness. Although it should be part of our lives throughout the year, during the Thanksgiving season people are encouraged to remember those who are less fortunate, or have fallen upon some tough times, particularly in the face of a severe pandemic. It is a time when we are encouraged to step out of ourselves and our selfish desires, to remember others. Oh, we all know that we are living in a time of What about me, and the whine of I deserve to have all of my own wishes fulfilled. We have seen a lot as we live life, but I have difficulty remembering a time of such self-centeredness and the I, me, my attitude that is displayed on a daily basis. There is such callousness about personal beliefs and behaviors and how it impacts others. Most people that we know, or even those we meet at a store, the V.A. Hospital or people that we see infrequently, put forth great effort to be kind and generous. I read a Hallmark greeting card in a search for just the right words to comfort a sick person. It read, It's hard to feel blessed when you dont fell your best. It did go on to say, Please relax and take care youre remembered in prayer. Needless to say, I did not use that particular card. What resonated with me is someone could start a cottage industry with verses that express sympathy to the residents of Alabama trying to continue to feel blessed and thankful, while we are enduring the continuing roughshod behavior and words of the state's so-called leadership. We did not ask the attorney general of this state to join with the three or four other states who are challenging the federal government in the issuance of a vaccine mandate. The Office of Economic Opportunity and the Department of Justice have determined that vaccine mandates can be used. The governor urged Alabamians to join in this lawsuit. This state has a long line of politicians who continue the politics of the past. They go from one issue to another, all designed to repress people who simply do not believe that everything that they do on our behalf is right. This will not be the first ill-fated lawsuit to be filed asserting states' rights, nor will it be last. Story continues The use of the words states' rights by Alabama politicians and their counterparts is an attempt to disregard the federal governments interest in protecting all of the people. They are, plain and simple, trying to preserve the ability to draft and enforce laws that violate your rights and mine. They throw around the 10th Amendment as their shield. Under this amendment, states only have the power that is not retained by the federal government. The Constitution tells you what those are. I doubt that you will find anything remotely related to advising various segments of state government and businesses to ignore a vaccine mandate during a worldwide pandemic, in my opinion. Late-night TV is continuing to have a field day with Alabamians such as U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville. Brooks wore body armor to the Jan. 6 insurrection, but had no idea there was going to be a riot. However, he said hed be proud of his staff if they participated in the planning of the event. Judge Randy Jinks is the latest of the disgraced high-level Alabamians. He felt that it was OK to use racist and sexist comments in the course of being a judge. His ugliness is not protected by any rules of law. The 78-page document issued by the Judicial Inquiry Commission detailed more than 100 allegations against him. We can thank God that his robe is hanging on the door, now unused to beat down the very people that he is there to assure receive justice. This is the United States of America. While there are many things in this country that are often compared to conduct in other countries, what sets this country apart is the rule of law. You do not get to plot, plan, participate and have full knowledge of felonious acts and plans and not report it to authorities. There are ethical standards involved in most professions where the job has a serious impact on the lives of people their health, life and liberty, and the quality of that life. Brooks is a lawyer; we are held to a higher standard. Urging the Department of Justice to intervene in a lawsuit accusing him of helping incite the Jan. 6 riot, and characterizing the published, first-person accounts of his early and ongoing participation as within the scope of his employment, is asking the department to defend the overthrow of the government. As the old folks say, with a pointed finger, You know better. Elaine Harris Spearman, Esq., a Gadsden native, is the retired legal advisor to the comptroller of the City of St. Louis. This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: Alabama officials try to use 10th Amendment as shield South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said Tuesday that Eswatini has committed to launching a forum for dialogue between the kingdom's rulers and anti-monarchy activists following a deadly crackdown on protests. Ramaphosa made the announcement after meeting with King Mswati III, the ruler of Africa's last absolute monarchy, during a trip to his palace in Eswatini. Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds injured since pro-democracy demonstrations first erupted in June, in the worst unrest to hit the usually peaceful former British colony. The meeting between Ramaphosa and the king "resolved that the Kingdom of Eswatini will embark on a process that will work towards the establishment of a national dialogue forum," Pretoria said in a statement. Preparations for the dialogue will take place over the next three months, "a period during which his majesty will undertake his annual, mandatory" retreat, the statement said. Human Rights Watch had earlier on Tuesday called for an independent probe into the crackdown on the demonstrations. Forty-six people were killed in June while at least 245 others suffered gunshot wounds, HRW said, citing a recent report by a local rights group. Surviving victims said they were shot by the military, added the HRW. Police had said 37 people were killed, most of them during the June protests. "The Eswatini government should urgently agree to an independent, international investigation into all of the killings and any other human rights violations resulting from excessive use of force," said Dewa Mavhinga, the HRW's Southern Africa director. The UN human rights office had in July pointed to allegations of "disproportionate and unnecessary use of force, harassment and intimidation" by security forces sent in to quell the June protests. The king of the country formerly known as Swaziland told mediators sent by Ramaphosa last month that he was open to dialogue with the pro-democracy activists. Story continues Eswatini Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku told AFP last week that the monarchy needed to make reforms in the wake of protests. "I would agree with those who say we need to have some change... because these are the 2000s, it's not the 1910s," he said. Ramaphosa's visit was on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) regional bloc. Rebels fighting Ethiopia's government have played down reports that they would face a hostile population or cause a "bloodbath" if they advanced into Addis Ababa, even as tens of thousands joined a pro-military rally in the capital on Sunday. Fighters from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and their allies have been locked in a year-long war with the government that has killed thousands and pushed many more into desperate conditions in the vast east African nation. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, sent troops into Tigray in November last year to topple the TPLF, accusing them of attacking military bases. But the TPLF and their allies have claimed several victories in recent weeks, taking towns some 400 kilometres from the capital, and have not ruled out marching on Addis Ababa. "The story that the population in Addis is vehemently opposed to us is absolutely overstated," TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told AFP in an interview on Saturday night. "Addis is a melting pot. People with all kinds of interests live in Addis. The claim that Addis will turn into a bloodbath if we enter Addis is absolutely ridiculous." While the rebels would enter Addis Ababa to overthrow Abiy, he said taking the capital was not "an objective". He also said the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopia's politics for nearly 30 years until Abiy came to power in 2018, had no desire to take back power. - 'Sucking our blood' - Several countries have urged their nationals to leave Ethiopia and the US has withdrawn diplomats as the year-long conflict in the north escalates. The government, which has denied the capital is under threat, has nevertheless declared a national state of emergency and Addis Ababa authorities have asked residents to organise to defend the city. Pope Francis told crowds at the Vatican on Sunday he was watching the conflict "with concern" and hoped "the peaceful path of dialogue" would prevail. Story continues But tens of thousands joined a pro-military rally on Sunday where attendees poured scorn on diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, spearheaded by US official Jeffrey Feltman who arrived in the country on Thursday. Rally-goers held signs blasting Western media for broadcasting "fake news" overstating rebel gains and urging the US to "stop sucking our blood". Addis Ababa mayor Adanech Abebe said in a speech that Ethiopia's foes were trying to "terrorise our population". "They say Addis Ababa is surrounded, but Addis Ababa is only surrounded by its incredible people, by its vigilant, heroic children," she said. Some Addis Ababa residents dismissed the TPLF. "They won't come to Addis because I believe the military can destroy them," said clothing vendor Kebede Hailu. - Rebel advances - In Tigray meanwhile, the UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, paid a brief visit to the regional capital Mekele, meeting the "de facto authorities" there, said a spokesperson. Griffiths insisted on "the need for humanitarian access and protection of civilians through all areas under their control," said the spokesperson. Other sources said that Olusegun Obasanjo, the African Union's high representative for the Horn of Africa, visited at the same time, to meet Debretsion Gebremichael, head of the Tigray People's Liberation Front. The TPLF overthrew the Marxist Derg regime in 1991 and ruled until 2018, when Abiy took over. Tension between the government and the TPLF simmered until November last year, when Abiy sent the army into Tigray to remove the TPLF-led regional authorities, accusing them of attacking military bases. He declared victory a few weeks later, but in June the TPLF retook most of Tigray including the capital Mekele, and it has since moved into neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions. Last weekend, the rebels said they had taken two strategic towns in Amhara. Reda told AFP the rebels had since advanced further south towards Ataye, a town 270 kilometres north of the capital, and east towards Mile, a town on the road to Djibouti that is crucial for supplies to Addis Ababa. The TPLF has said it is now running "joint operations" with another rebel group, the Oromo Liberation Army, which predicted Addis Ababa could fall in a matter of weeks. rcb-sva/jj/har Consumers can expect higher prices and fewer options for whole turkeys leading into this Thanksgiving, according to a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service expert. David Anderson, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension livestock economist, Bryan-College Station, said turkey production was down 5% compared to last year, but prices have risen significantly. Fewer turkeys combined with higher food supply chain and logistical costs like feed, fuel and labor have pushed prices upward. Turkey numbers are at their lowest point since 2015. The national wholesale average for whole hens is $1.35 per pound compared to $1.14 per pound this time last year, Anderson said. The five-year average per-pound price is $1.06 for those turkeys. Wholesale boneless, skinless turkey breasts were up to $3.45 per pound compared to $1.80 per pound last year with a five-year average of $2.74 per pound. Anderson said both turkey numbers and pounds produced are at the lowest point since 2015, a response to slipping demand. This has a lot to do with the fact they are producing fewer turkeys, he said. Other factors are a part of that, but this is more to do with years of per-capita consumption dipping and longer-term demand-side issues for the turkey industry. Holiday demand dips for whole turkeys Anderson said marketing and economic changes for turkey have been driven by consumer choices around the holidays, which has historically driven the whole bird market. The pandemic clearly impacted the number of holiday gatherings last year, which did not help the industry, but over the past several years, consumers have gone with other meat options, especially for traditional get-together style holiday lunches and dinners beyond Thanksgiving. Consumers should expect to see higher prices and fewer options for holiday turkeys this year due to reduced production. We typically think of Thanksgiving and Christmas when we talk about whole turkeys, but a growing number of consumers have chosen other options like prime rib or brisket or an entirely different menu that used to represent that second bird, he said. It doesnt take a large percentage of that among 330 million consumers to be a big deal. Story continues Anderson said the other big part of turkey consumption as deli meats has grown slightly over recent years but is being outpaced by other grocery store and restaurant offerings. Fewer options for centerpiece turkeys Anderson said prices for pork, beef and chicken are also up, but that other factors from bottlenecks to feed prices and higher demand are driving those increases. Aside from hitting consumers in the pocket, lower supplies of whole birds could mean finding the prototypical centerpiece turkeys could be more difficult this Thanksgiving. Lower supplies and higher costs could also mean individual grocery stores may not offer feature specials on whole birds that are typically used to attract shoppers in hopes they fill their shopping carts with other related items. They may not be able to find certain size birds they are used to, or it may be frozen rather than fresh, he said. This year, buying a turkey may require being more flexible according to what is available. This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Expect higher prices, fewer options on Thanksgiving turkeys By Kate Abnett GLASGOW (Reuters) -Over and over at the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, world leaders have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The 2015 Paris Agreement commits countries to limit the global average temperature rise to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels, and to aim for 1.5C. Scientists have said crossing the 1.5C threshold risks unleashing far more severe climate change effects on people, wildlife and ecosystems. Preventing it requires almost halving global CO2 emissions by 2030 from 2010 levels and cutting them to net-zero by 2050 -- an ambitious task that scientists, financiers, negotiators and activists at COP26 are debating how to achieve and pay for. But what is the difference between 1.5C and 2C of warming? We asked several scientists to explain: WHERE ARE WE NOW? Already, the world has heated to around 1.1C above pre-industrial levels. Each of the last four decades was hotter than any decade since 1850. "We never had such a global warming in only a few decades", said climate scientist Daniela Jacob at the Climate Service Center Germany. "Half a degree means much more extreme weather, and it can be more often, more intense, or extended in duration." Just this year, torrential rains flooded China and Western Europe, killing hundreds of people. Hundreds more died when temperatures in the Pacific Northwest hit record highs. Greenland saw massive melting events, wildfires ravaged the Mediterranean and Siberia, and record drought hit parts of Brazil. "Climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe," said climate scientist Rachel Warren at the University of East Anglia. HEAT, RAIN, DROUGHT More warming to 1.5C and beyond will worsen such impacts. "For every increment of global warming, changes in extremes become larger," said climate scientist Sonia Seneviratne at ETH Zurich. For example, heatwaves would become both more frequent and more severe. Story continues An extreme heat event that occurred once per decade in a climate without human influence, would happen 4.1 times a decade at 1.5C of warming, and 5.6 times at 2C, according to the U.N. climate science panel (IPCC). Let warming spiral to 4C, and such an event could occur 9.4 times per decade. A warmer atmosphere can also hold more moisture, resulting in more extreme rainfall that raises flood risks. It also increases evaporation, leading to more intense droughts. ICE, SEAS, CORAL REEFS The difference between 1.5C and 2C is critical for Earth's oceans and frozen regions. "At 1.5C, theres a good chance we can prevent most of the Greenland and west Antarctic ice sheet from collapsing," said climate scientist Michael Mann at Pennsylvania State University. That would help limit sea level rise to a few feet by the end of the century - still a big change that would erode coastlines and inundate some small island states and coastal cities. But blow past 2C and the ice sheets could collapse, Mann said, with sea levels rising up to 10 metres (30 feet)- though how quickly that could happen is uncertain. Warming of 1.5C would destroy at least 70% of coral reefs, but at 2C more than 99% would be lost. That would destroy fish habitats and communities that rely on reefs for their food and livelihoods. FOOD, FORESTS, DISEASE Warming of 2C, versus 1.5C, would also increase the impact on food production. "If you have crop failures in a couple of the breadbaskets of the world at the same time, then you could see extreme food price spikes and hunger and famine across wide swathes of the world," said climate scientist Simon Lewis at University College London. A warmer world could see the mosquitoes that carry diseases such as malaria and dengue fever expand across a wider range. But 2C would also see a bigger share of insects and animals lose most of their habitat range, compared with 1.5C, and increase the risk of forest fires - another risk to wildlife. 'TIPPING POINTS' As the world heats up, the risk increases that the planet will reach "tipping points", where Earths systems cross a threshold that triggers irreversible or cascading impacts. Exactly when those points would be reached is uncertain. Droughts, reduced rainfall, and continued destruction of the Amazon through deforestation, for example, could see the rainforest system collapse, releasing CO2 into the atmosphere rather than storing it. Or warming Arctic permafrost could cause long-frozen biomass to decompose, releasing vast amount of carbon emissions. "That's why it's so risky to keep emitting from fossil fuels ... because we're increasing the likelihood that we go over one of those tipping points," Lewis said. BEYOND 2C So far, the climate pledges that countries have submitted to the United Nations' registry of pledges put the world on track for 2.7C of warming. The International Energy Agency said Thursday https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/net-zero-methane-pledges-push-world-near-paris-climate-goal-iea-2021-11-04 that new promises announced at the COP26 summit - if implemented - could hold warming to below 1.8C, although some experts challenged that calculation. It remains to be seen whether those promises will translate into real-world action. Warming of 2.7C would deliver "unliveable heat" for parts of the year across areas of the tropics and subtropics. Biodiversity would be enormously depleted, food security would drop, and extreme weather would exceed most urban infrastructure's capacity to cope, scientists said. "If we can keep warming below 3C we likely remain within our adaptive capacity as a civilization, but at 2.7C warming we would experience great hardship," said Mann. (Reporting by Kate AbnettEditing by Katy Daigle and Frances Kerry) Forty-four percent of African-American entrepreneurs use their own money to fund their businesses, compared to 37 percent of white business owners. Some experts say self-funding a business has challenges. The main challenge is an entrepreneurs limited funds. There are places to get outside funding for your business. Here are a few. Stock photo of Black business owner. Pexels.com Invoice2 Go Grow Grant The Invoice2Go Grow Grant is giving $200,000 in total to all businesses. Black business owners can receive $15,000 in funds. As part of the application criteria, entrepreneurs have to be 18 years old and identify as an underrepresented minority. The business has to be less than five years old, have fewer than 10 employees and revenue less than $1,000,000. The application process includes writing an essay of 200 words or less in which the applicant has to explain how the grant would help their business. Finally, an entrepreneur must follow Invoice2Go on their social media accounts and have posts with #invoice2Go to keep updated on the great process. Applicants can enter here. Mansa Fund The Mansa Fund gives micro-grants to Black business owners. The fund was named after Mansa Musa, who was the ruler of the kingdom of Mali from 1312 to 1337. During his reign, Mali was one of the richest kingdoms of Africa. Business owners apply and write about their business needs. If a business owner is selected, the funds are sent to the winner through PayPal within 24 hours. Applicants can apply on the Mansa Fund website. To learn more about other alternative pathways to funding, read more at Finurah.com (Getty Images) George Clooney has written an open letter urging the media not to publish photographs that show his childrens faces. The 60-year-old actor has twins with his wife, Amal, 43: Ella and Alexander, both four. Now, in a letter published by several trade magazines, including Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter, Clooney has addressed the Daily Mail and other publications, calling on them to protect his childrens privacy. The letter began by addressing photographs of US actor Billie Lourds one-year-old daughter that had been published online. Having just seen photos of Billie Lourds one-year-old baby in your publication, and the fact that you subsequently took those pictures down, we would request that you refrain from putting our childrens faces in your publication, Clooney wrote. I am a public figure and accept the oftentimes intrusive photos as part of the price to pay for doing my job. Our children have made no such commitment. The nature of my wifes work has her confronting and putting on trial terrorist groups and we take as much precaution as we can to keep our family safe. We cannot protect our children if any publication puts their faces on their cover. The Oceans Eleven and Gravity star continued: We have never sold a picture of our kids, we are not on social media and never post pictures because to do so would put their lives in jeopardy. Not paranoid jeopardy but real world issues, with real-world consequences. We hope that you would agree that the need to sell advertisement isnt greater than the need to keep innocent children from being targeted. Thank you, George Clooney. The Daily Mail has not yet responded to the letter; The Independent has contacted the publication for comment. Read More Pizzeria inspired by Salt Bae to create pizza with 24-carat gold leaf topping Gary Lineker says he cant be a***d with dating now Autumnal design lifts for the home Frank Cruz holds a flier promoting "Chicano I & II: The Mexican American Heritage Series." (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) Every so often, Frank Cruz would walk into his spacious garage in Laguna Niguel and contemplate the boxes filled with things old and unused: tax returns, clothes and paperwork from his days as a Chicano studies professor, TV news reporter and anchor, co-founder of the Spanish-language network Telemundo and of a pioneering Latino-owned insurance company. Not to mention notes from the many boards hes served on, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But there was one particular big blue box between another containing his now-adult childrens baby teeth and one with a daughters wedding dress that always gnawed at him. Its label read: Chicano Series. Inside were nine 16-millimeter film reels of Chicano I & II: The Mexican American Heritage Series, the television show that first aired on KNBC-TV in Los Angeles in July 1971. The series, hosted by Cruz when he was in his early 30s, also played on sister stations in Chicago, New York, Cleveland and Washington, D.C. For 50 years, the reels remained in his garage, largely untouched. On a recent August day, Cruz, now 82, thought to himself as he had dozens of times before: Pendejo, you better do something about those films. It might be too late. Frank Cruz at home in Orange County. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) And he did. His contacts led him to a film archivist at USC who digitized the film and created a website for them. For the first time since they aired and reran in the early 1970s, nine of 20 episodes from the Chicano series are now publicly available on the website for USCs Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive. (No film exists from the Chicano II portion of the series, and Episode 6, titled The War Years, was missing from Cruzs first-volume holdings.) I was prepared to hear that [Dino Everett, the archivist] wasnt able to do it because the film was too brittle, that they had broken and that they were no good because the images fade, says Cruz. But a couple weeks later, after 10 candles and a prayer to Santo Nino de Atocha, he called me and said, Frank, Ive been able to transfer them.' Story continues Cruz was elated. Were preserving history. USC archivist Dino Everett pulls up an image from the reels salvaged from "Chicano I & II: The Mexican American Heritage Series." (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) They challenged boundaries The East L.A. walkouts of 1968, followed by the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., both beloved by much of the Latino community, happened months apart. Then came the Chicano Moratorium of 1970 and the killing of Ruben Salazar, an esteemed reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Out of this period of social and political activism, and fed up with the stereotypical depictions of Latinos in media, Sal Castro, a key leader in the historic walkouts, and Julian Nava, the first Mexican American voted to the Los Angeles Board of Education, approached Los Angeles' KNBC-TV with a pitch: to create a show that explored issues facing the Mexican American community and examined history and culture from the Chicano perspective. The station agreed to air the show. Cruz, a former Lincoln High School teacher and colleague of Castros, who was teaching history at Cal State Long Beach at the time, agreed to host the series after Castro declined. Cruzs yes would change the course of his professional life after the 1971 series reran in 1972, the news director of KABC-TV called Cruz offering him a reporter job covering L.A.s Latino community. "Chicano I & II" episodes were put together by professors, historians and experts many of them founders of their universities' Chicano studies departments, including UCLA, Stanford, San Jose State and San Fernando Valley State College (now Cal State Northridge). Among the topics they examined were the history of migrant workers and Chicano labor activities, economic repression and education inequality, as well as the many cultural and other contributions of their Mexican ancestors to the Western world, Stereotyping in the Mass Media, I mean you could write a headline with that today! Natalia Molina, a professor of American studies and ethnicity at USC, says about one of the episodes titles. The series, she says, was trying to show that Mexicans arent docile, that theyre people. Theyre like you and I. They live lives in three dimensions. They have families. They create. They were just trying to bring humanity to what we think of when we think of the Latinx population. And that is still something were struggling to do today. No one had done anything like it, she adds. The series was cutting-edge then and I think, unfortunately, its cutting edge now. Many of the shows guests and interviewees spearheaded the issues and topics covered and were among the first in their field, such as Nava or Ricardo Richard Romo, an author and urban historian whom Molina, a 2020 MacArthur fellow, credits for laying the groundwork for her research. Archivist Dino Everett holds nine film reels of "Chicano I & II: The Mexican American Heritage Series." (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) These are the people that did that original work for us, she says, and challenged all kinds of boundaries. Romo, the urban historian, remembers relating to the educational issues raised in the show. A lot of us had experienced some of the things that frustrated these students, says the Texas-born-and-raised scholar. The libraries had no books about our history. The teachers were driving in from the suburbs and didnt understand a lot of the things happening in our communities. [They] told us, You cant speak Spanish in the classroom or in the schoolyard. The worst part is that there were a lot of good teachers, but many of them didnt think enough of the students to encourage them to go to college, Romo says. Only two from his graduating class of 400 went to a four-year college. He was one of them. Groundbreaking as the series was, viewership numbers from that time aren't easy to find. But based on its 6 a.m. air time, the numbers were likely low. It was not a popular hour, recalls Romo. It was frustrating. It was like, We want to do this, but we cant give you a good, prime hour where we have the highest advertisers, says Romo, stopping himself from being too critical because at the days end, the greenlight was given to produce one of the first shows of its kind in the whole country. He just wishes that today's technology and social media existed then to expand the viewership. Now it does. Scripts of the second volume of "Chicano I & II" are housed at USC. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times) The archivist behind the digitizing Dino Everett is a self-described optimist. A longtime archivist at the USC Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive, hes learned through the years that one way or another, even if something comes to me in horrendous condition, I can usually get something out of it. Luckily, Cruz had stored the film reels in the best way possible, albeit inadvertently: in cardboard boxes, which act as an insulator, versus exposed metal cans. Residential homes, Everett explains, arent usually climate controlled, so film stored in metal cans are susceptible to temperature changes. The variation, the back and forth between the hot and cold," he says, "is what really damages the film. "One way or another, even if something comes to me in horrendous condition, I can usually get something out of it": Archivist Dino Everett in a temperature-controlled storage facility at USC. (Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times) Once in his hands, Everett took the films off their metal reels, ran them through a cleaning machine, then put them through a film scanner called a Kinetta before sliding them through a restoration software program to clean up slight imperfections like dust and light flickers. After two weeks and more than 60 hours, all nine episodes had been digitized. [Frank] was thrilled that I was able to scan them, he says. I wish I could say that it was because of my expertise, but they were in really great shape. The show, notes Everett, was done in kinescope the process of recording a live TV broadcast onto film by pointing a camera at a screen or video monitor as it played the footage; its how stations would preserve and duplicate their live programming and send it to affiliates. The process was replaced with the advent of videotapes in the 1950s, so it was rare for TV stations in the early 70s to still be using it. But videotapes then were pricey. It was actually cheaper to make black-and-white kinescopes than make full-colored videotapes, says Everett. On a recent September afternoon via phone, Cruz struggled to answer the question: Why didnt you digitize the film sooner? After a brief silence, he responded: Couldve, wouldve, shouldve. Chicano I & II: The Mexican American Heritage Series can be viewed on the website of the USC School of Cinematic Arts' Hugh M. Hefner Moving Image Archive at: uschefnerarchive.com/chicano. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. The hacker's wallet included more than $20 million in Ethereum, bZx said in a blog post. Dado Ruvic/Reuters A hacker stole millions after a developer at bZx, a crypto company, fell for a phishing attack. SlowMist estimated the total haul at $55 million, The Block, a crypto blog, reported on Friday. "Roughly 25% of this figure is personal losses from the team wallet," bZx said on Twitter. Crypto company bZx said on Friday that a hacker stole millions in various currencies after one of its developers fell for a phishing attack. SlowMist, an outside security company, estimated the total haul at $55 million, The Block, a crypto blog, reported on Friday. "Roughly 25% of this figure is personal losses from the team wallet that was compromised," bZx said on Twitter, responding to The Block's reporting. On Friday, bZx posted what it said were details of the hacker's accounts, which included Ethereum totaling $21 million. The company, a decentralized-finance platform, or DeFi, said it was still investigating the hack. It said the breach affected "lenders, borrowers, and farmers" with funds on two platforms, Polygon and Binance Smart Chain. "A limited number of users who had approved the unlimited spend had funds stolen from their wallet," the company said in its unsigned technical analysis of the hack. "The developer's wallet had all funds drained from their wallet." The breach began with a phishing email sent to a developer's personal computer, bZx said. That email had "a malicious macro in a Word document that was disguised as a legitimate email attachment, which then ran a script on his Personal Computer. This led to his personal mnemonic wallet phrase being compromised," the company said. At about 8:30 am EST on Friday, the company received a series of notifications about suspicious activity, including a flagged wallet. The company tracked the hacker's wallet. It posted a list of balances, along with a few transactions, on its blog. Story continues The company said it was still working to determine the total amount of funds stolen. It said it was working with law enforcement to recover the funds and identify the hacker. "We are gathering data on the specific wallets which were affected by the attack," bZx said. Insider has reached out to bZx for additional information and comment. Coindesk reported on Friday that bZx was hacked three times last year. Read the original article on Business Insider The USNS Harvey Milk was launched in San Diego on Saturday The US Navy has launched a ship named after a gay rights activist forced to resign from the service because of his sexuality in the 1950s. The USNS Harvey Milk was launched in San Diego on Saturday in a service attended by Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro and Milk's nephew, Stuart. It is one of six new ships to be named after famed US civil rights leaders. Others include former Chief Justice Earl Warren and slain presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. Milk served as a diving officer and Lieutenant aboard the submarine rescue ship USS Kittiwake during the Korean War. But he was forced out of the service following two weeks of interrogation about his sexuality in 1955. He later became one of America's first openly gay politicians, elected in 1977 to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. But a year later he was shot and killed by Dan White, a former city supervisor with whom he had frequently clashed. Speaking at the ceremony, Secretary Del Toro said that it had been wrong that Milk had been forced to "mask that very important part of his life" during his time in the Navy. "For far too long, sailors like Lt. Milk were forced into the shadows or, worse yet, forced out of our beloved Navy," Del Toro said. "That injustice is part of our Navy history, but so is the perseverance of all who continue to serve in the face of injustice." Milk during his campaign for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors When the Obama administration first announced its intention to name a ship after Milk in 2016 some expressed opposition to the move. They suggested that Milk would have disapproved of lending his name to a Navy ship given his well known opposition to the Vietnam War. In the past two months, there have been two brief power outages at our home. Losing power is not much of a hardship for us since Hollands Board of Public Works usually rectifies the situation quickly. Sara DeVries. In one of these instances, however, my husband was in the middle of an online meeting when the power was lost. The meeting was critically important to his teams work that week and missing the meeting was not a preferred option. He did not have time to wait for the team at the Board of Public Works to perform their usual speedy repair. My husband knew Herrick District Library had the solution he needed. He grabbed his laptop, drove to the library, booted up his machine, accepted the terms and conditions to join the librarys WIFI, and asked a staff member if he could book a study room. Within 10 minutes, he was back in his virtual meeting from the comfort of a semi-private study room at his local library. Study rooms at HDL are the perfect place for one to five people to work or meet for a variety of reasons, from a meeting to a tutoring session. At the main library, study rooms are located on the main level and can be reserved at the Information Desk. At the north branch, study rooms for adults are available on the northeast side of the building, while study rooms for kids and teens are on the northwest side. To reserve a study room ahead of time, visit herrickdl.org/meeting-rooms and book a time up to three in advance. Need a room for a larger group? Nonprofit organizations may book a meeting inside the new community room at the north branch, meeting room at the main library, or main library auditorium. Sara DeVries is community relations manager for Herrick District Library. This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Herrick library solves remote work dilemma Travis Scott performs during 2021 Astroworld Festival at NRG Park on November 05, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Erika Goldring/WireImage/via Getty Images A high school freshman was among the victims at Astroworld Festival, KHOU and KTRK reported. Eight people died and hundreds were injured at the festival when crowds surged. Eyewitnesses told Insider that their pleas to stop the concert were ignored. A high school freshman was reportedly among the victims at the Astroworld Festival in Houston where at least eight people died. Hundreds were injured as crowds surged at Travis Scott's festival on Friday night. Eyewitnesses told Insider that their pleas for Scott to stop the concert were ignored as concertgoers died. The victims and their causes of death have not yet been identified. Houston officials confirmed at a press conference on Saturday that the eight fatalities included a 14-year-old, a 16-year-old, two 21-year-olds, two 23-year-olds, a 27-year-old, and another person whose age was unknown. Officials did not identify the victims on Saturday, saying only six of the victims' families had been notified. KHOU11's Cheryl Mercedes tweeted that a freshman from Memorial High School died, citing school administrators. KTRK identified the student as John Hilgert. "Our hearts go out to the student's family and to his friends and our staff at Memorial," Principal Lisa Weir wrote in the letter to parents, which has been seen by Insider. "This is a terrible loss, and the entire MHS family is grieving today." "Please keep the student's family in your thoughts and prayers as they face this tragedy," Weir said, adding that counselors would be available to students at school. Read the original article on Insider Norwich and its surrounding towns each have their sons who made the ultimate sacrifice in war while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. A few examples include Edward Carlson, aged 20, at Iwo Jima in 1945, Pfc. Joseph Grillo Jr., 19, killed in action in Vietnam, Cpl. David Vautour, 20, killed in action in Vietnam, and Lance Cpl. Tyler Griffin of Voluntown, 19, killed in action in 2010 in Afghanistan and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Not only do so many of us across the U.S. honor our veterans on Veterans Day each Nov. 11 (formerly known as Armistice Day to mark the end of the First World War on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of the year), but anyone with Marine Corps connections knows that the U.S. Marine Corps celebrates its birthday each year on Nov. 10. It was on that date in 1775 that the early version of the Marines, known as the Continental Marines during the American Revolution, were founded -- according to legend -- at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia on Nov. 10. A Revolutionary War painting depicting the Continental Navy frigate Confederacy is displayed at the Navy Art Gallery at the Washington Navy Yard. The Navy Art Gallery has a collection of over 15,000 paintings, prints, drawings and sculptures depicting naval ships, personnel and actions from all eras of U.S. naval history. One historic Continental Marine with a special tie to Norwich is Capt. Joseph Hardy. He served as captain of the Marines on board the U.S.S. Confederacy, a U.S. Navy frigate named after the Articles of Confederation created in 1777 and ratified in 1781. The Confederacy was built at Confederacy Cove on the Thames River in the section of Norwich that is now Preston, next to the bridge for Route 2. Little is known about Capt. Hardys early life, nor does there seem to be either a portrait of him or a marked gravesite. However, there are documents throughout his military and post-war, governmental career. In addition to several historical websites that describe his career, his journal is reprinted as an appendix in at least two books: "Seth Harding: Mariner," published in 1930 by James Howard, as well as "Marines in the Revolution" by Charles Smith in 1975 for the bicentennial. Sources indicate he was listed as a midshipman on several ships. Of immediate interest is his service as a junior officer aboard the Continental Navy sloop Providence. This was in the spring and summer of 1776 under none other than John Paul Jones, then a lieutenant, and who would go on to become a very famous navy captain raiding the British shores, and who was later buried in a crypt at the U.S. Naval Academy. Story continues Joseph Hardys most memorable events in his life very likely occurred while he served abroad the U.S.S. Confederacy. Seth Harding of Norwich served as the ships captain. Hardy was the officer in charge of the dozens of marines aboard. A horrible hurricane in the November of 1779 in the mid-Atlantic snapped each of the ships three masts like twigs. The Confederacy had a key mission: deliver the VIPs onboard to Europe, which happened to be founding father John Jay and his wife, as well as the French minister to the U.S. and his wife. Hardy maintained order as the marine officer aboard the severely wounded vessel as it somehow limped all the way southwest under Hardings skillful leadership into the safe harbor of the French-owned island of Martinique in the Caribbean. They went there to avoid being captured by the Royal Navy of the British. What helps Hardy from sailing into the forgotten past is that he kept his diary while the ship underwent many repairs at the port of Martinique. He kept this diary from December of 1779 through February of 1780. The original diary is in the collection at Mystic Seaport Museum. Damien Cregeau Of historical interest in Hardys diary are his entries that describe Martinique, especially the cruel conditions for enslaved Africans. These unfortunate souls labored in horribly hot conditions at sugar cane plantations on that and many other Caribbean islands. Semper Fidelis is the Latin motto for the Marine Corps. It means always faithful. This week we remember and pay our respects to those veterans, especially our U.S. Marines, who were faithful in their service, often fighting -- and dying -- in heroic service to our great nation. Damien Cregeau is a professional historian with many publications. He has a talk on Alexander Hamilton available online via C-SPAN. Mr. Cregeau lives in a historic house in Norwich. This article originally appeared on The Bulletin: Captain Joseph Hardy, U.S. marine on a Norwich-built frigate Jason Ferbrache explains features of the electric bus to OKC Mayor David Holt after EMARK officials and Mayor David Holt cut a ribbon for the new CNG fueling station and shows off one of its new electric buses Thursday, April 22, 2021. A $1 trillion infrastructure bill headed to President Joe Bidens desk was blasted by members of Oklahomas congressional delegation but hailed by Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt as a major step toward long-needed investment in cities. This plan brings historic funding to core infrastructure needs, including roads and bridges, public transit, passenger rail, water infrastructure and broadband, the mayor, a Republican, said Friday night in a series of tweets. The bill gained House approval by a vote of 228 to 206 late Friday, with 13 Republicans in support. All five House members from Oklahoma, all Republicans, opposed the bill. Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Oklahoma City, said the bill would add $400 billion to the national debt and lacked changes to environmental regulations that can delay highway projects. She and other Oklahoma lawmakers also charged that only a portion of the money was going to traditional infrastructure. Oklahoma is expected to receive more than $5 billion for roads, bridges, electric vehicle charging stations and rural broadband expansion under the bill over the next five years. Money is also expected to be provided for water and power projects. According to White House estimates from earlier this year, Oklahoma would receive: $4.3 billion over five years for highway repairs and construction and another $266 million for bridge replacement and repairs. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation has estimated the bills allocation for Oklahoma would be about 30% more than current funding levels and that grant programs created by the legislation would provide opportunities for more money. $354 million for public transportation. $66 million to expand the electric vehicle charging network in the state. And $100 million for rural broadband improvements, including providing access to at least 368,000 Oklahomans who currently lack it, according to the White House. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr., said on Saturday that the bill begins the reversal of generations of neglect and inadequate funding by the United States of the infrastructure needs of tribes. The bill would provide $12 billion in direct funding to tribes and opportunities to secure more, he said. Story continues Holt helped lead an effort by the nations mayors to get a broad infrastructure bill approved, and he met with the president in July at the White House about the legislation. Holt has been a major proponent of boosting public transit in Oklahoma City, and has expressed support for the passenger rail component of the bill, which could lead to Amtrak service between Oklahoma City and Kansas. Biden said Saturday that the bill was a "once-in-a-generation investment thats going to create millions of jobs modernizing our infrastructure our roads, our bridges, our broadband, a whole range of things to turn the climate crisis into an opportunity. And it puts us on a path to win the economic competition of the 21st century that we face with China and other large countries and the rest of the world." He is expected to sign the bill next week. This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma City mayor hails final passage of infrastructure bill A Texas mother collected child support for the dead son found rotting in her apartment with her three other abandoned children, according to prosecutors. Gloria Williams is accused of leaving her three sons in a Houston apartment with the remains of their eight-year-old dead brother, Kendrick Lee. Prosectors allege that Ms Williams, 35, was also claiming government aid for two of her children, including Kendrick. Officials say that she also received additional assistance for the older daughter, for a total of around $2,000 per month in aid. She appeared in a Houston court on Friday charged with aggravated assault to a child and is now being held on a $1.5m bond after prosecutors asked for a judge to increase it. Court records show the boys told investigators that their mothers boyfriend, Brian Coulter, allegedly beat Kendrick to death last November, but his body was left to decompose inside the apartment as the youngsters were left to care for themselves. The oldest boy, 15-yeae-old Jordan Lee finally called 911 and raised the alarm on 24 October and when police showed up they found 10-year-old Treyvone Lee and 7-year-old Javeone Kirklin also at the property. Ms Williams also has two daughters who were not at the filthy apartment the boys were forced to stay at. Texas officials say that the children are all in foster care and are continuing to receive the services they need to heal. Mr Coulter has been charged with murder and is being held on a $1m bond. He is due back in court in December. Prosecutors say that Ms Williams and Mr Coulter were living in a fully furnished apartment 15 minutes away from the empty property where the boys were kept. The apartment was in a horrible condition. We saw soiled carpet, no furniture at all. No bedding, no blankets that we could see. We saw roaches and flies and a very bad condition for anyone to live in, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez previously said. And in an attempt to keep her sons death a secret, she would send groceries to the apartment once a month and continued to pay rent on it. Kendricks death was determined by the Harris County Medical Examiners Office to be a homicide with multiple blunt force injuries. Instagram logo Wake up, reach for your phone, open Instagram and start scrolling. It is an all-too familiar routine for many of us. But how does the app affect our mental health? Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen warned that Instagram was "more dangerous than other forms of social media", after it was revealed that the company's own research showed it could be harmful. At the time, Instagram said the research showed its "commitment to understanding complex and difficult issues". As politicians continue to scrutinise social media, the BBC spoke to five people about their experiences on Instagram. Building community Dani has a love-hate relationship with Instagram. The 29-year-old from South Wales, makes a living from the platform, and has built a community for trans people to connect online. But she has received abuse for the way she looks. Dani has built a community on Instagram "Instagram is the biggest blessing and biggest curse of my life", Dani tells the BBC. "When you're a trans person with an account that isn't private, it opens you up to abuse anyway - but some of the hate I've had online has been soul-destroying. "The hateful comments were vile. Someone even sent me a thread where people had taken images of me and were ridiculing me." Frances Haugen told a joint committee of MPs and Lords that Instagram is about "social comparison and about bodies... about people's lifestyles, and that's what ends up being worse for kids." Dani, who has beaten an alcohol addiction, says she can see how social media can feel addictive. "I've been sober for a few years now, but I feel Instagram is bad for people with addictive personalities. It's the same feeling you get, the need to have more and more." Sir Nick Clegg, vice-president of global affairs at Instagram's parent company Meta, has defended the platform, saying that the "overwhelming majority" of teenage girls enjoy using it. Story continues He said the company would be introducing tools to tackle harmful use of Instagram, including a nudge feature called "take a break", which will prompt young users to log off. Body image Hannah spends six to 10 hours a day on social media, which she has had access to since she was a teenager. The 24-year-old, who is studying at the University of the West of Scotland in Ayr, has an account on all the major platforms; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and TikTok. "I have got this really bad habit of first thing in the morning checking all my notifications," she explains. Hannah has received mean comments on Instagram "It's the last thing I check before I go to sleep. My whole day revolves around my social media. "I'm definitely addicted to TikTok, I can easily scroll through for a couple of hours at a time. I know I am basically wasting time... there are times when I try and limit it." On Instagram, Hannah used to follow influencers who made her feel bad about her body image. "It got me thinking that my body needed to look like theirs, and I began to have unrealistic expectations of being a slim model. I found it was really damaging my mental health, so I took a step back and unfollowed them." Now she has changed who she follows, swapping influencers for body-positive accounts. "I realised not everyone is a size six, super skinny, six-foot model. I've started to follow people who look more like me, and that's improved my body confidence." Hannah has received some hateful comments on Instagram. "I got comments from some people telling me I need to lose weight because I'm getting too fat - and I'm only a size ten. It made me feel negative about my body." Toxic environment At Hornsey School for Girls in North London, Scarlett and Anisa tell the BBC they are aware of the dangers of social media. Scarlett is 15 and uses all the platforms except Facebook, which she does not think is for people her age. "I follow YouTubers that create content about fashion, like Emma Chamberlain, who I love," she says. "But when I see someone of a really high beauty standard when I've just finished going through puberty, it's really difficult because seeing that makes me think I should look like that. It has made me feel insecure. "I've unfollowed a lot of accounts." Scarlett and Anisa use Instagram Anisa, who is also 15, changes the accounts she follows, to try to avoid negative content. But she has still seen things online that she did not want to see. "I've noticed some people's accounts create a toxic environment. Because I'm a teen, I know I need to watch out for brainwashing," says Anisa. "As a Muslim, I feel like there is really bad representation of us... so if I see that type of content I unfollow." The girls say they have also had enjoyable experiences on social media, especially when it comes to making videos with their friends. Scarlett says; "I've tried a lot of cooking video recipes and I've learned a lot of skills from videos online. "There are also accounts with amazing facts on there, and tips and tricks and life advice - it's not all bad, although the negatives probably outweigh the positives." Social-free Not everyone at the school is on Instagram. Leah, who is 15, has not been allowed to set up an account yet. "It's because of all the negative things that are out there, so I trust my mum's decision," she says. Leah is not allowed on Instagram "I would quite like to have social media, because all my friends have it and I sometimes I feel out of the loop, but I know the bad side to it too. I have heard a lot of stories about my friends receiving inappropriate pictures and horrible videos - stuff people our age shouldn't be watching." In September, Meta - then still called Facebook - paused plans to make an "Instagram experience" for under-13s, dubbed "Instagram Kids". The company said it would take time to listen to "parents, experts, policymakers and regulators", Instagram head Adam Mosseri said. TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Irans military began its annual war games in a coastal area of the Gulf of Oman, state TV reported Sunday, less than a month before upcoming nuclear talks with the West. The report said navy and air force units as well as ground forces were participating in a more than 1 million square-kilometer (386,100 square-mile) area east of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Nearly 20% of all oil shipping passes through the strait to the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean. The drill comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the wake of former President Donald Trumps unilateral withdrawal of America from Irans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. State TV said brigades including commandos and airborne infantry deployed for the annual exercise. Fighter jets, helicopters, military transport aircraft, submarines and drones were also expected to take part in the drill. It wasn't immediately clear how long the exercise would last. Dubbed Zolfaghar-1400, the war games are aimed at improving readiness in confronting foreign threats and any possible invasion," state TV said. U.S. officials said last week that Iran had seized a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman last month and was still holding the vessel in its port. Iran offered conflicting accounts of what happened, claiming that elite Revolutionary Guard commandos had thwarted a U.S. seizure of a tanker carrying Iranian oil in the Gulf of Oman and freed the vessel. It aired dramatic footage on state television but did not further explain the incident. The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, and is meant to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb. After the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018 and restored sanctions on Iran, the Islamic Republic gradually and publicly abandoned the deals limits on its nuclear development. Story continues Iran says its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium has reached over 210 kilograms (463 pounds), the latest defiant move ahead of upcoming nuclear talks with the West. Under the historic nuclear deal, Iran was prohibited from enriching uranium above 3.67%. Enriched uranium above 90% can be used for nuclear weapons, though Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful. After months of delays, the European Union, Iran and the U.S. announced last week that indirect talks to resuscitate the deal would resume Nov. 29 in Vienna. Iraq's prime minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi -- who survived an assassination attempt on Sunday -- is a former spy chief and skilled negotiator who faces an uncertain future following last month's legislative elections. Kadhemi, who headed Iraq's National Intelligence Service (INIS), took the reins in May last year after parliament granted his cabinet a vote of confidence, capping weeks of horse-trading over ministerial positions. Born in Baghdad in 1967, he studied law in Iraq but then left for Europe to escape repressive dictator Saddam Hussein, working as an opposition journalist. After the US-led 2003 invasion toppled Hussein, Kadhemi returned to help launch the Iraqi Media Network, archived crimes of the former regime at the Iraqi Memory Foundation and worked as a human rights advocate. But he made an unusual career jump in 2016, when then-PM Haider al-Abadi handpicked him to head the INIS at the height of the war against the Islamic State jihadist group. It was there, sources close to Kadhemi say, that he formed his uniquely close links with top players of key nations including in Washington, London and closer to home. "He's got a pragmatic mindset, relationships with all the key players on the Iraqi scene and good ties with the Americans -- and he was recently able to put his ties to the Iranians back on track," a political source and friend told AFP. The former journalist has a particularly close friendship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In footage from a visit to Riyadh after his appointment, the Saudi royal could be seen warmly embracing Kadhemi. But the clean-shaven man, his closely trimmed hair tinged by white around his ears, has otherwise mostly remained in the shadows. - 'Unprecedented' consensus - Kadhemi was first floated as premier in 2018 but political blocs instead opted for Adel Abdel Mahdi -- the caretaker PM who resigned in December 2019 after months of protests, and whom Kadhemi replaced. Story continues The intel chief's name began circulating a few months later as President Barham Saleh's preferred candidate, but a political adviser close to the talks told AFP he had hesitated to take the risk. "He did not want to agree unless it was going to be a sure thing," the adviser said, having seen two candidates -- lawmaker Adnan Zurfi and ex-minister Mohammad Allawi -- fail before him. Allawi could not pull together a cabinet by his 30-day deadline while Zurfi dropped his bid under pressure from Shiite parties close to Iran, who saw the lawmaker as worryingly close to Washington. In January 2020, those same factions had accused Kadhemi of being involved in the US drone strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in Baghdad. But Kadhemi worked through the caretaker PM's influential chief of staff Mohammad al-Hashemi to repair ties with Iran and its allies in Iraq, the adviser and a diplomat based in Baghdad told AFP. With pro-Tehran factions on board, the adviser said, Kadhemi scored "an unprecedented Shiite-wide consensus". - 'Superb negotiator' - That set Kadhemi up with better chances than the two prior candidates, but he has faced a host of challenges, from the country's ailing economy to the coronavirus. He brought forward elections, originally scheduled for 2022, in response to the anti-government protests over endemic corruption, unemployment and failing public services. But the results of those elections now mean he is facing an uncertain future, with coalition wrangling and accusations of fraud. A figure like Kadhemi could have the right connections to steer Iraq through these crises, observers say. "Kadhemi is a superb negotiator and an incredibly astute player," said Toby Dodge, head of the London School for Economics' Middle East Centre. But, he cautioned: "Iraq is on borrowed time -- the stakes have gone up much higher." ac-mjg/kaf/oho/qan Rangers restored a four-point lead over Celtic at the top of the Scottish Premiership with a 4-2 win over Ross County after the Hoops were winners by the same scoreline at Dundee earlier on Sunday. For the fifth consecutive games, Rangers had to come from behind after Joseph Hungbo's early goal shocked Ibrox. Joe Aribo and Ryan Kent turned the game around before half-time for the Scottish champions. Juninho Bacuna and an Alex Iacovitti own goal then put Rangers 4-1 in front before Jordan White's late consolation. Celtic are now unbeaten in eight games as Ange Postecoglou's rebuild takes shape thanks in large part to the goalscoring form of two of his summer signings, Jota and Kyogo Furuhashi. The pair have combined for 19 goals this season and Celtic's excellence in attack again covered over defensive deficiencies. The visitors took the lead at Dens Park after just seven minutes when Jota tapped in the rebound after Anthony Ralston's shot came back off the post. Furuhashi then headed home Ralston's cross as Celtic looked to be cruising, but they were pegged back before half-time when Danny Mullen rounded off a fine Dundee move from close range. Jota restored a two-goal cushion for Postecoglou's men early in the second half as he prodded home from Ralston's cross. More brilliance from the Portuguese on the left then teed up Furuhashi to sweep home his 13th goal for the club after some dazzling wing play from the Portuguese. Another defensive lapse cost Celtic another goal when Lee Ashcroft headed in after Joe Hart flapped at a cross. But Celtic comfortably held out to put the pressure on champions Rangers who face Ross County at Ibrox later on Sunday. kca/gj Greenville County Jail/YouTube A concert pianist who studied at the nations most prestigious music school described himself as on a mission to fill the world with the music of his favorite composer. But that mission was cut short when he ended up allegedly stabbing a woman death in what a South Carolina sheriff called a brutal crime scene. Zachary Hughes, a 29-year-old Julliard-trained pianist, stabbed Christina Parcell, a 41-year-old veterinary technician, to death last month, according to the Greenville County Sheriffs Department. The relationship between the two is unclear to authorities. Parcells corpse was found in her Greer, South Carolina home on Oct. 15, two days after the alleged murder, with multiple sharp force injuries, police said. Two other men connected to Parcell were recently arrested: Bradly Post, Parcells fiancee, on child pornography charges, and John Mello, who shared a child with Parcell, on child custody charges. She was brutally stabbed It was a very brutal crime scene, for sure, said Greenville sheriff Hobart Lewis. Hughes writes on his website that he is on a mission to fill the world with the music of his favorite composer and lifelong heroLudwig van Beethoven, performing throughout North America, Europe, and Japan. He was in Greenville as part of a partnership with the Sigal Music Museum to make live video recordings of Beethovens piano sonatas on both modern and historical instruments for his YouTube and Patreon channels. According to Hughes site, he could often be found playing piano in downtown Greenville last year, since performance venues were closed. Hughes said he underwent military training at Marine Corps Officer Candidates School in 2019 but was dropped due to severe stress fractures. While recovering, he got the offer to record Beethoven in Greenville, he writes. Hughes also paints a picture himself as a youthful Lord of the Rings fan, thrilled with crafting wooden replica swords and taking them into the Appalachian woods to do battle with the forces of darkness. Story continues The musician turned himself in Wednesday charged with murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime. Lewis said unspecified physical evidence links Hughes, who has no prior criminal history, to the crime scene, as does video surveillance. Greenville Sheriff Hobart Lewis said, I think it was more than obvious that he intended to kill her and he went over there for that reason... We dont know why. We dont know what his motive really was. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. 1982: A publicity photo of children playing with Play-Doh Fuzzy Pumper Pet Shop from Kenner. Scent might be the strongest of the senses, bringing back long-forgotten memories in an instant. Pumpkin pies at Thanksgiving. The first hyacinths in the spring. The smell of my high school band room: Old reeds, teenage hormones and never-cleaned trumpets. That last one may not be one you want to make into a candle. Theres another scent that I can conjure up in a split second one I had no idea had its beginnings right here in Cincinnati. Play-Doh. Just saying it takes me back to kindergarten where we became mini-Matisses with the colored dough. And the smell. Oh, the smell. Acrid and comforting at the same time. Which kind of makes sense when you find out that Play-Doh as we know it started its legendary life as a wallpaper cleaner. From wallpaper cleaner to child's toy, and Cincinnati's role in that transformation The year was 1933 and Cincinnatis Kutol Products was a soap manufacturer tasked with creating a cleaner that could take coal residue off wallpaper. A non-stick putty-like consistency worked perfectly. And thats the way it was sold until the 50s, when natural gas furnaces didnt require wallpaper cleaner. Kutols Noah McVicker was faced with a problem: lots of putty, not a lot of need. His companys premiere product was bordering on obsolescence. Until his nephew Joe McVicker and Joes sister-in-law Kay Zufall stepped in. Zufall was a nursery school teacher, and she realized her students enjoyed making art projects with the putty and the cleanup was a lot easier than modeling clay. And so Play-Doh was born. The original Play-Doh modeling compound from Rainbow Crafts. The wallpaper cleaner was repackaged in 1956 and sold to Cincinnati-area schools under the name Rainbow Crafts Co. But at first, Play-Doh didnt come in a rainbow of colors at all. Red, yellow and blue were soon added to the original white. Now, there are more than 60 shades on the market, not to mention the lovely brown our kids have created when they combine one too many colors. So, what exactly is that Play-Doh smell? Story continues So back to that smell: what gives it that pungency? Our homemade versions are basically water, flour and salt. As for the real deal, Play-Doh wont reveal all thats inside those little yellow cans. The exact ingredients of Play-Doh Classic Compound are proprietary, so we cannot share them with you, it reads on its website. Play-Doh was patented in 1965, but obviously someone had the same obsession with its aroma that I apparently do. Hasbro (which acquired Play-Dohs parent company in 1991) marked Play-Dohs 50th anniversary in 2006 with a limited-edition perfume promising that fresh out-of-the-can smell. 2006: Hasbro released a limited-edition perfume of the unmistakable Play-Doh scent to commemorate the modeling clay's 50th birthday. But it didnt stop there. Hasbro now has trademark protection for that sweet and salty smell. Its filing claimed Play-Doh had a unique scent formed through the combination of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough. Cherry. Thats the olfactory undertone Ive been trying to figure out. Play-Doh, the putty initially meant to spare grandmas floral wallpaper, was inducted into the Toy Hall of Fame in 1998. Now, almost four generations and billions of cans later, kids are still playing with Play-Doh in the form of advent calendars, makeup palettes and much to parents chagrin slime. Same yellow can, same familiar smell and the same good, clean fun. If theres a Play-Doh candle out there somewhere, send it Kathrines way. Otherwise, catch her on The Enquirers Facebook page weekdays at 10 a.m. for Coffee Break with Kathrine. National Play-Doh Day was first celebrated on Sept. 16, 1980. This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Play-Doh got its start as a wallpaper cleaner, created in Cincinnati Fabian Garcia These letters published in the Nov. 7, 2021 print edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News. Fabian Garcia a worthwhile honoree Fabian Garcia inducted into the National Agricultural Hall of Fame (Sun-News, Oct 26, 2021). This news article brought a big smile to my face yes! Better late than never. I met Mr. Garcia when I was 15 years old working as a nurses aide at McBride Hospital, the first 26-bed hospital with one private room in Las Cruces. My morning duties were taking temperatures and preparing the patients for their breakfast. About the third day of Garcias hospitalization, as soon as I was walked into his room that morning, he asked me in a loud voice Why arent you in school? I was surprised at his question, but responded as calmly as I could, Sir, I am in school. I work a split shift arranged by the hospital to allow me to work and go to school. He then added So when do you have time to do your homework? My first class at Court Junior High School is study hall, I responded. Now may I wash your hands and get you ready for breakfast? Yes, he said, and if you need help with your homework, let me know, Im here doing nothing. His questions every morning were about my school classes, and thank you but I dont need help yet, I would tell him. After a few days he was discharged. Months later he was admitted again, to the same private room, very sick. This time private nurses were assigned to him 24/7, so I didnt have the opportunity to talk to him. When I reported to work from school one day, I found his bed empty. I was sadden by his death. Years later, my friend Dr. Deb Dennis, gave me a copy of his bio. I regretted not making the time to sincerely thank him for his concern about my schooling. Clearly, education was very important to him. Mr. Garcias infant son, Jose Garcia, is buried in the San Jose Cemetery, he died the year he was born, 1909. Dolores C. Archuleta, Las Cruces We need to pay legislators In early 2021 many New Mexicans watched our legislature online, hoping for solutions to the issues we cared about. For me it was climate change, for others it was disaster funding, literacy, or LGBTQ rights, etc. But instead, we saw hearings intentionally dragged out by repetitive questions, then more filibusters when the few surviving bills reached a vote in the full House or Senate. Then the 60-day session expired and many dozens of important bills died without a vote as the clock ran out, with hundreds more stuck in committee starved by lack of time. Story continues This needs to be fixed. New Mexico has the only unsalaried state legislature left in the country, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and some of the shortest sessions. It was designed that way in 1912, along with the short 30-day and 60-day sessions, to benefit the wealthy ranchers and landowners, who needed no salary to serve. Every other state has changed this system. New Mexico faces big issues and needs a modern legislature with better representation from its diverse communities. Yes, many good legislators also hold down jobs, but why should we force them to request time off to serve? We elect our legislators to represent us. If we want members from working families to serve and pass better laws to benefit all New Mexicans, we need to pay them. With a salary, they could also afford longer sessions, perhaps 60 and 90 days, so fewer good bills would die each year. We get the legislature we pay for. If the people dont pay for it, someone else does, and their interests may not be our interests. Lets support a bill to set salaries for our legislators and join the 21st century. Thomas Solomon, Albuquerque Take from the rich As Americans, we all are concerned about our country and its future. We havent been keeping up with our infrastructure needs and are falling behind other countries in that vein. The reasoning is that we dont want to put our children into debt, and justifiably so. If we were to step back and look at the big picture, we need to question that debt and who is currently not paying into the system to keep up and/or reduce that debt. The news is constantly talking about how the wealthy are hiding their wealth in foreign countries/islands and not paying their fair share into the system that keeps us a strong and healthy nation. All of this also includes the aspect of our human infrastructure needs. While our Congress cant seem to agree on anything, its time they did. We not only need to invest in our country, we need to make up for lost time. The infrastructure bill should not be nickel and dimed down to the minimum while those that dont work for a living and dont pay their taxes get off scot free. The wealthy elite who inherit their wealth are sitting pretty while we American workers end up paying the taxes to keep us afloat. Its time to change that. We need to invest what is necessary, and those who have been cheating us and not paying their taxes need to foot the bill for this. Yvette Herrell, do you hear us? Michael Sauber, Silver City Lions Club shouldn't raise funds with gun show Do we need more guns in L.C.? I don't think so but the local Lions Club doesn't agree with me. They hold a gun show once a year as their fundraiser and more irresponsible macho guys can add more guns to their collection. I am tried of reading every morning about all the shooting that has been going on in L.C. The Lions Club in L.C. is the only one in the USA that promotes a gun show as their fundraiser. I belonged to one of the largest Lions Club in Southern Califonria and we had other methods of raising funds that our local club should try. Fidel Sanchez, Las Cruces Landlords have responsibility to community I have experienced renting from a senior citizen here, who rents a single family home that's been converted to three apartments. It was a nightmare. He does no background checks, I was living within feet of drug dealers, domestic violence, parolees. These people are destroying the neighborhood, homeowners who have been there 45 years. He puts himself in danger dealing in cash with these people. Dementia is not an overnight occurrence, but family that sees him two times a year or only by phone may not be aware. Meanwhile this is happening here, with houses being condemned because of absentee owners who refuse to hire a property management company because in 1963 you didn't need one. They're being victimized by drug users, con artists, liars. The world has changed. Look out for your elders look out for everyone you care for and their mental health. Be thankful for community. Robyn Carter, Las Cruces This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Letters to the editor: On Fabian Garcia CAIRO (AP) Libyas government Sunday rejected a decision by the countrys presidential council to suspend the foreign minister over allegations of monopolizing foreign policy. The standoff between the two bodies is likely to increase political tensions in the North African county less than seven weeks before planned elections. It also comes a few days ahead of an international conference in Paris to push for holding the vote as scheduled Dec. 24. The Government of National Unity said in a statement that the presidential council doesnt have the right to suspend Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush. and hailed the ministers efforts as the countys chief diplomat. It pointed to her work at an international conference held in the capital of Tripoli last month with the aim of resolving the countrys thorniest issues ahead of general elections The government said that naming members of the government and suspending or investigating government officials are duties exclusive to the prime minister. The presidential council, a three-member body serving as the country's president until one is elected, late Saturday suspended Mangoush and barred her from traveling abroad. It accused the minister of not coordinating foreign policy decisions with the council. The council did not elaborate on the circumstances behind the decision. The country's election agency, meanwhile, announced the registration process for presidential and parliamentary hopefuls will start Monday. The agency said potential candidates have until Nov. 22 to register to run for the country's highest post, while parliamentary hopefuls have until Dec. 7 to register their candidacies. The long-waited vote still faces other challenges, including unresolved issues over the countrys elections laws and occasional fighting among armed groups. Other obstacles include the deep rift that remains between the countrys east and west and the presence of thousands of foreign fighters and troops. Story continues Libya has been engulfed in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. He was captured and killed by an armed group two months later. The oil-rich country was for years split between rival governments, one based in the capital, Tripoli, and the other in the eastern part of the country. Each side is backed by different foreign powers and militias. The interim government now in charge was appointed in February after months of U.N.-backed negotiations to lead the country through elections. It includes the presidential council and a Cabinet of ministers that runs the day-to-day affairs. Libya's presidential council says it has suspended Foreign Minister Najla El-Mangoush for 14 days and banned her from travelling, pending an inquiry. It accused her of not co-ordinating on foreign policy, but the transitional government rejected the decision, saying she would carry on as normal. The political infighting follows comments she made in a BBC interview about the Lockerbie bombing in 1988. Libya admitted responsibility for the bombing in 2003. Controversy ignited here after the minister spoke to the BBC about the possible extradition of a new Libyan suspect wanted by the US over the bombing. The downing of the plane - in which 270 people were killed - remains a sensitive subject here, and a painful one in the US and Britain. Najla El-Mangoush told us that the Libyan government was very open to collaborating with the US on the question of extradition, and said the matter was progressing. "We understand the pain and sadness of the victims and the families," she said. The move to suspend - and ground - the top diplomat comes ahead of a major international conference on Libya in Paris next Friday. It also comes as Libya is moving uncertainly towards nationwide elections, due in late December. This kind of dispute between institutions of state is not new in Libya, far from it. The country has two competing parliaments and is deeply divided between East and West. With the elections approaching, the internal competition is on the increase. The Libyan government said the presidential council had no legal authority to suspend or investigate a minister, and the foreign minister would continue her work. She is currently out of the country and is expected to attend the Paris conference. It's likely that the international community will want this row to be defused quickly, to keep the focus on holding elections - tricky as that may be - and on the future of Libya. Travis Scott performs during 2021 Astroworld Festival at NRG Park on November 05, 2021 in Houston, Texas. Erika Goldring/WireImage/via Getty Images At least eight people died and 300 were injured at Travis Scott's Astroworld Festival on Friday. Kyle Green claims he became paralyzed at a 2017 Travis Scott concert in New York. Green said he was "devastated" for the Astroworld Festival victims, Rolling Stone reported. A man who claims he was paralyzed following a 2017 Travis Scott concert said he was "devastated" for victims of the Astroworld Festival, according to a statement his lawyer shared with Rolling Stone. At least eight people died and 300 were injured in a "mass casualty" according to officials, after a crowd surged during Scott's performance at his annual Astroworld Festival on Friday. Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference that the crowd was around 50,000 people. Four years earlier, Kyle Green, 27, attended Scott's April 2017 concert at Terminal 5 in New York City, where he was reportedly pushed from a third-floor balcony during the performance. Rolling Stone reported that Green said he was forced over the third-story edge amid a "severely crowded" event. According to the suit filed six months after the alleged incident, Green stated that he suffered several broken bones - including his vertebrae - before being taken off the floor by staff "without a cervical collar, backboard and other safety precautions," the outlet reports. Rolling Stone noted that Green was injured during the same concert where Scott was filmed encouraging a different fan to drop from the second-story seating into the crowd below. While his lawsuit against Scott is still pending in the Manhattan Supreme Court, Green gave a statement to Rolling Stone through his lawyer, Howard Hershenhorn: "He's devastated and heartbroken for the families of those who were killed and for those individuals who were severely injured." "He's even more incensed by the fact that it could have been avoided had Travis learned his lesson in the past and changed his attitude about inciting people to behave in such a reckless manner," the statement continued. Story continues Green's lawyer told the outlet that he initially used a wheelchair following the incident but "can actually walk now, but with significant, significant disability. He's partially paralyzed still." Scott's lawyers have denied that he's at fault, reportedly writing in a 2018 filing that said Green's injuries resulted from "risks voluntarily undertaken" by attendees, according to Rolling Stone who obtained the filing. Representatives for Travis Scott did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Green's lawyer shared a statement with Insider, saying: "My client was paralyzed at Travis show in NY and Travis has pled guilty twice for encouraging chaos at his shows. His song lyrics encourage violence and injury at his concerts." As reported by the Associated Press, Scott pled guilty to reckless conduct charges following Lollapalooza, a music festival based in Chicago, in 2015. Authorities claimed that Scott encouraged fans to jump the safety barricades. In a separate incident, Scott was arrested in 2017 after authorities accused him of inciting a riot during a concert at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion, AP reported. A security guard, police, and others reportedly suffered injuries as a result. Scott pled guilty to disorderly conduct in a plea deal, according to the outlet. Scott released a statement regarding his event and the incident on Saturday afternoon. "I'm absolutely devastated by what took place last night," Scott wrote in a tweet. "My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival." Read the original article on Insider Our state is on the verge of a long overdue update to our schools social studies standards, and it has some New Mexicans needlessly worried. The proposed new standards are posted on the Public Education Department website for public comment through Nov. 12, and more than 500 people have already had their say. One theme comes through loud and clear: Fear. Fear of change is a normal human reaction, but in the case of New Mexico social studies standards, a noisy minority with a deep stake in maintaining the status quo has seized upon those fears and blown the whole thing way out of proportion. Some New Mexicans have fallen victim to the noise and falsehoods, expressing beliefs on the public comment page that are patently untrue, including these: The standards require students to become political activists. Nonsense. The standards promote civic engagement activities like picking up trash and voting. No one has to get involved in politics. The standards make Black students feel like victims and White students feel guilty. Another false claim. The standards include age-appropriate learning about historic events and historic achievements by all races. Lets trust our kids to identify with the good, reject the bad and help future generations learn from our past. The standards promote divisiveness. How could standards that teach children to recognize and honor diversity do that? I think maintaining the status quo in which many groups are excluded from our current standards or nearly so is much more dangerous in that regard. The proposed standards represent the work of dozens of New Mexico educators from all over the state and contain no hidden agendas. New Mexico higher education experts helped identify what the old standards were lacking. A writing team of more than 60 K-12 New Mexico educators spent months volunteering their time to draft, debate and revise explicit and grade-appropriate standards to be sure New Mexico students will graduate prepared to live, work and thrive in our multicultural society. Story continues The old standards covered four content areas: civics and government, economics, geography and history. Those have been updated to include events and movements that occurred since the standards were overhauled in 2001. Think 9-11, the Great Recession of 2008, the presidents and policies of the last two decades. Surely we can all agree that New Mexico students need to learn more about what happened in the world in the last 20 years! In addition, the new standards add two new content areas: ethnic, cultural and identity studies, and inquiry. Those seem to be at the root of many fears, so lets unpack them. Including ethnic, cultural and identity studies means students will learn that people who look like them helped make this country what it is today. The standards ensure that all students see themselves and their family stories reflected in what they are learning in other words, social studies tell the stories of all of us. These concepts add to our standards they do not subtract from them. And finally, inquiry. This new content category moves social studies beyond rote memorization of facts (still required, when needed) to include teaching our kids how to question the sources of information and to think for themselves. This is the opposite of indoctrination. Lets give our children the facts and let them reflect, question, evaluate and decide what to think. Rest assured, the new social studies standards are good. Really good. They will make sure our children are respected and valued for who they are and learn to respect and value others. Thats probably the most radical outcome, and its one most New Mexicans would welcome. Howie Morales is New Mexicos elected lieutenant governor and a former classroom teacher in Grant County public schools. He holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from New Mexico State University. This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: New Mexicans should welcome proposed social studies standards US Army Military Police escort a detainee to his cell January 11, 2001 in Camp X-Ray at Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during in-processing to the temporary detention. Getty Images Capt. Scott B. Curtis told The New York Times most people in the military agree "torture is wrong." Curtis wrote a letter condemning the torture a Guantanamo Bay detainee went through. The letter, signed by seven senior military officials, called it a "stain" on the US' "moral fiber." A Navy captain who served 30 years in the military said there is widespread agreement among service members that "torture is wrong." "I think you'll find that your senior people fully understand that acts like torture do more long-term damage than good, if they do any good," Capt. Scott B. Curtis told The New York Times. Curtis spoke with the Times' Carol Rosenberg last week, revealing himself as the author of a letter signed by a military jury that condemned the CIA's use of torture. The two-page handwritten letter, sent to Pentagon officials after the jury delivered a mandatory sentence to a terrorist, asked for clemency for the man, calling the torture tactics used against him "a stain on the moral fiber of America." The man, Majid Khan, 41, described to the jury the torture he experienced at CIA black sites, which were established around the world during the war on terror to hold enemy combatants and perform "enhanced interrogations." Like Khan, many who were interrogated were eventually sent to Guantanamo Bay. Khan said he experienced force-feeding, waterboarding, and physical and sexual abuse. He said he was isolated while nude, chained up in the dark, and nearly drowned. The letter compared the tactics to those used by "the most abusive regimes in modern history." Curtis told The Times that the jury, made up of senior military officials, did not have sympathy for the man or his actions, but that the torture he described was a "mitigating factor." He said he wrote the letter in 20 minutes after the sentencing and offered to let the other jurors sign it, with seven of the eight doing so. Story continues He also said that opposition to torture is not a "liberal" position, citing the late Sen. John McCain's view. McCain, a Republican from Arizona and also a veteran, experienced torture himself during the years he spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. McCain was a vocal opponent of torture, arguing it produces faulty intelligence, endangers our own troops who end up captive, and is morally wrong, writing in 2011: "This is a moral debate. It is about who we are." However Republican President Donald Trump expressed support for torture in 2017, claiming it "works," though his defense secretary, James Mattis, and CIA director, Mike Pompeo, both opposed reintroducing the enhanced interrogation methods. Curtis told The Times he thinks the US "is still the good guys, for lack of a better term, throughout the world" but that "we certainly make mistakes." He also said the letter "wasn't condemning the present military and the present CIA." Read the original article on Business Insider An SUV plows through the flooded intersection of Winchester and Front Streets in the City of Monroe Wednesday morning. November has had a much drier tone so far following one of the wettest Octobers in recent memory. The Monroe County region got drenched with more than 6 inches of rain in October, which saw 16 days record some measurable rain. The total threatened the record of 7.27 inches of moisture recorded in October, 2001. The National Weather Service at White Lake, MI, called it the 13th wettest October in the past 130 years of record keeping, said Kevin Kacan, a meteorologist for the service. The service measured 5.25 inches at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in Romulus. It was wetter than normal, thats for sure, Kacan said Friday. The average rainfall for the month is 2.53, so it was double the normal. Last October saw only two inches measured in the region. The damp month continued a trend of above-normal rainfall that has swamped the area at times since June, when 5.37 inches fell. Following are monthly rainfall totals since then: July, 5.32 inches; August, 5.17 inches, and September, 5.7 inches. October was the wettest month for many farmers who were constantly prevented from harvesting their grain and vegetable crops due to soggy fields. Ned Birkey, an agricultural consultant from Ida, said it was the wettest October at the local Michigan State University Enviroweather station in Deerfield, but its records only go back five years. Some fields are still too wet to get back into due to heavy rain last weekend. Only a trace of rain has fallen so far this month, which is quite a contrast to the first five days of October when nearly an inch of moisture was measured. This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: October rainfall threatened mark for wettest fall Anna Kathryn Tolbert holds a toddler in Vietnam. Anna Kathryn Tolbert cracked open a photo album, peering at the faded pictures. Lets see, I dont have a whole lot of photographs because I was so busy working. There wasnt much time," Tolbert said. The Paris native flipped through the photos that remained of her service in Vietnam. In one, she holds up a Vietnamese toddler as she stands in front of shelves of supplies. In another, she smiles in green Army fatigues sitting next to a woman named Co Phu. In a third, Tolbert leans over a makeshift crib holding a sleeping baby. Anna Kathryn Tolbert, 77, looks back over photos from her time serving in the Vietnam War. Starting in 1968, Tolbert served for close to two years in the Army Nurse Corps, stationed in the midst of the fighting in Cu Chi. Every day was pretty much the same lots of work interspersed with rocket and mortar attacks," Tolbert, 77, said. Anna Kathryn Tolbert interacts with Vietnamese children during her time working as a nurse during the Vietnam War. The attacks usually came at night under the cover of darkness and were aimed at the airstrip nearby, bringing strikes close to the hospital. One night, the building next to her quarters was hit, killing five people. You know Ive picked shrapnel out of the walls you know the outside walls of my barracks building," she said. Anna Kathryn Tolbert, a Paris native, sits with Co Phu. As a nurse in a warzone, she relied on a triage approach, ranking patients by their level of need and affording care only to those who could be saved. One day, she broke from the system and continued caring for a man who had been shot in the chest, even after her commanding officer reprimanded her for the care. I had a patient who really no one thought was going to make it, and we were so busy, and he was on a ventilator and had been shot through the chest, and it was difficult to care for him because every time you took him off the ventilator to suction him you know it was, he would practically, he would turn purple from lack of oxygen," Tolbert said. "But he had to be suctioned, and we were so busy, but I just kind of had this feeling about him you know that gee if he could just breathe, hes just got this one wound in the chest." Story continues Anna Kathryn Tolbert leans over a baby with a leg wound. Her persistence paid off. The man survived. Thats something that I will always remember. Hes one person that I really helped to save," Tolbert said. After two years of active duty, she spent five years working as a flight nurse in an Air Force reserve unit. From 1970 to 1975, Tolbert trained at least one weekend a month and carried out missions for two weeks out of the year. This was while Tolbert lived in Oregon. The base was originally in Oregon but moved to Washington during her period of service. During missions, Tolbert flew to the Philippines on a plane carrying cargo and returned to the United States with injured Vietnamese passengers. The planes could hold 72 people and she was one of about two nurses caring for patients on board. It wasnt like being a stewardess, Tolbert said with a laugh. Now, Tolbert lives back in Paris, where she suspects she is the only veteran from the Army Nurse Corps in the county. Her service in Vietnam gives her a sense of pride, she said. The Vietnam War lasted from 1965 to 1975 and killed 58,220 Americans, according to the National Archive. "Perhaps some people are alive that might not have been had I not served," Tolbert said. she added, "I have no regrets at all for having done it." Alex Gladden is a University of Arkansas graduate. She previously reported for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and The Jonesboro Sun before joining the Times Record. She can be contacted at agladden@swtimes.com. This article originally appeared on Fort Smith Times Record: Army nurse reflects on her time in Vietnam A Phoenix police vehicle. Phoenix police arrested a man early Saturday morning after he fired several rounds toward officers when police were responding to a report of domestic violence. Police responded to the report around 3:45 a.m. near 67th Avenue and Camelback Road, Sgt. Vincent Cole said in a statement. Officers on scene learned that a man was firing a gun into the air, according to Cole. The suspect fired several rounds towards the officers as well, striking one of the patrol vehicles, Cole said. He was taken into custody with the use of a stun bag round and transported to a local hospital for minor injuries, according to Cole. There were no additional injuries as a result of this incident. Police did not provide more information as the man's arrest was still being processed as of Saturday afternoon. Reach breaking news reporter MacKenzie Brower at mackenzie.brower@arizonarepublic.com or on Instagram @_photomac_. Support local journalism. Subscribe to azcentral.com today. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Police: Man arrested after shooting in Phoenix With an eye on both the midterm elections and 2024, a host of Republican lawmakers -- including many potential presidential contenders -- spoke in Las Vegas at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting this weekend. Most called this past week's election outcomes a signifier of things to come during midterms. "As we move forward, the signs are clear and the trends are unmistakable," House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy said Saturday. "A Republican wave is underway." Attendees aiming to ensure that GOP gains continue through 2024s presidential election with possible candidates made their case without explicitly stating their intentions. A lot of people have come here to audition, said Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Saturday night. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Ambassador Nikki Haley, Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and former Vice President Mike Pence all spoke at the event. The conference also featured a video message from former President Donald Trump. "We will win back the House. We will win back the Senate," Trump said in his video address. "And we will win back in 2024 that beautiful white building sometimes referred to as the White House." PHOTO: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., spoke Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting. (Republican Jewish Coalition) While there has been no shortage of commentary on the fact that Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin kept Trump at an arm's length, most of the speakers in Las Vegas leaned hard into their support of Trump. "President Trump's single most redeeming characteristic -- the man has a steel backbone and he doesn't back down," Cruz said Friday to boisterous applause. "After years of Republicans scared of their own shadows, there's a reason we celebrate a leader who's willing to stand up and fight." Who's going to be the nominee [in 2024]? I don't know, but I do know this, that Donald Trump was a hell of a president, said Graham. Story continues On Friday night, Scott, who is the chair of the National Republican Senate Committee, told ABC News that Trump will do "whatever he can" to help Republicans take control of both chambers of Congress in 2022. Depending on the race, it could mean standing back. MORE: Biden says passage of $1 trillion infrastructure bill a 'monumental step forward' "You should listen to the candidate because they know their state and they know their race," Scott said. "And so you should let them figure out how involved you should be and that's anybody, including the NRSC." On Saturday, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel told attendees that connecting voters on issues they care about and presenting a united party to the electorate are the keys to winning more elections. PHOTO: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem was among the 2024 presidential contenders who spoke at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. (Republican Jewish Coalition) The Republican Jewish Coalition meeting typically centers on foreign policy, like relations with Israel and with other nations in the region. Vice Presidents largely touted the accomplishments of the Trump administration as it pertains to Israel, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. Under the Trump-Pence administration, if the world knew nothing else the world knew this. America stands with Israel, said former Vice President Pence. Our administration was able to take historic steps to strengthen the ties in the American people and the Jewish state of Israel. In addition to U.S.-Israeli relations, this time around at the annual meeting there was a great deal of attention paid to domestic issues. Among the most talked-about issues was teaching so-called critical race theory in schools, a topic that has emerged as a flashpoint in conservative circles. Every speaker referred to critical race theory during their remarks, with some, like Haley, calling it "liberal indoctrination." "We've got the midterm elections next year where the stakes couldn't be higher," she said Saturday. "Those elections are about whether we stop socialism, defend our borders, return on fiscal sanity and get the liberal indoctrination out of our schools." "We're watching critical race theory and during the woke curriculum infiltrate our school districts," Noem said. MORE: ANALYSIS: Suburban shifts hand GOP Virginia along with fresh messaging Opposition to vaccine mandates was also a frequently mentioned topic. DeSantis spoke of his opposition to voting reform, framing changes as a danger to Republican ability to wield power. "They want to make conservative Americans second-class citizens," said DeSantis. "They want to lock us out from being able to exercise power to be able to exercise policy." PHOTO: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, spoke Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, at the Republican Jewish Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas. (Republican Jewish Coalition) President Joe Biden's agenda, including his newly passed infrastructure plan, also made waves. Most framed Biden's agenda as being hijacked by progressives in comparison to how he campaigned. The word "socialism" was used freely to describe the Democratic agenda throughout the event. During Christie's remarks Saturday, he cited his record of supporting Trump, but implored the crowd to give up on trying to relitigate the 2020 election. The response from the crowd to Christie, an ABC News contributor, was tepid. "We can no longer talk about the past and past elections. No matter where you stand on that issue, no matter where you stand, it is over," said Christie. Potential 2024 GOP candidates take Election Day victory lap, lean into support of Donald Trump at Jewish Coalition originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Transitioning from military to civilian life can be disorienting, confusing, and leave you not sure of where to even start with navigating a new, unfamiliar world. The abrupt and dramatic change from one lifestyle to another is difficult enough. Now imagine doing it without eyesight, or with one arm, or with a traumatic brain injury that makes it difficult to concentrate. Add onto that another challenge not having a supportive employer. Pew Research says that about half (48 percent) of post-9/11 veterans believe that adjusting to civilian life after military service was difficult. Some veterans have never needed to search for a job or create a resume. They often struggle to translate their military skills and responsibilities into transferable skills for civilian work. I can relate to the veterans who feel frustrated and powerless after leaving the service. As a third-generation sailor, the six years I spent in the United States Navy were some of the proudest of my life. After my time was up, I was lucky enough to work as a welder, which was something I loved doing and allowed me to transition to civilian life pretty easily. But eventually, optic neuropathy caused my eyesight to deteriorate. Over the course of three days, I lost vision in one eye and within a few short years I was legally blind. It was an incredibly difficult experience wanting to work but not being able to do so in the same way as before. Fortunately, I found IFB Solutions, a nonprofit organization in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, to lean on for support. IFB Solutions is one of the many organizations associated with National Industries for the Blind that help people who are blind, including veterans, with employment, training, and other professional services. As a country we like to talk about how much we value our veterans and honor our wounded warriors. This Veterans Day, social media may be flooded with companies expressing gratitude for those who have served our country. But businesses can and should go a step further and act on their appreciation year-round. Story continues Companies should practice what they preach and ease servicemembers transition to civilian life by becoming good places to work for veterans, especially those like me who are blind or disabled. Companies can start by creating an inclusive workplace, for veterans and more broadly for people who are blind or disabled. Many leaders might not know where to start, but luckily a lot of the resources and solutions already exist for companies that are willing to implement them. For example, NSITE, NIBs talent management enterprise, offers support and guidance for companies who want to hire people who are blind or visually impaired, and connects veterans who qualify with a wide range of career options that suit their interests, goals, and capabilities. Businesses can also help overcome workplace roadblocks by following three steps: Diversify your hiring practices. By becoming more diverse with their hires, companies not only invite new perspectives that help them become more flexible, dynamic, and innovative, but also provide more employment opportunities for veterans and people with disabilities. Change your perspective. Instead of thinking about what might happen if a new hire doesnt work out, think about what could happen if it does work out: improved inclusion, reduced turnover, and a better understanding of veterans and the disability community. Overcome the myth of complexity. Companies might think hiring someone who is blind is logistically challenging, but its not as complicated as you might think. Thanks to years of experience, people with disabilities have already developed solutions to help onboard and integrate themselves into a new role. Whats more, accessible technology is not as expensive to implement as it seems. For example, smartphones which many people already own have built in accessible capabilities that employees who are blind can use to navigate the workplace. As a military veteran, I pride myself on adaptability, as I know many others do. Thats why we have some of the most diverse backgrounds in the professional world. But that doesnt mean we cant use the help to ease a sometimes difficult transition. By seeking out veterans as potential employees and guiding them through an unfamiliar world, companies can show that they care for people like me. Scott Smith is a proud U.S. Navy veteran who makes eyeglasses as an optical technician in IFB Solutions Twenty200 Optical Lab. Editors note: This is an Op-Ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times managing editor Howard Altman, haltman@militarytimes.com. 13 House Republicans broke ranks and voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill Friday. Now, some of their fellow Republicans are calling them "traitors" and "Democrats." The bill also passed with Republican votes in the Senate in August. Thirteen House Republicans broke ranks Friday and voted with House Democrats, passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill and drawing the ire of some of their colleagues. Leading up to the vote, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy trashed the bill as "reckless, irresponsible spending" and urged his party not to vote for it. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia warned that any Republican who votes for the bill will "feel the anger of the GOP voter," while Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina said: "Vote for this infrastructure bill and I will primary the hell out of you." And yet when the House voted on the bill, which easily passed in the Senate months ago, 13 Republicans voted in favor. The bill includes funding for roads, bridges, and public transit, as well as electric vehicles, clean energy, and high-speed broadband. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) attend a House Judiciary Committee on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images Biden hailed the bill's passage as a "once-in-a-generation investment" that will "create millions of jobs, modernize our infrastructure" and "turn the climate crisis into an opportunity." But some Republicans who didn't support the bill focused on their colleagues who did. Greene labeled them "traitors" and tweeted out a list of their names along with their office numbers. -Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) November 6, 2021 Others went for a potentially more insulting label: Democrats. "There's a lot of Democrats who call themselves Republicans in the US House," Cawthorn tweeted Saturday. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado said in a tweet "these fraudulent RINOs" should be penalized "for advertising themselves as Republicans but governing as Democrats." Story continues "I can't believe Republicans just gave the Democrats their socialism bill," Rep Matt Gaetz of Florida said. Rep. Chip Roy of Texas retweeted Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, who said it was "painful" to watch his Republican colleagues deliver the votes to Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of the Republicans who voted for the bill, responded to Greene in a tweet, mocking her for referring to the infrastructure bill as communist: "Infrastructure=communism is a new one. Eisenhower's interstate system should be torn up or else the commies will be able to conveniently drive!" Rep. John Katko, another Republican who voted for the bill, released a statement on Twitter regarding his vote, calling it a "historic day" and praising the bill as "comprehensive infrastructure reform." Read the original article on Business Insider A 77-year-old ex-firefighter shot and killed a man accused of trying to rob him at gunpoint, Chicago police told news outlets. The shooting happened in broad daylight, investigators told WFLD, around 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 6. The accused robber drove up to the mans southside home while he was in the garage, got out of a car and demanded belongings at gunpoint, WGN reported. The 77-year-old, a retired firefighter, pulled out a gun and opened fire, hitting the gunman in the head and chest, WMAQ reported. He died at the scene, according to investigators. Police have not shared the identity of the man killed. The retired firefighter was not injured, outlets reported. He had a valid permit to carry a concealed firearm. Carjacking victim chases thieves, leading to fiery 8-vehicle crash, Chicago cops say Gunman kills man at bus stop, then kills another for getaway car, Chicago cops say 13-year-olds accused of conspiracy to commit murder at school dance, Indiana cops say Teen killed by police after causing school lockdown, firing at officers, TX cops say NEW BEDFORD Before we head into a new week, it's time to make sure you're caught up on all the top news stories from last week. Of course, you can sign up to receive the top stories of the day right in your email inbox each day (better yet, when news breaks, you'll be among the first to know). From politics, to sports, to entertainment, there's a newsletter to suit everyone's tastes. But back to the week that was. Election Day was Tuesday, but unfortunately only about 10% of registered voters turned out to make their choices. Granted, it was a sleepy election, with no mayor's race at the top of the ballot Mayor Jon Mitchell is smack in the middle of a now-four year term. Still, voting is quick and easy and there's really no excuse for not doing your civic duty. Here are the top stories on southcoasttoday.com this past week. Constructing a new roadway to connect Route 6 in both directions to Route 18 in both directions is part of MassDOT's plans to reconstruct Rt. 18. Plans for Route 18 changes The monster three-lane highway of Route 18 from Coggeshall Street to Elm Street looks almost unrecognizable in artist renditions of plans to reconstruct this section of the corridor. MassDOT held its third of four public meetings on the project Wednesday before a virtual audience of 27. Nothing is set in stone, said MassDOT project manager Andrew Wilkins. He encouraged residents and business owners along the targeted stretch to give their input on the project. Learn more about the project: Major changes are planned for Route 18 in New Bedford. Here's what it could look like. Tenants, landlords struggle with evictions A crumbling ceiling, unlevel toilet and mushrooms sprouting in the bathroom. Since Michelle Sullivan moved into her New Bedford apartment two years ago, it has needed multiple repairs. Sullivan tried talking to her landlord, before filing complaints with the New Bedford Board of Health to get the apartment repaired. Sullivan said she refused when the landlord tried bribing her with money to keep quiet. Now her landlord has petitioned to evict her. Story continues She wants me out because of my record of all my complaints about the building and her, Sullivan said. And I cant find housing anywhere else, so Im stuck. Housing crisis in city: Massachusetts tenants and landlords struggle with eviction process after moratoriums end Voters cast their votes at the Buttonwood Warming House polling station in New Bedford. New faces on City Council, School Committee In this year's municipal election, voters elected four newcomers, including Ryan Pereira, who eked out a win against longtime incumbent and City Council president Joseph Lopes in the Ward 6 City Council race. Even with a low voter turnout of 10.8 percent, emotions ran high for candidates running for City Council. See who else won: Here's who New Bedford picked for City Council and School Committee Dorothy Cox moving manufacturing to Fall River Francis Cox, whose great aunt Mary Dorothy Cox went into business in New Bedford in 1928 with her Dorothy Coxs Chocolates, has a lease agreement with an option to buy the building at 100 Griffin St., Fall River. A former Save A Lot discount grocery store, which closed last December, is now being converted into a chocolate candy manufacturing facility. The flagship Dorothy Coxs Chocolates retail store has been in Fairhaven since the 1930s and is still in business on Route 6. All of the chocolate, however, had been manufactured for 10 years in Wareham, but it became clear that that facility did not have the needed electrical power to run new candy making machines Cox had purchased. Learn more about the move: Dorothy Cox Chocolates bringing candy, ice cream and jobs to new site in Fall River Turk's blackened haddock sandwich is topped with avocado, pickled red onions and Jmaican jerk aioli served with a choice of potato and coleslaw. Sandwiches on the 'must-try' list This past week, we celebrated National Sandwich Day. In the New Bedford area, there are sandwiches offered everywhere. From blackened haddock sandwiches, to shish-kebab sandwiches to a lobster grilled cheese, we found13 unique sandwiches to try. From a Reuben melt to 'The Roast Beefy': 13 must-try sandwiches in the New Bedford area This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: Top stories: Route 18 changes, housing crisis, Dorothy Cox moving A draft map recommended by a committee shows redrawn districts for the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors. The Board will consider three proposed maps as part of the redistricting process at a meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors will meet Tuesday to consider three proposed maps of new district boundaries. Depending on which map the board chooses, this means some cities and communities could be represented by a new county supervisor by the end of the year. Every 10 years, elected leaders districts are redrawn to reflect the most current U.S. census data in a process known as redistricting. Last years census found that San Bernardino Countys population had risen by more than 140,000 people since 2010 and presently stands at 2,181,654. State legislative districts are drawn by an independent panel. Some counties also use independent panels. However, county supervisors in San Bernardino and several other large counties can still redefine their own supervisorial districts under committees appointed by the board of supervisors. California redistricting 101: What you need to know and why it matters In March, the board adopted an ordinance that established an Advisory Redistricting Committee to come up with a minimum of two potential maps for new district lines for the five supervisors. The seven-member committee which includes two retired Superior Court judges began holding public meetings in May and has since held several each following month at various areas throughout the county. In redrawing the districts, the committee must follow criteria established by state and federal law, which includes making sure each district has approximately the same number of people. Other guidelines include: districts being geographically contiguous or sharing a common border. minimizing the splitting of neighborhoods, cities and communities of interests. using identifiable boundaries like natural or artificial barriers such as rivers and freeways. not redrawing lines to favor or discriminate against a political party. The maps the countys committee are proposing show that each supervisor's new district would have a population of at least 425,000 people. Story continues District 1 currently includes Adelanto, Victorville, Hesperia and Apple Valley and extends north and east to the county line. It is represented by Paul Cook. District 3 currently includes Barstow, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree, the Big Bear area, Redlands and Yucaipa. It is represented by Dawn Rowe. In Districts 1 and 3, none of the proposed maps show any incorporated cities being split in the redrawing. To see the commission maps, click here. The board has until Dec. 15 to complete the redistricting process. Tuesdays meeting will be livestreamed starting at 10 a.m. To view it, go to SBCounty.gov and click on View Meetings. Daily Press reporter Martin Estacio may be reached at 760-955-5358 or MEstacio@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_mestacio. This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: San Bernardino County redistricting: supervisors will consider 3 maps A Spirit Airlines plan approaching Philadelphia International Airport in October. A passenger on another Spirit flight to Philadelphia alleges he was sexually assaulted by a flight attendant. Matt Rourke/AP Photo A Spirit Airlines passenger sued the airline, alleging a flight attendant sexually assaulted him. According to the complaint, the alleged assault happened after the passenger was given several free bottles of whiskey. Spirit Airlines didn't return requests for comment. A Spirit Airlines passenger said a flight attendant offered him free alcohol, requested that he move to a private area of a plane, and then sexually assaulted him, according to a complaint. The passenger, named only as M.B., filed a lawsuit last week against the airline, saying the carrier had been negligent. He sought damages of more than $150,000. "This lawsuit was brought to seek justice for our client who, as our complaint asserts, was sexually assaulted by a flight attendant on a Spirit Airlines flight," Gregory Spizer of VSCP Law in Philadelphia, told Insider via email. "We look forward to pursuing the case in Court." The lawsuit coincides with a rise in violent incidents aboard airplanes, although much of that unruly behavior has been aimed at flight crews. On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it had received 5,033 unruly passenger reports in 2021. The FAA has opened 950 investigations in 2021, more than five times the 183 investigations it opened in 2020. The lawsuit accused Spirit of negligence, saying the airline "should have known" about the flight attendant's "propensities to sexual violence, physical violence and sexual deviance." But the complaint, which only used the flight attendant's first name, did not offer further details about the flight attendant's previous behavior. It was unclear if he'd been disciplined previously, or if the allegations about the flight attendant were speculative. "Upon information and belief, Spirit Airlines failed to conduct a thorough background check or reference check on [the flight attendant,]" the complaint claimed. "Had Spirit Airlines conducted such a check, it would have discovered the concerns raised herein." Story continues Spirit Airlines didn't return requests for comment. M.B., of Atlanta, was flying on June 30 to Philadelphia to visit family, according to his complaint. He was seated near the back of the plane. The flight attendant first gave him a free water bottle, according to the complaint. He "soon returned, winked at Plaintiff and pushed mini bottles of Jack Daniels into his chest." The flight attendant then stopped to offer more, and, a few minutes later, he "placed a balled-up napkin" with his phone number on M.B.'s table, the complaint alleges. As the flight approached Philadelphia, the attendant "called Plaintiff to a private area at the back of the plane behind the bathrooms," the complaint claims. Flight attendants are "in charge while the plane is in the air," so M.B. complied, the complaint said. "When Plaintiff went to the back of the plane where [the flight attendant] had called for him, [the attendant] looked around and then, without warning, grabbed, groped and fondled Plaintiff's penis and private area," the complaint said. The flight attendant "then tried to unzip Plaintiff's pants." In the lawsuit, Spirit was accused of six different counts, including assault, battery, and gross negligence in its hiring and supervision. The complaint alleges that M.B. first contacted local police, but he was told that he'd have to contact the FBI instead, since the alleged assault happened in the air, as the plane approached Philadelphia. His complaint claims he filed a report with the bureau. Carrie Adamowski, spokesperson for the FBI's Philadelphia Division, said she couldn't "confirm or deny any particular contact or the potential existence of an investigation." "As a general matter, though, allegations of criminal conduct are reviewed by the FBI for their merit, with consideration of any applicable federal laws," Adamowski said in an email. "When warranted, the FBI proceeds to take appropriate action." A summons was issued to Spirit on Wednesday, according to the docket in the US District Court in Eastern Pennsylvania. Read the original article on Business Insider KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) Sudans security forces dispersed demonstrators and rounded up more than 100 people Sunday in the capital of Khartoum, in the latest crackdown on pro-democracy protesters after last months military coup. The Sudanese military seized power Oct. 25, dissolving the transitional government and arresting dozens of officials and politicians. The coup has drawn international criticism and massive protests in the streets of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. The takeover has upended the countrys fragile planned transition to democratic rule, more than two years after a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his Islamist government. Teachers and education workers protested the coup outside the Education Ministry in Khartoums district of Bahri, according to the Sudanese Professionals' Association, which led the uprising against al-Bashir. Security forces used tear gas to disperse the protesters and arrested at least 113 people, mostly teachers, said lawyer Moez Hadra. There were sporadic protests elsewhere in Khartoum, he said. Local authorities announced the resumption of school classes in the capital for the first time since the coup. Sunday was the first of two days of nationwide strikes called by the SPA, which vowed to continue protesting until a full civilian government is established to lead the transition. Several shops and businesses in Khartoum were seen open, according to a video journalist with The Associated Press. The fresh crackdown has also come as mediation efforts between the military and civilian leaders have stumbled, according to a military official with knowledge of the ongoing efforts. Mediators, including the United Nations envoy in Sudan, were still working to soften the stand of each side, as both are still stick to their pre-conditions before engaging in meaningful, possibly direct talks, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. Story continues The deposed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who is still under house arrest in his residence in Khartoum, insists on releasing government officials and politicians detained in connection with the coup. He also wants guarantees that military would return to the pre-coup power-sharing arrangements, the official said. The military, on the other hand, insists that the Oct. 25 events did not amount to a coup, and that it stepped in to correct the course of the transitional period, the official said. Part of mediation efforts, an Arab League delegation, meanwhile, met Sunday with Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the military leader, and Hamdok, the pan-Arab organization said. It said the delegation, headed by Deputy Secretary General Hossam Zaki, held talks with Hamdok on the challenges of the transition and ongoing efforts to support constructive dialogue" to re-establish a path to democracy. The military has given mixed signals. It allowed four ministers to return to their homes under house arrest, according to Hadra, the lawyer. The four included Hamza Baloul, minister of information and culture, Hashim Hasabel-Rasoul, minister of communications, Ali Gedou, minister of trade and international cooperation, and Youssef Adam, minister of youth and sports. They were among more than 100 government officials and politicians detained following the coup. The military also arrested three leaders from the Forces for Freedom and Change, a coalition that was born out of the 2019 protest movement, shortly after they met with U.N. officials in Khartoum. The meeting was part of U.N.-led mediation efforts. ___ Magdy reported from Cairo. KHARTOUM (Reuters) -Sudanese pro-democracy groups on Sunday launched two days of civil disobedience and strikes in protest against last month's military coup, although participation appeared to be limited by interruptions to internet and phone connections. In a sign of the potential for the coup to unravel efforts to end decades of internal conflict, armed rebel factions that signed a peace deal last year rejected the coup and called for the ending of a state of emergency. The commander of the powerful Rapid Support Forces, who is the No. 2 man in Sudan's military, came out in support of the takeover in a midnight speech posted on Facebook. General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan's moves "came to correct the course of the people's revolution, and preserve the security and stability of the country," said General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, Burhan's deputy on the now-dissolved Sovereign Council. Local resistance committees and the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which led demonstrations in an uprising that toppled long-serving autocrat Omar al-Bashir in 2019, are organising a campaign of protests and barricades to try to reverse the military takeover. People were out on the streets on Sunday in the centre of the capital, Khartoum, although there was less traffic than usual, residents said. A teachers union said security forces used tear gas at the Education Ministry building for Khartoum State to break up a sit-in staged to oppose any handover to military appointees. Some 87 people were arrested, it said. In several areas in eastern Khartoum, across the river in the Ombada area of Omdurman, police also used tear gas to break up protests, witnesses said. On one major Khartoum street, security forces in civilian clothing were seen alongside police, they said. There were protests too in the cities of Medani, Nyala and Atbara, where hundreds protested the reappointment of Bashir loyalists in local government, witnesses said. Story continues INTERNET DISRUPTION Some hospitals and medical staff in Khartoum were working normally, while others were on strike. "A number of people did not know about the call for civil disobedience because of the internet cut," said one resident of central Khartoum, who asked not to be identified. Internet services have been almost completely disrupted since the Oct. 25 coup, and phone coverage remains patchy. Daily life came to a near standstill after the takeover, but shops, roads and some banks have since reopened. The coup halted a power-sharing arrangement between the military and civilians that had been agreed after Bashir's overthrow and was meant to lead to democratic elections by late 2023. Top civilians including several ministers were detained, and Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was placed under house arrest. Mediation efforts involving the United Nations have sought the release of detainees and a return to power sharing, but sources from the ousted government say those efforts have stalled. Since Bashir was toppled, Sudan had been emerging from decades of isolation and internal wars. A peace agreement signed last year with rebel groups was intended to end several of those long-running conflicts. The Sudanese Revolutionary Front, which said it rejected the coup, includes rebel groups led by three men who had sat on a military-civilian ruling council dissolved during the takeover, Elhadi Idris and Altahir Hajar from Darfur and Malik Agar of the southern SPLM-N. Two other major rebel groups that did not sign the peace agreement have also rejected the coup. Some signatories of the peace deal, including Darfur rebel group leaders Jibril Ibrahim and Minni Minawi, had aligned with the military in the weeks leading up to the coup. On Sunday, an Arab league delegation met Hamdok and Burhan, and stressed the importance of dialogue in order to return to a civilian-military partnership, it said in a statement. Activists demanding that the military exit politics have announced a schedule of protests leading up to mass rallies on Saturday, under the slogan: "No negotiation, no partnership, no compromise". Hundreds of thousands took to the streets against military rule in two huge demonstrations before and after the coup. Western powers have paused economic assistance to Sudan and say that relief on tens of billions of dollars of foreign debt is at risk unless there is a return to a democratic transition. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz, Nafisa Eltahir; Writing by Aidan Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones, Peter Graff and Peter Cooney) Sudanese security forces on Sunday fired tear gas at multiple anti-coup rallies, with protesters in several cities joining a call for two-days of civil disobedience against last month's military takeover. Hundreds of anti-coup protesters rallied in the capital Khartoum, as well as in its twin city of Omdurman, Wad Madni to the south, and the northern city of Atbara. "The authority belongs to the people," they chanted and "no, no to military rule" as they demanded a "civilian government". Nationwide anti-coup protests have occurred since the October 25 power grab by the army, but have been met by a deadly crackdown. At least 14 demonstrators have been killed and about 300 wounded, according to the independent Central Committee of Sudan's Doctors. "Protesters barricaded the streets, set car tyres ablaze, called out against the military rule, and chanted that civilian government is the people's choice," said Hoda Othman, who witnessed protests in Omdurman. Almost two weeks ago Sudan's top general Abdel Fattah al-Burhan dissolved the government, as well as the ruling joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that was supposed to lead the country toward full civilian rule. Burhan also declared a state of emergency and detained Sudan's civilian leadership. Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was briefly detained, but later placed under effective house arrest. - Burning barricades - Sunday's rallies followed calls for two-days of civil disobedience made by the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), an umbrella of unions which were also instrumental in the protests which led to the ouster of longtime strongman Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. "The Sudanese people have rejected the military coup," the SPA said, vowing "no negotiation, no partnership". The SPA's appeals for the civil disobedience were circulated via text messages, to bypass internet outages in place since the putsch. Story continues In Khartoum's eastern Burri district, protesters built burning barricades of tyres. "Security forces later dispersed the protest by firing tear gas and began removing the barricades," said protester Mosab Abdalla. "We will continue to fight until the government is handed over to civilians," said another protester, Asser Ahmed. Earlier on Sunday, dozens of teachers also rallied against the army outside the education ministry. "Police came and fired tear gas at us, though we were simply standing on the streets and carrying banners," said geography teacher Mohamed al-Amin. There were no confirmed reports of casualties but about 87 teachers were detained, according to the SPA. Meanwhile, three ex-rebel leaders who signed a landmark 2020 peace deal with the Sudanese government condemned the coup in a statement. "The Sudanese Revolutionary Front reiterates its stance against the coup... and calls for the release of all detainees without condition," the statement by Malik Agar, Al-Hady Idris, and Al-Taher Hagar said. Following the peace deal, the three became members of Sudan's now-ousted sovereign council. - Universities suspend classes - The teachers' rally came after the military leadership replaced heads of department at the education ministry, as part of sweeping changes it made in multiple sectors. "The protest rejects the return of remnants of the old regime" linked to now jailed ex-resident Bashir, the teachers' union said. Classes in two of Sudan's main universities have been suspended indefinitely. The University of Khartoum "denounced the military coup" and decried attacks on students by armed men on October 25, the day of the putsch. The Red Sea University, in the eastern city of Port Sudan, said Sunday it had suspended classes for "students' safety". The military takeover sparked international condemnation, including punitive aid cuts and demands for a swift return to civilian rule. Burhan insists it "was not a coup" but a move to "rectify the course of the transition." On Sunday, a high-level Arab League delegation held separate talks with Burhan and Hamdok on "the importance of the partnership between the military and civilians" and ways to "resolve the disagreements". On Thursday, the military released four civilian members of the government but key officials are still detained. bur/hkb Readers hoping to buy Airtel Africa Plc (LON:AAF) for its dividend will need to make their move shortly, as the stock is about to trade ex-dividend. The ex-dividend date is one business day before the record date, which is the cut-off date for shareholders to be present on the company's books to be eligible for a dividend payment. The ex-dividend date is important because any transaction on a stock needs to have been settled before the record date in order to be eligible for a dividend. This means that investors who purchase Airtel Africa's shares on or after the 11th of November will not receive the dividend, which will be paid on the 10th of December. The company's upcoming dividend is US$0.02 a share, following on from the last 12 months, when the company distributed a total of US$0.045 per share to shareholders. Last year's total dividend payments show that Airtel Africa has a trailing yield of 2.8% on the current share price of 1.212. If you buy this business for its dividend, you should have an idea of whether Airtel Africa's dividend is reliable and sustainable. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing. View our latest analysis for Airtel Africa Dividends are usually paid out of company profits, so if a company pays out more than it earned then its dividend is usually at greater risk of being cut. Airtel Africa paid out a comfortable 33% of its profit last year. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. The good news is it paid out just 15% of its free cash flow in the last year. It's encouraging to see that the dividend is covered by both profit and cash flow. This generally suggests the dividend is sustainable, as long as earnings don't drop precipitously. Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends. Story continues Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing? Stocks in companies that generate sustainable earnings growth often make the best dividend prospects, as it is easier to lift the dividend when earnings are rising. If earnings fall far enough, the company could be forced to cut its dividend. That's why it's comforting to see Airtel Africa's earnings have been skyrocketing, up 71% per annum for the past five years. Airtel Africa is paying out less than half its earnings and cash flow, while simultaneously growing earnings per share at a rapid clip. This is a very favourable combination that can often lead to the dividend multiplying over the long term, if earnings grow and the company pays out a higher percentage of its earnings. Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Airtel Africa has seen its dividend decline 13% per annum on average over the past two years, which is not great to see. Airtel Africa is a rare case where dividends have been decreasing at the same time as earnings per share have been improving. It's unusual to see, and could point to unstable conditions in the core business, or more rarely an intensified focus on reinvesting profits. Final Takeaway From a dividend perspective, should investors buy or avoid Airtel Africa? Airtel Africa has grown its earnings per share while simultaneously reinvesting in the business. Unfortunately it's cut the dividend at least once in the past two years, but the conservative payout ratio makes the current dividend look sustainable. Overall we think this is an attractive combination and worthy of further research. With that in mind, a critical part of thorough stock research is being aware of any risks that stock currently faces. For example - Airtel Africa has 3 warning signs we think you should be aware of. We wouldn't recommend just buying the first dividend stock you see, though. Here's a list of interesting dividend stocks with a greater than 2% yield and an upcoming dividend. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com. JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter late Thursday rescued seven people who had been iced in since last week at a cabin about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of the Yukon River community of Emmonak in western Alaska, the Alaska State Troopers reported. The group was adequately supplied with food, water, shelter, and necessary supplies before they were rescued Thursday night, troopers said. U.S. Army helicopters had been expected to extract the individuals Friday morning, troopers had said. But a Coast Guard helicopter was able to make the trip from Nome after overcoming mechanical issues and getting a weather window, said Petty Officer 1st Class Ali Blackburn, a Coast Guard spokesperson. Safely extracting the group as quickly as possible was a top priority for all of the agencies involved in this operation, said Austin McDaniel, a troopers spokesperson. Blackburn said no injuries were reported at the time of the rescue. Blackburn said the individuals were taken to Nome. KYUK Public Media reported the group was composed of hunters from Pilot Station that got stuck outside Emmonak on their way home. Hunters from lower Yukon River villages traditionally travel to the coast in the fall to hunt for seal, without problems. But as they were making their way back, ice began forming on the water. Four of the hunters are volunteers with the Pilot Station search and rescue team and contacted Emmonak Search and Rescue with an emergency communication device. According to Emmonak Search and Rescue, the hunters provided their location and were directed to the nearest fish camp, KYUK reported. McDaniel had said the group stopped at the fish camp cabin for the night on Oct. 28. While they were there overnight, the river iced over. So the ice on the river is too thick to run a boat, and its not thick enough to run snowmachine there, and theres no overland route to get to this spot, he said Tuesday. Troopers said they were notified the individuals were stuck at the camp around 5:15 p.m. last Friday and that a supply drop of food and needed medications was made on Sunday. Story continues Authorities had been pursuing use of a helicopter to pick the individuals up, McDaniel said. Weather conditions between the area and some hub communities, however, had previously hampered efforts to reach the site, he said earlier this week. Blackburn said the Coast Guard also dropped supplies, including a radio, to the group before the rescue. Paul Fancyboy, head of the Pilot Station search and rescue group, had told KYUK he was concerned with how long it was taking for the individuals to be rescued, calling it unacceptable. Phoblographer Thankfully, film photography still holds its place in the world. Some shoot film because they're hipsters, while others do it because they feel deeply about the science behind it and the aesthetic it produces. Shooting film isn't easy, most people fail to get to right. But for those that nail it, the results can be spectacular. Naturally, we've featured many of the wins. And below is some film photography you'll love by photographers who love their film cameras. Travelers wait for their luggage at a baggage carousel, Friday, May 28, 2021, at Miami International Airport in Miami. Wilfredo Lee/AP The US is easing travel restrictions for most international travelers starting November 8. The ban will allow air travel from previously restricted countries as long as the traveler has proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a negative test. Retail and hospitality companies in the US hope the return of international travelers will create a boost for business. The US is lifting COVID-19 travel restrictions for most foreign travelers starting Monday, a move that many retail and hospitality businesses hope will usher in a new wave of customers as the economy rebounds from the coronavirus pandemic. Starting November 8, international visitors from 33 countries can again fly into the US as long as the traveler has proof of COVID-19 vaccination and a negative test. Here's what you need to know about incoming international travel in the coming months: What international travelers will need to get into the country The Biden Administration's latest travel mandate will require visitors who are non-US citizens flying into the country to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, which means they must have received their second vaccine dose two weeks prior to departure. Airline personnel will review proof of vaccine, which must a physical copy, a credible photo, or a digitized copy of a legitimate vaccination record. Vaccines must be on the list approved by the Food and Drug Administration and those listed for use by the World Health Organization - including Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Covishield, Sinopharm, and Sinovac. The US will also continue to require proof of a negative COVID test within three days of traveling, either as a rapid antigen or a PCR test. Travelers will also be expected to provide their contact information like email, phone number, and address for contact tracing purposes. There are several exceptions to general vaccine travel mandates The US is exempting requirements for visitors from 50 countries with nationwide vaccine rates of less than 10%, including Egypt, Algeria, Iraq, Armenia, and Haiti, among others. These travelers will be generally expected to get vaccinated within 60 days of arriving in the US. Story continues International travelers under the age of 18 in countries that have not yet authorized vaccines for children or have low vaccine availability will be exempt from vaccine requirement, but those over the age of two will need to provide proof of a negative COVID test within three days of departure. Visitors who are not vaccinated due to medical reasons will need to provide a letter to the airline addressed from a medical professional. Meanwhile, US citizens coming from abroad will not be required to present proof of vaccination, but if they choose not to, they must provide a negative COVID test within one day of traveling. How incoming travelers will affect businesses ahead of the holiday season The reopening is also expected to be a major boon for domestic industries, like airlines, hotels, and tourism, which have spent the past year-and-a-half struggling to recover from the impact of COVID-19 induced closures. Retailers are also optimistic that international travelers will also serve as a new wave of spenders as the holiday shopping season nears. As international tourists visit, that will "give a jolt to the retail side," National Retail Federation CEO Matt Shay told CNBC. "The return to the service and the experience economy is going to be positive and beneficial for retail and it's going to be enhanced furthermore by these international visitors returning to the U.S." In cities like New York and San Francisco, international travelers will need to be aware that many businesses or indoor gatherings will require proof of vaccination. Read the original article on Business Insider London Heathrow Heathrow Terminal 5 will be especially busy on Monday as transatlantic services ramp up (Getty Images) Thousands will jet across the Atlantic on Monday for long-awaited reunions as the United States lift a Covid travel ban that has been in place for more than one and a half years. The US is bracing for a surge in arrivals as much of the worlds population will be allowed to come to the country for the first time since March 2020. Rival airlines British Airways and Virgin Atlantic will operate a synchronised departure from Heathrow to celebrate the end of the travel ban, with their aircraft taking off from parallel runways at 8.30amto fly to New York. Flight schedules have been ramped up to meet the increased demand for travel across the Atlantic. Non-US citizens travelling from 33 countries - the China, India, South Africa, Iran, Brazil, the UK, Ireland and Europes Schengen nations - have been covered by the international travel ban. The rules will be lifted from Monday morning. Adults must be fully-vaccinated in order to enter the US. Sean Doyle, the British Airways chief executive, said the reopening of US borders was a moment to celebrate after more than 600 days of separation. Transatlantic connectivity is vital for the UKs economic recovery, which is why weve been calling for the safe reopening of the UK-US travel corridor for such a long time, he said. We must now look forward with optimism, get trade and tourism back on track and allow friends and families to connect once again. Shai Weiss, Virgin Atlantics chief executive, said: The US has been our heartland for more than 37 years and we are simply not Virgin without the Atlantic. Weve been steadily ramping up flying to destinations including Boston, New York, Orlando, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and we cant wait to fly our customers safely to their favourite US cities to reconnect with loved ones and colleagues. Many international flights are expected to operate close to full or full on Monday, with high passenger volume throughout the following weeks. Story continues The boss of Delta Air Lines warned travellers to prepare for long queues as restrictions ease. Its going to be a bit sloppy at first. I can assure you, there will be lines unfortunately, Ed Bastian said. Under the new rules, foreign travellers arriving by air must provide proof of either a negative result from a coronavirus test taken no more than three days before travel, or that they have recovered from the virus in the previous three months. There are limited exemptions for travellers who are not fully-vaccinated. Additional reporting by agencies Read More What is Plan B for tackling Covid in the UK this winter? Bring back mandatory masks to defend against a winter Covid outbreak Holidaymakers may need three jabs to travel abroad next summer Shailene Woodley breaks silence on Aaron Rodgers vaccine rant Double-jabbed are dying of Covid amid waning immunity, says top medic Proof of vax required as strict mandate takes effect in LA Nov. 7More than 650 pages of public comments submitted so far on the state's proposed changes to K-12 social studies standards contain an array of reactions from praise to concerns about how teachers will develop new lesson plans in such a short time and outrage over what some educators and Republican politicians decry as "divisive" and "leftist ideology." One thing is clear: New Mexico's first social studies overhaul in more than a decade is a big deal. The proposed standards, which would be introduced to students in the next school year, add events in modern history, regional Native American history and civics, and the history of the LGBTQ movement. They ask students to think critically about issues like equity and social justice. Former Cochiti Pueblo Gov. Regis Pecos, who co-chairs the Tribal Education Alliance, sees the updated standards as a "significant first step" in providing public school students with culturally competent curricula, as required under a state judge's 2018 ruling in the Yazzie/Martinez education lawsuit. "We consider this to be a watershed moment in light of a landmark decision," Pecos said. Others, however, cite the need for more time for school districts to review and consider the sweeping changes, plus time to implement them, as well as fears of dwindling local control over how teachers address sensitive topics in classrooms. One comment, attributed to Portales High School social studies teacher Wade Fraze, said the proposed standards would abuse parental rights by indoctrinating children. The New Mexico Public Education Department will host a virtual public hearing Friday to gather input on the draft standards. That is also the deadline to submit written comments. Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Hilario "Larry" Chavez said at a school board meeting Thursday the local district will provide comments at the hearing. The standards have guiding principles that expand the historical lens and include the perspectives of "all Americans," he added. Story continues District social studies coordinator Erica Wheeler, who helped write the draft proposal, told the board, "We're excited about them and really do think they'll provide the academic understanding as well as the academic skills required for the 21st century." Other districts are asking the state to slow down. At least 10 school boards from Aztec to Artesia have passed identical resolutions calling for an extension of the public comment period to July 2022, when teachers would have to start building the new material into their lessons. The Pojoaque Valley school board passed the resolution in late October. It cites concerns over the length of the proposed standards, a lack of stakeholder input before drafting them, learning losses from the coronavirus pandemic and the overwhelming workload for educators who are trying to help students catch up. "There's a very short time between the end of the comment period and the implementation period," said Sondra Adams, superintendent of Pojoaque Valley Public Schools. State Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, who is vying for the GOP nomination in the governor's race, is one of many Republican lawmakers who oppose the draft standards and repeatedly have called for the Public Education Department to extend the time allotted for public comment at this week's hearing. Instead, the department moved the hearing from in-person to online. Spokeswoman Judy Robinson said the change was due to the wide public interest in the issue and to prevent the spread of COVID-19. "We hope that PED will listen to school districts, the parents, to the people in the minority who are saying this is not the right time and it's not ready for implementation," Dow said. Heather Bassett, a policy analyst for Albuquerque Public Schools, called the proposed standards "a big shift." She has compiled feedback from teachers to submit to the Public Education Department. Teachers seem to be on board with the way the new standards address complicated aspects of history and identity, she said, noting many teachers may already address such topics in their classrooms. "I think maybe the general public hasn't given teachers enough credit for being able to handle controversial or divisive issues in the classroom. They do it every day," Bassett said. Still, she said some teachers fear it could be difficult to implement the standards, and they wonder if they will have enough support for the process. She said the district may recommend a slower implementation process. They also have questions, she said: "What's the accountability? Is there an end-of-course exam?" Some of the sharpest criticisms of the standards have come from New Mexico Republicans who, like their conservative counterparts in other states, liken some of the principles students would learn to a concept in higher education called "critical race theory," which explores how race plays out in the legal system. According to the nonprofit Heritage Foundation, a public policy think tank, 21 states have introduced bills that would ban the teaching of critical race theory in public K-12 schools or colleges. Seven of those bills are now laws. Virginia's Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, a newcomer who defeated Democratic incumbent Terry McAuliffe last week, had vowed to ban critical race theory from public schools. Many people credited the stance for his election victory. Depending on the outcome of Friday's hearing, Dow said, New Mexico lawmakers may consider introducing legislation on how race is addressed in schools. "I'm not against accurate history being taught," Dow said; however, she added, "If we as a state are opposed to critical race theory being taught in K-12 schools, make it plain and say it." She declined to define critical race theory. "I'm not going to get into an entire college degree coursework," she said. But she said the concept shows up in parts of the standards that ask children to "process, identify and write in a narrative way about what would make America a just place to live." One section of the high school standards says students can demonstrate competency in "critical consciousness and perspectives" by "creating an action plan for a more just and equitable America for diverse groups of people including Native Americans and African Americans." Pecos who praised parts of the new social studies standards, including a section that calls for students to know how different belief systems affect land use said Friday's hearing is an opportunity to assess opposition to standards aimed at viewing history from a variety of cultural and ethnic perspectives. "How people respond to this public hearing will be the first kind of barometer of where New Mexico stands, comparatively speaking, with the nation," he said. After the hearing, the more than 60 local teachers who helped write the draft proposal will revise it based on public feedback. The state will then develop training resources and prepare to implement the standards in the 2022-23 school year. Monte del Sol Charter School founding member and social studies teacher Wendy Leighton, who was on the writing team for the standards, said it's important for people to understand the difference between standards, curricula and lesson plans. Standards are state-issued guidelines showing what each student needs to know, but how students get there through curriculum is overseen by school boards and developed by local educators. Finally, she said, specific lesson plans based on curriculum are designed by a teacher. "People can teach the standards in a multitude of ways," she said. Leighton described her time on the writing team as an "honor." "We have developed a very thorough, up-to-date, historically accurate social studies standard which will provide a well-rounded education, where all stories and voices will be heard," she said. "This includes marginalized groups in history." ANDERSON, S.C. (AP) Nearly eight decades have passed since William Linder, known to loved ones as Bud, was killed in one of the longest and most costly battles of World War II. For years, his remains were buried in a cemetery in Belgium an unknown soldier. But on Oct. 29, the Army staff sergeant from Piedmont, born 107 years prior, reached his final resting place back home in Anderson County with all the pomp and circumstance of a fallen war hero returning home. Shots rang out in salute by an Army honor guard, which carried his casket draped with an American flag. One of Linders grand-nieces, Melanie Hitt, spoke to family and military veterans gathered at Dolly Cooper Veterans Cemetery for the belated funeral and thanked the modern miracle of DNA tracing, which was used to determine his identity last month. Hitt shared the importance of the family handing down stories of Uncle Bud, a man younger generations never knew. They would keep the stories alive from the old family, she said. They would talk about the things they used to do, so all of us kids knew that there was an Uncle Bud. We always heard that grandma said hell come home one day and he is. The day of Linders funeral was gloomy and gray, fog hovering just above with a chilly wind blowing. It was an echo of the unforgiving cold, snow and desolation he faced in the densely wooded Hurtgen Forest of Germany as the Allies reached a stalemate on the Western Front in November 1944, months after storming the beaches of Normandy. Linder was assigned to Company E, 12th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry Division. Wilton Fowler, a state chaplain of the Army who served in West Berlin during the Cold War, described the conditions Linder faced in the Battle of Hurtgen, a five-month series of battles fought by the Army that ended in an Allied breakthrough but at heavy cost and, in retrospect, viewed by historians as an ill-advised offensive. The Germans, Fowler told the audience, knew the landscape well and prepared the field for battle years before. The Armys first objective was to secure Rur River dam so the enemy couldnt release floodwaters. But the advance stalled. Story continues The results were horrific. The battle took on the form of a trench war, like we knew from World War I, Fowler said. It was the longest battle in U.S. history, and, Fowler said, was a painful chapter overshadowed by more-successful campaigns. However, within this forest, there was a man from Piedmont, South Carolina, who offered his life so that other lives might be saved. Linder was reported missing in action on Nov. 16, 1944. The Germans had not listed him as a prisoner of war. After a year passed, the War Department officially presumed him dead. After decades of mystery, the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) announced on Oct. 18 that scientists had confirmed Linders identity three weeks earlier through DNA testing, and dental and anthropological analysis. Following the war, according to the release, the American Graves Registration Command investigated the whereabouts of the remains of soldiers in Europe. After several investigations in the Hurtgen Forest area between 1946 and 1950, Linders remains could not be found. In December 1951, he was declared non-recoverable. But while studying American losses in the forest, a DPAA historian believed that a set of remains discovered by local residents in 1947 in the aftermath of a forest fire could be Linder. The remains, and the time buried as unknown in the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium, were disinterred in April 2019 for testing at an Air Force base in Nebraska. Linders name is recorded on the Tablets of the Missing at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, an American Battle Monuments Commission site in Henri-Chapelle, Belgium, along with others still missing from World War II. A rosette will be placed next to his name to indicate he has been accounted for. Firefighters in upstate New York on Friday rescued a naked man who was stuck for several days inside the bathroom wall of a theater, fire officials said. The Syracuse Fire Department responded just after 7:30 a.m. to the Landmark Theatre after employees heard someone banging of the wall and yelling for help, the department said in a Facebook post. NAKED CALIFORNIA WOMAN RESCUED AFTER BECOMING WEDGED BETWEEN 2 BUILDINGS The adult male, who was not immediately identified, was believed to have entered the theatre two or three days ago, fire officials said. It was not immediately clear how he was able to get behind the wall, according to the department. Firefighters with Rescue Company 1 drilled a hole in the wall and used a fiber-optic camera to find the mans exact location in the wall, the department said. After determining the best way to extract the man, officials said firefighters carefully cut through several layers of drywall and structural clay tile to reach him. The 39-year-old man was not wearing any clothes when firefighters freed him, Syracuse Fire Deputy Chief John Kane told Syracuse.com. The man was taken to Upstate University Hospital for treatment. Kane said the man appeared uninjured and would likely be treated for dehydration. Eventually, she became excited about it, she said, but had no idea how much she would love it. Though it may be too soon to draw conclusions about the effect of the new model on student performance, Earl said she saw higher quiz and test scores and more lively discussion and debate about assigned readings over the first session than in semesters past. I felt like my class was a priority, she said. Which, its not that it wasnt before, but it seems like its easy to prioritize two things and its impossible to prioritize five things; something is going to go to the bottom of the list. While there are obvious benefits for students, Earl said professors are feeling the benefits too, such as having more time to prepare for classes, grade assignments and work with students. Im bringing my best and theyre bringing their best, she said. Sophomore Noah Bryant said he initially was overwhelmed by the quicker pace of his classes under the TAKE2 model, but quickly found having no classes on Wednesdays allowed him to catch up or get ahead on his work. Bryant said he felt more organized and was able to manage his time better under the new model. The second distribution option is a monthly subscription and enables the PAD Center to meet the specific needs of an individual. Each month, women can pick up their subscription of feminine hygiene products from the YWCA or the office that referred them. These kits will be tailored to the preferences of clients as supplies allow. Rezai said JLL set aside $50,000 and a certain amount of that commits to about 1,000 Immediate Response Kits per year. However, anytime we get a donation of products or money it allows us to continue funding in some way to support the program long into the future, she said. She said she wants to make sure that when the program gets on its own feet, whether thats moving into the YWCA or becomes its own nonprofit, that JLL can offer some support for it in its first year of operation. Last year, it received a grant from the Al Stroobants Foundation to be able to purchase a full year of Immediate Response Kits. Its your body and sometimes you dont know that much about it, Rezai said. So were not healthcare professionals, but we are out distributing products for people to learn what they like and make sure theyre managing their periods effectively. And thats not taking away from something else more important in their lives they need to be focusing on like work or feeding their kids or that decision in the grocery store of, Can I buy diapers or can I manage my period this month? Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Space and cyber capabilities are the big new worry. As Milley pointed out, our economy, country and military are entirely dependent on space and the satellites that provide local and global connectivity. We are growing familiar with the mayhem cyber hackers both governmental and criminal, or working in tandem can wreak on our systems, from banks to energy supplies to hospitals. And we think we know about space wars, because we have been watching them for years in the movies. But a real space war, that knocked out military and commercial satellites (which run our daily life), would be nothing like competing with Darth Vader. Space today is a new domain of more conflict, the general said. We dont want to have conflict in space. I would say that we are the No. 1 country on Earth that has capabilities in space, but other countries are close behind. Space is becoming a very contested domain for the United States to operate in, and a lot of work remains to be done. Yet the progress in doing that work that needs to be done in the political, military, health and environmental spheres doesnt remotely compute with the rapidity that is demanded. New Delhi: Pakistans Lahore High Court (LHC) on Saturday acquitted six leaders of Hafiz Saeed-led Jamat-ud-Dawah (JuD), the front organisation for the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), responsible for carrying out the 2008 Mumbai attack, in a terror-financing case. Lashkar-e-Taiba orchestrated the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks that killed more than 160 people. According to Dawn, the trial court had sentenced nine-year imprisonment to each Prof Malik Zafar Iqbal, Yahya Mujahid, Nasrullah, Samiullah and Umar Bahadur while Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki had been awarded a six-month jail term. The appellants challenged their conviction before a division bench of the LHC comprising Chief Justice Muhammad Ameer Bhatti and Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh. Their counsel argued that the prosecution failed to prove the charge against the appellants beyond a reasonable doubt. He said the trial court had not appreciated the evidence properly which had caused the serious miscarriage of justice, Pakistani media reported. He argued that the Al-Anfaal Trust, of which the appellants were members, had no nexus with the proscribed Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT). The counsel contended that there was not a whit of evidence that the appellants engaged in any activity that supported the objectives of the LeT or other such organisation. He said the appellants had already disassociated them from the trust way back in the mid 2000s, Dawn reported. An additional prosecutor general opposed the appeals and argued that the trust was working as a proxy for the LeT owing to which the government proscribed it in 2019. He said the appellants were trustees/office bearers and staunch activists of the trust. Allowing the appeals, the division bench observes that the statement of the main prosecution witness is not reliable as there is no corroboratory evidence, Dawn reported. In his cross-examination, Inspector Muhammad Khalid (prosecution witness) conceded that the local police station never received any complaint against the appellants and even during his investigation nobody from the general public brought anything to his notice which could expose their malefactions, the bench noted. The bench remarks that it is trite that the prosecution must prove its case beyond reasonable doubt to secure the conviction of an accused. It maintains, The appellants cannot be convicted for the mere reason that LeT or the trust have been proscribed, Dawn reported. The bench ruled that the prosecution must independently establish the ingredients of the offences under sections 11-F and 11-J(2) of the ATA which it has failed to do. Meanwhile, JuD chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed and several other leaders have been convicted in dozens of FIRs registered by the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) on charges of terror financing. The CTD had registered as many as 41 FIRs against the JuD leaders in different cities, Dawn reported. North Platte, Nebraska, is a funny place, said Joe. I found that out by being stranded there for three days in a blizzard ... When I was there, the people on the west side of town used to go by mountain time, the people on the east side by central time, and the schools were run midway between. It might be one oclock (on) one side of the street, two on the other and half past one in the schools. It was enough to make a man loony. Moorhouse said he had had an 8 p.m. sociable date with a livery stable owners daughter. But she lived on the west side of town. By the time he got there, she was gone. It was her mother who came to the door: My daughter got tired of waiting for you, she snaps, and went to the sociable with another man. Its almost time for her to be home now. Dont you know its ten oclock? ... Did I explain to her? Oh, well, I tried my best; but she was a North Platter born and bred, and she couldnt grasp an outsiders point of view. North Platte War Time? Time zones didnt become official until Congress adopted the railroads zones with the Standard Time Act on March 19, 1918, during World War I. Several businesses, associations and religious groups also joined with the states petitions, and some filed lawsuits on their own. Among them are a conservative media company, two Wisconsin manufacturers, companies in Michigan and Ohio, the owner of 15 grocery stores in Louisiana and Mississippi, and a group of remote workers in Texas. All are represented by conservative law firms. Over the past 20 months, my employees have showed up to work and served their communities in the face of COVID and hurricanes. Now Im being told by the government to insert myself into their private health decisions?" Brandon Trosclair, owner of grocery stores that employ about 500 workers, said in a statement. "Thats wrong and I wont stand for it. The Daily Wire media company objected on several fronts, including the idea that employers will have to track which workers have been vaccinated and treat those who have received shots differently from those who have not. What the government is asking us to do is discriminate against our own employee over their own personal health care decisions, said Jeremy Boreing, co-CEO of the company. BEIJING (AP) China's exports remained strong in October, a positive sign for an economy trying to weather power shortages and COVID-19 outbreaks. The country's customs agency said Sunday that exports totaled $300.2 billion, up 27.1% from a year ago. That was down from a 28.1% increase in September but still healthy. Imports came in at $215.7 billion, a 20.6% rise. Exports and imports are much higher than a year ago, when much of the world was in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is widespread concern that economic headwinds are slowing growth. The worlds second-largest economy grew 4.9% in the three months ending in September, down from 7.9% in the previous quarter. Chinas trade surplus in October was $84.5 billion, up from $66.8 billion the previous month, the customs agency said. The surplus with the U.S. was down slightly to $40.7 billion, compared to $42 billion in September. With the EU, it was $25.9 billion. Barring serious last-minute surprises, the council should say yes Dec. 7 after the last of two public hearings between now and then. We say this, as McNulty did and despite what some unhappy with this project might think, free of what our founder called liaisons with any clique, clan or faction. We, as a city, county and region, have so very much to gain. As do our local cattle growers. They are not faraway corporate elites. They are our own people, as our residents are. For the benefit of all, we repeat the following: City Council approval does not repeat, does not mean this project is 100% guaranteed to happen. The Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy on behalf of or in conjunction with federal agencies must hold hearings and decide whether Sustainable Beef gets a license to slaughter a single head. Yes, the state has no such application yet. Why? Because Sustainable Beef hasnt wrapped up its financing, doesnt have a signed construction contract and doesnt even yet own the place where it wants to build. Left to right, President Trump, Igor Danchenko, and Christopher Steele. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photos: Getty Images; AP/Shutterstock Christopher Steele, the former MI6 spy who compiled the notorious dossier during the 2016 campaign alleging ties between Donald Trump and Russia, made a splash a few weeks back when he gave his first interview about it. Steele described his professionalism as an intelligence-gatherer to George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and then doubled down on some of the dossiers most salacious allegations, asserting, among other things, that the infamous pee tape involving Trump may be still out there, just waiting to be found. Since BuzzFeed published Steeles reports in 2017, many of the dossiers key claims have failed to materialize or have been shown to be false. But this week, it may have been dealt a death blow when the operative used by Steele to gather material for the dossier was indicted. On Thursday, John Durham, the special counsel appointed to investigate the FBIs probe into ties between Trump and Russia, charged operative Igor Danchenko with lying to the FBI about his work on the dossier and allegedly fabricating some information that appeared in it. A lawyer who represented Danchenko, a onetime analyst at the Brookings Institute, said at a court hearing that his client planned to enter a plea of not guilty but a judge told him to do so at a future arraignment. There is no question that Durhams inquiry is viewed by some with suspicion. After all, he was appointed to his post by William Barr, Trumps attorney general. And from the start, he seemed to tip his hand politically by publicly disagreeing with the finding by the Justice Departments inspector general that the FBI had a legitimate basis to open an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Still, its hard to imagine a turn of events with more dire consequences than the new indictment for Steele, the dossier, and Fusion GPS, the investigative firm run by two ex-Wall Street Journal reporters that hired the ex-spy on behalf of Hillary Clintons campaign and promoted his reports to the media. The charges against Danchenko may also force a reckoning that some journalists who embraced the dossier had hoped to avoid an examination of their reporting about it and their ties to operatives for hire. Steele appears to have staked his reputation on the veracity of the reports he received from Danchenko. According to Crime in Progress, the book written about the dossier by Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, the founders of Fusion GPS, the former spy never disclosed Danchenkos name to them but instead described him as one of the most talented collectors of intelligence he had ever worked with. In Durhams indictment, however, Danchenko comes across more like the type of paid informant often found in the world of private spying one who tells their employer what they want to hear. According to those charges, he supposedly fed Steele some information that did not come from Kremlin-linked sources, as the dossier claims, but was gossip he picked up from an American public-relations executive with Democratic Party ties who did business in Moscow. In 2016, the indictment states, the manager of the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow gave that executive a tour of the the hotels presidential suite, and soon afterward, Danchenko took a selfie of himself and the executive at the hotel. A few days later, Danchenko flew to London to meet with Steele who then wrote a report that described the hotels suite as the setting for the pee tape, citing Ritz-Carlton employees as some of the sources for that information. The American executive who had met with those employees told the FBI they never mentioned anything salacious to him, the indictment states. A spokesman for Steeles firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, declined to comment on the charges against Danchenko. The fallout of Danchenkos indictment for Fusion GPS and journalism are also significant because he is charged with lying to the FBI about a matter central to news accounts about dossier. Those reports identified a real-estate broker named Sergei Millian as a key but unwitting source of information for Steeles reports, including claims of a long-running conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin. He was also cited in news accounts as one of the sources who claimed there was a pee tape. Millian, who was born in Belarus, first drew the attention of Simpson and Steele in mid-2016 when he was quoted by a Russian news outlet saying he did a lot of business with the Trump Organization and knew about Trumps taste for young Slavic women. Trumps personal lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, denied the claims, but Danchenko told the FBI in 2017 interviews, which became public last year, that Steele had dispatched him in mid-2016 to clandestinely approach Millian with the aim of getting information from him. Meanwhile, during the 2016 campaign, Simpson tried to interest reporters in doing articles about Millian, claiming he had dug up material to suggest he might be a Russian operative. (When I worked at the New York Times, Simpson provided me with material about Millian, though I never wrote about him.) But it was after Trumps election and BuzzFeeds publication of the dossier that Millians name resurfaced with a vengeance. In early 2017, The Wall Street Journal first reported that he had been an unwitting but key source for some of the dossiers most explosive allegations, including one contending that there was a long-running conspiracy between Trump and the Kremlin. The newspapers scoop was unusual from a journalistic perspective, because while publications typically require reporters to have two sources for an article, the Journal article only cited one unnamed person as the source for its information about Millian. Soon afterward, other outlets, including the Washington Post, ran stories describing Millian as the person identified in Steeles dossier as Source D, a figure whose information was critical to it. Several reporters have said that Fusion GPS began telling reporters that Millian was a key source for the dossier. Millian vehemently denied ever speaking to Danchenko and Steeles operative, and in his interviews with the FBI in 2017, told agents that the former British spy had overstated the information he had given him. Danchenko also insisted to the FBI that he had spoken briefly by telephone on one occasion with someone whom he believed was Millian, though he added he was not sure it was him and that he had never met with Millian in person. But Durham charged that Danchenko had lied to the FBI, because emails indicated his supposed phone call with Millian had never taken place and that he never spoke to him at all. The indictment also claimed that Danchenko had even lied to Steele about his interactions with Millian by telling him that he had met with the real-estate broker when such a meeting had never occurred. The prospect that information about Millians role in the dossier may have been fabricated sent some news organizations scrambling. The Washington Post, in its report about Danchenkos indictment, stated the allegations related to Millian cast new uncertainly on some past reporting on the dossier by news organizations, including the Washington Post. In its account of the analysts indictment, The Wall Street Journal noted that it and other media outlets had identified Millian as a supposed key source for the dossier, but the paper didnt directly address the sourcing or basis for its 2017 article. Simpson and Fritsch did not respond to requests for comment about Danchenkos indictment. But by now, some things dont need to be said. Simpson and Fritsch accepted Steeles reports at face value and the former MI6 agent never took the trouble to speak directly to Danchenkos sources to check on their claims. Meanwhile, some of the journalists who agreed to conceal their interactions with Fusion GPS and Steele when writing about the dossier may now be starting to regret those decisions. if there's heaven and hell, you know where he and kylie are headed jfc Reply Thread Link and drake Reply Parent Thread Link Always... and Drake. Reply Parent Thread Link It wont change the outcome or give closure, but I hope the families can sue for everything theyve got. Reply Thread Link I hope they sue the hell out of Live Nation(In sure Travis will be listed on any lawsuits too for legal reasons which he fully deserves) especially if the part about them agreeing to end it but then just continuing on Reply Parent Thread Link This entire story is absolutely horrifying and incredibly distressing, I just can't stop thinking about how panicked and scared all these people must have been. Reply Thread Link wait, someone was injecting people with a drug? Reply Thread Link that's the semi-official police theory for why there were so many cardiac arrests. Reply Parent Thread Link So there was just this person wandering around stabbing people with needles and no one noticed or responded to it? They are really trying so hard to skirt responsibility and it's fucking disgusting. They want it to be anything other than what it is, crowd crush because of bad organization and Bc Travis Scott is a piece of shit. Edited at 2021-11-07 05:50 pm (UTC) Reply Parent Thread Expand Link eeeeeh. I think the cardiac arrests could be related to the asphyxia caused by the crush. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link The venue should be checking what people are bringing in tho. Like, how were people getting away with bringing multiple syringes in... Festivals won't let you bring a damn water bottle in but suddenly you can bring enough injections to send such a high number of people into cardiac arrest? I'm aware people manage to bring drugs anyway, but not the sort that relies on such paraphernalia Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I don't think so? It seems to be a separate incident. Reply Parent Thread Link In my opinion, this needle thing sounds like another moral panic and I dont buy it. Its the cops and Travis team shifting blame and creating a false narrative. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I thought this was a twitter conspiracy... Reply Parent Thread Link Apparently thats a thing in Europe right now as well. I saw an article about the UK (?) with people waking up with needle marks the next day not remembering anything Reply Parent Thread Expand Link it def seems like they're trying to shift guilt, but imo, there's really no way around it bc at the end of the day even if people were drugged out of their minds travis didn't stop the show and kept encouraging people to wild out and that just made everything worse, what could've ended with some people injured, ended with people dying. Reply Parent Thread Link I said this above but the fire chief is saying some of the injured were drug related and revived with Narcan like the security officer though they havent said how many or if this is from being randomly injected like they think the security officer was but both the fire chief and sheriff have said that many of the injured and dead were due to asphyxia from being crushed/trampled. So I think its less that theyre trying to blame this whole thing on drugs and more that theres two separate issues on hand that happened in the crowd and people are sensationalizing the drug aspect in the media Reply Parent Thread Link it's like a horror movie Reply Parent Thread Link Oh my fucking god somebody better go to jail Reply Thread Link The last big event I went to pre-pandemy was the NHL Winter Classic in Dallas & while in the fair area waiting to get in to the Cotton Bowl, we were stuck packed in like sardines for over an hour just trying to make our way to the entrance. A man we were next to collapsed and died of a heart attack & I witnessed countless people not try to clear the way for medics but use his falling as a new way to get inside a little faster. It was truly disheartening, I cried right there more from how people reacted than the actual tragedy. Anyways, that was the day I fully realized people are scum so Travis Scott doing this is no surprise but I sure hope he sees a swift backlash that actually sticks & changes things. Reply Thread Link thats fucking horrifying and truly reflective of our society and our culture of individualism, to the point of sociopathy. Reply Parent Thread Link I wish I was joking but that whole experience caused me to become agoraphobic. I have a condition that makes me faint a lot so seeing that reaction to a DEATH made me realize Im totally on my own out there if something happens. Reply Parent Thread Link i always feel like this whenever i see people tailing ambulances and emergency vehicles to clear through traffic. i hate people Reply Parent Thread Link how terrified those poor people must've been... because of back issues I tend to avoid concerts where I have to stand anyway, but damn if this didn't convince me never to stand in a crowd like that again Reply Thread Link my floor ticket days are definitely behind me. just wanna watch from seats with a cold drink and no strangers touching me Reply Parent Thread Link Seriously. I went to a lot of punk/emo shows in HS with floor tickets and never have I ever escaped a concert without multiple hands grabbing my tits and ass the whole show. Once, my male friend had his arms wrapped around me the whole time to try and fend off guys and even still, my ass was grabbed the whole show. I would never, ever go to a general admission/floor concert ever again Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Same. I have back problems so I have to sit down for gigs. I have so many memories of being pushed against the barrier and it being hard....but thankfully I was never harmed Reply Parent Thread Link god fuck him so hard Reply Thread Link All is shit but this one. 9:31 pm: Scott acknowledges the ambulance, stops performing to encourage the crowd to make room, then continues to perform. He tells the crowd he wants to hear the ground shake. Everyone should drag these fucks, travis, kylie and drake as well as live nation. So horrible. WTF. Reply Thread Link it should be the most obvious, most basic thing in the world....you see an ambulance, you stop. the goddamn. show. i'm sure there'll be lawsuits but how is this not criminal, wtf. Reply Parent Thread Link Exactly, the bare minimum. It's so fucked up. I hope there will be lawsuits and whatever else, 100% deserved. Fuck all of them. Reply Parent Thread Link Kylie had an insta story panning across the crowd and you can see the ambulance with the lights on, unable to get through the crowd. She never deleted it Reply Parent Thread Expand Link I hope he gets sued to the point where he can barely exist. Fuck this man. Reply Thread Link what the fuck is his problem Reply Thread Link with all due respect, fuck this piece of shit Reply Thread Link Drake surrounds himself with the worst people. I honestly hope this ruins Travis career and Im not even sorry to say it. Dont allow him to disappear for a bit and then rebrand himself, he has a clear pattern of inciting reckless behavior at these shows and now its caused 8 people their lives. Reply Thread Link Drake himself is the worst. Birds of a feather... Reply Parent Thread Link Facts, hes absolute trash. As a Canadian, I dont claim him. Reply Parent Thread Link Has he even released a statement yet? trash. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Semantics, but... isn't he one of the worst people other people surround themselves with. Reply Parent Thread Link jfc Absolutely horrific. Fuck him. Reply Thread Link There are honestly no words. I certainly hope this is the end of his career, Kylies, Drakes and everyone involved. Reply Thread Link It wont be, which is so sad. Their fan bases will blindly support them even after this. Reply Parent Thread Link the reaction i've seen from most travis scott fans has been totally negative. at least on twitter and reddit. i think they realize he doesn't give a shit about them and they're done. Reply Parent Thread Expand Link Nuclear is still one of the most controversial sources of energy on the planet, but it does have some key upsides, especially in the global push to tackle emissions. Nobody can seem to agree on nuclear energy. Scientific opinion is divided over whether or not nuclear energy can save the world from climate change, and public opinion is divided over whether nuclear is a safe, clean energy alternative or a dangerous ticking time bomb waiting to melt down and spread radioactive fallout over their backyards. The European Union stands completely divided on the issue of nuclear power as Scotland hosts the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow. Germany stands staunchly opposed to nuclear and is in the process of phasing it out completely, even though nuclear accounted for nearly a third of the countrys energy mix in the year 2000. Meanwhile, a group of 10 European Union nations, with France leading the charge, is making a plea to make nuclear power a key part of the EUs climate policy. Last month, France sent a letter to the European Commission arguing for the consideration of nuclear as a "key affordable, stable and independent energy source" that could protect EU consumers who are currently suffering from the energy crunch from being further "exposed to the volatility of prices." The letter was supported by Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania. Most of these 10 nations already rely on nuclear for a considerable portion of their domestic energy mix. In August, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) released a technology brief arguing that nuclear power could be key to meet the targets set by the Paris climate accord and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.Nuclear power is an important source of low-carbon electricity and heat that can contribute to attaining carbon neutrality and hence help to mitigate climate change, UNECE Executive Secretary Olga Algayerova said upon the documents release. Nuclear power has already helped avoid approximately 74 Gt of carbon dioxide emissions over the past 50 years that would have otherwise been released from the use of fossil fuels. In fact, it has been estimated that nuclear power has saved 1.8 million lives that would otherwise have been lost to causes related to air pollution from the combustion of fossil fuels, and coal in particular. Other studies show that nuclear energy may not be the answer to climate change mitigation at all. A paper published in the journal Energy Policy August of this year argues that installed nuclear power capacity is simply too small now -- and still shrinking -- and will be too hard to scale up to have any kind of viable post-energy transition future, thanks to technical obstacles and limited resources. Indeed, most of the world has turned away from nuclear power, which can be extremely expensive and is most often associated with high-profile disasters like the tragedies at Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island. One of the only countries that currently has a robust and actionable plan for nuclear development is China, which plans to generate an eye-popping amount of nuclear energy, quickly and at relatively low cost according to a recent Bloomberg report. Beijing plans to bring 150 new nuclear reactors online over the next 15 years, which amounts to more nuclear capacity that the entire world has constructed in the last 35 years. The effort could cost as much as $440 billion; as early as the middle of this decade, the country will surpass the U.S. as the worlds largest generator of nuclear power, writes Bloomberg. This is an especially important development for China, given the size of the nations carbon footprint -- the biggest in the world. Its also a development that only China could accomplish. It would be the kind of wholesale energy transformation that Western democracies with budget constraints, political will and public opinion to consider can only dream of, Bloomberg characterizes the plan. In fact, China may just be the only country in the world that can come up with the significant resources necessary to scale up nuclear so much so fast that it will put an end to the opinion that a nuclear renaissance will be too little, too late. By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Tajiks are desperate for the Roghun hydropower plant to become fully operational in order to provide the electricity the country badly needs Hospitals are the hardest hit, with doctors left helpless in case of emergencies during the night While Tajik authorities insist there is no energy rationing in the country, reports are emerging of complete blackouts for 7 straight hours There has never been a shortage of patients in Murod's private dental clinic on the rural outskirts of the southern Tajik city of Bokhtar. But Murod fears his clinic will go out of business if the crippling electricity blackouts that began in most parts of Tajikistan in October continue through the winter, as many people expect. "We get a few hours of electricity in the mornings and evenings, but there is no electricity during business hours," said Murod, who doesn't want to give his full name. Murod says he uses a small flashlight - or sometimes the light on his mobile phone - to look into the mouths of his patients and do some "basic work in emergency cases." "But there is not much I can do without electric power - I can't drill, for example, and I have to tell the patients to go into the city [where there is electricity]," he said. The capital, Dushanbe, and provincial centers such as Bokhtar have so far been exempted from electricity rationing that began - with no official announcement - early last month. But the rest of the country goes into a complete blackout from about 8 a.m. to 5-6 p.m. and then from around 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. - seven days a week. The daytime blackout coincides with the opening hours of schools, offices, banks, shops, and many other businesses. One grocery-store owner in the northern province of Sughd said he had "suffered losses as meat and dairy products have gone bad in the fridge without electricity." "It's 17 degrees today, how can I keep these products without a fridge," said the shop owner, who didnt want to give his name. Hospital Fears The worst hurt, however, is the rural hospitals, many patients and medics say. Some medical facilities in rural areas have to use diesel-fueled power generators during the power cuts, but not all village hospitals can afford them. Patients in Hospital N4 in the village of Khudoyor Rajabov in the southern district of Vose say they spend the nights in dark, cold hospital rooms. Doctors say they simply don't know what would happen in case of any emergencies during the night. The hospital doesn't have a motor generator. Related: Oil And Gas Stocks Are Popular Once Again "My pregnant daughter-in-law has been admitted to the maternity ward here and she is expected to give birth at any time," Vose resident Bibisoro Ghiyosova said. Ghiyosova hopes the baby's arrival coincides with those several hours in the morning or evenings when there is electricity in the area. Back To The Basics Tajik authorities, however, insist there is no energy rationing in the country. "Media and social-media reports about...any planned electricity rationing are baseless," said the state-owned Barqi Tojik company that oversees the electricity industry in the Central Asian country. In response to widespread public complaints, Barqi Tojik said in a statement on October 12 that winter preparation works "might" have caused "interruptions in the electricity power transmission" in some areas. According to the agency, the "necessary" works include cutting tree branches that touch power lines and repairs at power stations and on transmission lines. The agency didn't provide any date on when the "works" are expected to be completed. Tajikistan has experienced many years of energy shortages - many that even lasted throughout the whole year. But many Tajiks hoped that "electricity rationing" would end after the Roghun hydropower plant - one of the largest in the world - became partially operational and started producing electricity in 2018. Once completed, the Roghun plant is expected to double Tajikistan's electricity-production capacity to 3,600 MW, the equivalent of three nuclear power plants. Tajikistan hopes Roghun will turn the cash-strapped country into a major electricity exporter in the region. The upstream country also has several other hydropower plants, including Norak and Sangtuda. The current crisis comes as prices for natural gas, coal, and firewood have skyrocketed in Tajikistan, leaving households with no other affordable options or substitutes to heat their homes or cook their meals. Turghunboi Tursunov, a resident of the northern district of Jabbor Rasulov, says his family usually relied on coal during electricity shortages in the past. But the price of coal has doubled this year. Tursunov's household needs 2 tons of coal - worth about $540 - if the power cuts continue through the winter. Tursunov says he wasn't able to raise such money - a very large amount in a country where public-sector workers make less than $150 a month. "Now we're burning dry animal dung as an alternative," he said. Many Tajiks say the current situation has forced them to go back to the basics when it comes to energy sources. By RFE/RL More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Europe could have a way out of a natural gas shortage if the winter is colder than usual. The very tight European gas market may find relief from the supply crunch if it taps part of the so-called cushion gas, which keeps supply pressure at storage facilities, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie said this week. Tapping this cushion gas, however, may not be easy because of technical issues and regulations. Under normal circumstances, cushion gas cannot be withdrawn from storage facilities or considered part of the working gas volume (WKV), WoodMac notes. Yet the past two months have shown that Europes gas market is experiencing anything but normal circumstances. The lowest level of gas in storage in a decade just ahead of the winter sent natural gas prices spiking to record highs last month. Prices also surged on the back of a lack of extra Russian supply on top of Gazproms contractual obligations. Gas prices have eased since mid-October, but they are still triple compared to the beginning of 2021. Earlier this week, Wood Mackenzie warned that A cold European winter could result in storage levels falling to zero by the end of March 2022, unless more Russian gas supply is available versus current export levels. WoodMac suggested an alternative to easing the crunch that could free up to 15 billion cubic meters (bcm) on the gas-hungry European markettapping part of the cushion gas. Typically, these volumes shouldnt be touched because they could damage the long-term performance of storage sites and because the gas is owned by storage operators which cannot sell gas under existing regulations. However, with the level of concern that there is in the market and the accompanying exceptionally high prices, these are not normal times. Should WGV go close to zero, governments might need to concede on regulations if they are going to keep the heating on, said Graham Freedman, principal analyst, Europe gas research, at Wood Mackenzie. We understand it is possible to use up to 10% of the cushion gas - or quasi-working gas as it is sometimes known - within the engineering tolerances of each facility, Freedman added. Ten percent of the 150 bcm of cushion gas in Europe would theoretically make 15 bcm of gas available on the tight market, according to WoodMac. However, European policymakers could see the technical and regulatory issues as too big hurdles to tapping cushion gas. Related: Oil Rally Reverses On Signs Of Cooling Demand Increased Russian flows to Europe would be an easier way to meet winter demand in a cold winter without stretching thin working gas volumes to zero. Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised more gas would be flowing to Europe as soon as November 8, when Gazprom is expected to have completed filling Russias storage. But this week, gas deliveries dropped as a key pipeline from Russia to Europe reversed flows from west to east. Following several days of declines, natural gas prices at the key European and UK hubs surged again early this week, after gas flows on the Yamal-Europe pipeline reversed the direction eastward instead of westward through Germany. This reverse flow lasted for six days between Saturday and Thursday afternoon when gas started flowing to Germany once again, leading to a drop in European gas prices. Some analysts and EU member states such as Poland accuse Russia of using gas and energy as a weapon to continue exerting influence on the European gas market and forcing Europes hand into accepting that it needs the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which awaits regulatory consent in Germany. The Kremlin, Putin, and all Russian officials deny those accusations and point the finger at Europes own gas and energy policies of the past decade. All eyes on the European gas market are now turned to whether Russias Gazprom would follow Putins order to increase gas at its storage sites in Austria and Germany. If Russia does what Putin said it will do, then there will be a big relief, Frank van Doorn, head of trading at Swedens Vattenfall, told Bloomberg in an interview at the Flame gas and LNG conference in Amsterdam this week. If there is no additional gas coming on Monday, we could see a significant price spike, van Doorn said. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com: Vanguard reports that as of the end of 2020, 80% of its 401(k) participants were using target date funds. But is that a good idea for you? The upside: Simplicity There's a benefit to putting your 401(k) into target date funds, and it's not having to spend too much time figuring out where to invest your money. When you use target date funds, you're effectively putting the process on autopilot. In fact, 401(k)s commonly default to a target date fund so that if you put money into one of these plans but don't select specific investments, you'll land in a target date until you say otherwise. The downside: High fees and an imperfect investment mix While target date funds may be convenient, they have their drawbacks. For one thing, you'll often pay high fees when you keep your money in a target date fund. Those fees could eat away at your returns over time, leaving you with less money by the time your career wraps up. Furthermore, when you invest in target date funds, you get no say in your investments. That may be OK with you, but it could also mean having your money invested in a manner that's too aggressive or too conservative for your taste. What's the alternative? Two men were taken to an Omaha hospital early Sunday after multiple gunshots were fired at a large party near 50th and Castelar Streets. Police responded to a report of shots fired about 12:30 a.m., according to an Omaha police spokesman. Officers found Aaron Z. Baker, 31, and Adam P. Lopez, 28, suffering from gunshot wounds. Both men were taken to the Nebraska Medical Center in critical condition. A hospital spokesman said Sunday afternoon that Baker was no longer critical. No information was being released about Lopez at his request, the spokesman said. A woman who lives nearby talked to The World-Herald on condition of anonymity. She said that a large party had been in progress outside a duplex but that it didnt seem to be out of control. She said she and her husband hadnt noticed anything out of the ordinary about the gathering until the shots were fired. Her husband counted about four shots, she said, followed by another six to eight shots. Police were seen coming and going Sunday morning from the duplex where the party was held as well as another residence. The Omaha police mobile emergency response vehicle arrived at the scene about 9 a.m. Head, who also joined the board in January, said 99.5% of the titles in the purchase are great books that belong in the classroom. He said that one of the few statutory responsibilities of the board is approving curriculum. If were telling families were not teaching something until seventh grade, but then were putting a book available to students in first-grade classrooms that might conflict with that curriculum, I think thats a discussion that as a board I would hope we could have sometime in the near future, Head said. Erdenberger said the books are dealing with life as kids know it today. I might have two dads, she said. My best friend might have two dads. Do I have not to notice until seventh grade? She said she did not know enough about the books to say if she was comfortable with them and their grade placement. Board member Nancy Kratky said shes concerned that some titles are inappropriate. Theres some people who probably think its great, she said. And theres others, more like me, who just back off and dont think that we should go that far with students. Drive by Walter Coys South Omaha house on a summer day, and you may catch the World War II Army veteran cutting the grass in his front yard. Now 103 years old, hes been on Earth for every Veterans Day since the first one (then called Armistice Day) to celebrate the end of World War I in 1918. His one concession to age: He uses a riding lawn mower. Im glad Ive still got a clear mind, said Coy, relaxing in a power chair in the living room of the house he built himself in the 1950s. All I can say is, I kept living. Just kept going. Coy is one of thousands of local veterans who will be honored this week as Nebraska and the nation commemorate the men and women who served in uniform. Many, like Coy, left families and jobs behind. They trained hard, traveled far from home, and witnessed historical and, sometimes, terrible events before returning home to normal lives. Coys service stands out because he is among the states oldest living veterans. He was born May 30, 1918, in Stewartsville, Missouri, the fifth of 10 children. His impoverished parents moved their brood to nearby St. Joseph while he was still young. Goats were among the barnyard animals kept by the Bohemians. But because the hollows werent good grazing ground, boys would have to take the goats up on the hill and stake them out. There were so many goats on the hill that it soon became known as goat mountain. And because their work was done once the goats were staked, the boys would bide their time playing sandlot ball. These boys would belt the ball down the mountain, race around the paths and have a good time. Some of South Omahas better ball teams were formed on Goat Mountain. Goose Hollow was a Lithuanian neighborhood south of Q Street. Its boundaries were roughly 33rd to 36th Streets, T to V Streets. In 1955, South Omaha historian Mose McKeon told the South Omaha Sun about the geese and their fate. It seems paved streets hastened their demise. Many of the Lithuanians raised geese as a source of income. Quite talkative at all hours, the birds roamed at will on the unpaved streets and alleys. Then the area was annexed and the roadways improved. COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) South Carolina voters should have an idea by the end of this week what both their state Senate and House districts will look like when they go to the polls next year. The House committee handling redistricting plans to meet Wednesday and will likely release its map for its redrawn 124 districts based on population growth and changes in the 2020 U.S. Census. A Senate committee released a proposed map of that chamber's 46 districts last Thursday and plans a public hearing this Friday. Both chambers have suggested they will hold early December special sessions to approve the state House and Senate maps, as well as a U.S. House map they will collaborate on. The biggest change for the Senate districts was taking the district currently represented by Democratic Sen. Dick Harpootlian of Columbia and moving it to Charleston. A better goal, he said, would be to create systems that are welcoming and flexible enough to allow people who dont know each other to get along as well as they might in a real place like New Yorks Central Park. Part of that could rely on systems that help someone build a good reputation and network of trusted acquaintances they can carry across different worlds, he said. In the current web environment, such reputation systems have had a mixed record in curbing toxic behavior. It's not clear how long it will take Meta, or anyone else investing in the metaverse, to consider such issues. So far, tech giants from Microsoft and Apple to video game makers are still largely focused on debating the metaverses plumbing. To make the metaverse work, some developers say they are going to have to form a set of industry standards similar to those that coalesced around HTML, the open markup language thats been used to structure websites since the 1990s. You dont think about that when you go to a website. You just click on the link, said Richard Kerris, who leads the Omniverse platform for graphics chipmaker Nvidia. Were going to get to the same point in the metaverse where going from one world to another world and experiencing things, you wont have to think about, Do I have the right setup? Other priorities slated to receive funding include improvements to ports and waterways, broadband and freight transportation systems. The bill, which is different from a Democrat-crafted social spending package, has broad support, including in Nebraska, where labor unions and chambers of commerce have endorsed the plan. Still, Nebraskas all-Republican congressional delegation was split in both chambers. When the Senate approved the bill, Fischer voted in favor, while Sen. Ben Sasse voted against it. In the House, which passed the bill late Friday night, Rep. Don Bacon voted in favor, while Reps. Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith voted against it. Bacon, a three-term congressman who represents the Omaha-centric 2nd District, said in September that he would vote for the bill as long as it remained separate from the larger social spending proposal, which it did. The larger package, which was once more than $3 trillion and is now just under $2 trillion, is expected to come up for a vote later this month. It is not likely to earn support from Republicans, including Bacon. Like livestock producers across the country, Pillen Family Farms suddenly faced not only the challenge of keeping employees on the job without normal revenues, but also the ongoing costs of caring for animals that couldnt be sold (including feed, water, veterinary care, and utility costs), she said in an email. The Trump administrations support enabled farmers and ranchers to weather the massive market disruptions caused by COVID-19 and continue to produce Americas food supply, and were grateful, she said. Other candidates seeking the governors seat in 2022 declined to comment on Pillens use of the PPP loans, including GOP contenders Charles Herbster and Brett Lindstrom and Democratic candidate Carol Blood. Gov. Pete Ricketts said the state had encouraged Nebraskans to apply for the loans if they were eligible. Every business was doing everything they could do to meet the challenges of the moment, he said. Just like everyone else, the Pillens were entitled to apply for this help. I applaud them for going above and beyond and repaying a large portion of their PPP, even when most of these loans are forgiven. More immediately, the results could complicate the efforts by Democratic congressional leaders to maintain the party unity needed to pass Bidens two signature legislative proposals, especially the $1.75 trillion package of social and environmental proposals. Youngkins victory was far from the only positive for Republicans. In Virginia, they won the other two statewide offices, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and recaptured at least a share of control of the House of Delegates. And in the governors race in New Jersey, GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli stunned heavily favored Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy in a close election count. In New Yorks Long Island suburbs, Republicans recaptured two district attorney posts. In Pennsylvania, they held a statewide Supreme Court seat. Youngkin ran strongly in conservative areas and, by skillfully reflecting parental concerns about problems in their schools, he cut recent Democratic margins in the Washington suburbs. He was helped by McAuliffes impolitic statement in a debate in which he said, I dont think parents should be telling schools what they should teach and by the continuing economic slowdown from the pandemic. Which is why some of us fear to walk that path. And one can make a case that fear is the great unspoken engine of American history. As Glaze pointed out, one of the arguments against ending slavery was, If we give them their freedom, whats going to happen to us? Theres the whole idea ... Black people are going to go around and drag white people out of their houses and murder them. That notion repeats throughout history: If we let them hold office, if we give them the vote, if we allow them to be educated, if we stop terrorizing them on a daily basis, what will they do to us? And the answer has always proven to be: nothing. But still that fear recurs, even now, in the debate over education. As Glaze frames it, If we admit to all these falsehoods and wrongs, if we try to actually make good on this stuff, whats going to happen to us? To understand the hardiness of that fear is to understand why so many of us feel the need to be packing heat in order to go out and get the mail. When videos and photos of Border Patrol mounted officers trying to detain or push back a group of Haitian men surfaced, politicians and pundits rushed to judgment, condemning the actions of the officers without any knowledge of the actual situation and without an understanding of mounted patrol techniques. The rush to judgment extended all the way to the White House. Referring to the Border Patrol officers, the president stated on national television that there will be consequences. The vice president immediately evoked the imagery of slavery. Photojournalist Paul Ratijes image of a Border Patrol mounted officer trying to detain a group of Haitians was circulated and described by the media as showing the officer whipping a Haitian man. When news reporters talked with Ratije, he said the photo had been misconstrued and that he didnt ever see them whip anybody and Some of the Haitian men started running, trying to go around the horses, and thats kind of when the whole thing happened. At the state level, the Legislature has rightly placed strict limits on the use of solitary confinement. Such confinement has been shown to be a major contributor to mental health difficulties for those incarcerated. The overall mental health issue remains a major challenge for the Nebraska state prison system, however. The 2020 report by the Nebraska Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights cited various problems. Among them: A lack of an assured system to provide uniform, evidence-based care. No effective process by which those imprisoned can communicate their mental health needs to prison staff in a timely manner. And in some cases, treatment by correctional staff who lack training in mental health care. The prison system lacks proper therapeutic facilities for treatment and the Department of Correctional Services has failed to provide annual reports evaluating its mental health and substance abuse treatment programs. All these shortcomings erode the states ability to stabilize individuals and increase their chances of successful re-entry into society. Its imperative that the state sharpen its efforts on this paramount issue. The vision and successes at the local level can help point the way. Catch the latest in Opinion Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. We offer a continuum of care, Jones says. Starting with detox, then stepping down to residential treatment, then to outpatient care. Our treatment team has a complete understanding of a patients needs. Ongoing care is important, Jones says, because research clearly shows: the longer a patient is kept engaged in care, the better the outcome. Recovery is a process, adds Gormley. It takes two years for a brain to fully heal from drug and alcohol misuse. Patients shouldnt expect a miracle cure, but rather a safe, nurturing environment where they can learn the skills needed to return to a healthy, functional life. The first six months are crucial in the healing process, Gormley says. Continuing care is really important. It doesnt just happen in 28 days. A network of support Deciding to go into treatment is not an easy decision. Overcoming that initial barrier is an important step in the recovery process, Gormley says. People will say, I cant just leave work for a month, she says. But think about how much better your work will be when youre sober. LAKE VIEW, Iowa The sounds of war were only quiet a short time before the United States found itself embroiled in another war caused by the North Korean invasion of South Korea in 1950. Paul Nieland remembered World War II. He was 15 when it ended, and his brother Arthur was killed in 1944. Nieland, 91, graduated from high school in 1948. He spent three years on the family farm before enlisting on his 21st birthday. I didnt want to be in the Army, he says. So I enlisted in the Navy on my birthday Jan. 9, 1951. After his service was over, Nieland returned to his parents farm near Breda, Iowa. He worked with his father for two years before starting out on his own. During his tour of duty, he was connected to two ships the USS Bayonne, primarily used for weather purposes, and the USS Hamul, a ship Nieland says was used to repair destroyers. On the Bayonne, we had 320 men and our home port was in Yokosuka, Japan, he says. We would send up balloons to get weather readings. After 13 months, Nieland was sent home for leave before arriving on the Hamul at its home port in Long Beach, California. We pretty much just fixed destroyers, he says. They would come to the port in fours, and we tied them up to our ship so we could work on them. Nieland says he was fortunate to spend the war in relative safety. We did fire our guns in Japan, but I was very safe, he says. Others were not. He was discharged in 1954 and returned to the family farm in west central Iowa. Not long after that, he met Connie Leiting at a New Years Eve party. The two eventually married on Aug. 31, 1955. Paul and Connie were married 65 years before she died just over four months ago. They had five children, all of whom worked on the farm. The Nielands rented the familys 150-acre farm and eventually began buying their own ground. My first farm, I didnt talk to the banker before I paid $551 an acre for it, he says with a chuckle. After the sale, the banker told me to come in and hed take care of us. That banker helped us out more than once. On another occasion, the banker told Nieland he would go in 50-50 with him on the purchase of some land. After the sale, the banker said he thought Paul should own the ground on his own. He says Why dont you take it? and I told him I didnt have that kind of money, Nieland says. He kind of smiles and said, My wife has some special money, so shell loan some to you. Connie worked as a nurse before concentrating on the farm and growing their family. Their son Brian eventually took over the day-to-day operation of the farm, although Paul still helps if he can. Today, Pauls grandson, Aaron Nieland, rents his ground. All those guys work pretty hard, he says. Im happy to see the land staying in our family. Nieland says he is proud of his service. He and Connie used to attend reunions of crew members of the ships. We had good people on those ships, he says. Im proud of what we did back then. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 LEONARD, Mo. In a quiet, mostly flat area of Shelby County, Brad Blaise prepared to resume corn harvest as soon as fields dried out after the latest October rain. A chilly wind scurried across the farm, stirring two American flags attached to the combine. Blaise glanced up at the patches of red, white and blue dancing in the autumn breeze. He had traveled great distances in service of that flag during his time in the U.S. Navy. Im very proud of my service to my country, he says. Im proud to be an American farmer. Blaise graduated from high school just down the road in 1987. He joined the Navy right after graduating, and those years in the service would shape who he is and support his career in farming. Blaise did not start out on a family farm, and his parents did not farm, but he worked on area farms as a hired hand in high school and helped on his uncles farm. That was his ultimate career goal. I knew I wanted to farm, he says. I knew it was what I wanted to do. I didnt know how, but I was going to get there. While in the military, Blaise served in the Navy Seabees, the construction battalion. One of the Seabees mottos is Can do, and he says that mindset served him well building his farming operation from the ground up. The military kind of instilled in me never give up, Blaise says. He reported to boot camp in July 1987, beginning his three years of active duty. Blaise says it was an eight-year commitment, with three years of active reserves and two years of inactive reserves after active duty, although his reserve time got canceled because of Operation Desert Storm. Blaise was first deployed to Okinawa, Japan, for six months in 1988. After that he was stationed in Port Hueneme, in southern California. He also got to see Alaska, Hawaii and the Wake Islands, refueling at each of those. Then came perhaps the most memorable part of his time in the Navy, when he was sent to Panama in late 1989 as part of the U.S. military effort to remove military dictator Manuel Noriega from power. Those people werent free, Blaise says. The mission was to take him out and restore democracy. The mission was a success, and 30 years later Blaise and his wife, Lorie, returned to Panama to take a cruise on the Panama Canal. He was able to see the results of that effort, and he says it was a powerful thing to see the free Panamanian people. I got to see the end result, he says. I didnt realize at the time the difference we were making. Blaise also saw the cost of military action while serving in Panama, and he spoke with emotion in his voice when talking about the cost of that effort. We lost some people in Panama, he says, pausing briefly before continuing. Freedoms not free. Blaise says his farming background gave his officers confidence in him to work with machinery as part of his construction work. Once they found out I was from a farm, they let me on some equipment, he says. He ended his active duty as a 3rd Class Petty Officer. He recently got invited to a reunion that included some of the people he served with, and he says it has been a nice opportunity to reflect on his time in the Navy. After his time in the service, Blaise gradually built his farming operation. He and Lorie bought 40 acres in 1992 to get started, also raising hogs to help pay for the land. Blaise also worked some jobs off the farm, and Lorie ran a daycare out of their home. This December will mark 34 years of marriage for the couple, and Blaise says he couldnt have done what he has without her. Shes went through the thick and the thin with me, he says. Today, they own 300 acres, and row crop around 600 acres including rental ground, and they also have a cow-calf operation and some hogs. Their two kids, Brittany and Brian, both live close by, and Blaise says hes been blessed with four grandchildren, calling it a highlight of his life. Blaise says he doesnt begrudge anyone who was born into a family farming operation, but he is grateful he has been able to start one for himself. This is where I wanted to be, he says. I havent had anything given to me, but Ive had some good help. I love what I do." Still, Blaise says he is not finished, and he tells his kids he doesnt call his experience a success story yet, in the sense that he wants to continue developing his farming operation and making improvements. But he does call it a dream come true. I feel like Ive lived the American dream, he says. Anythings possible. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 BLOOMINGTON TOWNSHIP Five volunteer fire agencies from Central Illinois gathered Saturday for training sessions in McLean County, hosted by the Bloomington Township Fire Protection District. The session was coordinated by Brooks Fire Service Consulting. Manager R.J. Brooks said his company seeks out financially distressed fire protection districts to bring them training programs and find equipment for them. We base everything on that fire department's needs and then we support the community that we're going to, he told The Pantagraph. We go in, we buy our food, their gas, everything for that community to support them. Bloomington Township, Roanoke, Eureka-Goodfield, Ridge Lake and Hopedale fire protection districts participated. Brooks said his company brings in lunch, training materials and firefighting water. He noted that these volunteer crews may respond to incidents in rural locations with limited manpower and water. Additionally, he said the training classes provide an open forum for volunteer firefighters, where all questions are welcome. One class they took was on diversity in volunteer fire districts. Brooks said sometimes, subconscious decisions are made on where agencies advertise their recruitment efforts. We want to get to everybody, he said, no matter their race, religion or gender. Brooks mentioned that the fire department for Baltimore has an all-female engine crew. Bloomington Township Fire Chief Tom Willan told The Pantagraph that theyre always looking for volunteers and so are other volunteer fire protection districts across the nation. However, Willan also said they are looking for committed crew members. Your family has to buy into it, he said. I had two kids. I didnt miss much, but I always made time for the fight. Willan added theres a lot of risk in the field, and getting injured is a possibility. Other classes on the horizon for Bloomington Township are scenarios involving electric vehicles and their lithium batteries. Growmark brought a demonstration anhydrous ammonia trailer for a class Saturday, he said. That helps firefighters learn where various shutoff valves are located. Brooks said anhydrous ammonia is commonly used in agriculture, and its transported as a liquid with vapor space. It displaces the oxygen in this room, he said. Its also flammable and toxic to humans. Brooks said if ammonia enters your lungs, it causes burns and creates fluid in the lungs. Crews practiced engine role operations Saturday at Bloomington Townships fire district training tower, east of Randolph at a Bloomington-Normal Water Reclamation District facility. Today's training is to show how to be effective with the amount of people and amount of water that you have, Brooks said. Firefighters were trained on hose deployment, nozzle techniques, maneuvering hose lines through multistory interiors and dealing with pinch points, or hose kinks. Fire instructors trekked from as far as Sedgwick County, Kansas, to offer their expertise to the volunteer firefighters. Kansas firefighter Dan Mishler said they set up whats called a "Newby Prop," a mock hallway with four 90-degree turns and built from plywood boards and pallets. Mishler said that helps them review all the techniques they taught firefighters throughout the day. If there's not a firefighter at every corner and working on the techniques that we've showed with the nozzle, and a guy gets hung up in the hallway, everybody has to go back and find the hose somewhere, he said. Its basically what that problem is designed for. Contact Brendan Denison at (309) 820-3238. Follow Brendan Denison on Twitter: @BrendanDenison Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SPRINGFIELD Time is fleeting. So is daylight saving time. The annual tradition of "falling back" an hour returns Sunday as daylight saving time is ending for the year. It begins every year on the second Sunday of March in order to align typical working hours with the time the sun is shining and ends every year on the first Sunday of November. So, beginning Sunday, Central Standard Time will be adjusted to its true intended time at 2 a.m., at which point it'll become 1 a.m., meaning Sunday will be 25 hours long, kind of. The adjustment complicates recordkeeping and work and sleep schedules. State Rep. Tim Butler, R-Springfield, was among a group of several state lawmakers introducing bills or resolutions to keep Illinois permanently on standard time or daylight saving time during the Illinois General Assembly in the spring. Those efforts didn't go anywhere, but Butler said at the time he's hopeful the state will take some action in the future. If Illinois switched to daylight saving time, the latest sunrise in Springfield during the winter would be 8:16 a.m., but the earliest sunset would be 5:33 p.m., according to timeanddate.com. If there are no other changes outside Illinois, the state would be on Eastern time in the winter instead of central time. Congress would have to act in order for a state to move to daylight saving time permanently. States can exempt themselves from daylight saving time and choose to only follow standard time without Congressional approval, however. As he had in years past, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, introduced a bill in the spring that would keep the country permanently on daylight saving time but, like Butler's bill, it didn't go anywhere. Most countries outside of Europe and North America do not follow the tradition. Arizona and Hawaii also do not practice daylight saving time, though it is followed by the Navajo Nation, which has territory in Arizona. Past reporting from Ben Szalinski contributed to this story. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 I recently had to take a flight to attend a friend's wedding. A week prior to the event, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 2,000 flights after staffing shortages compounded initial weather problems. Reading the news reports and social media posts about stranded travelers spiked my concerns about my upcoming trip. I decided to cancel the Southwest ticket and rebook on American Airlines, which at the time seemed to be more reliable. I doubt I would have made such a change two years ago. But the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic may have lowered my tolerance for uncertainty. I've maxed out on the unknowns outside my control, all of which rose dramatically in the past 20 months. At first, we weren't sure how best to protect ourselves and our loved ones from severe sickness or death. When my husband and I got COVID, I wasn't sure when, or if, we would recover. Then when we did, it wasn't clear how long the immunity from the previous exposure and vaccines would last. Even now, as I prepare to get a booster, I'm wondering what kind of reaction it might provoke and how long the protection will last. Like most humans, I like order and some degree of predictability. Change and chaos are disruptive. And children crave routines because they offer safety. As parents, we reassure them of that which is certain when things go awry: our love, our desire to protect them and the hope that things will get better. In the process of helping our children learn to cope with the inevitability of change, we strengthen our own resolve. Remember when case numbers dropped in early summer, and we exhaled sighs of relief? Then the delta variant hit. Now, cases have fallen again. I'm more guarded in my optimism this time, wondering whether another shoe might drop. These uncertainties related to basic survival are layered on top of all the other ambiguities, large and small, that are part of daily life: Will my father regain his health after cancer treatment? Will we be able to afford tuition when both kids are in college? And the omnipresent question: What should we do for dinner tonight? Caroline Mimbs Nyce, an editor at the Atlantic, recently explained in an op-ed how the pandemic is still making us feel terrible, citing a slight recent rise in the number of Americans reporting feelings of anxiety and depression. It's the accumulated adversity and uncertainty of the ongoing pandemic that is compounding our stress, she wrote. A teacher explained lingering fatigue and decreased motivation to me this way: We've returned to 100% calendar time, but not 100% energy levels. That makes sense. When I asked others if the pandemic had affected their threshold for uncertainty, the nearly unanimous response was that it had increased their tolerance. One friend responded that she couldn't say either way; perhaps the constant unraveling of the past few years has numbed her to adversity. She used to joke that she was built to survive the apocalypse. It doesn't feel funny anymore, she said. Their responses made me think that I may have misjudged my own reaction. I may be overcorrecting in my desire to control things that I cannot, such as air travel. But it's also a function of resilience to adapt and adjust one's plans. Now, it's American Airlines in the news for flight disruptions. Our daughter is flying home from college for Thanksgiving later this month. I'm still worried about whether her flight might be impacted by staffing or weather or some other issue. It should be fine, I tell myself. She's flying Southwest. Aisha Sultan 314-340-8300 Home and family editor @aishas on Twitter asultan@post-dispatch.com Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 President Joe Biden's recent meeting with Pope Francis was unheralded in several respects when compared to that of previous newly elected Presidents. First it lasted ninety minutes versus the usual fifteen as was the case with previous presidents. It appears to have been a substantive meeting versus a mere photo op. While we can only speculate what took up so much more time there were unverified reports that at some points Joe Biden wept. That is plausible in that as a practicing Catholic he reported after the meeting the Pope told him he should continue receiving communion when attending Sunday mass. It is widely known Pope Francis is a strong advocate for climate change and very likely some time was spent reinforcing the newly elected President's commitment on that front. along with a legislative agenda focused on worldwide human suffering. All in all it would seem Pope Francis made sure this meeting had a pastoral tone from start to finish and provided a welcome moment of respite, reconciliation and forgiveness for the much beleaguered man before him. John Ryan Bloomington Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 100 years ago Nov. 7, 1921: New census results show Bloomington fourth highest in literacy in Illinois. This is for people over age 10 in cities of 25,000 or more. Oak Park, Elgin and Decatur are the three most literate towns. In the entire state, there are 178,000 people who cant read, the census says. 75 years ago Nov. 7, 1946: The strike by local cab drivers seems destined to drag on. Hope for a settlement faded when the cab companies and their drivers failed to agree on taking the wage dispute to arbitration. The two sides cant agree whether three disinterested people should decide the issue. 50 years ago Nov. 7, 1971: State and local authorities arrested 23 people in a raid on an alleged drug party just southwest of Bloomington. It was the second large drug raid of the year. Those arrested were charged with possession or delivery of LSD, and many were still in jail at press time. 25 years ago Nov. 7, 1996: Catholics are raising money to repair the St. Marys Cemetery on West Washington Street. Its the final resting place for hundreds of people, including many of Bloomingtons Irish-born citizens. St. Marys is more visible since the adjoining railroad tracks have been removed. Compiled by Jack Keefe; jkeefe@coldwellhomes.com. Sergeant Welbeck Agyina of the Osu Police Station CID, Accra, has been arrested for the alleged unlawful discharge of firearms during a durbar at Suhum in the Eastern Region, injuring seven persons, including two women. The injured were Sandra Kwakye, 23, Roselyn Boateng, 32, John Offei, 26, Francis Ntow, 27, Godfred Owusu, 32, Emmanuel Offei, 33, and Kwadjo Darko, 50 years. The victims sustained varying degrees of injuries when they were hit by the stray bullets and were sent to the Suhum Government Hospital for treatment. Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Ebenezer Tetteh, the Eastern Regional Police Public Relations Officer, told the Ghana News Agency that the incident occurred after the installation of Nana Ohene Fianko as the Akyempimhene of Suhum Traditional Area on Saturday, November 6. Through police intelligence, a locally manufactured gun, 70mm BB cartridge, which the suspect identified as the weapon used for the act, was retrieved from the scene. The suspect, Agyina, said to be a cousin of the newly installed sub-chief, also sustained an injury in his right palm and was taken to the Suhum Government Hospital for treatment. Two of the victims had been referred to the Eastern Regional Hospital in Koforidua, while three were on admission at the Suhum Government Hospital, DSP Tetteh said. The other two victims had been discharged, as well as the suspect, now in police custody, the PRO said. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Senior Political Science Lecturer at the University of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Asah Asante, has commended Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and the Akufo-Addo-led government for their digital transformative programmes. The Vice President days ago delivered a public lecture at the Ashesi University outlining the government's plans and progress in digitizing the economy. Dr. Bawumia, in his address, shed more light on some already implemented digital programmes like the Ghana card, digital property address system, mobile money interoperability and Zipline medical drone delivery services among others. He also pointed out further plans to digitally advance the nation, touching on e-pharmacy, e-passport, enrollment of Ghanaian babies onto the Ghanacard and the synchronization of data with all these projects and others geared towards developing the country and ensuring that Ghana catches up with the digital world. Dr. Asah Asante, speaking on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', was exhilarated by the government's phenomenal successes and initiatives to digitalize Ghana. He highlighted some benefits to Ghana saying digitalizing the economy will help curb corruption, encourage accountability and enhance good governance. He, therefore, minced no words as he declared full support for the digital vision of the Akufo-Addo administration. ''I fully support it even when I'm alive or dead. It's a good thing . . . I like this initiative every day," he stated. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video " " John Tenniel/British Library/Wikimedia Commons Alice takes tea with the March Hare, the Dormouse and the Mad Hatter in this classic illustration from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." If you've read Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" or seen any of the movie adaptations, the Mad Hatter is bound to have left an impression. He's eccentric, to say the least, as he presides over a rollicking tea party that Alice attends. But the idea of being "mad as a hatter" (in the British sense, "mad" meaning "crazy") didn't come from Carroll. And if you, like Alice, have a tendency to fall down rabbit holes, this phrase is a real treat. Advertisement "We're All Mad Here" Carroll's book was published in 1865, but the Oxford English Dictionary puts the earliest known use of "mad as a hatter" in 1829. That's three and a half decades before any March hares or dormice sipped tea, or the Cheshire cat made his famous claim of general madness. The actual origin of the phrase is unknown, but it's believed to be connected to mercury poisoning in hatmakers. Several years after the Alice first appeared, in 1883, the phrase "hatter's shakes" was used to describe the condition caused by mercury poisoning. The symptoms included muscle tremors, plus mental and behavioral changes. The Hatter behaves strangely in the novel (as do many other characters), but his friends accept his oddities as being the usual. Today, mercury poisoning is know to the medical and scientific communities as erethism. The modern list of symptoms including irritability and mania, both of which the Hatter has. But there's also sleep disturbance, depression, visual disturbance, hearing loss and those telltale tremors, which the Hatter doesn't seem to have. You'll be glad to learn that short-term exposure to mercury can cause erethism, but it usually goes away if you can stay away from touching or inhaling mercury. Long-term exposure, such as dental professionals and chemical workers experience, can mean the symptoms persist. In any case, erethism is a rare disease. Advertisement "Then You Should Say What You Mean" At his trial, the Hatter explains to the King that he has no hats of his own because he sells all the hats he has. Which brings us to the last stop in our rabbit hole: What does mercury have to do with hats? It's part of a process called "carroting." In order to make felt, which is what many hats are made of, you have to get the fur of a beaver or rabbit to stick together in a mat of thick, stiff fabric. To get the fur off the skin cleanly, mercuric nitrate was used. It came to be known as carroting because the solution would turn the edges of the pelts orange as it dried. Modern haberdashers use hydrogen peroxide to remove the fur from the skin, which is a slower but much safer process. Now That's Mad Apparently, Lewis Carroll didn't mean to slander hatters via his tea party host. First, the phrase "Mad Hatter" never appears in the book; he's merely called the Hatter. It's other characters, like Alice and the Cheshire cat, who consider him mad. Second, Carroll responded to a query about the wordplay in his most famous work by saying, "I'm very much afraid I didn't mean anything but nonsense!" GLENS FALLS Glens Falls 3rd Ward Councilwoman Diana Palmer, who conducts specialized research on the connection between Second Amendment and First Amendment rights, has been closely following oral arguments this past week in a U.S. Supreme Court gun rights case. The case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen seeks to overturn a 1913 New York state law that requires those who carry concealed handguns for self-defense to meet certain eligibility requirements and to show proper cause. Palmer, a Democrat, said the case could indirectly have major implications on her field of research, which is the effect of openly displaying firearms at public demonstrations. This is a pretty significant case because it will consider whether Second Amendment rights are extended outside the home, Palmer said in a recent telephone interview. Palmer said the decision would offer an indication of how the Supreme Court might lean if the court were to hear a case regarding the open display of firearms outside of the home, such as at a public protest, which was the topic of her recent doctoral thesis. What I studied was how people would perceive firearms in a protest situation, and what I found was that many perceive them to be dangerous to the point of chilling their free speech and expression, Palmer said in an online video presentation about her thesis that Northeastern University posted. Palmer, who recently received a doctorate in law and policy from the university, collaborated with Timothy Zick, a law professor at William and Mary Law School, to co-write an article on the topic that The Atlantic magazine published on Oct. 27. Zick subsequently appeared on MSNBC television to discuss the article. He went on and talked about my research, Palmer said. The Atlantic article, The Second Amendment Has Become a Threat to the First, has been widely circulated on social media. TheArmsGuide.com, a website that compiles and analyzes news articles about gun issues, called the article complete propaganda nonsense. The site suggests that people bring guns to political demonstrations to defend themselves, not to intimidate demonstrators. Palmer, however, said law and policy is based on how others perceive the circumstances, not the intent of gun owners. Many people who bring firearms to protests will say that their intent is not to intimidate, but to display what they believe is a symbol of freedom or protection. But classic concepts from law and sociology show us that its how a message is understood, not its intent that counts, she said in her presentation. My research shows that if a protest participant perceives that firearms create danger, then their fear is real, whether the person with the firearm intends harm or not. As part of her thesis, Palmer completed anonymous internet surveys of 1,205 people about what discouraged them from attending protests. She conducted two groups of surveys, one in which she mentioned the possibility of guns being present at a protest, and the other with no mention of guns. In the group in which guns were mentioned, 63.42 percent of those surveyed said they would be less likely to attend a protest if guns were present. In the group where guns were not mentioned, COVID-19 was the top reason that people would not attend a protest, but the potential of guns being present also was a factor. In the group where guns were mentioned, 45.77 percent of respondents identified themselves as either liberal or very liberal, with about 22 percent identifying as moderate and the rest either conservative or very conservative. In the other group, 41.21 percent identified as either liberal or very liberal. Palmer said the possibility of people carrying guns was a discouraging factor regardless of ideology or political affiliation. Even people who were gun owners did not want to see guns at protests, she said. Glens Falls Mayor Dan Hall, a Democrat, praised Palmers research and her ability to multi-task working full time as a psychologist and serving on the Common Council at the same time as she was a wife, mother and graduate student. I think it was right on, Hall said of her research. I think some of what got her interested was from what was going on right here in Glens Falls. Palmer said her research was motivated, somewhat, by events locally, but to a large part from a national perspective. In fall 2019, city officials notified media that there were reports that some demonstrators supporting then-President Donald Trump planned to bring rifles to a demonstration in downtown Glens Falls. That, and other incidents of conflict between pro-Trump and anti-Trump demonstrators, led to the city Common Council drafting and adopting a local law requiring advance permits for demonstrations. The group, American Patriots Express, a local pro-Trump organization, sued the city over the law, claiming it was too broad and did not leave open options for spontaneous protest. The city settled the lawsuit in November 2020. Palmer, a Democrat, was re-elected, unopposed, on Tuesday to a second four-year term on the Common Council. In the telephone interview, she acknowledged that her research could be politically controversial in a region where support of Second Amendment rights is a key issue with voters. I suppose that there could be a risk with any position that I take, she said. Palmer said she did not study the topic from the perspective of an activist, but as a researcher who was trying to understand if there was a correlation. I am not an anti-gun activist, she said. Palmer said she studied the topic because little research had been done on it. I kept coming across the theory that there was a chilling effect, but when I went to the empirical evidence, the documentation was not there. Palmer said, at this point, she is not certain what role her research might play in her professional and political career. Its been a whirlwind, and I dont think that Ive had a chance to think about what comes next, she said. Public service is very important to me. Local National Rifle Association advocates Michael Grasso and Sean Garvey did not return messages left by voicemail or with a receptionist seeking comment for this report. Love 1 Funny 7 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Iben Thranholm These days the media are overflowing with comments and analyses of last Fridays terrorist attacks in Paris. One particular angle is consistently ignored or banished: religion. This is a curious omission since the terrorists themselves issue statements that indicate that religion is their motivation. The statement in which IS accepts responsibility for the attacks in Paris is made in the name of Allah and the killings are referred to as a blessed battle whose causes of success were enabled by Allah. It states that Paris was targeted because it is a capital of prostitution and vice and the lead carrier of the cross in Europe. IS is consistently referring to the Parisians as crusaders the audience at the Bataclan, however, are called pagans gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice. The statement closes with a terror threat to strike those who dare to curse the Prophet and boasts about their war against Islam. A further look at the character of the attacks reveals with ever-increasing clarity their symbolic significance. They were carried out on a Friday, the Muslim holiday. The victims at the Bataclan were listening to music, which is banned in fundamentalistic Islam, and the first targets to be shot were guests at the bar drinking alcohol. The symbolism assumed a new dimension when the perpetrators started firing on the audience of a performance by the band 'Eagles of Death Metal' of its popular tune Kiss the Devil. A series of images taken moments before the massacre started, members of the audience are seen making the hand sign used for devil worship, their index and little finger lifted in preparation for singing along with the lurid lyrics: Who'll love the Devil? Who'll sing his song? Who will love the Devil and his song? I'll love the Devil I'll sing his song I will love the Devil and his song What diabolical irony: the audience in the concert hall sings to the devil and is then butchered in cold blood by Jihadists claiming to serve Allah by annihilating pagans celebrating and invoking the Devil. The Parisians seem devoid of any sense of the spiritual reality they are inviting. Yet their invocation was heard and answered. What a heart-breaking scene. Servants of Allah and pagan revelers becoming a devilish blood sacrifice. In spite of IS own constant and unambiguous references to Allah as the motivation for their terrorist acts, politicians and mass media alike consistently refuse to acknowledge religion, let alone mention it. Instead, they contort their rhetoric into fantastical figures of unreality by stressing that the world is not at war with Islam, supported by claims that IS/ISIS/ISIL is not Islamic, and for this purpose they have adopted the new brand name Daesh, ostensibly to express denial of Islamism as a religious faith. When Francois Hollande spoke at the Congress at the Versailles shortly after the attacks, he refused to link the atrocities with Islam with even a single word. Obama has also said time and again that the West is not at war with Islam. Religion is thus a total taboo in the narrative of the fight on terror. There are two reasons. One is political correctness: the ideology of secularism propounds the doctrine that religion is irrelevant, as it is not one of the ideals of the Enlightenment and must therefore be ignored, except in so far as it is made the object of derision ad scorn. The other, and more significant, reason is that there is little sensibility to religion and spirituality in Europe and none whatever among the political elite. This is the root of the problem. An injured person is evacuate following an attack in the 10th arrondissement of the French capital Paris, on November 13, 2015. Kenzo Tribouillard / AFP Irrespective of the way one chooses to interpret the desire of the jihadists to strike pagans gathered for a concert of prostitution and vice and the audiences invocation of the devil, it provides a strong picture, or perhaps rather a sign, of what creates and nurtures terrorism. The driving force is spiritual rather than political. The decline of Christianity in the West has created a spiritual and moral vacuum of colossal proportions. It is this vacuum that gives Islamism momentum and nourishment. The West simply no longer understands spirituality and has lost touch with its spiritual foundations by abandoning Christianity, now banished also from the EU Treaty. Several countries have removed Christian and all religious symbols from public spaces. By removing God they have created an empty space for evil to fill. This has been combined with morally bankrupt foreign policies that have accepted the slaughter and beheading of Christians, which is tantamount to a destruction of Europes own spiritual foundations to achieve geopolitical gains, the latest of which is regime change in Syria by removing the countrys democratically elected president. The monster created by the rejection of Christianity is gaining power, as terrorism has grown from a de-christianized culture. Secularism and Islamism are two faces of the same destructive spirituality, two parasites nurturing each other. While justice and mercy combine in the virtues that spring from Christianity, the destructive justice of Islamism becomes glaringly demonic. There is no longer a spiritual counterweight of grace, forgiveness and charity, only a political counterpoint, which is clearly inadequate. Secularism, relativism of values, materialism and democracy as a new religion (idolatry devoid of a deity) constantly prove their feeble inadequacy when facing Islamism. The post-Christian ideologies possess no core of spiritual strength - surveillance and military hardware is what they offer. It takes more to win a war. It takes moral strength. The West has lost its moral strength, amply evident in its approach to foreign policy by supporting so-called moderate terrorist groups that show little moderation when it comes to beheadings and literally eating the hearts of their victims. The orgy of death at the Bataclan shows with superb clarity what happens when a people turn their backs on Christianity, invoke diabolical forces intending to use them for their own purpose and reap the bitter harvest of a reality they should have foreseen. Unless Europe acknowledges the religious pivot of terrorism, Europe will perish clueless of the identity of its real enemy. Europe will remain fatally feeble. A spiritual revival is the single and sole hope for Europe to muster the strength to stand up to IS. The spiritual vacuum is also a vacuum of true values: patriotism, honor, virile virtues, masculine values like valor, courage, self-sacrifice, and strong faith in a good and loving God. All this is urgently needed if Europe is to defeat terrorism and radical Islam. Such a spiritual revival, a resurgence of Christianity, has been sweeping through Russia after the end of the Cold War. This provides Russia with a much clearer sense of what it takes to defeat terror and evil: the correct calibration of the moral compass, which allows you to know where you are and where you need to go. Europe has prevailed against Islam several times through history. It did so in Spain, France, in Austria in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, and all of these victories were won at a time when Christianity was the explicit and acknowledged foundation. Now, for the first time in history, Europe must face Islam in mortal battle without the rock of Christianity to provide the foundation to stand on and without identifying the enemy, and without admitting it is at war. No compass to show where it is, where it should go, or why. If Europe is to win this battle, it must rediscover Christianity. French Foreign Minister and founder of the EU Robert Schumann once made the statement: Europe will not live and will not be saved except to the degree in which it has awareness of itself and of its responsibilities, when it returns to the Christian principles of solidarity and fraternity. If Europe persists in rejecting Christianity, it must abandon all hope of ever being able to stand up to Islam and its Islamic terrorism. Iben Thranholm examines political and social events with focus on their religious aspects, significance and moral implications. She is one of Denmarks most widely read columnists on such matters. Thranholm is a former editor and radio host at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), at which she created a religious news program that set a new standard for religious analysis in the newsroom. She has traveled extensively in the Middle East, Italy, the United States and Russia to carry out research and interviews. She has been awarded for her investigative research into Danish media coverage of religious issues. TOKYO (AP) Cars already know how to park themselves, warn drowsy drivers, steer back into the right lanes and propose map routes to destinations. The cars Mazda has in the works for next year in Japan know when drivers have a stroke or heart attack. By 2025, the cars will even know when drivers are about to have a sudden health problem and warn them, according to the Japanese automaker. What's involved are data from cameras inside the car, without resorting to laser sensors or other more obtrusive technology. And it's going to be offered in affordable models, not just luxury vehicles. The technology holds promise for one of the most advanced aging societies in the world. Mazda told reporters recently it has been working with medical experts, including Tsukuba University Hospital, researching the collected image data to figure out what a healthy driver looks like, as opposed to an incapacitated driver, suddenly slumped forward over the steering wheel. Once recognizing a problem, Co-Pilot Concept, which has yet to have an official name, will bring that car to a stop in a safe spot, such as the curb of the road, as quickly as possible. As we collectively hurtle into the era of climate change, international relations as weve known them for almost four centuries will change beyond recognition. This shift is probably inevitable, and possibly even necessary. But it will also cause new conflicts, and therefore war and suffering. Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, diplomats have in peacetime and war alike for the most part subscribed to the principle of national sovereignty. This is the idea, enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, that foreign countries have no right to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. The concept was born, along with the entire system of modern states, in the physical and psychological rubble of the Thirty Years War. Starting in 1618, the European powers intervened in one anothers territories almost willy-nilly. Round after round of war left about one in three central Europeans dead. It was in that continental graveyard that statesmen (they were all men) stipulated that it was best if every state henceforth minded only its own business. Many opinions have been circulating, as well as media attention, in regard to things that are happening around Alleman High School in Rock Island the school on top of the hill as it is affectionately known by many devoted alumni, donors, families and students. As the superintendent of schools for the Catholic Diocese of Peoria, I have been the recipient of many communications where a call to action and a firm response were urgently sought. A common theme in these communications has always been, Why is the Diocese of Peoria ignoring us or refusing to act to save the school? Well, we are here; we never left. It has never been our intention to close Alleman High School one of the six diocesan secondary schools and the only one that serves the northwestern portion of the 17,000 miles that make up the Catholic Diocese of Peoria. But there has been change for our schools, and experience tells us that people tend to resist change. As an example, past decisions on school governance resulted in a shift away from what is known in common parlance as school boards. Unfortunately, this change brought with it a loss of communication between Peoria and our high schools. Lesson learned. Around 10:15 p.m., a 46-year-old woman shot a 42-year-old man who was inside her apartment and threatened her with a knife in the 3000 block of North Kilpatrick Avenue in the Kelvin Park neighborhood. The man reached for her weapon, and during a struggle the woman discharged the weapon, striking her to the right leg. The man was shot in the left leg. He was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, and she was taken to Stroger Hospital. Both were listed in good condition, police said. Around 9:50 p.m., a 30-year-old man was shot when he exited a house in the 1200 block of East 72nd Street in the Grand Crossing neighborhood. The man suffered a wound to the buttocks and two wounds to the torso. He was taken to U of C Medical Center and listed in good condition, police said. Shortly before 8:50 p.m., two men, 18 and 19, were both shot while standing outside in the 300 block of South Kilbourn Avenue in the West Garfield Park neighborhood. The older man was shot in the buttocks, and the younger man suffered a wound to the right arm They were both taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, police said. In June, the Department of Education issued a report documenting the effects of COVID-19 on American students. The report notes that the pandemic has deepened inequities in the education system and has been particularly harmful to the educational development of underprivileged and at-risk youth. The report also states that nearly all students have experienced some challenges to their mental health and well-being during the pandemic and many have lost access to school-based services and supports. The specific effects of the pandemic will only be understood over time, but it is clear even at this early stage of research that our nations children have suffered a great deal. Even those who did not contract the virus or experience its more immediate horrors will need new opportunities for community-rebuilding, self-expression and healing as they reenter their more traditional academic and social lives. Creativity is a skill. It is foundational. So much can be built on creative writing, the visual arts, music, drama and dance that will allow children not only to survive our tumultuous times, but also to thrive. It is a particular misfortune, therefore, that the pandemic struck during what may be a historic low point in arts education. Letters to the editor, Nov. 6, 2021 Under fire Once again the Director of the CDC is on the hot seat. This time is not for giving ever-changing, contradictive and at times incorrect information on preventing the man-made Covid-19 virus. This time it is for excessive and extensive animal cruelty at the CDC animal experiment facilities in Atlanta and Ft. Colins. A Freedom Of Information Act request submitted by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) revealed that from Nov. 2017 through April 2021, at least 400 animals dies horrible deaths at those facilities. These deaths were from incompetence (lack of food, water and air) as well as botched medial experiments. The Dept. of Agriculture does not inspect CDC animal experiment facilities. The Animal Warfare Act (AWA) is suppose to provide animal care standards at research facilities, but the law excludes 95% of animals tested upon and provides minimal protection for the rest. A full 90% of drugs fail in human trials despite promising results in animal tests. Millions of animals are experimented on by the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, medical and cleaning product industries in the name of progress, they say. Nonsense! They are done in the name of hopeful future profits. David Hall, Box Elder Make friends instead of enemies In western South Dakota, I grew up surrounded by nuclear missiles, designed to blow up the world in case the Russians sent their bombs toward us. B-52 jets constantly flew overhead with extra bombs in case the missiles didn't finish everybody off. As a kid I couldn't understand why blowing up the world would be a solution to anything. Now, the Defense Department wants to spend $1.5 trillion to upgrade and improve our nuclear arsenal. The US and its allies just finished off 20 years of trying to turn Afghanistan into a capitalist country with a military trained and equipped by us. Each of those 20 our generals promised that the Afghan army was just about done being trained so they could stand on their own. Each of those 20 they lied to us. We spent $2 trillion on this mirage. Trillions of dollars can be spent better. How about we help people instead of blowing them up? Imagine how much medicine, health care, and educating farmers could be done with trillions of dollars. Then we make friends instead of enemies. We don't have to rebuild things that we've destroyed. We protect ourselves from diseases that could spread to us. Jeff Jacobsen, Rapid City A better way? As I rake leaves, bag them and haul them to the recycle dumpsters, it seems like there could be a smaller carbon footprint, city wide, if there were vacuum trucks going around neighborhoods sucking up leaves and twigs from the gutters and taking them to the disposal site. There could be specified days much like garbage pickup. Less fuel used. Check! Less labor at recycle. Check! Less plastic. Check! Dot Cummins Schmitendorf, Rapid City You must be logged in to react. Click any reaction to login. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Mistake you learned the most from: I hope I learned from all of them. Especially the ones I made more than once. What is the biggest challenge/opportunity in the next two to five years: One of the main goals I have is to de-stigmatize aging and living with disabilities. There is still a lot I want to accomplish, so I hope I can stay healthy long enough to see it all come to fruition. First job after college: Restaurant manager at Shoneys and Capt. Ds If you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently: Looking back, Im not sure there is anything I would do differently. Ive faced a lot of adversity and Id like to think how I handled those situations have helped shape my career path and success. Book/movie that inspired you the most: Books: Braiding Sweetgrass and White Fragility; movie: Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution I think that one of the things that has been used to discredit public sector workers is to treat public sector collective bargaining as if public sector workers are greedy, like theyre only negotiating on their own behalf, Reed said. But actually, what we see when teachers unions take really proactive action is, theyre demanding exactly the stuff that their kids need. People who go into public education, they want to serve the public, they want to serve students, and they want their working conditions to allow them to do that. Reed, alongside former Style Weekly reporter Tom Nash, sent Freedom of Information Act requests to 14 central Virginia school districts asking for communications between school officials and the VSBA, specifically regarding the workshop. No request was sent to the VSBA because its a nonprofit and is not subject to FOIA. One result from Petersburg Public Schools shows that Petersburg School Board member Hal Miles will attend the session. Miles did not respond to an email from the Richmond Times-Dispatch with questions about his attendance, but Petersburg Public Schools confirmed the authenticity of the FOIA and confirmed Miles attendance as part of state-required professional development. For example, the number of votes cast in Fairfax County was up 14.6% over the 2017 contest for governor. But in Southwest Virginias Washington County, the tally rose 34%. In Powhatan County it leapt by 42%. Powhatans 12,582 votes for Youngkin were more than it cast for all candidates combined in the 2017 election for governor. Population centers In unofficial returns as of Saturday evening, Youngkin beat McAuliffe by 13,073 votes in Virginia Beach, 6,804 votes in Chesterfield County and 5,172 votes in Chesapeake. Youngkin taking Chesterfield in a contest for governor is a reversion to the norm. In 2017, Democrat Ralph Northam became the first Democrat to carry Chesterfield for governor since Albertis Harrison in 1961. Republican Ken Cuccinelli had carried Chesterfield by 8,249 votes in his 2013 contest with McAuliffe. McAuliffe still put up big numbers Tuesday in Virginias 10 largest counties and cities. He carried Fairfax by 128,542 votes, Arlington County by 51,465, Richmond by 44,993, Henrico County by 25,613, Prince William County by 22,519, Norfolk by 21,315 and Loudoun County by 17,923. ROME (AP) A German humanitarian ship with more than 800 rescued migrants, including 15 very young children, steamed into a Sicilian port on Sunday after being granted permission by Italian authorities following days of waiting in the Mediterranean Sea. The charity group Sea-Eye said the vessel Sea-Eye 4 was assigned to the port of Trapani, in western Sicily, on Saturday evening. Most of the adults were to be transferred to other ships for preventative quarantine against COVID-19, while some 160 minors, including babies and other children younger than 4, were to be taken to shelters on land. Many of the passengers came from countries in West Africa, Egypt or Morocco, said Giovanna di Benedetto, an official from Save the Children in Italy. Shouts of joy from those aboard Sea-Eye 4 could be heard on Trapani's dock as the vessel drew near, SkyTG24 TV reported. About half of the migrants were rescued from a sinking wooden boat on Nov. 4, while the other passengers had been plucked to safety from the sea in separate operations. Sea-Eye officials lamented that Malta, a European Union island nation in the central Mediterranean, hadnt responded to the wooden boats distress signal in its own search area. OPEN HOUSE this Sunday 2-4pm! Come tour the Milan under construction showcasing a gorgeous f An investigation is underway into a fatal officer-involved shooting that occurred in Bedford County early Sunday during which a woman was killed, according to the state police. At the request of Bedford County Sheriff Mike Miller and Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) Chief of Law Enforcement Colonel John Cobb, the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigations Salem Field Office is conducting the investigation, according to a state police news release. The incident began at approximately 5:30 p.m. Saturday when a DWR Conservation Police Officer attempted to stop a female motorcyclist who was not wearing a helmet and for the motorcycle not displaying a license plate, according to the release. When the conservation police officer activated his patrol vehicles emergency lights and sirens to initiate the traffic stop, the motorcyclist refused to stop and continued to a residence in the 100 block of Afton Lane in the community of Goodview, according to the release. The motorcyclist pulled up to the residence and went inside and the DWR officer attempted to make contact with the woman later identified as Chelsae L. Clevenger-Kirk, 29, of Goodview inside the residence, but there was no response, according to the release. Washburn was recommended to them by an assisted living facility and was hired, Hartman and Sanders said. Washburn then set on a devious plan to manipulate and rob Adams, Hartman said, and Sanders added Adams knew she was being exploited but couldnt express that. The two women fought Washburns move to make herself beneficiary on Adams retirement accounts, according to court documents, and Washburn sued them in February 2020 to get them removed from Adams will, seeking an award of any cash held in trust for her estate. Its one of many civil cases still pending in state court, though Washburns attorneys indicated she intends to drop them. When applying to buy a house in 2018, Washburn used more than $40,000 of Adams money and told mortgage lenders that Adams was her great aunt, according to evidence in the case. Though she never made mention of caring for an elderly person to the lenders and no alterations were made to the house thatd accommodate someone needing Adams level of care, Washburns attorney presented evidence Thursday that she intended for Adams to move in with her and her family. Though Adams couldve afforded the best caliber of treatment, Sanders said her care was subpar and she died homeless and penniless in January 2019. Republican Glenn Youngkins flips of Chesterfield County, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake from blue to red drew a lot of attention on election night, but it was a surge of rural voters that propelled the governor-elect to victory over Democrat Terry McAuliffe. The rural red surge came in a stunning 55% statewide turnout for an off-year election. The turnout, with 3.27 million of the states 5.95 million registered voters casting ballots, was Virginias largest in a campaign for governor since 1993, when 61% turned out as Republican George Allen beat Democrat Mary Sue Terry. Youngkins achievement adding just enough suburban voters to a big rural tide to eke out a win by about 2.2 percentage points upended the voting patterns that had fueled Democrats winning streak in statewide elections since 2009. Until Tuesdays election, big turnouts had boosted Democrats in statewide elections by magnifying their margins in the states population centers. Turnout rose all over the state compared with the previous contest for governor in 2017 but the sharpest percentage increases were in rural red counties. How can it be illegal to flee from a bad life? They were branded as illegal migrants while still in Mexico. Are the homeless in the U.S. illegal? And only bleeding-heart liberals complained that border patrol agents on horseback were herding the Haitians like cattle in Del Rio, Texas. The dictionary defines a migrant as one who moves, either temporarily or permanently, from one place, area, or country of residence to another. The BBC noted, New webites like Al Jazeera had decided it will not use migrant and will appropriately say refugee. An online editor noted the term had evolved from a dictionary definition to a tool that dehumanizes and distances, a blunt pejorative. A Washington Post piece asked if it was time to ditch the word. The 1951 Refugee convention noted a refugee is any person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of their home country. Grace covers Californias economy for CalMatters. Previously, she was an editor at the Washington Monthly. She is a graduate of Pomona College. " " This illustration depicts NASA's Perseverance rover operating on the surface of Mars. Perseverance will land at the red planet's Jezero Crater a little after 3:40 p.m. EST (12:40 p.m. PST) on Feb. 18, 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech On July 30, 2020, an Atlas V-541 rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral carrying the Mars 2020 mission and its Perseverance rover on an approximately five-month journey to the red planet. After the rover lands on the Jezero Crater Feb. 18, 2021, the 2,260-pound (1,025 kilogram), 10-foot-long (3-meter-long) robotic vehicle will roam the crater, extracting chalk-sized pieces of Martian rock that eventually could reveal whether life once existed on the solar system's fourth planet from the sun. Perseverance is the latest in a succession of Mars rovers that has included Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity, which since arriving on the Martian surface in August 2012 has traveled 14.27 miles (22.97 kilometers) and in 2019 found evidence of an ancient oasis on the seemingly arid planet's Gale Crater. Advertisement NASA plans for Perseverance to operate for at least one Martian year 687 Earth days and cover a distance of between 3 and 12 miles (5 and 20 kilometers). Perseverance's most attention-getting scientific goal is to search for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars. But as two NASA scientist explain, the mission is much more complex. "The most significant aspect of this mission is that the mission represents the evolution of studying Mars follow the water, understand habitability, and now search for the signs of ancient life," Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Exploration Program, and Mitch Schulte, a Mars 2020 Program Scientist, wrote in a joint message via email when we first talked to them in 2020. "However, we don't know what we will find until we get there, and that will be the most significant," the two scientists note. "Among the mission goals are to understand the geologic environment of the landing site and the search for biosignatures, and the rover is ably equipped to either find or at least identify the most promising samples that might have preserved biosignatures, and the extremely promising part, cache them to be brought back to Earth to be examined by the best instruments in the world." " " Jezero Crater on Mars is a 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) crater on the western edge of Isidis Planitia, a giant impact basin just north of the Martian equator. The crater was a possible oasis in its distant past. NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA had to complete preparations for the launch in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. As NASA's website details, that situation required the project team to limit the number of personnel working together at any one time at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to the minimum needed, and workers had to practice social distancing, wear protective equipment and use hand sanitizer and other cleaning supplies. But on the science end, NASA workers were more concerned about maintaining the cleanliness of the planetary probe's sampling and caching system, which will handle Martian soil and rock samples. "The contamination control levels are unprecedented for any spacecraft and unachievable in most laboratories on Earth," Meyer and Schulte explain. "To build a sampling system to such ultra-clean standards, and keep the system clean, has been a real achievement. Of course, the proof of the pudding will be when the samples are returned to Earth. Technically, the rover is the most complex spacecraft sent to Mars, and designing and building the sample caching system was a substantial challenge. The only challenge posed by the pandemic has been keeping the team assembling the spacecraft and launch vehicle safe, which has been successful." Perseverance will land on Jezero Crater, an area that researchers believe is a likely spot to find evidence of ancient microscopic organisms. "Our orbital studies show that Jezero Crater was an ancient crater lake with a recognizable delta deposit, indicative of water flowing into a standing body of water," Meyer and Schulte write. "Life as we know it requires a liquid water environment to exist. In addition, a critical aspect is that the same site shows a high diversity of environments, a great place to sample multiple rock types that can tell us about the climate and geological history of the crater and the planet. On Earth, a delta is one type of deposit you would expect to have signs of life preserved. Furthermore, there are other tantalizing mineral deposits like the purported lakeshore has carbonate rocks, also a good place to have preserved evidence of life, if there was any." " " This artist's concept depicts astronauts and human habitats on Mars. NASA's Mars 2020 rover will have a number of technologies that could make Mars safer and easier to explore for humans. NASA While Perseverance's instruments will gather some data about the area from which Martian soil and rock samples are gathered, the samples eventually will be retrieved by a future mission and transported back to Earth for more extensive analysis. The two NASA scientists explain that while the retrieval details are still being worked out, "the general plan is that in 2026 NASA and the European Space Agency will launch two missions, one a lander that will carry a fetch rover to get the samples and a rocket for lifting the samples off the red planet. The other mission will be an orbiter for capturing the sample container launched from the surface of Mars and then bringing the contained samples to Earth. Of course, we will know a fair amount about the samples and the area of Jezero Crater from which they come because of the science instruments on board the rover. Perseverance is well equipped to explore the region to understand the present and ancient environment, the details of each site explored, and specifically each rock or regolith from which the sample will have been collected." We're likely to see some spectacular pictures of the Martian surface, since the rover is equipped with more cameras 23 in all than any previous Mars mission. "The premier imaging instrument, MastCam-Z, is a marked improvement to the impressive camera that's on Curiosity," the scientists write. "MastCam-Z has two 12-inch (30-centimeter) color filter wheels and, importantly, is able to zoom in up to 3 times on any object near and far." Now That's Interesting The Perseverance mission will provide an opportunity for the first test of the Ingenuity robotic helicopter, which could be an important part of future planetary exploration. "The helicopter is a technology demonstration and as such, the flights are designed to test its capabilities," Meyer and Schulte write. "The potential of Ingenuity to contribute to the science of the mission is there, but will be incidental to the data being collected for assessing the helicopter's performance." Advertisement Originally Published: Jul 29, 2020 This will be the determining factor in the total amount to be charged, Maja said. The total amount of time to scan an acre of crops takes 30 minutes. During an 8-hour workday, the system can scan 14 acres. The daily earnings should be at $110 if we want to see a return on investment in a year. So, scanning an acre of crops would cost roughly around $7 to $10 to achieve the daily target earnings. The researchers believe farmers using a service such as this will have the knowledge to better price their crops and forecast for the following year. In addition to being expensive, there is a steep learning curve associated with UGVs and the technology that comes with them, Abenina said. We want this to be a service farmers dont have to spend a lot of time learning so they can focus on what they do best farming and someone else will take care of the scanning. Abenina said they named their project Agrus a combination of agriculture and us because they believe everyone has a role in contributing to development of the farming industry so that everyone receives the opportunities agriculture affords. We were very pleased to have been interviewed for our entry in this competition and to have our project featured on the companys blog, Abenina said. I hate when I am on the phone and both [dogs] start barking and running to the door! I feel you. [My dog] not only barks at tv doorbells, he stops what he is doing and barks at dogs on tv. Been there. Those commercials with doorbells sound so real that one night my husband jumped up & went to the door. I have not been able to confirm reports that the ladys husband later chased the mailman down the street. Need I continue? Let me pause here because I know that following the publishing of this piece, I will get an email from some know-it-all who will point out that dogs can be trained not to bark at the doorbell. So, whoever you are, I will save you the trouble and write the email for you. Dear Moron: If you knew anything about dogs, you would train your dog not to bark at the doorbell. Thats what I did. Rather than wasting your time writing about it, why dont you spend some time training those dogs? I guess I should respond. Dear Humorless: BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) Fifteen Vermont food producers have been selected as finalists in a national competition that honors ethics and taste. Vermont cheeses and maple delights are in the running for blue ribbons from the San Francisco-based Good Food Foundation as are elixers, grains, jams, honey, cider and pickles, the Burlington Free Press reported. A total of 351 finalists were selected from around the country from producers that the foundation says are stubbornly swimming upstream to create and share the kind of food we all want to eat: tasty, authentic and responsible. The number of Vermont finalists is ringing endorsement of local producers values, according to Erin Sigrist, executive director of Vermont Specialty Food Association. Applicants undergo a rigorous review process and must meet specific criteria; including proven efforts in equity and inclusion, social and environmental responsibility, and transparency in supply chain practices, Sigrist said in a written statement. The finalists can be found on the Good Food Awards online popup shop that is running through Nov. 14. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- The South Sioux City Public Library has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Service as well as the American Rescue Plan Act 2021 to upgrade the library's technology. This includes self-service faxing, card payments and a new computer reservation system. "This new system will allow is to serve our community safely and accurately," library director Cicely Douglas said. The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for America's libraries and museums. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SIOUX CITY -- The days start early and run long for the kids of the Sioux City Air Force Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps. Some of the high school student wake up at 3:55 a.m. (that's 0355 hours in military time) and drive around Siouxland picking up fellow cadets, "Misty Cadets" as they're called, before doing drill team practices which include marching routines in unison. Eventually, they find their way to school and go through all of the rigmarole of high school classes; world history tests, chemistry labs, math problems; before finding their way back to the homebase for JROTC to practice more and decompress a bit. Some days don't end until 7 or 8 p.m. But to a person, all of those cadets would say that the work is worth it. "It makes us better leaders, better communicators but Id say the biggest thing that people take away from this program is the family that comes with it," Ethan Dunkelberger, a junior and corps commander, said. The Journal asked a series of questions to five cadets about the program and about the possibility of enlisting in the military. Below are their answers. Ethan Dunkelberger, junior What got you interested in the JROTC program?- I come from a military program so, with my father and a lot of my other family members being in the service, I knew this was a good stepping stone to really get in there and make things a lot better for me. What are you hoping to do once you finish up with school and JROTC?- After my senior year, I plan on enlisting. Being a pilot, when I get out. Go up to Alaska or Australia and be a bush pilot. Any nervousness about enlisting? - No. Not at all. Why not?- Because, as much as Im doing the whole enlisting thing for myself, I am so happy to be serving such a great country and I feel like, in alternate realities, every single one of me wouldve went the military route. I could always see myself doing it. Andrew Fjare, senior What got you interested in the JROTC program?- My family has a lot of history with the service and Im still deciding what career I want and I decided this would be a good segue for me to figure out what its like. Any interest in enlisting?- Yes. Since Im a senior and graduation is almost right around the corner for me, Ive been thinking quite hard about what Im going to do after high school. Have you gotten any advice from family members?- The one Ive talked to more recently is my dads cousin, hes in the Army...he said that when he enlisted it was the best thing he did because he just loves serving the country. Logan Taylor, junior Is there a tradition of military service in your family?- Ive been told that the men in my family have served in every war since the French and Indian War. What do you want to do once you get out of high school?- Currently, Im planning on enlisting in the Army. After I graduate high school, I will either go to college and do ROTC or Ill go to one of the military academies. Who's given helpful advice as you try to figure that out?- My dad, because hes been through a lot of that stuff, just preparing (me) about what I need to do and what Ill have to know. Isaac Lara, sophomore Is there anyone in your family currently in the service?- My two brothers are currently enlisted in the Army National Guard...My oldest brother is 33 and the closest one (to me) is 27. Both of them just got deployed and came back. It was really heartwarming to see them back. Did they give you any brotherly advice?- Oh yeah. Ive gotten brotherly advice...It seems like a great opportunity and a great chance to show off who I am as a leader and what I can do for our country. Would you be nervous going that route?- A little. Ill admit it. Its just the thought of risking my life is a little scary. If I were to do anything Id want to be a pilot because Ive found enjoyment in the art of aircrafts. Miriam Espinoza, sophomore Did family members convince you to join the JROTC program?- No. I dont really come a background with a military family. What are you hoping to do once you get done with school? Are you hoping to get involved with the military?- Yes. Probably join the Air Force but first go to college. How is it being around a lot of boys all the time? Do you ever feel out of place sometimes?- Sometimes I'm out of place. There aren't many females and I want to be a leader as a female. Jared McNett is an online editor and reporter for the Sioux City Journal. You can reach him at 712-293-4234 and follow him on Twitter at TwoHeadedBoy98. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SIOUX CITY -- Missouri River Historical Development recently awarded grants totaling over $1 million to 20 Woodbury County non-profit organizations and governmental entities. The individual grants, ranging from $12,500 to $136,500, support MRHDs ongoing mission of enhancing the quality of life for all people who live in or serve Woodbury County, MRHD President Stacy Harmelink said. Grants were awarded in five categories: Economic Development, Community Improvement and Tourism; Human Services and Health Services; Civic, Public, Patriotic, Charitable & Religious; Leisure, Cultural and Historical; and Education. The categories and individual awards included: Economic Development, Community Improvement, Tourism: $165,82 -- Woodbury County Sheriffs Office to build a training facility: $101,070 -- Hesse Foundation to install flame retardant wall padding at the Long Lines Family Rec Center auditorium: $26,000 -- Sioux City Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau for marketing plan implementation: $25,000 -- Old 20 Community Development Corporation for a new Cushing sign on the old Highway 20: $13,750 Human Services, Health Services: $403,402 -- Correctionville Emergency Responders for new ambulance: $136,500 -- Siouxland Community Soup Kitchen to move the soup kitchen to a new location: $100,000 -- Boys & Girls Home of Sioux City, kitchen equipment and a van $70,000 -- Crittenton Center to remodel new therapeutic home: $70,000 -- Special Troopers Adaptive Riding School for Kubota tractor with loader: $26,902 Civic, Public, Patriotic, Charitable, Religious: $117,678 -- Miracle League of Sioux City for Phase 5 courts and swing installations: $50,000 -- City of Moville for new Police Department vehicle: $35,539 -- Faith United Presbyterian Church for asbestos floor removal and replacement: $32,139 Leisure, Cultural, Historical: $120,246 -- Clara Latham Memorial Park to overhaul park grounds and facilities: $45,408 -- Urban Native Center for infrastructure and safety project: $29,838 -- Sergeant Bluff Public Library to renovate front of building, replace chairs, doors, carpet: $25,000 -- Flux Dance Company for an outdoor performing arena: $20,000 Education: $201,815 -- UnityPoint Health, St. Lukes for a simulation lab and experience classroom: $100,000 -- Boys & Girls Club of Siouxland for HVAC improvements: $65,000 -- Northwest Area Education Agency, 4 SPOT Vision Screeners $24,315 -- Kingsley-Pierson Community School District for exercise equipment: $12,500 The distributions bring MRHDs total contributions to Woodbury County non-profit organizations and governmental entities to more than $44 million since 1994. An additional $600,000 has been pledged to the Sioux City riverfront project, bringing MRHDs total impact to more than $44.5 million. MRHDs Special Grants provide much-needed funding to Woodbury County non-profits and governmental entities that are making a difference in thousands of peoples lives, Harmelink said. We thank Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, the source of this funding. A non-profit organization, MRHD hold the state license for the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sioux City and collects a portion of the casino's revenues. Scott Pack, chair of MRHDs Grant Review Committee, announced the awards, which were presented at a ceremony at the Betty Strong Encounter Center. Other Grant Committee members are: Amanda Beller, Cammy Hauswirth, Steve Huisenga, Sarah Kleber, Edgar Rodriguez. The program began with a selection of jazz standards offered on keyboard by pianist Tyler Nordstrom of South Sioux City. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WOODBINE, Ga. (AP) A southeast Georgia sheriff says he may sue county leaders because they won't increase his budget. Camden County Sheriff Jim Proctor is expressing frustration, with The Brunswick News reporting he wants to increase pay for deputies and jail guards. Proctor said law enforcement faces unprecedented challenges recruiting and retaining the best and brightest men and women to patrol your streets, secure your courts, and answer your calls for help. The law is clear that the budget allotted to the Camden County Sheriffs Office by the Camden County Commission must be sufficient to allow me to fulfill our duties as a law enforcement agency, Proctor said. The law is also clear that it is up to me and my management team to determine how best to use those funds. Proctor said his department spends judiciously to provide public safety, but that he will push back and speak loudly when he doesn't have enough money. Sheriff's Capt. Larry Bruce said Proctor has contacted an Atlanta attorney who has represented other law enforcement agencies in Georgia experiencing funding problems. Litigation is very possible to assist the sheriffs office with the funding that is required to maintain the quality and quantity of personnel needed to maintain a safe environment for the citizens and visitors to Camden County," Bruce said. For copyright information, check with the distributor of this item, The News. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) The astronauts who will depart the International Space Station on Sunday will be stuck using diapers on the way home because of their capsule's broken toilet. NASA astronaut Megan McArthur described the situation Friday as "suboptimal" but manageable. She and her three crewmates will spend 20 hours in their SpaceX capsule, from the time the hatches are closed until Monday morning's planned splashdown. "Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges," she said during a news conference from orbit. "This is just one more that we'll encounter and take care of in our mission. So we're not too worried about it." After a series of meetings Friday, mission managers decided to bring McArthur and the rest of her crew home before launching their replacements. That SpaceX launch already had been delayed more than a week by bad weather and an undisclosed medical issue involving one of the crew. SpaceX is now targeting liftoff for Wednesday night at the earliest. French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who will return with McArthur, told reporters that the past six months have been intense up there. The astronauts conducted a series of spacewalks to upgrade the station's power grid, endured inadvertent thruster firings by docked Russian vehicles that sent the station into brief spins, and hosted a private Russian film crew a space station first. They also had to deal with the toilet leak, pulling up panels in their SpaceX capsule and discovering pools of urine. The problem was first noted during SpaceX's private flight in September, when a tube came unglued and spilled urine beneath the floorboards. SpaceX fixed the toilet on the capsule awaiting liftoff, but deemed the one in orbit unusable. Engineers determined that the capsule had not been structurally compromised by the urine and was safe for the ride back. The astronauts will have to rely on what NASA describes as absorbent "undergarments." On the culinary side, the astronauts grew the first chile peppers in space "a nice moral boost," according to McArthur. They got to sample their harvest in the past week, adding pieces of the green and red peppers to tacos. "They have a nice spiciness to them, a little bit of a lingering burn," she said. "Some found that more troublesome than others." Also returning with McArthur and Pesquet: NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. SpaceX launched them to the space station on April 23. Their capsule is certified for a maximum 210 days in space, and with Friday marking their 196th day aloft, NASA is eager to get them back as soon as possible. One American and two Russians will remain on the space station following their departure. While it would be better if their replacements arrived first in order to share tips on living in space Kimbrough said the remaining NASA astronaut will fill in the newcomers. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) As a child, Alicia Velasquez used to sit by her fathers side and watch him do beadwork, stringing the beads and weaving them in and out. Her father, who is Apache, would be calmed by the practice, Velasquez recalled. He called it medicine. When Velasquez began facing challenges in her life, she also turned to beadwork to center herself. And, through it, created her own business. Velasquez, who is of Apache and Yaqui descent, is an artist and owner of The House of Dotizhi, located at 327 Kirkwood Ave. in Iowa City. The boutique, gallery and studio opened Monday, which also marks the start of Native American Heritage Month. The month is meant to celebrate Indigenous cultures and traditions, as well as contributions made by Indigenous people. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that inside the boutique are colorful, beaded earrings, turquoise rings and other pieces of jewelry, all made by Velasquez. One wall in The House of Dotizhi displays framed pieces of art created by Velasquezs daughter. Velasquez started Dotizhi, pronounced Dot-Cluh-Gee, in 2019 as an online business. When she moved to Iowa City with her family last December, she began participating in art shows, including one in Des Moines and another organized by Summer of the Arts. People were responsive to her work, wanting to know more about her culture. That interest spurred Velasquez to seek a physical location. She began working out of a small office, so that clients could meet with Velasquez to plan out their custom pieces. Velasquez soon grew out of that space, leading her to the location on Kirkwood Avenue. As she stepped into the new space, The House of Dotizhis focus grew as more people began expressing interest in Native American art. Velasquez already knew one artist: her daughter, Eliana. I just wanted to make jewelry, Velasquez said of Dotizhis evolution. But then Im like, OK, I have this platform. I have a platform and how can I use that to help not just me but the community? Eliana Velasquez has been drawing since she was a child, using a variety of mediums like graphite and pastels. Eventually, she hopes to use oil paints. But it can be difficult for her to be in large crowds as a result of her autism, her mother said. The House of Dotizhi proved to be an opportunity for Elianas artwork to be displayed and sold without causing her stress. Im trying to represent our culture in new ways, in accurate ways, because its not represented enough, Eliana Velasquez told the Press-Citizen, explaining she is both excited and scared to have her artwork displayed. Velasquez realized her daughter isnt the only artist that may want to focus more on creating and less on the business side of things. So Velasquez intends for The House of Dotizhi to be a space where Indigenous artists can display and sell their artwork. My goal, with the art gallery portion of this space, is to be able to invite different Indigenous artists locally first before I branch out to other states. But I really want to bring the platform here to Iowa, she said. According to Velazquezs website, Dotizhi is the western Apache word for turquoise. Velasquezs father always told her that Apache women are strong. That sentiment stuck with her as a mother of four. With my brand, thats what I preach to women or men, she said. Its like, remember your strength, remember your beauty and remember your worth. Velasquez learned silversmithing from Indigenous elders as she moved around America. Born and raised in California, she later lived in Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma and now, Iowa City. These elders saw something in her, Velasquez said, and handed down their practices. They continue to observe and evaluate her work to make sure she is doing it correctly. Velasquez uses minimal tools as a silversmith, creating all of her jewelry by herself and making just enough so that nothing goes to waste. If one of her pieces doesnt sell, Velasquez will take it apart and create something new out of it. Sometimes when Im sitting there creating (a) piece, Im like, Wow, I have the opportunity to carry on a tradition thats been around for a very long time, she said. Now that Velasquez has The House of Dotizhi, she is hoping another Indigenous person will visit and express interest in learning silversmithing and beadwork so that she can hand down those techniques the way they were handed down to her. The stones used in Velasquezs pieces come from Idaho by Indigenous elders who hunt for rocks. According to Velasquez, they recite a prayer to thank Mother Earth for allowing them to take the stones. The dirt displaced in taking the stones is always put back. These rock hunters send Velasquez only the stones she needs for her work. Velasquez has to show she actually sold the pieces as opposed to holding onto the stones. Velasquezs turquoise comes from a friend in Oklahoma whose father had collected the stone over the years. Using this source means Velasquez doesnt have to go into the earth and get more, she said. Plus, their expertise ensures the turquoise Velasquez uses is real. Its just trying to keep to my vision of keeping everything sustainable, no mass production, and thats why its slow fashion, she said. For copyright information, check with the distributor of this item, Iowa City Press-Citizen. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) Sixteen businesses associated with gubernatorial candidate Republican Jim Pillen received about $7.8 million in federal loans during the pandemic and later returned over $5 million of that. The loans were part of the Paycheck Protection Program that was created to help businesses during the coronavirus pandemic. The Omaha World-Herald reports that 114,684 loans worth a total of $5.39 billion were granted to Nebraska businesses. Documents filed with the federal Small Business Administration show that Pillen Family Farms got the loans to support 1,057 jobs. Sarah Pillen, who is co-CEO of the Columbus-based company, said the loans helped the business keep employees at a time when the spread of the virus disrupted the meatpacking industry by forcing a number of processing plants to close. Sarah Pillen said the businesses were contending with lost revenue from not being able to sell livestock and ongoing costs of caring for the animals. Sarah Pillen said the businesses returned $5.08 million that they received and the loans were forgiven under the terms of the program. Gov. Pete Ricketts said businesses throughout the state were encouraged to apply for the loans. Just like everyone else, the Pillens were entitled to apply for this help, Ricketts said. I applaud them for going above and beyond and repaying a large portion of their PPP, even when most of these loans are forgiven. The World-Herald didnt find any loans linked to businesses associated with any of the other announced candidates for governor or Ricketts. For copyright information, check with the distributor of this item, Omaha World-Herald. SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) Police in North Macedonia say they have discovered 42 migrants in a truck in the southeastern part of the country near the border with Greece. A police patrol car followed the truck Saturday near the town of Star Dojran, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the capital of Skopje, intending to flag it down and inspect it. Before they could do so, the driver of the truck and a passenger jumped out while the vehicle was moving. The truck then turned and hit the police patrol car. The police officers were not injured. Police discovered 41 migrants from Syria and one Bangladeshi packed in the truck. None of them were injured. The group was transferred to a migrant shelter in the border town of Gevgelija, pending deportation back to Greece, where police believe they came from. Police said this was the first large group of migrants discovered in North Macedonia in the past six months. The small Balkan country was a main route for migrants wishing to go to wealthier countries in Europe. But since the COVID-19 pandemic and stricter border controls, Albania has become the desired place for migrants crossing over from Greece on their way to central and northern Europe. Follow all AP stories on global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Care and Feeding is Slates parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here or post it in the Slate Parenting Facebook group. Dear Care and Feeding, I am a single parent of a son I have raised by myself since he was 4. Hes a good-natured, well-adjusted college student and Division I athlete; he has a lovely girlfriend with whom he attends college out of state. Not long ago, while he was home for a visit and his girlfriend was across the country visiting her family, I was invited to the wedding of a work friend. Since the invitation offered me a plus-oneit even said bring the family!I asked my son to join me. Advertisement This seemed like a reasonable idea. Im not dating anyone (and in fact Im not interested at this point in my life in pursuing a relationshipIm happy on my own) and my son is my entire family. He and I had a good time at the wedding, since (unlike his mother) he enjoys socializing and meeting new people. He and I didnt dance togetherI danced in groups with work friends, and he danced with lots of peoplebut we sat together, of course. On Monday, many of my co-workers mentioned how much theyd enjoyed meeting him, and the bride was lovely about it, but a few people made snide comments about him being my date. This was not said in a joking or friendly wayit was definitely mean, judgmental, and disapproving. Another single co-worker attended with her teenage daughter and no one called that daughter her moms date. Several married couples came with their college-age children. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Since then, I have been thinking about this a lot and noticing that, in popular culture, a woman attending an event with her adult son is considered weird. When a married couple attend an event with their mutual children, no one says its a dateits a family outing; when a father and daughter are out together, its cute; and when its a mother and daughter, its girls night. Mother-daughter girls trips or family vacations with college-age children are not considered weird, but god forbid an adult son and his mother take a vacation together! Im not using my son to fill a space in my life. If I wanted a date in that space, I could get one. Obviously, when my son marries or lives with someone (or even if his girlfriend werent on the other side of the country), I would not expect him to leave her at home and accompany me. But I resent that he and I cant do things as a family anymore without people calling it out. My problem or theirs? Advertisement A Family of Two Dear AFoT, The patriarchy is realand uglyfor sure. And I am sympathetic: it is unfair that mother-and-adult-son pairs are subject to teasing or even outright mockery and disdain in a way that other matchups of adult children and their parents arent. But your stewing over the stupid remarks made by a few people (when most were kind) and your leap to he and I cant do things together as a family anymorenot to mention a whiff of thou dost protest too muchare what concern me here. When something people say about us bothers us to this extent, it suggests that its tapping into something we are worried about. The truth is, it doesnt matter what other people think about your relationship with your son (if in fact they think anything at all about it). Are you concerned about it? (Or rather: are you sure youre not concerned about it?) Is he? Is his girlfriend? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The answer to the question you ask me is (obviously, I think) if people dont like it when you and your son show up places together, its their damn problem. But the thing is: if their reaction bothers you this much, its your problem, too. Cursing the patriarchy is one of my favorite activities, and I encourage you to go ahead and do thatand dont just curse it, fight it. But while youre at it, Id take a closer look at why you feel so bad, and whether you are being completely honest with yourself about your son and his role in your life and your own needs and expectations. Slate Plus Members Get More Advice from Michelle Each Week From this weeks letter, My Husband Has Some Pretty Wild Ideas About Being a Stay-at-Home Dad: I want to be supportive, but I dont want to come home to a dirty house every day. Advertisement Dear Care and Feeding, My younger son, Evan, recently started his sophomore year in high school. I was stunned when he was suspended for a week over an assignment hed turned in. One of his classes called for an essay to analyze a plan that went wrong, starting with why the plan was adopted, what flaws were inherent in its assumptions or execution, the consequences of the failure of the plan, and how the plan could be improved. Advertisement Evan chose to wrote about his schools zero-tolerance for fighting policy. He thinks the policy was adopted because the schools administrators are stupid and wanted to rid themselves of trying to figure out whos responsible when an incident occurs. This policy, Evan says, increases violence, since if a kid can get suspended for even being near a fight, they might as well be violent once a fight starts. He points to several kids who were suspended, and one expelled, for being in the vicinity of a fightor even attackedand notes that this is both unjust and damaging to their education. His suggestion for fixing things involves giving the school staff brain transplants from the principals cats, which he declares would enhance their intelligence. Advertisement Advertisement I am beside myself that Evan could be so disrespectful and insulting to his schools administration. But no matter what sort of discipline I apply at home (hes been grounded for the foreseeable future, and Ive started monitoring his internet usage), he remains stubbornly defiant that the policy is terrible and the principal et al. are idiots. My husband has been absolutely no help at allnot going quite so far as to openly agree with Evan, but making it perfectly clear that he does in fact sympathize with him. I dont know how to regain a handle on this situation. Advertisement Furious Mom Dear Furious, Look, hes been suspended for a week (for what its worth, I am in agreement with Evan that suspension from school is an inherently destructive punishment; nevertheless, he has been punished). I dont think your grounding him for the foreseeable future is going to do anything useful in this situationin fact, I think your overreaction is probably making matters worse. (I think the schools suspending him has had the same effect, but thats another matter altogether.) Have you had a conversation with him about what he wrote? Are you throwing the baby away with the dirty bathwater (as his school has)? I dont know what his father is thinking, of course, but I wouldnt be surprised if he were proud of Evan for his gutsiness in using this assignment to critique a school policy, however flawed his logic may be. Advertisement Between your overreaction and your husbands underreactionnot to mention the schools knee-jerk, counterproductive suspension policyI dont see how Evan is going to learn anything from this experience. Instead of piling on the punishment, have you considered having a real conversation with your son about what he wrote? Im curious about whether you disagree with his premise (that the schools zero-tolerance policy is a failed one), and whether you can have a conversation with him about the challenges his school faces in dealing with violence, and what ideas he has about what would help. Lecturing him about respecting his elders (and authority) will get you nowhere. As will punishing a high school sophomore for his literally sophomoric sense of humor. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Catch Up on Care and Feeding If you missed Fridays column, read it here. Discuss this column in the Slate Parenting Facebook group! Dear Care and Feeding, My husband and I are expecting a baby in about a weekthis will be my parents first grandchildand were very lucky that my mom lives close by and wants to help. For years, my mother has insisted that she will be a childcare provider for our kids, and she has been consistently excited and involved since day 1 of my pregnancy. The problem is that our family breaks down across (what has become) the usual battlefield around Covid. While everyone in this story is vaccinated, we weigh the risk of breakthrough Covid differently. My younger siblings and my parents are basically living their normal indoor-socializing lives again; my husband and I are avoiding indoor dining/bars/big parties because we really dont want to get breakthrough Covid while Im pregnant or while we have a tiny infant. Advertisement Given that Im about to give birth and we are relying on my mother for childcare, I asked my mom to pause on the indoor dining for a little while, just until the baby is 2 months old and can get his shots/develop his immune system. She thinks Im being unreasonable, and that we all still have to live in the world even though Im having a baby. I think her reluctance has to do with my siblings. My parents often see them over meals out, pausing indoor dining would mean she would see less of them. (For my siblings, my request is a total nonstarter.) Im just asking her to curb the basics: indoor dining, indoor concerts, indoor bars. Im not asking them to stop socializing altogether. But they all think I am being totally crazy, given that theyre vaxxed and that babies seem not to be particularly vulnerable to Covid; they think Im trying to use my pregnancy to control their lives. To be honest, Im hurt. It upsets me that they consider meet my baby / support me when I give birth and have dinner inside at a hot restaurant equivalently importantor, really, that they consider dining out to be more important. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I want your honest take. Am I being unreasonable? Crazy about Covid Dear CaC, I dont think your desire to protect your baby is unreasonableI think its natural. But people have wildly different levels of risk tolerance around Covid. If you dont feel safe engaging in the activities you mention, dont engage in them. If you dont want your baby around anyone who is engaging in what you consider to be risky behavior, then dont have your baby be around them. Thats not crazy, totally or otherwise. Where you run into trouble is when you make demands on others (yes, even your own family) about what their risk tolerance should be, what their priorities should be, andoverallhow they should live their lives. Advertisement I know its hard not to be hurt that everyone in your family doesnt feel that your baby is more important than anything or anyone else in the world. But you might as well absorb this information now: you and your husband are the only people who feel this way. Your parents are excited about their impending grandchildand your mother is committed to helping out with himbut there is more to their lives than the baby (and supporting you). They take pleasure in the company of their other children at least as much as they take in yours; plus, there is the considerable pleasure of being out and about, especially after such a long period of being shut in at home. They are entitled to that. Your siblings are entitled, too, to value the experiences that give them pleasure. None of this means they dont love you. It just means that youand your childare not the sun they revolve around. Advertisement Advertisement Youll have to gracefully put off your mothers help until you feel comfortable. Tell her regretfully that youre sorry, but you dont feel good about her helping out early on if she carries any risk at allthat you wish it were otherwise, but youll let her know when you do feel its OK. You do not have to force yourself to accept a level of risk that feels unacceptable to you, but you do have to accept the strictures and losses that go along with this. Advertisement Want Advice From Care and Feeding? Submit your questions about parenting and family life here. Its anonymous! (Questions may be edited for publication.) Dear Care and Feeding, Advertisement People always say when it comes to parenting that you should pick your battles. We have two teen boys and I cant honestly tell which battle is right to fight anymore. Do I fight over the values that I think are important? What both parents think is important? The one that involves health and safety? School? Food? Sports? Laundry? What if two parents choose different battles? How the heck do you untangle that? I try to apologize when I know Ive picked the wrong battle. I have one son who accepts the apology, and I have another who used my apology against me (a sub-battle?). Layer social media and a pandemic over all of this, and I honestly think that Im in the upside down most days. I read the parenting books, but they make it seem so easy. Ive got a therapist and friends, and both are helpful. But in the end, I wonder if Im the only parent who seems to be consistently picking the wrong battle on a daily basis. Do I stop battling and hope for the best? Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi, youre my only hope. Advertisement Advertisement Battle Fatigued Dear BF, You are definitely not the only parent who is fatigued, struggling, and feeling like a failure. I would venture to say that parents of teenagers who claim to be living an entirely conflict-free life are delusional. Take a deep breath. This miserable period wont last forever. Theres not much you can do to make things go really well right now. The first part of my advice is to accept that the baseline of life with teenagers is going to be much lower, in terms of household peace, your peace of mind, and general OKness, than youd hoped for, or than it ever was before (and will be again, I promise! Teenagers grow up!). The second part is to keep in mind that every family works out their own set of which battles are important enough to fight. (And maybe it would help if we stopped thinking of them as battles and started thinking of them as essential principles to uphold.) Take another deep breath and sit down with your husband and ask yourselves this question: What matters most to the two of you where your kids are concerned? Advertisement Advertisement Im guessing that one thing you can agree on is your kids safety, even though you may disagree about what this means in practice. Do your best, together, to whittle this down to its purest form: what do your kids need to stay alive and in one piece? Every item on your list should be scrutinized this way. For example, when it comes to school, what matters, what doesnt, and why? Make sure you can fully explain to yourself (and to each other) before you talk about it with your kids. Dont settle for vague, fuzzy answers (because getting good grades is important!) or platitudes; dont worry about the commonly held opinion. Same with sports. Same with food. (I dont know what kind of issues are coming up around food, but if youre engaging in battles about it, I feel almost certain theyre not worth having.) Come to an agreement with your husband about what which principles you can let go of (what the kids wear, for example). You may end up arguing. Some things you consider unimportant may be a very big deal to him, and vice versa. Do your best to get on the same page, but if thats impossible, I dont think its terrible for kids to know that their parents sometimes have vastly different opinions. This is, after all, the period in your childrens lives when they are practicing for and preparing for adulthood. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement I wish you fortitude, and luck. For what its worth, there will likely come a time when youll look back on these battleground years nostalgically (and with a sense of humor). Now: one more deep breath, and into the breach. Michelle For More Parenting Coverage, Listen to Mom and Dad Are Fighting More Advice From Slate I cant believe Im asking this question, but Ive become super-duper anxious all of a sudden. I was invited to a wedding of a longtime, but not close, friend. I was given a plus one, which just says guest. I want to bring a friend, one whom the couple has met a few times. The couple has no idea whether Im dating anyone, they dont know my orientation, and they gave me a plus one anyway. The internet seems dead set against bringing anyone other than a date, but I cant imagine that these people, who are queer-friendly, are super into conventional, couple-centric etiquette. So, can I bring my friend? Should I calm down? At first, it was manageablea couple days went by easily. Then, on the fifth day, the world began to go askew. As two days turned into five days, I started feeling really weak. Blurred vision, headaches, chills. I started getting really cold, said Augustine Tang, a 37-year-old New York City taxi driver, who set on a hunger strike to force action on the crushing debt many drivers face under the citys broken medallion system to license taxis. Every day I woke up thinking, Is today going to be a day Im going to break my promise? Advertisement When his father died in 2015, Tang took over his medallion, which was attached to a $530,000 loan. At the time, it didnt seem like a bad deal. The most recent medallion sale had been for $800,000. But before long, as ride-hailing apps grew, the medallion prices plunged, leaving drivers who had taken out exploitative loans in hundreds of thousands in debt. On average, they owed $500,000for medallions now worth perhaps $100,000. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The citys so-called relief plan, announced earlier this year, barely made a dent for many drivers. So Tang and about a dozen others stopped eating on Oct. 20. Five days became 10. Tang slept in his taxi during this stretch, for solidarity and, honestly, he said, to avoid the temptation of snacks at home. Strangers online pleaded with him to stop. Soon, the two-week mark with no food approached. On Wednesdayafter visits by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and state lawmakers and hundreds of othersthe city announced it had reached a landmark new deal to reduce the debt and cap payments for affected drivers. Advertisement We heard rumblings beforehand about what was happening. We heard that we were close, he said. We were just like, Is this really going to happen for us? And when they came out, when we finally got to announce it, it was just pure joy. The hunger stopped. I didnt feel tired anymore. I was solely emotional. When I met Tang in New York on Friday, he looked frail and weak. He still couldnt handle much more than soft food. He only had the energy for me to take a few photos. Advertisement Advertisement Breaking his fast marked the end of a 46-day-long protest for financial relief for New Yorks cabbies. Over the last month, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance organized shutdowns of bridges, hotel lobbies, and the street in front of the mayors residence, all while maintaining a 24-7 occupation just outside City Hall. They held signs like Debt Forgiveness Now and No More Suicides. No More Bankruptcies. (As the cost of medallions rose from $200,000 to more than $1 million between 2002 and 2014, the city itself touted the medallions as an investment better than the stock market, leading many drivers to take out huge loans. The city earned an estimated $855 million from medallion sales.) Advertisement Advertisement Many taxi drivers hit their breaking point after the death of Kenny Chow in 2018. Chow had purchased a medallion for $750,000 with fees, securing a down payment partly by leveraging his home. Years later, his wife was diagnosed with late-stage cancer, and although he worked 14-hour days seven days a week, he soon fell behind on his mortgage and other bills. He was one of nine taxi drivers to die by suicide. Tang knew Chow well. Chow showed him the ropes early on after he inherited his fathers medallion. He was like my mentor, he said. We met at a taxi stand in Chinatown. We had a coffee. We talked about the medallion. He was very hopeful. But Tang noticed the depression creep in before he stopped seeing Chow around. When I found out, it ripped me apart, he said. Advertisement Shortly after, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance organized a vigil for their comrade. Ever since then, I was like, This cant happen to anybody else. And then it kept on happening, Tang told me. He joined the alliance. Advertisement Tangs story in some ways is atypical. Since inherited his fathers medallion in 2015, he wasnt driving before the influx of car-hailing apps. He also always had a driver to help me subsidize the loan, he said; he took care of his grandma at night, and he would switch off in Chinatown with his driver. He wasnt quite so desperate. But he was driven by the memory of his late friend. Advertisement When the alliance first floated the idea of doing a hunger strike, Tang told me he was among the first to volunteer. Im one of the younger drivers. For me to put my body on the line, I felt I was probably least likely for anything serious to happen to me, he said. I was worried of course. My wife was just like, You cant do this. You love to eat. And I do. He was most scared he would quit early. Advertisement Tang shared updates of his hunger strike online, where some praised him and others pleaded with him to stop. Theres so many times I just thought, Am I doing a stupid thing? Theres many people that told us wed never get it. The city made their money. Thats it. This chanting stuff will never work. But when AOC came down, and other organizations came down, and members of the state council came to give us motivationtheyre the reason why we stayed out there for so long. When the rumblings hit the camp early in the day before an agreement was reached between the city and the medallion lenders, Tang recalled being in denial. Its so funny because Bhairavi [Desai, the leader of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance] texted us when she was still inside the meeting. She said Get the avocadoes ready. And I was like, What does that mean? I totally forgot wed get to eat thatI was like, Are we throwing it at City Hall if they say no? Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city reached an agreement with its largest medallion lender, Marblegate, to cap loans taken at inflated prices at $170,000, and monthly payments will be capped at $1,122 a month. Drivers will no longer be at risk of losing their homes, and no longer be held captive to a debt beyond their lifetime, Desai announced. Group effort organizing really works, and for me to be a part of that is so amazing, Tang said. We didnt feel like we had a voice, but it was always there. Thats the most beautiful part of this. And we owe the New York City public so much. Organizations stopped by and talked to us about our stories and understand our hardship, and offer help. Its like a freaking movie. This isnt the end, Tang he told me. The alliance is hoping to use the momentum to build a better industry, lowering the prices for insurance and maintenance, among other things. But for now, hes still savoring that taste from his first bite of the avocado after 13 days. It was like heaven. You dont even understand. I was swishing it around in my mouth like it was wine. It was crazy how good it was. The breathtaking extent of Ficos cynicism is revealed in leaked tapes. News: Receive favorite authors articles by email. Try the new feature and turn on the subscription. Robert Fico is a fierce opponent of Covid vaccinations who has also criticised mask mandates and downplayed the threat of coronavirus. (Source: Sme - Jozef Jakubco) Font size: A - | A + Comments disabled Welcome to your weekly overview of news from Slovakia. Leaked videos expose Robert Fico in discussions with people affected by major corruption cases. The epidemic is gathering pace again. A reform of national parks has been postponed. Newly opened sections of highway connect the east and west, via Slovakia and Hungary. Fico talks about about Kocner and Covid A former prime minister, his former interior minister, the father of an oligarch charged with corruption, the son of a former police chief charged with abuse of power, the attorney of a mobster accused of ordering the murder of a journalist (and serving a lengthy prison sentence for forgery). They gather in a seedy-looking hunters cottage in the countryside. The meetings last for hours. They talk in exhaustive detail about the various criminal investigations which affect them and their associates. If one can judge a man and they are all men in this story by the company he keeps, this is an ugly tale. Videos that have recently been leaked to the media show opposition Smer party leader Robert Fico who was prime minister from 2006 to 2010, and again from 2012 to 2018 meeting with a series of people directly involved in high-stakes criminal cases. Even speaking in private, their words and topics are carefully chosen and unlikely to land anyone in custody. But their content and context is potentially explosive or would be, if Slovakias public had not been rendered numb to such revelations. https://sputniknews.com/20211106/india-and-russia-share-traditional-family-values-says-head-of-indias-premier-art-institute-1090496071.html India and Russia Share Traditional Family Values, Says Head of India's Premier Art Institute India and Russia Share Traditional Family Values, Says Head of India's Premier Art Institute In September, an Indian delegation visited Russia and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Buddhist organisations and educational and cultural... 06.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-06T05:17+0000 2021-11-06T05:17+0000 2021-11-07T05:17+0000 russia russia russia india cultural heritage russian cultural center (rcc) india /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/05/07/1082828128_0:0:1920:1080_1920x0_80_0_0_f558bb5f491ae0cead6737e41339e1a1.jpg Established in 1989, the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Centre in Moscow has been tasked with maintaining Indias cultural relations with the Russian Federation. The centre has been working in close coordination with a number of Russian universities to organise events on Indian culture.In an interview with Sputnik, Dr. Sachidanand Joshi, Member-Secretary of Indias premier art organisation, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA), shared his experience and understanding of what he believes India and Russia have in common in terms of culture.Sputnik: As the IGNCA chief, how would you describe the significance of having a cultural relationship between two nations? What purpose does it serve?Dr. Joshi: A cultural relationship simply meant connecting two civilisations. We need to have cultural commonalities for any strategic relationship - oil, gas, nuclear energy, space and technology, military relationship, defence or any relations between two nations.For example, Russia is the biggest partner for India in the latters strategic programme. Almost 90 percent of the military arms in India come from Russia. Why is that so? Because India and Russia have traditionally been good friends for ages. Both nations trust each other. There were challenges with other nations, but there have never been severe challenges with Russia. Weve been excellent friends since Indias independence (in 1947 from British rule). I believe the main focus of our relationship is more cultural rather than political. Sputnik: What do you see in common between Russian and Indian cultures?Dr. Joshi: There are lots of similarities between Russian and Indian traditions, we are studying Russian practices, values, households, music these are a few of the things where I see us connecting with Russia.For example, there is so much similarity between the Russian and Sanskrit languages. Odin, Dwa, Tri, Chetire, Pyat, Shest whereas Sanskrit counting is: Eka, Dwi, Tri, Chatur, Pancha Shash.These are not mere coincidences; the bond between the two countries is ancient.Similarly, traditional family values between India and Russia are at large the same.Unlike Europe or the USA, we dont live in nuclear families in both countries, where children limit their interaction with parents. Many children are still living with their parents. The sceptic could argue But Im sharing a general picture.Apart from these, were connecting in terms of Buddhism we are researching how Buddhism travelled to Russia and exploring if there is any Indian connection to it.Sputnik: You were part of a delegation that recently visited Russia and signed three MoUs. Tell us about that. Dr. Joshi: I only went to Moscow and St. Petersburg Datsan Gunzechoinei, the first Buddhist temple in northwestern Russia, while the others also visited Chita, Buryatia, Kalmykia, and Tuva.We also signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Indian Ministry of Culture and various educational institutions in Russia. Both parties agreed to cooperate in educational and cultural areas, particularly in the field of Buddhist philosophy, Buddhist science, astrology, medicine and the arts. We will study their manuscript so that we can find out the roots of Buddhist commonality.Around 2010, Russian archaeologists found (likenesses of) Indian deities, which were believed to have been built about 4,000 years ago. Based on these facts and research, I sincerely believe there is much to be found.Sputnik: How did the Russian government respond to your visit and how do the Russians look at the kind of exploration being done on such subjects? Dr. Joshi: On the side of the Russian government, we received a very warm welcome. In my personal view, I felt that the Russians have a hunger for spirituality. Lots of people are practising Indian Vedic tradition in Russia. Indian gurus like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Sai Baba and many others are really famous in Russia and have a good number of followers.We found that people wanted to learn (ancient Hindu texts) Upanishads and Vedas, which was quite a surprise for us.Well, we also learned quite a lot from them. We should study how phenomenally they are handling the prominent educational institute, in terms of the curriculum too. In Moscow alone, there are more than 100 universities and all of them are performing exceptionally well.I was also amazed by the way they were handling and recreating their library, museum and heritage. I think we need to learn that part from them. russia india Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Deexa Khanduri https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/0c/1e/1081607388_0:0:961:960_100x100_80_0_0_e9e931b8c1e18fb41f3074e2145d7a3a.jpg russia, russia, russia, india, cultural heritage, russian cultural center (rcc), india https://sputniknews.com/20211106/worst-mayor-in-history-trump-blasts-nyc-democrats-eludes-answer-on-possible-return-to-the-city-1090533184.html 'Worst Mayor in History': Trump Blasts NYC Democrats, Eludes Answer on Possible Return to the City 'Worst Mayor in History': Trump Blasts NYC Democrats, Eludes Answer on Possible Return to the City Trump, a native New Yorker, declared in 2019 that he had moved his permanent residence to Palm Beach, Florida. He claimed back then that he made the decision... 06.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-06T23:26+0000 2021-11-06T23:26+0000 2021-11-06T23:26+0000 new york donald trump new york state bill de blasio us new york city governor andrew cuomo /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/06/1090534343_0:0:3071:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_48865b6385bfb6b1e261af08a0ffe9ab.jpg Former US President Donald Trump hinted at a possible return to New York City on Saturday, in light of Mayor Bill de Blasio's term expiring and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's resignation amid the ongoing sexual harassment scandal. In an interview with Fox News, the former president noted that he may consider a return to his hometown.Trump was referring to Cuomo's forced resignation in August, which came after 11 women who worked for him accused the then-governor of sexual harassment. Cuomo has since been charged with a misdemeanor sex offense.According to Trump, what de Blasio "has done to New York is unthinkable."The Manhattan District Attorney's office and the state attorney general are investigating Trump's business dealings. In the case, which has already resulted in tax fraud accusations against Trump's corporation and its longtime CFO Allen Weisselberg, a new grand jury was seated last month.Trump stressed that in his opinion when he left the city for the Sunshine State one "could see the effects" of de Blasio's rule, as "he was having some effects already with crime and people on the streets and dirt."However, Trump also expressed hope that the city's new mayor Eric Adams, set to succeed the term-limited de Blasio, is going to "do good" for NYC.But when asked if he planned to return to the city, Trump said that he did not know at the moment. At the time he left his hometown as a permanent residence in 2019, the then-president emphasized that although he "cherished" New York and its residents, he was paying "millions" in taxes in the city and only "few have been treated worse" by the authorities than him. https://sputniknews.com/20211008/trump-says-new-york-property-taxes-exceed-his-park-avenue-retail-property-value-1089781360.html Vanessa Lewi Boring! RT and Sputnik need to report on #PfizerGate 2 mandrake Gag the idiot and lock him up for good - hes a menace and a risk for mankind and bought and paid by the jewry! 1 3 new york new york state Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Kirill Kurevlev Kirill Kurevlev News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Kirill Kurevlev new york, donald trump, new york state, bill de blasio, us, new york city, governor andrew cuomo https://sputniknews.com/20211107/afghanistans-jalalabad-prohibits-rickshaw-runners-to-carry-armed-passengers-1090544112.html Afghanistan's Jalalabad Prohibits Rickshaw Runners to Carry Armed Passengers Afghanistan's Jalalabad Prohibits Rickshaw Runners to Carry Armed Passengers KABUL (Sputnik) - The authorities of the Nangarhar province in Afghanistan prohibited rickshaw pullers from giving rides to armed people in the provincial... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T11:09+0000 2021-11-07T11:09+0000 2021-11-07T11:09+0000 asia & pacific afghanistan /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/09/0a/1088951334_0:0:2500:1407_1920x0_80_0_0_40b9e4b645d77a24b54226d3239811df.jpg "Rickshaw runners will be forbidden from carrying armed people, and offenders will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," the governor's office said in a statement.The Taliban* were also ordered to desist from carrying guns in rickshaws. The governor called on citizens to inform security services on any armed people in rickshaws.The movement announced a new interim government in early September, almost a month after the Taliban entered Kabul causing the government to collapse. The US troops left Afghanistan on 31 August. afghanistan Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 asia & pacific, afghanistan https://sputniknews.com/20211107/american-federation-of-teachers-president-faces-criticism-for-removing-mask-at-somos-conference-1090542814.html American Federation of Teachers President Faces Criticism for Removing Mask at SOMOS Conference American Federation of Teachers President Faces Criticism for Removing Mask at SOMOS Conference In August, Weingarten spoke in favor of children wearing face masks at school, saying that "universal masking" is the safest way to keep schools open. 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T11:06+0000 2021-11-07T11:06+0000 2021-11-07T11:03+0000 news us teacher mask union /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090543041_0:0:2917:1642_1920x0_80_0_0_dd178c134f0d4f110926d57ea72da896.jpg American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten has been facing criticism after photos of her sitting maskless at the 2021 SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico emerged online. Adriana Aviles, a parent, shared the photos, writing: "...I wonder if anyone needed proof of Vax to attend this 'work vaca'..."Weingarten tweeted in response to explain why she had decided to remove a mask.She defended her action by saying that the requirements for participating in the conference were strict enough to keep those present safe. However, she admitted that her action could not have been justified anyway.As the conversation unfolded on Twitter many other concerned parents joined in to try and get their point of view across.Some of the parents sounded even more straightforward: "...we are one of the few countries masking toddlers and grade school children...Its not lost on me that this severe obligation on kids would not exist if it werent for Ms. Weingarten and the other corrupt leaders that run our public education system."Before the school year began, Weingarten spoke in favour of children being required to wear masks at school."We see the Delta variant be very transmissible...Masks stop transmission, so universal masking is going to be very helpful to keep kids safe, to keep the unvaccinated safe, and to keep schools open," she said in an interview with CNN. us Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sofia Chegodaeva Sofia Chegodaeva News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sofia Chegodaeva news, us, teacher, mask, union https://sputniknews.com/20211107/at-least-three-dead-in-twin-blast-in-eastern-afghanistan-source-claims-1090544661.html At Least Three Dead in Twin Blast in Eastern Afghanistan, Source Claims At Least Three Dead in Twin Blast in Eastern Afghanistan, Source Claims KABUL (Sputnik) - At least three people were killed and several others injured in two explosions in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province in eastern... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T12:02+0000 2021-11-07T12:02+0000 2021-11-07T12:06+0000 afghanistan news afghanistan blast /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090544636_0:0:3073:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_a607c8c881e62d412778bb8a0279b9d1.jpg According to an eyewitness, the two explosions were then followed by a shooting. A source said that "three bodies were taken to the hospital following the explosions."The victims are two police officers, Kabul News reported, citing local officials. "Two explosions occurred in the second district of Jalalabad, the capital of the eastern province of Nangarhar, and, according to eyewitnesses, shots were fired after the explosions. According to officials, the bomber struck shortly after midday in front of a police station, killing two policemen and injuring three others."The Taliban (terrorist organization, banned in Russia) are yet to officially comment on the incident. afghanistan Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 news, afghanistan, blast https://sputniknews.com/20211107/biden-strongly-condemns-terrorist-attack-on-iraqi-pms-residence-1090549220.html Biden 'Strongly' Condemns 'Terrorist Attack' on Iraqi PM's Residence Biden 'Strongly' Condemns 'Terrorist Attack' on Iraqi PM's Residence A booby-trapped drone targeted Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimis residence in Baghdad early on Sunday morning. 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T18:02+0000 2021-11-07T18:02+0000 2021-11-07T18:46+0000 world joe biden iraq attack /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090549420_0:156:3001:1844_1920x0_80_0_0_4e49ba073694cdb0980ff2bb4ef57cb6.jpg US President Joe Biden said he strongly condemns the terrorist attack targeting the residence of the Iraqi Prime Minister.He also praised the prime minister's call for calm, restraint, and dialogue. This comes after an exploding drone hit al-Kadhimi's residence in Baghdad's Green Zone in the early hours of Sunday. The Iraqi Interior Ministry described the botched assassination attempt on al-Kadhimi as a "terrorist attack". The ministry said three drones were involved and that two of them were shot down. The prime minister was not injured in the attack but several of his security guards were. Soon after the attack, al-Kadhimi appeared on TV urging Iraqis to remain calm and saying that "cowardly rocket and drone attacks don't build homelands and don't build a future."Sunday's attack has further exacerbated tensions in Iraq, where protests staged by supporters of pro-Iran Shiite militias have been taking place outside the Green Zone for several weeks. The unrest follows the results of the parliamentary election that showed them losing about two-thirds of their seats. https://sputniknews.com/20211107/terrorism-cant-be-allowed-to-undermine-peace-in-iraq-india-says-after-attempt-on-pms-life-1090546977.html ASmith_ Who turned off the Green Zone anti-missile defenses just prior to the failed assassination, Joe Biden, was it CIA, US Military or the Mossad? Biden 'Strongly' Condemns 'Terrorist Attack' on Iraqi PM's Residence. You're not fooling anyone by this faux concerned spew President Biden 2 mandrake Biden should ask his own cia and mossad to find out who is misbehaving in the ME 1 6 iraq Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sofia Chegodaeva Sofia Chegodaeva News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sofia Chegodaeva world, joe biden, iraq, attack https://sputniknews.com/20211107/boris-johnsons-govt-slams-ex-pm-john-major-for-trying-to-settle-scores-over-brexit-1090539608.html Boris Johnson's Gov't Slams Ex-PM John Major For 'Trying to Settle Scores Over Brexit' Boris Johnson's Gov't Slams Ex-PM John Major For 'Trying to Settle Scores Over Brexit' Ex-Prime Minister Sir John Major criticised the government of Boris Johnson on 6 November, saying that there is a general whiff of we are the masters now... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T07:06+0000 2021-11-07T07:06+0000 2021-11-07T07:06+0000 boris johnson brexit david davis owen paterson sir john major post-brexit northern ireland protocol ursula von der leyen eu maros sefcovic /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0a/09/1089785298_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_007b63b621b84ff91d6411c6d7f91e99.jpg Sir John Majors recent statements criticising the government of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson have triggered a scathing response. The ex-Tory PM has been accused of seeking to settle scores over Brexit, which he opposed, according to the Daily Mail. The former Prime Minister also deplored the fact that the current government had broken the law, the prorogation of Parliament They have broken treaties, I have in mind the Northern Ireland Protocol. They have broken their word on many occasions." This was a reference to the ongoing attempts of the United Kingdom and the European Union to solve their Brexit-related trade disputes over Northern Ireland. After three weeks of intensive negotiations, as a last resort, UK ministers have implied the possibility of triggering Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to unilaterally impose "safeguard" measures. Downing Street says the protocol has resulted in disruptions in trade and shortages, arguing that a "new legal text" should replace the protocol that has "lost consent" in Northern Ireland. Brussels, however, has shown no inclination to renegotiate a protocol agreed with London just two years ago. We Are The Masters Now Approach John Major had suggested on Saturday that Boris Johnsons administration had embraced a we are the masters now approach regarding the protracted negotiations with the EU, as well as the current Owen Paterson sleaze row. There's a general whiff of "we are the master's now" about their behaviour and I think this is cutting through to the public It has to stop, it has to stop soon, said Major. In response, a government source was cited by the Mail as saying:Under the NI protocol, negotiated when the UK exited the EU bloc, goods can travel freely between the EU and Northern Ireland, and from Northern Ireland to Great Britain. Furthermore, the same source was cited as saying that John Major seems to have forgotten that the EU had sought to trigger Article 16 to establish border controls on coronavirus vaccine doses moving into Northern Ireland from the Republic of Ireland in January 2021.Brussels was forced to backtrack on its plan after Boris Johnson and Irish PM Micheal Martin conferred with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The spat had significantly undermined cross-community confidence in the protocol in Northern Ireland, stated the UK government source. The protocol states that Article 16 can be used in the event of serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist. Former Brexit Secretary David Davis also levelled a broadside at intrinsic Remainers like Sir John Major. According to him, they find fault with the UKs negotiating strategy while failing to address the fact that France is clearly trying to make life difficult amid haggling over post-Brexit fishing licenses. The latter was a reference to French Prime Minister Jean Castexs private letter to the European Commission President, cited by media, that read: In reference to Majors comments, Davis was cited as saying that Article 16 was put there for unforeseen circumstances arising. This comes as European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic travels to London for further talks, after warning on 5 November that triggering Article 16 would have serious consequences. Downing Street has repeatedly said that while preferring to negotiate with the EU, it would be prepared to use the mechanism if a solution cannot be reached. The Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the European Union and United Kingdom's Brexit agreement, was designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland. It prevents checks on goods coming from Northern Ireland (part of the UK) into the Republic of Ireland (part of the EU) in a bid to preserve the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which had brought to an end decades of sectarian violence in Ireland. However, Northern Ireland, accordingly, must follow the rules of the EU's single market, resulting in checks on certain goods coming in from England, Scotland and Wales. This has prompted protests from unionists in Northern Ireland who argue the protocol weakens ties with the rest of the UK. In mid-October Brussels agreed to a reduction in customs checks and paperwork between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, yet baulked at scrapping the European Court of Justice's oversight role concerning the Northern Ireland Protocol something the UK government had sought. https://sputniknews.com/20211106/john-major-rips-bojos-politically-corrupt-govt-over-shameful-handling-of-paterson-sleaze-row-1090525759.html Galloway2020 "unionists in Northern Ireland who argue the protocol weakens ties with the rest of the UK" WRONG! Resettle them back to England so they can make UK stronger, and unite Republic of Ireland (one island, one nation). Simple solutions are the best! 0 LINDADREW AdChoices The Guardian Covid live news: Get booster to save Christmas, UK health secretary urges; sharp rise in German infections Jedidajah Otte 20 mins ago- DONT GET A BOOSTER AND SAVE YOIURSELF FROM BESTIAL FORCE PROMOTING ARTIFICIAL INTEL INJECTIONS 0 3 northern ireland Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko boris johnson, brexit, david davis, owen paterson, sir john major, post-brexit, northern ireland protocol, ursula von der leyen, eu, maros sefcovic, northern ireland, uk https://sputniknews.com/20211107/cruz-vs-big-bird-texas-senator-slams-govt-propaganda-in-sesame-street-characters-post--1090549766.html Cruz vs. Big Bird: Texas Senator Slams 'Gov't Propaganda' in Sesame Street Character's Post Cruz vs. Big Bird: Texas Senator Slams 'Gov't Propaganda' in Sesame Street Character's Post A fierce fight broke out between the two over whether it is safe to innoculate children with vaccines against COVID-19, which is commonly thought to pose... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T21:03+0000 2021-11-07T21:03+0000 2021-11-07T21:03+0000 twitter us vaccination ted cruz sesame street vaccines viral twitter row covid-19 /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090550608_0:276:2949:1935_1920x0_80_0_0_e2225c0f40ded1f4b42b4a1fe2ffc38c.jpg Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has slammed Big Bird from Sesame Street for claiming to have had a COVID-19 jab, which he argued is "government propaganda" to induce parents to have their children vaccinated.The character added that CNN anchor Erica Hill "even said I've been getting vaccines since I was a little bird."Cruz, on the other hand, was not pleased with Big Bird's medical disclosure, tweeting, "Government propaganda for your 5-year-old." Big Bird's tweet came days after the FDA approved Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11, prompting some criticism in the comment section that the character was attempting to force vaccinations on children.Critics argue that it seems to be a question of whether the protection they provide exceeds the danger of side effects or the presumably harmless nature of a COVID-19 infection in young children.However, not all followers appreciated the opinion of the Republican senator, and many reminded him that Big Bird has been engaged in health "propaganda" since at least the 1970s. In general, the show promotes handwashing, vegetable consumption among children and literacy, according to the posts of others.Another user decided to remind Cruz that the fictional character does not, in fact, represent the government, but the senator does.One user also shared the senator's tweet posted in April, in which he urges followers to get a vaccine. Cruz, indeed, is vaccinated against the novel coronavirus himself, other users reminded him.Cruz was also dared to attack other characters on Sesame Street, who have also spoken out in support of vaccination.A special target for commentators was the bad timing of the senator's trip to Cancun, Mexico, in February this year amid an unprecedented cold snap in his native Texas.However, Cruz was far from the only one who reacted negatively to Big Bird's post, and some commentators asked the account of the children's show's character what he thought about the risk of developing myocarditis in children who received the injection. The New Hampshire Libertarian Party's account called the character's tweet "evil."Coincidentally, on the same day, Cruz had expressed a certain nostalgia regarding one of his favorite animated series, recalling the "Super Friends" cartoon, about the superheroes of the DC universe, which ended in 1986. The senator shared: "Before cartoons got woke."Cruz responded to the criticism by tweeting, "Liberals are weird."Moreover, the senator became trending on Twitter, all thanks to, according to him, "libs" being "triggered by Big Bird." Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Kirill Kurevlev Kirill Kurevlev News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Kirill Kurevlev twitter, us, vaccination, ted cruz, sesame street, vaccines, viral, twitter row, covid-19 https://sputniknews.com/20211107/department-of-homeland-security-reports-first-ever-known-drone-attack-against-us-electricity-grid-1090544419.html Department of Homeland Security Reports First-ever Known Drone Attack Against US Electricity Grid Department of Homeland Security Reports First-ever Known Drone Attack Against US Electricity Grid Last year, US authorities reported a series of incidents involving unidentified drones buzzing US infrastructure and military assets. However, none of the past... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T11:39+0000 2021-11-07T11:39+0000 2021-11-07T12:01+0000 united states drone electricity grid /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090544373_0:75:565:393_1920x0_80_0_0_b11fdcd712cb7fe8fbaf171a034240a7.jpg A modified drone which crashed near a Pennsylvania power substation in July 2020 was likely being usedto specifically target energy infrastructure, a law enforcement bulletin by the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center has revealed.The memo, obtained by ABC News and CNN, said that authorities still do not know what individual or group may have been operating the drone, which crashed on a roof close to the substation. No details were provided on which power facility was targeted, and no damage was reported. The memo did not specify the cause of the crash.The drone was said to have been modified, and fitted with a tether supporting a length of copper wire apparently meant to short-circuit the high-voltage equipment at the substation by coming into contact with it, potentially leading to plant shutdown and possible combustion. The UAV used was a DJI Mavic 2, a consumer-grade quadrocopter commonly sold for about $1,600 US online. The drones camera, memory card and serial number labels had been removed.The bulletin, which aims to raise awareness with law enforcement, state and local officials about the threats unmanned aerial vehicles could potentially pose to critical infrastructure, was issued on 28 October, and followed a review of security incidents involving drones over a four year period.The incident was the first reported use of a drone to target the US electrical power grid.However, the Pentagon is known to have vast experience with the use of graphite bombs, also known as blackout bombs a cluster bomb weapon used specifically to target energy grids. The bombs, which disperse soda can-sized canisters by tiny parachutes over electrical substations, contain spools of highly conductive carbon webbing, which drapes over lines, causing circuit overloads and plant shutdowns. The bombs were widely deployed by the US in the First Gulf War against Iraq, and by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999. In the latter instance, after Yugoslav engineers repeatedly restored power within a day after the attacks, NATO began using conventional bombs and missiles to attack powerlines and transformer stations, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to the Balkan country.According to a recent Freedom of Information Act request by the Scientific Coalition for Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Studies, some 24 US nuclear reactors and fuel storage sites were subjected to 57 drone incursions between 2015 and 2019. Last year, the group reported that a tiny armada of between four and six unmarked UAVs flew over the Palo Verde Generating Station in Arizona Americas largest nuclear power plant, in September 2019, with plant security proving unable to stop them and authorities uncertain as to who was operating them or why.Earlier this year, Sputnik reported on the mysterious deployment of drones by an unknown actor or entity to conduct nighttime flights over US Navy destroyers near a sensitive military training range in Californias Channel Islands. FOIA documents revealed that as many as six unidentified craft at a time chased after and maneuvered around the warships in July 2019, with the incidents sparking probes by the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the FBI. Media were troubled at the time by the fact that the drones could lock onto and catch up with the fast-moving warships in the dead of night and despite poor visibility.Small drones are known to have been used repeatedly by guerilla fighters in Third World battlegrounds, being deployed in the civil war in Libya, and by Yemens Houthi militia against the Saudi-led coalition. In 2019, an armada of Houthi drones severely damaged a pair of Saudi oil production facilities, temporarily knocking out as much as half of the kingdoms oil output. https://sputniknews.com/20200802/drone-armada-buzzed-uss-largest-nuclear-power-plant-and-authorities-still-have-no-clue-why-1080039772.html BobValdez . Blaming Russia / China / Iran in 3... 2... 1... 7 Nonyank Oh yeah, Paranoid US, everyones out to get them....not to say it's not long overdue or justified! 6 10 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ilya Tsukanov united states, drone, electricity grid https://sputniknews.com/20211107/ex-us-ambassador-to-un-nikki-haley-blasts-biden-for-supporting-two-state-solution-for-middle-east-1090534311.html Ex-US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley Blasts Biden for Supporting Two-State Solution in Middle East Ex-US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley Blasts Biden for Supporting Two-State Solution in Middle East Speculation had emerged that Democrats under Biden would pursue a more balanced approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after former president Donald... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T00:29+0000 2021-11-07T00:29+0000 2021-11-07T00:36+0000 israel us nikki haley donald trump iran jerusalem palestinians iran deal /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/07/0e/1083382221_0:0:2656:1495_1920x0_80_0_0_b3ded388bde918c6651d89c624aacffb.jpg Ex-Trumps ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has lambasted the pro-Israeli lobbying group AIPAC and the Biden administration for policies she deems anti-Israeli.During her speech at the Republican Jewish Coalitions annual leadership conference in Las Vegas, Haley accused AIPAC of hosting US lawmakers who support the revival of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which ex-president Trump unilaterally ditched in 2018 while slamming Tehran with harsh sanctions.If Israel makes the grave decision that its security depends on removing that threat, it should not wait for an American green light that might never come, Haley tweeted, though it's not clear if she indeed was suggesting possible military action against Tehran, especially given the $1.5 billion defense budget Israel has approved recently and which reportedly includes a possible strike against Iran's nuclear facilities.Tensions between the two countries have been high as ever, as Iran has signalled its willingness to continue the Vienna talks on a possible revival of the JCPOA. Please Remember Who You're Dealing With, Haley SaysIn her rant, the ex-diplomat also slammed the Biden administration for renewing humanitarian aid to the Palestinians and promoting a two-state solution.She also criticized US politicians embraced by antisemites who have opposed moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, while also taking aim at the BDS movement in America.Back in 2017, Trump announced the US recognition of Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, triggering a massive backlash from Palestinians and Arab states. Jerusalem, which is held sacred by followers of three major world religions, is partially occupied by Israel, along with other territories of the West Bank. The United Nations have stressed that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and prevent achieving peace in the region under the principle of the two-state solution to the conflict.Haley was serving in her post at the UN when Trump pulled the US out of the UN Human Rights Council in 2018 (Washington has now returned to the UNHRC). Back then, Haley claimed that the Council was a hypocritical organization that criticized Israel while providing membership to countries that, as Washington claims, are gross violators of human rights such as Venezuela, China, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.After she left her post, ex-Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu praised her for leading the uncompromising struggle against hypocrisy at the UN, and on behalf of the truth and justice of our country. https://sputniknews.com/20211105/former-idf-intel-chief-new-nuke-deal-will-likely-be-worse-but-may-delay-irans-nuclear-threat-1090486925.html https://sputniknews.com/20211027/we-strongly-oppose-israels-approval-of-massive-new-west-bank-settlement-plan-us-says-1090262042.html Hess The Indian is trying to show the Jews that she is the best servant for Israel. She once said that she can't wait to serve the Jews as an Indian slave, just as Obama did as black slave and Trump as White slave. 8 Kiwi Guess who is on the Israeli payroll... 5 14 iran Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Asya Geydarova https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/09/0b/1088970360_0:0:1003:1003_100x100_80_0_0_14c2d6564e4700bfb043d8338b3ba245.jpg Asya Geydarova https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/09/0b/1088970360_0:0:1003:1003_100x100_80_0_0_14c2d6564e4700bfb043d8338b3ba245.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Asya Geydarova https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/09/0b/1088970360_0:0:1003:1003_100x100_80_0_0_14c2d6564e4700bfb043d8338b3ba245.jpg israel, us, nikki haley, donald trump, iran, jerusalem, palestinians, iran deal https://sputniknews.com/20211107/fbi-reportedly-raids-project-veritas-founders-home-as-part-of-ashley-bidens-stolen-diary-probe-1090541358.html FBI Reportedly Raids Project Veritas Founder's Home as Part of Ashley Biden's 'Stolen Diary Probe FBI Reportedly Raids Project Veritas Founder's Home as Part of Ashley Biden's 'Stolen Diary Probe Previously, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) confirmed that "court authorised law enforcement activity" had taken place at the homes of two Project... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T08:34+0000 2021-11-07T08:34+0000 2021-11-07T08:34+0000 joe biden us department of justice project veritas fbi news /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/105523/05/1055230594_0:0:5001:2813_1920x0_80_0_0_43430a75edcb0ee198b281bdf1d9156b.jpg The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) carried out a raid on the home of conservative media group Project Veritas founder James O'Keefe early on Saturday morning, reported The New York Times. The court-mandated search was said to be part of a federal investigation conducted by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Manhattan into the circumstances surrounding the "stolen" diary of US President Joe Bidens youngest child, his daughter, Ashley Biden. Agents had "performed law enforcement activity" at O'Keefes apartment building in Mamaroneck, New York, according to a spokesman for the FBI, cited by the outlet. Project Veritas Under Attack While OKeefe did not offer a comment on the Saturday developments, in an earlier video statement, recorded on 5 November, he had acknowledged that Project Veritas had come under attack" after the homes of two associates had been the subject of search warrants. Furthermore, according to OKeefe, his group had recently received a grand jury subpoena and had been involved in discussions with sources last year about the diary belonging to Ashley Biden that went missing just days before the 2020 presidential election. O'Keefe also questioned how it had transpired that "within an hour" of the FBI raid of the home of a Project Veritas reporter, the Times had gotten in touch with the aforesaid reporter for comment. OKeefe claimed his organisation was previously in contact with the Department of Justice and had provided what he described as "unassailable facts that demonstrate Project Veritas' lack of involvement in criminal activity and/or criminal intent.""Our efforts were the stuff of responsible ethical journalism, and we are in no doubt that Project Veritas acted properly at each and every step," O'Keefe insisted. Ashley Biden DiaryThe NYT previously reported that a probe, active since October 2020, is seeking to determine how Ashley Biden's allegedly stolen diary was disclosed and wound up for sale prior to the 2020 presidential election. The Project Veritas founder revealed that "tipsters" who he had never met prior had contacted his group late last year, claiming they had in their possession Ashley Biden's diary. The notebook had been purportedly abandoned in a room that the American social worker, activist and philanthropist had stayed at. The diary was touted as containing "explosive allegations" about her father, then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The "tipsters" were believed to be negotiating with media outlets to sell the diary. However, Project Veritas, notorious for exposing Democratic politicians and media bias via hidden cameras and other undercover tactics, had been unable to verify the authenticity of the alleged diary and accordingly, did not publish its contents. Handwritten pages of the diarys contents were published on a right-wing website owned by Flyover Media ahead of the 3 November Election Day in 2020. The political activist and provocateur suggested the entire investigation "smacks of politics", but vowed that Project Veritas will "not back down". There is a "huge difference" between Ashley Biden's attorney alleging that her diary was stolen and the tipsters claims that it was ostensibly abandoned in a room, legal analyst Gregg Jarrett emphasised, appearing on Fox News "Hannity" on 5 November, adding that "one's a crime and the other one isn't". vot tak Project veritas and okeefe are israeli paywar assets. This article is little more than a defense of that zionist likudite psywar. 2 1 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko joe biden, us, department of justice, project veritas, fbi, news https://sputniknews.com/20211107/first-heavy-snow-disrupts-beijing-traffic-1090541941.html First Heavy Snow Disrupts Beijing Traffic First Heavy Snow Disrupts Beijing Traffic BEIJING (Sputnik) - The first heavy snowfall of the winter lashed the Chinese capital overnight, causing disruptions in railway and air traffic, with the cold... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T08:21+0000 2021-11-07T08:21+0000 2021-11-07T08:23+0000 asia & pacific china snowfall /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102432/46/1024324672_0:78:2000:1203_1920x0_80_0_0_4f9d6d1d13bd4036a08aa6f3275e52cc.jpg The Yanqing District in the suburbs of Beijing saw the heaviest snowfall. The coat of snow reached 40 centimeters (15.8 inches) and more in some areas.Of 486 flights scheduled at Beijing Capital International Airport, 10 were canceled as of 08:00 a.m. local time (00:00 GMT). Beijing Daxing International Airport plans to operate 228 flights, and there have been no data on cancellations so far.Ten railway trips from Beijing to the neighbouring city of Tianjin were called off. Some stretches of suburban speed highways were closed.The meteorological center of China keeps the yellow danger level over the snowfall in Beijing and in several other municipalities. Citizens are recommended to stay at home, and motorists are demanded to drive with caution. china Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 asia & pacific, china, snowfall https://sputniknews.com/20211107/floridas-gov-office-blasts-biden-as-over-70-migrant-night-flights-landed-in-state---report-1090535849.html Florida's Gov. Office Blasts Biden as Over 70 Migrant Night Flights Landed in State - Report Florida's Gov. Office Blasts Biden as Over 70 Migrant Night Flights Landed in State - Report Over the past several months, US media reported that the Biden administration has been flying dozens of illegal migrants into non-border states in order to... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T02:25+0000 2021-11-07T02:25+0000 2021-11-07T02:25+0000 joe biden us florida migrants immigration migrant crisis ron desantis biden administration /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090536390_0:330:3054:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_f1895aa1c7ca13c10901fdc5e3d3f117.jpg Since the summer, more than 70 night-time flights transporting illegal migrants from the US southern border have landed in Jacksonville, Florida, The Washington Examiner reported, citing Governor Ron DeSantis' office, which raised concerns about the impact of the border issue on states around the country.The Biden administration has reportedly refused to disclose who has arranged the supposed flights and other information.Republicans have been warning about flights into the interior of the country and other migrant transportation into non-border states for months. Under Trump-era's Title 42 public health provisions, the Biden administration has only removed single persons and a small group of migrant families. Unaccompanied minors are placed in the custody of the Health and Human Services (HHS) before being reunited with sponsors around the country.Meanwhile, migrant families have been largely released into the US, frequently with a Reminder to Appear or a notice to report to a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office to begin their immigration proceedings.According to the authorities' current data, in Fiscal Year 2021, there were more than 1.7 million migrant interactions, with more than 192,000 in September alone. Critics say the Biden administration's policies, such as "catch-and-release," are feeding the influx. The Biden administration has countered with its own explanation for the spike, citing "root causes" in Central America such as violence, corruption, and poverty.Earlier in the day, Governor DeSantis commented on a report of a 24-year-old Honduran national charged with the murder of a Florida man who took him in, after the migrant allegedly entered the country illegally while posing as an unaccompanied juvenile. According to DeSantis, the Biden administration's "reckless" border policies contributed to the tragedy that occurred. https://sputniknews.com/20211106/watch-biden-boom-in-anger-after-being-asked-question-on-cash-payments-to-illegal-migrants-1090529418.html TruePatriot Ron, order out the National Guard to arrest the illegals and their human traffickers when they land. This insanity must stop. 1 rtyuio tuiop I get paid over $87 per hour working from home with 2 kids at home. I never thought Id be able to do it but my best friend earns over 10k a month doing this and she convinced me to try. The potential with this is endless. Heres what Ive been doing .. 0 2 florida Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Kirill Kurevlev Kirill Kurevlev News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Kirill Kurevlev joe biden, us, florida, migrants, immigration, migrant crisis, ron desantis, biden administration https://sputniknews.com/20211107/illogical-and-anti-social-israeli-tweeps-angry-over-passage-of-national-budget-1090539871.html Illogical and Anti-Social: Israeli Tweeps Angry Over Passage of National Budget Illogical and Anti-Social: Israeli Tweeps Angry Over Passage of National Budget While Israeli politicians have patted themselves on the back for managing to avert snap elections, Twitter users have been frustrated over the rising taxes and... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T07:45+0000 2021-11-07T07:45+0000 2021-11-07T07:45+0000 middle east israel budget /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090540718_0:200:3109:1949_1920x0_80_0_0_e6067133a81fbba2e11774436a204abb.jpg It has been two days since the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, passed the national budget for 2021 and 2022, approving $136 bln and $142 bln for the years, respectively.This has been the first time in three and a half years that the Israeli chamber has passed a national budget, and many politicians took to social medial platforms to pat themselves on the back for managing to push through the legislation.They have also been thrilled at the prospect that they managed to avert snap elections that would have been triggered by the failure to pass the national budget.Frustration is MountingBut many Israelis have been less optimistic about the funds that have been unlocked, and just like the politicians, they too flocked to Twitter and Facebook, where they vented their anger at the policymakers."The budget of 2022 is not a good one. It has many wrong restrictions. Taxes on plastic disposables, taxes on property, taxes on entering the Gush Dan [centre of Israel - ed.]. Instead of taxing, they can find other alternatives, for example subsidies..."The past couple of years have been exceptionally difficult for Israel. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus in the country in February 2020 and the three subsequent lockdowns, hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs. Many others have been pushed into the poverty circle.In June, when the coalition of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett came to power, it vowed to tackle these problems. They also promised to lower the high costs of living, decrease taxes and make many basics more affordable for the masses.However, as time went by, many Israelis have realised that their words were not backed by actions. In November, Israel lifted taxes on plastic utensils and high-sugar drinks, a move that's believed to potentially harm the weaker layers of the population.It also raised prices on gas and basic food products, and a similar trend is also expected on mobile phone, electricity, water and municipal costs.The constantly rising prices have already prompted anger among many Israelis, and experts warn that that frustration is only going to mount, especially now as the budget was passed, and as the government has indicated its intention to go heavy on taxation.Illogical DistributionThe public is also angry for yet another reason -- what they call an "illogical distribution of funds"."53 billion NIS [$16.7 billion] will be paid as protection money to the Muslim Brothers so that they will keep the chair of [Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett and [Foreign Minister Yair] Lapid stable... overall, a logical budget," bitterly wrote one Tweep.Another added: "In the early hours of [Friday] morning, the Knesset passed the budget for 2022. It is an anti-social budget that gives 53 billion NIS to the Islamic Movement at the expense of the weaker populations and those living on the periphery. And all this is done for the political survival of Bennett and Lapid. From now on, every time you feel it in your pocket, take a look at this picture and remember who did it to you."The passing of the national budget requires at least 61 out of 120 votes in favour of the legislation. To secure that majority, PM Bennett and his coalition reportedly relied on the support of the Arab parties, including that of Mansour Abbas, which is believed to be linked to the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is outlawed in many countries around the Middle East.However, that support was not given for free, and in the months leading up to the vote Abbas had stressed that his backing would only be guaranteed if Israel allocated billions to the Arab sector.Those generous injections were considered necessary by the Arab community, which has for years been suffering from underdevelopment, high poverty and unemployment rates, as well as widespread crime. But many tweeps were certain that the money the country has just allocated would never reach ordinary Arab citizens. They would go to the Palestinian prisoners and their supporters instead.That frustration with decision-makers and their policies is already showing in ratings. A recent poll, conducted by Israel's channel 13, revealed that had the elections been held today, Bennett's Yamina party would have received only 6 out of 120 seats at the Knesset.On the other hand, the head of the opposition, former PM Benjamin Netanyahu, is only getting stronger, receiving 36 seats at the chamber, six spots more than what he had gotten in the last round of general polls.Now as the budget has passed, the future of the current coalition seems stable, and that means that the Israeli public will need to learn to live with the budget, its taxes and its restrictions. https://sputniknews.com/20211105/israel-passes-national-budget-but-wheres-the-money-headed-1090490028.html Babis7x excellent the arab party have connections with muslim brotherhood( and they have support from atlantic alliance connection) so i doubt their money will ever be used for the citizens , but other dark situation like in every country alliance. uncle never pay only takes cash 0 1 israel Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Elizabeth Blade Elizabeth Blade News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Elizabeth Blade middle east, israel, budget https://sputniknews.com/20211107/india-should-rationalise-taxes-as-oil-and-gas-prices-may-rise-further-before-2025-expert-says-1090531778.html India Should Rationalise Taxes as Oil and Gas Prices May Rise Further Before 2025, Expert Says India Should Rationalise Taxes as Oil and Gas Prices May Rise Further Before 2025, Expert Says India's oil demand is projected to jump 10 million barrels per day by 2030 from its current consumption of 5.05 million per day. As Indian fuel retailers have... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T10:04+0000 2021-11-07T10:04+0000 2021-11-07T10:04+0000 oil saudi arabia arctic crude oil china opec yamal lng energy india /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0a/1b/1090234572_0:214:3072:1942_1920x0_80_0_0_350c1ba8306e80e865bc2b8ea3b15bf6.jpg For the past few years, India has been diversifying its energy sources to curb the dependency on OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). OPEC countries provide 71% of crude oil, 58% of LPG, 33% of LNG, and 45% of petroleum products consumed by India. During the 5th OPEC-India Energy Dialogue on 29 October, Hardeep Singh Puri, India's Minister of Oil and Gas, raised the "issue of energy market volatility" and "current high energy prices and in that context underlined the importance of seeking market stability for the benefit of producers and consumers".Sputnik spoke with Narendra Taneja, Ia prominent Indian energy expert, on a range of issues involving the higher cost of oil and gas imports and strategies to deal with fast-changing scenarios in West Asia.Sputnik: India received its first LNG cargo from Russia last month, and reportedly it was the cheapest purchase by India from any client in the world. Has diversification of energy purchases started paying off for India?Narendra Taneja: Well, diversification is part of a well-meditated strategy because depending on one geography or region for the supply of a commodity as crucial as natural gas is risky in terms of energy security. Russia has vast gas reserves and, therefore, will be a significant supplier in years and decades to come. India and Russia have always enjoyed good energy ties.Sputnik: Indian ministers have been urging oil producer countries to bring down their product prices for consumer countries. Why are these oil-producing countries not paying heed to demand?Narendra Taneja: There could be many reasons, but the cartelisation in the form of OPEC and OPEC Plus empowers them disproportionately vis a vis large importers of oil such as India. Greed also plays a big role. Most oil exporters also know that the share of oil in the global energy mix will begin to fall rapidly in ten years or so. They, therefore, want to monetise their oil as fast as possible.Sputnik: Media reports are claiming India and China will jointly make efforts to pressurise OPEC not to inflate prices artificially. Do you think this kind of collaboration will work, especially given changing strategic environments?Narendra Taneja: India's dependence on oil imports is much higher than China's. Moreover, China's response so far on any such multilateral move has not been sufficiently enthusiastic.Sputnik: India stopped oil imports from Iran after the US imposed strict sanctions against Tehran. On the other hand, China keeps importing energy resources from Iran. Shouldn't India take a similar approach and resume Iranian oil imports?Narendra Taneja: Iran is a critical friend and partner in oil and gas. But India has to balance its oil relations with Iran in other contexts too at the same time, including New Delhi's long-term strategic ties with the United States and the West. Each country has its own perspectives and strategies on sensitive international issues.Sputnik: What should India's strategies be to bring down import costs and provide somewhat cheaper fuel to its citizens, who are currently reeling amid record prices?Narendra Taneja: Well, we have to invest more in renewables and nuclear power to bring down our dependency on imported oil and gas. My sense is oil and gas prices may go further up between now and 2025. India should therefore rationalise the taxes on petroleum products and invest more in domestic oil and gas exploration and production. https://sputniknews.com/20180614/india-china-plan-counter-opec-1065398632.html saudi arabia arctic china Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Rishikesh Kumar https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e4/08/04/1080055820_0:0:388:389_100x100_80_0_0_40018ee210946d65d49ffba4f4c008e1.jpg oil, saudi arabia, arctic, crude oil, china, opec, yamal lng, energy, india https://sputniknews.com/20211107/iran-slams-assassination-attempt-against-iraqi-pm-says-us-may-have-been-responsible-1090547580.html Iran Slams Assassination Attempt Against Iraqi PM, Says US May Have Been Responsible Iran Slams Assassination Attempt Against Iraqi PM, Says US May Have Been Responsible A booby-trapped drone targeted Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimis residence in Baghdad early on Sunday morning, with the leader emerging unscathed and... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T14:56+0000 2021-11-07T14:56+0000 2021-11-07T17:37+0000 united states iran iraq drone /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090547554_0:155:579:480_1920x0_80_0_0_35d26f87df18a2771d78f736de13ea34.jpg The late-night attack on Prime Minister al-Kadhimis residence was in the USs interest, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Said Khatibzadeh has said.They have sought to achieve their sinister regional goals by creating terrorist groups that seek to stir sedition, Khatibzadeh alleged.Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and other regional forces have regularly accused the United States of creating, nurturing and funding an array of radical Islamist militants, including Daesh (ISIS)* the terrorist group which wreaked havoc across large swathes of western and northern Iraq and eastern Syria between 2014 and 2017. Washington has dismissed the allegations.Khatibzadeh called on Iraqis to be vigilant against conspiracies that have targeted Iraqs security and progress, and expressed relief that al-Kadhimi was safe.Earlier Sunday, Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, suggested that the drone attack was an attempt to incite a rebellion, and alleged that the attempt could be traced back to foreign think tanks, which have brought nothing but insecurity, discord and instability to the oppressed Iraqi people through the creation and support of terrorist groups and occupation of this country for years. The official did not elaborate on what country or countries these foreign think tanks belonged to.In the aftermath of the attack against him, al-Kadhimi tweeted that he was doing fine and called for calm and restraint from Iraqis. Later in the day, Al-Kadhimis media office released photos of the prime minister chairing a meeting discussing the attack with security officials. His Twitter account went on to post a stream of messages about the PMs phone calls from regional leaders and senior Iraqi officials denouncing the attack and expressing solidarity with the Iraqi government and people.Iraqs interior ministry has indicated that three drones were involved in the assassination attempt, and reported that the gunfire heard in the Green Zone in the early hours of Sunday morning was related to efforts to shoot the unmanned aerial vehicles down. Several people in the prime ministers residence were said to have received non-life-threatening injuries in the attack, and are being treated, according to the ministry.Iraqi President Bahram Salih called the attack on al-Kadhimi a dangerous transgression and heinous crime against Iraq, and emphasised that the government would not accept dragging Iraq into chaos and a coup against the constitutional order.Influential Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also condemned the attack, categorising it as a blatant targeting of Iraq, its nation, security and stability aimed at plunging the country into chaos. Nechirvan Barzani, the president of Iraqs autonomous Kurdistan Region, slammed the attack as a dangerous development which threatens security and stability in the country and expressed relief that the prime minister wasnt hurt.US officials said that Washington was in close contact with the Iraqi security forces, and has offered assistance in investigating the attack. The United Nations mission in Iraq condemned the attack, saying that terrorism, violence, and unlawful acts must not be allowed to undermine Iraqs stability and derail its democratic process.Attack in Wake of Controversial ElectionsIraq held parliamentary elections last month, with negotiations on the formation of a new government continuing after powerful Shia parties refused to recognise the legitimacy of the results, citing alleged widespread irregularities. Baghdad saw violent clashes between police and supporters of Shia parties on Friday after protesters attempted to break into the heavily fortified Green Zone, which in addition to al-Kadhimis residence and government offices also contains the US Embassy.Police used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the crowds, with dozens of security forces personnel reported wounded and one protester killed. Al-Kadhimi promised an investigation. However, some Shia militia leaders blamed the prime minister for the violence, with Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Khazali Network a major political party and powerful militant group reportedly warned that the prime minister would pay the price for the violence.Before last months elections, al-Khazali warned that outside powers may attempt to rig the vote to spark a normalization of ties between Iraq and Israel. He went on to accuse outsiders of seeking to disband Iraqs Popular Mobilization Forces militias (of which the Khazali Network is a part) formed in 2014 to beat back Daesh. The US classifies the group as terrorists, but it has lawmakers in parliament and a 10,000 militiamen-strong armed force allied to Iraqs security forces.The Sadrist Movement and Iraqs powerful Communist Party boycotted the October vote, citing corruption and potential for fraud. The patriarch of Iraqs Chaldean Catholic Church called on the countrys Christians to also boycott the vote, saying he did not expect them to be transparent and fair.The post-election unrest and the attack on al-Kadhimi comes amid America's promises to pull all combat troops out of Iraq by the end of 2021 after an agreement on the matter was reached in July. Washington was estimated to have about 2,500 troops in the country at the time, with an unspecified number of trainers and other personnel expected to remain following withdrawal. Some Shia militias have vowed that they wont rest until all Us troops are gone.* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. https://sputniknews.com/20211107/iraqi-interior-ministry-calls-attempt-on-pms-life-a-terrorist-attack-1090540749.html https://sputniknews.com/20211107/un-mission-in-iraq-condemns-assassination-attempt-against-prime-minister-1090542196.html https://sputniknews.com/20211007/leader-of-major-iraqi-party-fears-uae-may-rig-elections-to-spark-normalization-of-ties-with-tel-1089749170.html Nonyank Zero doubt the US was involved, only one country on the planet running around the world doing this kind of thing...the US / Shitrael! 14 Hess It was most likely a false flag terrorist attack designed to spread violence and justify the illegal US occupation. The US. Israel and the UAE must be held responsible. 11 8 iran Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ilya Tsukanov united states, iran, iraq, drone https://sputniknews.com/20211107/iraqi-interior-ministry-calls-attempt-on-pms-life-a-terrorist-attack-1090540749.html Iraqi Interior Ministry Calls Attempt on PM al-Kadhimi's Life a 'Terrorist Attack' Iraqi Interior Ministry Calls Attempt on PM al-Kadhimi's Life a 'Terrorist Attack' Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has confirmed that he's safe after an exploding drone hit his residence in Baghdad's Green Zone on Sunday in what has... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T07:23+0000 2021-11-07T07:23+0000 2021-11-07T07:55+0000 middle east iraq green zone terrorist act drone attack assassination attempt prime minister /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090541190_0:37:3072:1765_1920x0_80_0_0_4d0c164744842aba6fff155e928983d3.jpg The Iraqi Interior Ministry has called the botched assassination attempt on Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi a "terrorist attack".According to the ministry, two of the three drones involved were shot down. One of the drones hit the prime minister's home in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and government offices. Fortunately, he was unharmed, but several security guards were injured.Baghdad residents reportedly heard an explosion followed by gunfire in the area.Shortly thereafter, al-Kadhimi tweeted a statement to let everyone know that he hadn't been hurt in the attack.The prime minister later appeared on Iraqi television, looking calm, as he said, "Cowardly rocket and drone attacks don't build homelands and don't build a future."No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.Iran and Saudi Arabia have condemned the attack, with Tehran calling it an instigation to rebellion associated with "foreign think tanks", and Riyadh blasting it as a "cowardly terrorist act".The United States has deplored the drone strike targeting al-Kadhimi's residence, too.Price added that the US is in close contact with the Iraqi security forces and has offered assistance in investigating the attack.The assassination attempt came amid an ongoing stand-off between security forces and pro-Iran Shiite militias whose supporters have been protesting outside the Green Zone for almost a month after they rejected the results of Iraq's parliamentary elections, in which they lost around two-thirds of their seats.The protests turned violent on Friday when people tried to break into the Green Zone, prompting security forces to use tear gas and live ammunition. Dozens of security forces were wounded, and one protester was killed. The Iraqi prime minister ordered an investigation into the violence, however, some leaders of the Shiite militia blamed al-Kadhimi for the clashes and the demonstrator's death.Qais Al-Khazali, the leader of the Iraqi Shiite political party and militant group Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, reportedly warned that al-Kadhiimi would "pay the price" for the violence. https://sputniknews.com/20211107/senior-iranian-official-views-rocket-attack-on-iraqi-prime-minister-as-incitement-to-riot-1090540457.html https://sputniknews.com/20211107/rocket-reportedly-hit-residence-of-iraqi-pm-in-baghdad-1090534915.html Hess Al-Kadhimi is a traitor. His best option is to stop running a Vichy Regime and serving the Fascist Occupation. He does not belong to Iraq and should leave with the Occupation as demanded by the Iraqi people. 4 Hess It is most likely a false flag attack designed to spread violence and justify the ongoing illegal US occupation of Iraq. 3 4 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Zara Muradyan Zara Muradyan News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Zara Muradyan middle east, iraq, green zone, terrorist act, drone attack, assassination attempt, prime minister https://sputniknews.com/20211107/methane-burst-at-mine-in-kazakhstan-results-in-6-dead-2-injured-emergency-service-say-1090539215.html Methane Burst at Mine in Kazakhstan Results in 6 Dead, 2 Injured, Emergency Service Say Methane Burst at Mine in Kazakhstan Results in 6 Dead, 2 Injured, Emergency Service Say ALMATY, Kazakhstan (Sputnik) - Six miners were killed and two sustained injuries in a methane eruption at a mine in the Karaganda Region in Kazakhstan, the... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T05:38+0000 2021-11-07T05:38+0000 2021-11-07T06:16+0000 asia & pacific kazakhstan mine /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107680/01/1076800186_616:0:4257:2048_1920x0_80_0_0_8f8630074eb88ecdf8adfacc987e3c14.jpg "The information about a methane gas eruption at a mine in the town of Abay was received by the emergency service of the Karaganda Region... Six miners out of eight were killed and two more were injured," the press service stated.A total of 64 miners were at the mine at the moment of the accident, according to preliminary data, and 56 workers managed to go up to the surface.Mining operations were suspended, and over 20 rescuers and three vehicles were deployed to the site. Under the order of Kazakh Prime Minister Askar Mamin, a special commission arrived at the mine.The circumstances and causes of the accident are being investigated.The accident occurred on Sunday morning.The condition of those injured has not been specified. kazakhstan Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 asia & pacific, kazakhstan, mine https://sputniknews.com/20211107/only-osce-observers-can-use-drones-in-donbass-conflict-zone-russian-foreign-ministry-says-1090545893.html Only OSCE Observers Can Use Drones in Donbass Conflict Zone, Russian Foreign Ministry Says Only OSCE Observers Can Use Drones in Donbass Conflict Zone, Russian Foreign Ministry Says MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Only observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have the right to use drones in the conflict zone in... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T13:19+0000 2021-11-07T13:19+0000 2021-11-07T13:19+0000 europe ukraine donbass /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/04/02/1082522520_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_152c6bf1fa29b4d8cee36fb279297b63.jpg The OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM) reported that its patrol team came within an attack range of a drone near a settlement in Donbass on the territory controlled by Kiev. The Ukrainian delegation to the contact group stated that on 6 November, the Ukrainian security forces shot down a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) in the vicinity of this settlement, claiming drone attacks against its positions have intensified over the past few days.A representative of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic told Sputnik that the drone mentioned in the OSCE SMM report belonged to the Ukrainian armed forces.Kiev's deployment of UAVs in the conflict zone violates the Minsk agreements, she noted, and urged Berlin and Paris to stop ignoring the issue. FeEisi Ukraine is using drones to guide artillery strikes on Donbass. Russia can allocate $10million in defensive weapons to Donbass that can be DJI drones or military drones, ATGMs, and patrol boats. Russia and Donbass can reach a military agreement to send Russian operated Air Defense Systems. Russia can also train Donbass and create an elite military unit. Russia can also provide intelligence. The US is already supplying Ukraine with training and military equipment and there are calls for the US to provide more military support to Kiev. 2 1 ukraine donbass Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 europe, ukraine, donbass https://sputniknews.com/20211107/pakistani-military-open-fire-on-indian-fishing-boat-1-person-killed---reports-1090551285.html Pakistani Military Open Fire on Indian Fishing Boat, 1 Person Killed - Reports Pakistani Military Open Fire on Indian Fishing Boat, 1 Person Killed - Reports NEW DELHI (Sputnik) - One fisherman was killed and another was injured after Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) forces opened fire on an Indian fishing... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T21:25+0000 2021-11-07T21:25+0000 2021-11-07T21:25+0000 arabian sea india military pakistan fisherman /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090551260_0:160:3073:1889_1920x0_80_0_0_36be208c4822dcba666ca1ae5ee11707.jpg "A fisherman from Maharashtra [state], who was on a fishing boat 'Jalpari' was killed after the PMSA personnel opened fire on him and other crew members on Saturday evening," the local police was quoted as saying by the NDTV broadcaster.The victim was shot in the chest, another man was reportedly seriously injured and taken to a hospital. There were seven people on the boat in total, the news said.The fishermen did not provoke the Pakistani military, an anonymous source told NDTV.India is investigating the incident. arabian sea india Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 arabian sea, india, military, pakistan, fisherman https://sputniknews.com/20211107/rocket-reportedly-hit-residence-of-iraqi-pm-in-baghdad-1090534915.html Iraqi PM Confirms His Residence in Baghdad Came Under Rocket Attack in Alleged Assassination Attempt Iraqi PM Confirms His Residence in Baghdad Came Under Rocket Attack in Alleged Assassination Attempt Iraqi media reports have said, citing Joint Operations Command, that a booby-trapped drone targeted the PMs home in what they have designated an... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T00:18+0000 2021-11-07T00:18+0000 2021-11-07T07:46+0000 iraq baghdad election attack missile green zone assassination attempt prime minister /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090535680_0:0:1600:901_1920x0_80_0_0_5f3fc58d1d07ad30eef57fd30334ec88.jpg One missile hit the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Baghdad's Green Zone, local media reported on early Sunday morning, citing security sources.The prime minister released a statement shortly after, confirming he was fine and calling on Iraqis to remain calm.According to Al Arabiya, there was also a heavy gunfire exchange near the Green Zone in Baghdad. A security source told the broadcaster that a drone believed to have been involved in the attack on Al-Kadhimis house has been intercepted.The Iraqi military reportedly stated that the attack has been designated an assassination attempt.The country's Shafaq news agency reported that three bodyguards of the prime minister were reportedly injured as a result of the attack. The severity of the guards' wounds has not been specified.Some reports link the missile attack on the prime minister's home to the country's parliamentary elections held last month, the results of which are still not recognized by the Shia parties. Baghdad saw violent clashes between law enforcement and supporters of political forces that suffered losses in the election.On Saturday, the leader of the Iraqi Shiite political party and militant group Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Qais Al-Khazali reportedly said that al-Kadhiimi would "pay the price" for the violence unfolding against protesters near the Green Zone, which included at least two dead. He also reportedly pledged to "take revenge against those who fired at the demonstrators."At the moment, however, no movement or armed group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Hess His best option is to stop running a Vichy Regime and serving the Fascist Occupation. He does not belong to Iraq and should leave with the Occupation. 7 Vanessa Lewi Boring! We need to talk about #PfizerGate 2 8 iraq baghdad Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Kirill Kurevlev Kirill Kurevlev News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Kirill Kurevlev iraq, baghdad, election, attack, missile, green zone, assassination attempt, prime minister https://sputniknews.com/20211107/san-francisco-chronicle-slammed-online-for-asking-if-locals-should-tolerate-crime-surge-1090552171.html San Francisco Chronicle Slammed Online For Asking If Locals Should Tolerate Crime Surge San Francisco Chronicle Slammed Online For Asking If Locals Should Tolerate Crime Surge Locals Criticize San Francisco Chronicle For Asking Whether Crime Surge Should Be Tolerated 2021-11-07T22:46+0000 2021-11-07T22:46+0000 2021-11-07T22:46+0000 us san francisco organized crime burglary crime rates california /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102194/10/1021941049_0:0:2048:1152_1920x0_80_0_0_88ddd869086737e5a400b4f077615ff4.jpg San Francisco residents have expressed their outrage after the San Francisco Chronicle asked in Twitter last week whether locals should tolerate burglaries as a part of city living, and focus on barricading homes.In the article attached to the post, the Chronicle cited data from Mission District Police Station showing that the district has recorded a 13 percent increase in burglaries and attempted burglaries over the last month, compared to the same period in 2020.Bewildered Twitter users wondered how this level of crime could be tolerated, noting that "nobody is searching for answers," as "stealing from and hurting other people is just wrong."According to a poll conducted in June, more than 40 percent of San Francisco residents said they plan to move out of the city within the next few years. Eight out of 10 San Francisco respondents believed that crime in the city has skyrocketed in recent years, and 76 percent of the city's residents said that increasing the number of police officers in areas with high crime rates should be a priority.According to data from the police, the number of car thefts in San Francisco in May increased by 753 percent compared to the same period last year.Apart from that, organized retail crime is said to have forced many stores to close. Walgreens, the second-largest US pharmacy store chain, has recently closed five stores in San Francisco, citing rampant shoplifting that resulted in losses of over $1,000 a day. Walgreens said 10 stores in total have been closed in San Francisco since 2019.California, along with New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois, has seen a massive exodus of around 4 million residents between 2010 and 2019, according to Forbes. The Golden State, which has the largest delegation in the US House of Representatives, is set to lose a congressional seat for the first time in its history due to the dramatic decline in population. san francisco california Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Alexandra Kashirina Alexandra Kashirina News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Alexandra Kashirina us, san francisco, organized crime, burglary, crime rates, california https://sputniknews.com/20211107/tear-gas-used-against-demonstrators-in-rennes---reports-1090537402.html Tear Gas Used Against Demonstrators in Rennes - Reports Tear Gas Used Against Demonstrators in Rennes - Reports PARIS (Sputnik) - Law enforcement used tear gas and a water cannon to disperse climate protesters in the French city of Rennes, according to the Ouest-France... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T03:37+0000 2021-11-07T03:37+0000 2021-11-07T03:37+0000 france demonstrations tear gas protest police tear grenade /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0b/07/1090537377_0:210:3071:1937_1920x0_80_0_0_05bb09f5cd487df796c7f465aca75b27.jpg About 1,200 demonstrators were calling for measures to tackle climate change on Saturday. The protest in Rennes was being held at the same time with climate marches in Glasgow.Ouest-France said that police tried to disperse the protesters in Rennes using tear gas and a water cannon as a warning. The law enforcement said that climate activists were joined by anti-fascists and yellow vests.Saturday was the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice. People across the world gathered for marches and rallies, amid the ongoing UN Conference on Climate Change (COP26), which is set to wrap up on November 12. france Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 france, demonstrations, tear gas, protest, police, tear grenade https://sputniknews.com/20211107/the-china-syndrome-trump-claims-beijing-going-to-take-over-bagram-air-base-1090548898.html The China Syndrome: Trump Claims Beijing Going to Take Over Bagram Air Base The China Syndrome: Trump Claims Beijing Going to Take Over Bagram Air Base Last month, Chinas ambassador to Afghanistan dismissed reporting in US and UK media alleging that Chinese planes were operating at Afghanistans Bagram... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T17:18+0000 2021-11-07T17:18+0000 2021-11-07T17:43+0000 donald trump united states china afghanistan bagram air base /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/08/0d/1083598867_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_b59c40465aba567c6d56f3821cb549ac.jpg Former President Donald Trump has repeated claims that China is set to take over Bagram Air Base in the aftermath of President Joe Bidens surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban.They dont talk about [the] withdrawal anymore. They dont talk about it purposely. It was so bad that it was killing [Biden]. Two, three days after it ended, they stopped even mentioning it, Trump said, speaking to Fox News on Sunday.Trump insisted that if he were president, the US would have held onto Bagram and the Parwan Detention Facility the bases onsite military prison containing thousands of jihadist prisoners.The former president did not specify which nuclear facility he was referring to. Bagram is situated about 40 km north of Kabul, and about 525 km southwest of the Chinese border. The closest Chinese nuclear power plant is situated in Fangchenggang, China, more than 4,000 km to Afghanistans southeast. The Peoples Republic is also known to have nuclear weapons in the Tibetan plateau in Amdo, and the Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology operates in Malan, Xinjiang, about 1,800 km from Bagram.He insisted that if he were president, the US would have still pulled out, but things would be different. Dont forget, Im the one that brought it down to 2,500 troops. I would have been out too, but we would have been out with strength. We would have come out with strength, Trump said.We would have gotten all the people out, we would have brought all our equipment out, we wouldnt have had dead soldiers, we wouldnt have soldiers missing arms and legs, Trump added, referring to the 13 US troops who were killed and scores more wounded in the deadly late August Daesh-K* attack on the Kabul airport during the final stage of the evacuation, in which over 170 Afghans were also killed.It was time to get out, but the way [Biden] got out was such a disaster, the former president summarised, going on to blame the generals and saying they should have never allowed that to happen.US Central Command Chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley insisted in hearings on Capitol Hill in September that they recommended leaving 2,500 troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. The Biden administration resisted the idea amid fears that the Taliban would resume its attacks on US troops if they did not pull out.The US and the Taliban reached an agreement in Doha in February 2020 committing Washington to establish a timetable for withdrawal of May 2021, in exchange for a ceasefire, and a commitment by the militants to hold peace negotiations with the Kabul government. Upon taking office in January, Biden extended the withdrawal deadline to September, with the withdrawal starting in May.The US and NATO evacuation from Afghanistan was interrupted in mid-August after Kabul unexpectedly fell to the Taliban and the Afghan government and security forces disintegrated.Trump has repeatedly blasted the Biden administration for its decision to quietly evacuate Bagram amid the broader pullout from Afghanistan. US troops were yanked from the base in early July under the cover of night, with Afghan security forces only showing up after they were already gone, and after looters managed to make off with some base property.At the height of US and NATO operations in Afghanistan, Bagram housed tens of thousands of troops and served as a logistics and transport hub through which forces could be deployed throughout the country.Last month, US and UK media reported that Bagram was active again, with aircraft, possibly Chinese, said to be flying into and out of the facility. Chinese Ambassador to Afghanistan Wang Yu dismissed the reports of a PRC presence at the base as fabricated rumours, suggesting the claims were created with an ulterior purpose in mind. He did not elaborate on what this ulterior purpose might be.China has sought to establish a cordial informal relationship with the Taliban in the interests of border security, cross-border aid and trade, and, potentially, securing access to trillions of dollars-worth of rare-earth metals believed to be trapped under the countrys soil. Beijing has made no rush to formally recognise the Taliban government, however.No country has yet to formally recognise the Taliban government since the militants took power in mid-August. The last time the Islamists ruled the country between 1996 and 2001, only Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognized their legitimacy.* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries. https://sputniknews.com/20211007/cia-reportedly-airlifted-commandos-suspected-of-execution-style-killings-of-civilians-out-of-kabul-1089738036.html https://sputniknews.com/20211006/us-watchdog-to-examine-allegations-ashraf-ghani-took-millions-of-dollar-from-afghanistan-1089719574.html https://sputniknews.com/20211004/china-refutes-rumours-about-its-military-deployment-to-bagram-air-base-in-afghanistan-1089663052.html NthrnNYker59 So WHAT ? That's what happens when you FLEE with your cowardly tails between your legs ! 6 Tomtom Is that not Afghanistan's airbase to do with as they like? 5 10 china afghanistan Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ilya Tsukanov donald trump, united states, china, afghanistan, bagram air base https://sputniknews.com/20211107/trump-boasts-no-president-has-been-better-friend-to-israel-accuses-biden-of-bowing-down-to-iran-1090543667.html Trump Boasts No President Has Been Better Friend to Israel, Accuses Biden of Bowing Down to Iran Trump Boasts No President Has Been Better Friend to Israel, Accuses Biden of Bowing Down to Iran Last week, the former president let slip in an interview that 10 years ago, 15 years ago, Israel literally owned Congress, and lamented that today its... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T10:31+0000 2021-11-07T10:31+0000 2021-11-07T10:46+0000 donald trump united states israel /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/107389/09/1073890939_0:212:4634:2819_1920x0_80_0_0_ec616423e3068a28893eaa27683d157c.jpg Former president Donald Trump and former vice president Mike Pence addressed an event where they showed support for the Republican Jewish Coalition on Saturday, playing up their record of support for Israel and bashing the Biden administration for allegedly turning its back on the US ally.The alliance between the United States and Israel had never, ever been stronger. Under my leadership we recognised the eternal capital of Israel, and opened the American embassy in Jerusalem. We also recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. We appointed a special envoy to combat the scourge of anti-Semitismand we withdrew from the corrupt, hypocritical UN Human Rights Council which is shamefully biased against the United States and Israel, Trump said, speaking to the group in a prerecorded video address during its annual meeting in Las Vegas on Saturday.Accusing the current administration and the radical left Democrats of systematically and intentionally working to dismantle all of our successes, Trump charged Biden with bowing down to the Iranian dictatorship and Israels safety and security like never before.[Bidens] unbelievable weakness toward the Iranian regime directly provoked a missile assault on Israeli civilians; thousands of missiles being shot, Trump suggested, apparently referring to the May 2021 Gaza War. He did not specify what Iran had to do with the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.Trump urged the Republican Jewish Coalition to consolidate its efforts over the next year to help elect a record number of Republicans at every level of government in next years midterm electionsYou see whats happening in Congress with respect to the hatred of Israel by some of these Democrat congress people. We cannot let that continue, he said.Pence echoed Trumps criticisms of Biden, accusing the president of having turned his back on Israel, restored funding for the Palestinian Authority, announced his intention to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal, and made plans to open a consulate in Jerusalem for the Palestinian people. This is an unlawful step and its time for Congress to act to deny President Biden from opening a consulate in Jerusalem, Pence said. God is not done with America or Israel yet, and I know the best days are yet to come, he added.Along with Trump and Pence, other big name Republicans and potential 2024 hopefuls including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, effete South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham and former Trump UN ambassador Nicky Haley also spoke at the meeting.A Democratic Party spokesperson dismissed the significance of the Republican Jewish Coalition convention, saying in a statement that Nevada had rejected Republicans ideological bankruptcy three separate times in the past four years, and suggesting that Democrats were delivering jobs creation, health care, and middle-class tax relief to hardworking Nevadans while these Republicans are focused on blocking the progress of President Biden in the name of protecting the disastrous legacy of Donald Trump.The Republican Jewish Coalition is a major lobbying group promoting Jewish Republicans and closer US-Israel ties. The RJC is one of just one of several similar groups in Washington, with others including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and political action committees providing campaign financing such as the Pro-Israel America PAC, JStreetPAC, NorPAC and the Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs. Despite generally favouring Republicans, the lobbyists typically give tens of millions of dollars to both parties each election cycle to ensure that their favoured policies remain in place no matter who wins.Quiet Part Out LoudLast week, Trump raised eyebrows when he complained in a radio interview that Israel no longer has sufficient control of US Congress. The biggest change Ive seen in Congress is Israel literally owned Congress you understand that 10 years ago, 15 years ago. And it was so powerful. It was so powerful. And today its almost the opposite, Trump said, speaking to radio host Ari Hoffman.AOC and Omar entered the House in 2019, and were among 11 House lawmakers who recently voted against a $1 billion programme to find Israels Iron Dome missile defence system. That bill is now being held up by Republican Senator Rand Paul in the upper house. AOC and other members of the so-called progressive Squad have also aligned to vote against condemning the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions a Palestinian movement seeking to pressure Israel to meet its obligations under international law by withdrawing from occupied territories, removing the separation barrier in the West Bank, providing full equality for Arab-Israeli citizens, etc. The squad remains a small minority in the Congress, with the House overwhelmingly condemning BDS in 2019 in a mark of fealty to Israel. https://sputniknews.com/20211029/israel-has-ability-to-block-us-from-reopening-consulate-in-jerusalem-for-palestinians-official-says-1090296275.html https://sputniknews.com/20211107/ex-us-ambassador-to-un-nikki-haley-blasts-biden-for-supporting-two-state-solution-for-middle-east-1090534311.html https://sputniknews.com/20211013/tehran-accuses-tel-aviv-of-spreading-false-fabricated-claims-about-iran-while-stockpiling-nukes-1089885660.html JustDandy Hehehe better friend to Israell.. As if that's a good thing. 11 vot tak The war criminal/traitor is now bragging about his treason in the service of israel while he was president. Why hasn't this disgusting pos been hanged? 10 7 israel Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Ilya Tsukanov Ilya Tsukanov News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Ilya Tsukanov donald trump, united states, israel https://sputniknews.com/20211107/uk-government-rejects-accusations-of-conservative-party-donor-corruption-1090546349.html UK Government Rejects Accusations of Conservative Party Donor Corruption UK Government Rejects Accusations of Conservative Party Donor Corruption Earlier, The Sunday Times reported that almost every Conservative treasurer had donated more than $4 million to the party in the past two decades before being... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T15:23+0000 2021-11-07T15:23+0000 2021-11-07T15:21+0000 news donors uk conservative party uk /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/03/15/1082409349_0:160:3073:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_688877546e3a7b710500d910d1725e34.jpg The British government has rejected the latest accusations of corruption after The Sunday Times' investigation revealed that major Conservative Party donors were offered seats in Parliament's upper chamber. According to the paper, all but one of the 16 Conservative treasurers over the last 20 years has donated more than 3 million ($4.05 million) to the party, before being offered a seat in the House of Lords. The role of Conservative treasurer has become the most ennobled job in Britain, the paper added. Labour Party Deputy Leader Angela Rayner reacted to the report by calling the Conservative Party "corrupt."Jumping to the Tories' defence, Environment Minister George Eustice told the BBC: "They are philanthropists who give huge amounts to charity, who have been very successful in business and therefore on those grounds ought to be considered for the Lords."Rayner reacted again by claiming that Eustice was "lying."This comes after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson abandoned plans to halt the suspension of Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson from Parliament after he had been found guilty of breaking Commons rules by lobbying for two companies that had paid him more than 500,000 ($682,000). The row with Conservative treasurers has contributed more to BoJo's falling personal approval rating, which is reportedly at its lowest on record. Labour Leader Keir Starmer told the BBC on Sunday that Johnson "is trashing the reputation of our democracy and our country."Parliament is scheduled to hold an emergency debate on standards on Monday, 8 November. Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sofia Chegodaeva Sofia Chegodaeva News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sofia Chegodaeva news, donors, uk conservative party, uk https://sputniknews.com/20211107/un-mission-in-iraq-condemns-assassination-attempt-against-prime-minister-1090542196.html UN Mission in Iraq Condemns Assassination Attempt Against Prime Minister UN Mission in Iraq Condemns Assassination Attempt Against Prime Minister MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The United Nations Mission in Iraq on Sunday condemned the assassination attempt targeting Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T08:55+0000 2021-11-07T08:55+0000 2021-11-07T08:55+0000 middle east attack iraq /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/105161/60/1051616046_0:129:3604:2156_1920x0_80_0_0_fc6e6ecccad5f0c95b6c963e2b44a721.jpg "The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) condemns in the strongest terms the assassination attempt against Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi. The Mission expresses its relief that the Prime Minister was not hurt in the drone attack on his residence in Baghdad," the mission said in a statement.Al-Kadhimi's house in Baghdad was targeted by drone and rocket attacks early Sunday, Al Arabiya reported. The prime minister was taken to hospital for treatment from where he announced that he was doing fine.The mission joined the prime minister in calling for calm and urging restraint and added that it strongly encourages all sides to take responsibility and engage in dialogue to ease political tensions while keeping in mind Iraq's national interest.The attacks come amid a rise in tensions between the country's security forces and activists who took to the streets on Friday to protest the results of the October parliamentary elections.Heavy gunfire exchange could also be heard near the Green Zone in Baghdad. The country's interior ministry qualified the assassination attempt on Al-Kadhimi as a terrorist act and added that the attack was with the help of three drones, two of which were downed. Hess The UN is America's Zionist tool. It is used to legitimise US aggression and terror (including sanctions) around the world. It is a false flag attack designed to spread violence and justify the illegal US occupation of Iraq. Al-Kadhimi is a traitor. His best option is to stop running a Vichy Regime and serving the Fascist Occupation. He does not belong to Iraq and should leave with the Occupation as demanded by the Iraqi people. 0 1 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 middle east, attack, iraq https://sputniknews.com/20211107/us-not-trying-to-transform-china-looking-for-ways-to-co-exist-sullivan-says-1090548653.html US Not Trying to Transform China, Looking for Ways to Co-Exist, Sullivan Says US Not Trying to Transform China, Looking for Ways to Co-Exist, Sullivan Says WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States is no longer trying to transform China and is looking for ways to co-exist, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T17:18+0000 2021-11-07T17:18+0000 2021-11-07T17:15+0000 news us china afghanistan taiwan /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/06/14/1083195260_0:0:3087:1736_1920x0_80_0_0_4eba9732fe1bd21481e1f740590debc1.jpg The US and China are engaged in talks over the Trump trade deal, the advisor to President Joe Biden said. The talks cover not only duties on goods, but the entire scope of the trade relations, Sullivan said.One of the errors of previous approaches to policy towards China, in his opinion, was a belief that through US policy, the Chinese system will fundamentally transform."The goal of America's China policy is to create a circumstance in which two major powers are going to have to operate in an international system for the foreseeable future," the advisor said.He added that Washington will make sure that these terms answer the interests of the US and its allies, and will "shape the international rules of the road" according to its values.On AfghanistanThe United States is not prepared at this stage to give financial aid to Afghanistan via those who are currently in power, the National Security Advisor said.The US would need to see significant improvement in government inclusivity and other aspects, Sullivan said, adding that the US was regularly discussing this with the other party.He stressed that Washington considers it the best way to "actually help the people of Afghanistan without creating a circumstance in which some of those funds could be used for purposes that are problematic to the national security interests of the United States."On TaiwanThe United States administration seeks to maintain the status quo concerning Taiwan and believes that it is in the interests of all parties, Sullivan said."The United States believes that the status quo in Taiwan has served the interests of China, Taiwan and the United States, as well as the interests of regional security and stability," Sullivan said.He stressed that Washington continues to adhere to the Taiwan Relations Act and opposes any unilateral changes to the status quo.Sullivan also noted that the US has been concerned about recent Chinese activities that have "shaken to a certain extent the security and stability of cross-strait relations." https://sputniknews.com/20211106/two-month-old-baby-handed-to-us-soldiers-in-chaos-of-afghanistan-airlift-nowhere-to-be-found-1090511601.html https://sputniknews.com/20211105/china-to-prosecute-people-who-are-pro-taiwan-independence-1090492226.html Lin Wren Under your terms I bet. Ain't gonna work mate. You've spent many years doing far too much damage, pain, distress with your wars, thefts & lies. 7 shahid khan sullivan is spindoctoring. hes a liar. beware. 7 7 us china afghanistan Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 news, us, china, afghanistan, taiwan https://sputniknews.com/20211107/us-state-department-condemns-attack-targeting-residence-of-iraqs-prime-minister-1090538379.html US State Department Condemns Attack Targeting Residence of Iraqs Prime Minister US State Department Condemns Attack Targeting Residence of Iraqs Prime Minister WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States condemns the reported drone attack targeting the house of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, US State Department... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T04:57+0000 2021-11-07T04:57+0000 2021-11-07T04:57+0000 middle east iraq /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/105369/31/1053693130_0:70:3500:2039_1920x0_80_0_0_d7347f275c546c5ddc86e7b72dcf7fa5.jpg "We are following the reported drone attack targeting the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister Kadhimi. We are relieved to learn the Prime Minister was unharmed. This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state," Price said in a statement.He added that the US is in close contact with the Iraqi security forces and has offered assistance in investigating the attack.In the early hours of Sunday, Al Arabiya reported that a rocket struck the house of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi during a drone attack. The broadcaster said Al-Kadhimi was slightly injured, along with several of his security guards. The Shafaq news agency said citing an Iraqi security source that three of the prime ministers security guards were injured.According to Al Arabiya, there was also heavy gunfire exchange near the Green Zone in Baghdad. A security source told the broadcaster that a drone believed to have been involved in the attack on Al-Kadhimis house was intercepted.Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said on Twitter following the reported drone attack targeting his house that he was fine and was calling for calm and restraint from everyone.The Iraqi News Agency (INA) said citing security forces that there was an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the prime minister with the help of a drone, but he was not hurt. TruePatriot That confirms it. He's one of the West's "boys" aka puppets. Probably CIA. 1 1 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 middle east, iraq https://sputniknews.com/20211107/zemmour-accuses-macron-of-manipulating-fishing-spat-with-uk-as-revenge-for-brexit-1090543456.html Zemmour Accuses Macron of Manipulating Fishing Spat With UK as 'Revenge for Brexit' Zemmour Accuses Macron of Manipulating Fishing Spat With UK as 'Revenge for Brexit' Earlier, France decided to hold off on its threats to punish the United Kingdom over the fishing permits spat that has soured relations between the countries... 07.11.2021, Sputnik International 2021-11-07T11:05+0000 2021-11-07T11:05+0000 2021-11-07T11:05+0000 france emmanuel macron maros sefcovic fishing post-brexit eric zemmour uk david frost /html/head/meta[@name='og:title']/@content /html/head/meta[@name='og:description']/@content https://cdnn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/07e5/0a/1f/1090374453_0:0:3072:1728_1920x0_80_0_0_1c0e33805b913428a3c0002d4945c7b1.jpg Emmanuel Macron has been accused by his political rival of cleverly manipulating the post-Brexit fishing row with the UK to take revenge on the country for exiting the EU bloc on 31 January 2020. Eric Zemmour, a right-wing journalist known for his controversial statements on everything ranging from the plight of Jews during WWII to todays influx of migrants and anti-racism and LGBT ideologies", was cited by The Sun as urging the French President to cease his bullying threats.Under the Brexit trade deal between the EU and UK, it was agreed that licences would be issued to boats if they can prove they have fished in each other's waters for years. However, there have been disagreements about how much evidence is required. Weighing in on the recent barrage of intimidation lobbed by Paris, such as holding up UK imports and cutting supplies to the Channel Islands, Zemmour, who is yet to officially declare he will run in the presidential race next April, said: I dont like the mindset of wanting to constantly make the English pay so as to show the other EU states that they should not leave EU. This is a pathetic mindset. Tensions flared last month after the UK and Crown Dependency Jersey denied post-Brexit fishing permits to several French boats. An irate France threatened a series of measures against the UK unless more licences were granted by 2 November, such as imposing extra customs checks and banning British fishing boats at some French ports. President Emmanuel Macron suspended the threats at the last moment ahead of more talks between the sides. On 5 November European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic and UK Brexit Minister David Frost met in Brussels to discuss the other contentious issue that of the so-called Northern Ireland protocol. They also touched upon the French-UK row over fishing permits, reported UK media. Frost was cited as reiterating that French vessels must provide evidence of previous fishing in the UK and Jersey waters in order to receive a license. Sefcovic was cited as emphasising that the Brexit Trade and Cooperation Agreement was clear on the issue. Tom One surely the French wouldnt do such a thing as incite its own country men into action over Brexit. Im pretty sure its not Macrons doing, the guys not got the brains nor the strategic ability to implement such a thing.he he !! 1 1 france Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 2021 Svetlana Ekimenko Svetlana Ekimenko News en_EN Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 1920 1080 true 1920 1440 true 1920 1920 true Sputnik International feedback@sputniknews.com +74956456601 MIA Rosiya Segodnya 252 60 Svetlana Ekimenko france, emmanuel macron, maros sefcovic, fishing, post-brexit, eric zemmour, uk, david frost After a sixth-place finish in the opening leg of the Governor's Cup Series, the forecast appeared less than favourable for Sunshine Lou to advance to this year's final. But a win last week gave a ray of hope to his connections. It was clear skies on Saturday (Nov. 6) for Sunshine Lou, who made every call a winning one to capture the 2021 Governor's Cup Final at Northside Downs. Walter Walker hustled the five-year-old gelding away from post four and cleared to the lead ahead of Johnnie Jack (Ryan Campbell) heading into the opening turn. Campbell tested Sunshine Lou on the backside, but Walker wasn't about to let him by. He repelled that challenge through a :27.1 opening panel, with Johnnie Jack forced back into the pocket. Sunshine Lou managed to ration that speed through the middle half, posting panels of :57.1 and 1:26.3 as the backfield started to rally with favoured Intended Royalty (Redmond Doucet) launched three-wide around first-over attacker Gentry Seelster (Mark Pezzarello). A :30.3 final quarter was more than enough to hold off the late bid of Daddy Let Me Drive (Rodney Gillis) to score by three parts of a length in 1:57.1. Intended Royalty rounded out the top three. Raymond MacKinnon of Inverness, N.S. trains and owns Sunshine Lou (Sunshine Beach - Carte De Mode), now a seven-time winner this season and 13-time winner from his 80 career starts. The winner's share of the purse lifted his seasonal earnings to $12,846, with lifetime earnings in excess of $54,000. A competitive field produced a healthy return on investment for his supporters, paying $7.90 to win as the second choice. Earlier on the card, Red Rum She Wrote held off The Big Chase to win the $3,000 Governor's Cup Series Consolation in 1:57.1 for owner / trainer / driver Barry Bates of New Waterford, N.S. A four-year-old daughter of Vintage Master - So Cute Hanover, Red Rum She Wrote notched her 11th career win in the process, good for $14,504 in lifetime earnings. To view the results of Saturday's card, click the following link: Saturday Results - Northside Downs. A government assessment based on that shortened time span concluded lynx populations remained resilient and even have increased versus historical levels in parts of Colorado and Maine. Support Local Journalism Your subscription makes our reporting possible. {{featured_button_text}} The animals also are found in Montana, Minnesota, Idaho, Washington state and occasionally Michigan. A new recovery plan for lynx is due by 2024 under the terms of the deal approved Monday by U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula, Montana. This is the right decision, and the administration should be commended for it, said attorney Matthew Bishop, who represents Friends of the Wild Swan, WildEarth Guardians and other environmental groups in the case. Theres no uncertainty climate change is happening, Bishop added. The only uncertainty is over the timing and magnitude of it. But that shouldnt keep a species from being listed. Federal wildlife officials did not immediately respond to questions about the settlement. Under an earlier assessment of lynx, published in December 2016, U.S. government biologists predicted some populations would disappear by 2100. That was based on models predicting widespread and substantial changes to the animals snowy habitat because of climate change. The 27th Range Beef Cow Symposium (RBCS) will be held in person in Rapid City Nov. 16 and 17. The RBCS will feature a wide range of topics, demonstrations, practical applications and a variety of vendors. The beef cow symposium has been held every other year since 1969 among the four cooperating states, Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and the hosting state for this year, South Dakota. The RBCS is a great place not only to hear the latest updates on topics of interest to the beef industry but also to network with producers, industry leaders and the vendors who make it happen, said Karla Wilke, Cow-calf and Stocker Management Specialist at the Nebraska Research and Extension Center. Wilke will be presenting her topic on November 16, Adding yearlings to the cow-calf enterprise for drought mitigation or income diversification. The topic will cover economic benefits of incorporating yearlings into a cow-calf operation in situations ranchers may find themselves in today. Cow depreciation is the second largest expense for a cowherd after feed costs. Diversifying the operation with yearling cattle allows producers to liquidate cattle that were going to be sold in the fall sooner if necessary, without liquidating cows from the core herd to save grass resources, Wilke said. NEW ORLEANS (AP) A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administration's vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4 or face mask requirements and weekly tests. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the action stops Democrat President Joe Biden "from moving forward with his unlawful overreach." "The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution," said a statement from Landry, a Republican. Such circuit decisions normally apply to states within a district Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, in this case but Landry said the language employed by the judges gave the decision a national scope. The Biden administration had no immediate comment. At least 27 states filed lawsuits challenging the rule in several circuits, some of which were made more conservative by the judicial appointments of former Republican President Donald Trump. ATLANTA (AP) The first major election day following a year of relentless attacks on voting rights and election officials went off largely without a hitch. Unlike the 2020 presidential election, there were no claims of widespread fraud, ballots emerging mysteriously in the dark of night or compromised voting machines changing results. The relative calm was a relief to those who oversee elections, but will it matter to those who still believe last year's election was stolen from former President Donald Trump? Election experts say even a smooth election cycle this year is unlikely to curb the distrust that has built up over the last year within a segment of the public. That skepticism has led to costly and time-consuming partisan ballot reviews, threats to election officials and new voting restrictions in Republican-controlled states. "I'm extremely concerned that we're not at the end of this," said David Becker, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer who now heads the Center for Election Innovation and Research. "We're not at the middle of this. We're at the beginning of this, and nobody is addressing it particularly well right now, with the exception of the professional election officials who are keeping their heads down and doing their job." The Bay of Plenty tourism sector has been dealt a blow with hopes of an early-2022 return of cruise ships to Tauranga suffering a significant casualty. Norwegian Cruise Lines have pushed back plans for potential trans-Tasman voyages in February and March until later in 2022. A summer staple, worth more than $70m to the local economy in 2019-20, cruise ships and their passengers have vanished from Tauranga since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, with Government plans to begin opening up borders in the first-quarter of 2022 on a risk-based system involving vaccination status and country of origin, Norwegian Cruise Lines had been taking bookings for potential trans-Tasman excursions. The Norwegian Spirit was originally scheduled for a 12-day cruise beginning in February next year which would have taken in Tauranga as the penultimate location after Sydney, Eden, Tasmania, Timaru, Lyttelton, Marlborough, Wellington and Gisborne, before the final stop and disembarkation in Auckland. In March, a further cruise was planned in which Tauranga was also on an itinerary which included Sydney, Melbourne, Dunedin, Akaroa and Napier. Those voyage dates have now been scrapped. Due to ongoing uncertainty around the resumption of cruise in Australia and New Zealand and in support of a gradual redeployment of our fleet, we have postponed Norwegian Spirits debut in Australia until 27 March 2022 and in New Zealand until December 2022, when Norwegian Spirit returns to the region for a full season, says a Norwegian Cruise Line spokesperson. We appreciate the patience and understanding of our guests and travel partners with impacted bookings and apologise for any inconvenience caused. A 10-location cruise leaving Sydney on December 22 is now NCLs next voyage set to stop in New Zealand, including Tauranga on January 2, 2023. That time period, according to Tourism Bay of Plenty general manager Oscar Nathan, is now looking like an increasingly likely period for returning international cruise operations to the region. This decision is unfortunate but not surprising, given the uncertainty that New Zealands current Delta outbreak is creating," says Oscar. Its unclear when the Government is intending to ease the tight restrictions at our international border, and this is the key factor that will determine when cruise ships will actually be able to return to our ports. The 2022/2023 summer season is probably going to be a more realistic timeframe. NCL say that all guests and travel partners will be contacted and receive a full refund, as well as a discount off any future cruise, due to the postponement. At present, the maritime border remains closed to foreign vessels, with only a few exceptions, although entirely domestic cruises are currently permitted. Other operators, such as Carnival and P&O do still have listings for voyages which will include Tauranga for the first quarter of 2022. Viking Ocean Cruises have a 119-day voyage due to embark from Los Angeles on January 10 2022, with Tauranga one of its scheduled stops in February and excursions to Rotorua planned, on the round-the-world trip which ends in London. A spokesperson for the Port of Tauranga recently told SunLive they are not budgeting for any cruise visits before the end of the current financial year on March 31. Cowlitz County severe weather shelter organizers are preparing for a winter that may be cooler and wetter than normal. The Kelso-Longview Ministerial Association and Love Overwhelming will operate the shelter at First Christian Church on Kessler Boulevard for the third season. Were excited to be able to offer the shelter again, said Father Nic Mather of St. Stephens Episcopal Church. The last couple years have been smooth, run very well. We welcome anybody who wants to volunteer to join the team and were available if someone needs a warm night. To open the shelter, the city has to declare a severe weather emergency, which indicates temperatures are expected to hit below around 35 degrees. Chuck Hendrickson, Love Overwhelming executive director, said the organizations have spent the last couple months planning for the winter. The group hired a new program coordinator and are hiring other staff to run the shelter, he said. The organization hired security and Hendrickson said he met with the Longview School District and Kessler Elementary School principal to share safety plans. Shelter organizers will begin canvassing the neighborhood Monday to give residents information about the shelter and contact numbers they can call with concerns, Hendrickson said. I think theres more support for what were doing now that were in the third year, he said. People have seen that ... the severe weather shelter committee kept our word, and have done what we said wed do. ... Even people who were at one time against what we were doing, now theyre supporters and volunteers. Its nice to see people come around others less fortunate to do the most good for the people. The shelter has a new partnership this year with the Longview Salvation Army, which will provide hot meals on the nights the shelter is open, Hendrickson said. The group also is working with Cowlitz Family Health Center, which will have a medical appointment slot set up for the day after the overnight shelter is open for people who need care, Hendrickson said. The shelter group will drive up to six people to the clinic, which also offers a daytime warming shelter. Mather said the shelter needs volunteers, particularly people willing to work from midnight to 6 a.m. and those who have an active commercial driver license (CDL) to help drive people to the clinic. How to volunteer People interested in volunteering at the severe weather shelter this season need to attend a mandatory virtual training. Those who already completed training and volunteered in the past do not need to attend, but are free to join. People can RSVP for a training via email at cowlitzshelter@gmail.com. The Zoom link will be sent via email, along with a volunteer application. Available trainings are: 5:30-7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 12. 5:30-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 16. 1:30-3:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18. 9-11 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 20. People with any questions should call Severe Weather Shelter Program Coordinator Kayce Settlemier at 360-749-8056 ext. 122. Along with paid staff, the shelter typically has a minimum of two to three volunteers depending on the time of night, Mather said. Volunteers are an extra set of eyes and ears, help clean and do neighborhood patrols throughout the night, he said. Others work in the kitchen and manage donations. Mather said the organization created a website klmasevereweathershelter.org to share if the shelter is open or not, information and contacts for donating and volunteering. Unlike the last couple years, it hasnt dropped below freezing yet, and the extra time has helped the shelter prepare more thoroughly, Mather said. My guess is we probably will be open around Thanksgiving, like we have the last couple years, he said. We want to have everything in place by then at the latest. Were ahead of that pace, but gearing up with that may be when we are open. Below-average temperatures and above-average precipitation are expected in the Pacific Northwest this winter, consistent with a typical La Nina winter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Winter Outlook. La Nina is the cool phase of a recurring climate pattern across the tropical Pacific. Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. SEATTLE (AP) Brazilian Jose Soares has been locked up in one of the United States' largest immigration detention centers for the past two years, passing much of his time cleaning bathrooms and buffing floors at a rate of $1 a day. But last week, a federal jury ruled that Soares and other detainees who cook, clean, do laundry and cut hair at the for-profit lockup in Tacoma were entitled to Washington's minimum wage, $13.69 an hour. The multibillion-dollar company that owns the jail was ordered to pay more than $23 million in back pay and unjust profits to current and former detainees and to Washington state. The guards, Soares said, then delivered a message: No more cleaning. Rather than pay the detainees minimum wage, the Florida-based GEO Group suspended the Voluntary Work Program while it appeals. Neither the company nor U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which contracts it to house the detainees, would answer questions from The Associated Press this week about the suspension. Soares, two other detainees and activists who monitor the facility south of Seattle told the AP that much of the sanitation work they used to perform is no longer being done regularly. It got really gross nobody cleaned anything, Ivan Sanchez, a 34-year-old detainee from Jalisco, Mexico, said in a phone interview from the jail. We pick up after ourselves, but nobody sweeps or mops. The guards were saying it wasn't their job to clean the toilets. ... It caused a lot of animosity between the detainees and the officers because of that. Further, they said, not being able to work makes it harder for detainees to buy extra food at the center's commissary, supplementing what they consider to be inadequate meals provided by GEO. While detainees are looking forward to a potential payout, there's a lot of people in here that that dollar makes a difference, Soares said. While he has relatives outside who provide him money to spend at the commissary, he said, he would use his earnings every week to buy five or six ramen noodle packages for other detainees. The detention center officially called the Northwest ICE Processing Center can house up to 1,575 detainees, though the population has been greatly reduced during the pandemic and numbered about 400 last month. Detainees there are not being punished for any crimes, but held in civil custody while the government sorts out their immigration status or prepares to deport them. Two lawsuits were filed in 2017 over detainee pay one by Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, and one by attorneys for the detainees. They accused GEO of profiting on the backs of captive workers. The cases were consolidated for trial, and a U.S. District Court jury ruled on Oct. 27 that the detainees were entitled to minimum wage. It ordered GEO to give more than 10,000 current and former detainees $17.3 million in back pay dating to 2014. Judge Robert Bryan further ruled this week that the company had unjustly enriched itself and must cough up $5.9 million to Washington state. GEO asked the judge Thursday to put the decisions on hold pending an appeal. The corporation wrote that it has enough money on hand to pay the Judgments twenty times over, but said it disagreed with the decisions. In a news release, the company pointed to a March ruling against detainees at a New Mexico facility owned by the nation's other main private immigration detention contractor, CoreCivic. GEO and CoreCivic own and operate scores of lockups around the country. A federal appeals court panel in that case found the detainees were not entitled to minimum wage because they were not in an employer-employee relationship but in a detainer-detainee relationship. Washington's minimum wage law says residents of state, county and municipal detention facilities are not entitled to minimum wage, but the law contains no such exception for private, for-profit jails. ICE requires private immigration detention contractors to offer voluntary work programs as a way to reduce detainee idleness, with pay set at at least $1 per day. However, the companies are also required to abide by other federal, state and local laws including Washington's Minimum Wage Act, the attorney general and lawyers for detainees argued. On Oct. 29, GEO received permission from ICE to suspend the work program, court documents show. Some detainees were given a GEO memo that day explaining they could no longer perform the work they used to do; the memo falsely said ICE had suspended the work program, according to an image provided to the AP. The three detainees the AP interviewed, who are all in the same unit, said they had not seen the memo. Two said they had noticed more guards than usual working in the kitchen to prepare food, and one, Venezuelan Victor Fonseca, 40, said he at one point saw a guard mopping the floor in the showers. Soares, 44, from the state of Goias in central Brazil, used to work nightly 12 a.m.-4 a.m. shifts cleaning and buffing floors. He said that by last Saturday, the floors and bathrooms in his unit, which then housed 32 men, were so grimy that he asked to be allowed to clean them despite the work program's suspension. Guards agreed, and he spent four hours, unpaid, cleaning, Soares said. No one else was allowed to help him. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 NEW YORK (AP) Insurers for several current and former Boeing board members will pay more than $230 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the directors of failing to address safety warning signs before two of the companys Max jetliners crashed. Boeing and the directors did not admit wrongdoing in the settlement, which was filed Friday in a Delaware court. The deal still needs a judge's approval. The shareholder lawsuit was filed by administrators of New York state employee retirement funds and a Colorado pension fund for firefighters and police officers. They sued after crashes of Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people. The lawsuit accused the directors of failing to properly look out for the interests of shareholders in overseeing then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg and development of the Max. Boeing tried to get the lawsuit dismissed, but a judge rejected the move in September. Insurers for the directors will pay $237.5 million to Boeing, minus fees and expenses, according to documents filed Friday. None of the directors nor Boeing will be required to pay anything. Boeing agreed to add a board member with a background in aviation or aerospace engineering or product safety and create a safety ombudsman's office for at least five years. Boeing fired Muilenburg in late 2019 and replaced him with David Calhoun, who was on the board at the time. Both are defendants in the shareholder lawsuit, along with several other current and former directors. Eight of the 13 directors who were on the board when the crashes occurred will have left by January. Six new directors have been added. In January, Chicago-based Boeing agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid criminal prosecution for misleading regulators about safety of the Max. Most of the money will go to airlines that bought the jets. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Q: I live in a rural town and my neighbors have been harassing us lately to slow down on a road that by law is 25 mph. They have today now posted a slow down: speed limit 10 mph sign they bought off the internet. Does this sign have any legal standing? A: Can you imagine if you really could just decide what you wanted the speed limit to be in front of your house and then put up a sign? What happens if I think the speed on my street should be 20 mph, but my neighbor three doors down prefers 50 mph? With enough opinions, we could be changing speed limits at each property line, and maybe even have different speed limits on each side of the street. Of course, this is all nonsense, as its not up to the individual residents on a street to decide the speed limit. Instead of your neighbor picking a speed limit, the maximum speed for a given type of road is defined in the Revised Code of Washington. The section of the law titled, Basic rule and maximum limits sets speed limits at the following: City and town streets: 25 mph County roads: 50 mph State highways: 60 mph If youve paid attention to more than a handful of speed limit signs, youre probably saying, Hey, wait a second, there are a lot of roads that dont match those speed limits. What gives? Ill tell you. The next two sections of the law allow for both increases and decreases in speed limits. However, that doesnt mean a neighbor, or any other person, can decide to change the speed limit. The law states the decision must be determined upon the basis of an engineering and traffic investigation ... Theres a bit more to the law, but the point is that setting a speed limit is supposed to be rooted in data that supports a safe and appropriate speed for a given road. Your neighbors sign has no authority behind it, but theres more. Not only is it unenforceable; its also illegal. Unsurprisingly, you cant just put up official-looking traffic signs on the roadway. Heres what the law says: No person shall place, maintain or display upon or in view of any highway any unauthorized sign, signal, marking or device which purports to be or is an imitation of or resembles an official traffic-control device ... or which attempts to direct the movement of traffic ... Out of curiosity, I went online to a site that sells signs such as what you described to see if I could tell from the reviews how they were being used. To most purchasers credit, they were putting them on long driveways and private roads. But there also were folks who wrote, My across-the-street neighbor and I were tired of cars speeding past our homes, so now we each have a sign in front of our house. And, Purchased for myself and my neighbors. They have helped to slow the traffic down in our street. Another person who put up a sign wrote, Now how to enforce the speed limit? I can easily answer that question: You cant. No officer is going to enforce an arbitrarily chosen speed limit sign on your behalf. Citizens can be a part of changing a speed limit, by requesting a review from their local government. If a speed study is done, it may or may not result in a speed limit change. And if it does, Im confident it wont be 10 mph. Doug Dahl is a Target Zero Manager for the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and a former deputy sheriff. Send him a question by visiting his website, thewisedrive.com/about-thewisedrive. Love 1 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WhatsApp is constantly working on adding new features to its platform. Back in October this year, XDA Developers reported that the Meta-owned messaging app was working on a new feature called WhatsApp Communities. Now, WABetaInfo has come forward and confirmed that such a feature is indeed in the works at the company and also leaked more details. WhatsApp Communities, as the blog site describes it, will be a searching WhatsApp group in which group admins will have greater control. Also, one community can have multiple groups under it, all of which will be protected by end-to-end encryption. The blog site says that Community admins will be able to send messages in this group chat and they will be able to group some groups related to the community. One of the major differences between Communities and WhatsApp groups will be that a Community will offer some tools to admins to better manage all groups. At this point, it remains unknown as to what these features exactly could be. Furthermore, Community admins will be able to invite other people to join their Community. They will be able to add new members manually or via using a Community Invite Link. They will also be able to invite and add new members to their WhatsApp Communities using QR codes. Another major difference between WhatsApp communities and WhatsApp groups will be the fact that when a new user joins a community, it does not necessarily mean that they will be able to send messages to all groups of the community immediately. It is possible that group admins will decide how community members interact with others in the mix. The screenshots of the WhatsApp feature shared by the blog site shows that WhatsApp will help its users distinguish between a WhatsApp group and a WhatsApp community by tweaking the community icon a bit. Community icons will be square with rounded edges to distinguish the community from a group chat while the group icons are round just like the individual chat icons. All said and done, WhatsApp Community feature is still under development and there is no word on when this feature will arrive on the companys Android or iOS-based apps. The field of eight candidates vying to be Brunswicks next mayor was reduced to two on Nov. 2 with Cosby Johnson and Ivan Figueroa emerging from the pack to qualify for the runoff. Pros and cons for humans With that important matter out of the way, let's turn to you -- is it good for you to sleep with a pet? Experts have traditionally said no because you might not get quality shut-eye. "Animals may move, bark and disrupt sleep. Sleep in dogs (and cats) is not continuous and they will inevitably get up and walk on the bed, stepping on people. All of that activity will lead to sleep fragmentation," said Dr. Vsevolod Polotsky, director of sleep research and a professor in the department of medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. These "microawakenings," which can happen without your awareness, "are disruptive because they pull you out of deep sleep," said Kristen Knutson, an associate professor of neurology and preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. "They have been associated with the release of the stress hormone, cortisol, which can make sleep even worse." That may be true for many of us, but recent studies have shown that pets in the bedroom could be beneficial for some of us. To celebrate its churchs 125th anniversary, members of St. James United Methodist Church in Ferrum opened a time capsule that had been buried in 1996 for the churchs centennial celebration. Included in the capsule were a history booklet about the churchs first 100 years, lots of pictures of people from the 100th anniversary celebration and articles from newspapers about current events from that time period. There were a number of articles about the Olympics in 1996 because that was the 100th anniversary of the rebirth of the modern Olympic Games. Reverend Emeritus Burton White, husband of Mary White, the churchs minister, said, Plans are underway to assemble another time capsule, but this time it will be buried for five years. Its not known yet what items will be in the next time capsule, but theres talk about including things relating to COVID, such as a mask. The biggest change for the church in the last 25 years is that in 2008 it returned to meeting year round at the church building after having alternated between the church and on campus at Ferrum Colleges Vaughn Chapel. New members played key roles in Gateway Toastmasters Oct. 20 meeting. Deb Jackson served as the toastmaster. The meeting began with an invocation from Tim Logue. Word master was Jerry Posey. His word of the night was capitulate, which means to surrender. Chris Waters faced the challenge of making the group laugh with his jokes. Cindy Gabriel was the first speaker. She delivered an ice-breaker speech to let the group know more about her life. Mitch Nickerson followed with a presentation about his experience as a blood donor. Table topic master Mary Girard challenged Jackie Gfeller, Logue and Gabriel with her thought provoking questions. Mary Ingram and Gfeller gave feedback to the speakers. The theme for the Oct. 27 meeting was The Power in Asking. Ingram was the toastmaster. The meeting began with an invocation from Gfeller and Posey stirred up laughter with a joke. Girard with her ice-breaker speech was the first speaker. Area director Andrew Wang was the second speaker. Originally from Taiwan, he introduced the idea of celebrating diversity by bringing clubs together via Zoom. Table topic master was Arthur Wentz. Logue led the evaluation portion of the meeting, with Courtney Richardson and Gfeller giving feedback to the speakers. CHAPMAN Kappa Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International met Oct. 21 at Chapmans Baptist Church. During the morning, nearly 300 Christmas/holiday greeting cards were made for active and retired military members. This annual chapter project is made easier by Grand Islands 1-R third graders and their teacher, Malory Casey. The children prepare messages and illustrations that are added to the cards to bring smiles to recipients. In addition, another 180 messages will be prepared as part of the Veterans Day celebration in Humphrey. Mary Helen Fuchs will supervise Humphreys St. Francis eighth graders, who will help. Wanda Duennerman will head the distribution of cards to Central Nebraska Veterans Home, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Grand Island Transition House and Northeast Nebraska Veterans Home. President Judy Marco presided over the Kappa afternoon meeting. Members were reminded that in line with new state and national requirements, all dues must be paid in full by July 2022. Fuchs thanked members for the kind messages and visits following her husbands passing. Nebraska Democratic candidate for governor, state Sen. Carol Blood of Bellevue spoke against us versus them politics at a campaign stop in Hastings on Friday. Blood visited Blue Moon Coffee Co. as part of her Blood Drives tour this week. Weve got to come back to the Nebraska I grew up in, Blood told a group Friday. This us versus them narrative is killing this country and now it has seeped into the beautiful Nebraska Unicameral. What concerns me is that we have become a country where we have forgotten first how to understand. Blood told The Independent her message has been well-received as she visits communities across the state. People are sick of this us versus them narrative, she said. They want to get back to that Nebraska where we listen first to understand each other. We didnt have to agree or disagree. We just have to hear each other so we can work together and get good things done. She added, They want to get back to that, and they want to learn how to love their neighbors again. Blood described Republican attacks on federal proposals such as the 30x30 land conservation program or critical race theory as smoke and mirrors. KEARNEY Kearney Public Schools has received a $41,826 grant from the American Rescue Plan Act grants. The Institute of Museum and Library Services announced more than $15 million in American Rescue Plan Act grants to institutions across the United States, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The grants support the role of museums and libraries in recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. Institutions receiving awards are matching them with $20 million in non-federal funds. The ARP grant received by the Kearney Public School district will provide $20,000 to Central, Bryant, Northeast and Emerson libraries to purchase nonfiction resources, including books and subscriptions to online services. Each school will receive $5,000, which will purchase approximately 217 books. The new books will update and replace 20-year-old nonfiction books. Another $10,825 will be used to purchase STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) equipment that will be circulated among the four schools. After the grant period is over, the STEM equipment will be available to all KPS elementary schools. The four librarians will receive $10,233 to travel to the American Library Association Conference in Washington, D.C., this summer. Theres been increasing confusing over the legality of delta-8, a cannabis derivative that can be found in vape cartridges, tinctures and candy at smoke shops and CBD stores in Texas. While the Texas health department maintains that delta-8 is a controlled substance and is on the states list of unlawful drugs, the 2018 federal Farm Bill legalized the production of hemp, which naturally contains delta-8 and has less than 0.3% THC. In 2019, Texas also legalized hemp growing. Delta-8 retailers believed the substance was as legal to sell as hemp. Delta-8 is legal in Texas for now after a Travis County judge blocked the state from criminalizing it. Should delta-8 continue to be legal in Texas? You voted: The best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option. CHICAGO - The Chicago Cubs have canceled plans to hold their annual fan convention in January because of COVID-19 concerns. Its the second straight year the Cubs Convention will not be held because of the pandemic. The 2021 event was canceled, but the team hoped it would return in 2022. The White Sox announced Friday they also have canceled plans for SoxFest. Even as ballparks opened to 100% capacity last summer, the Cubs didnt feel comfortable holding an indoor event with thousands of fans congregating in a small venue. It was slated to be held during a mid-January weekend at the Sheraton Grand Chicago. Winter months, an indoor environment, where youre talking about 10,000 people or more in closed quarters where you cant technically social distance, Cubs spokesman Julian Green said Saturday of the decision. Its for safety reasons. Its just a little more difficult to manage. Folks are now being encouraged to get booster shots, so were not technically out of the woods yet. Theres also no assurance the 2022 season will begin on time. The collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1, and the owners and players association have a lot of work to do to settle their differences on issues such as the luxury tax. If there was a lockout going on in January, the convention likely would have been canceled anyway. The Cubs were the first professional team to hold a fan convention, starting in 1986, and the event still is one of the most popular fan fests in sports. Green said the Cubs will explore having online forums for season ticket holders this offseason. They held a family day for season ticket holders at Wrigley Field last month in which team President Jed Hoyer spoke, but the gathering was held outside. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Orangeburg is hiring a company to assist it in the enforcement of the city's building codes and ordinances. The city has contracted with Colorado-based SafeBuilt LLC to help "buttress" its ability to enforce the city's buildings codes and to carry forward the process of building code enforcement, City Administrator Sidney Evering said. We have a lot of dilapidated buildings, weedy lots" Evering told council during its regularly scheduled Tuesday meeting. We need to be always cognizant of that and making sure the city is as beautiful and presentable as it can be. The first task assigned to the company will be to work with property owners whose buildings have been condemned by the city's building official to bring the property up to code, said Dean Felkel, city director of public works. If the owner is not willing to do so, citations may be issued and the building may ultimately be demolished at the owners expense, Felkel said. The city's contract with SafeBuilt is for one-year and is based on an as-needed basis. The contract will automatically renew each year and either party can cancel with a 30-day notice, Felkel said. "They charge by the hour for their services," Felkel said, noting as a result he is unable to determine an exact cost of their services to the city. "It is the citys first time utilizing this firm for this type of services." The company will specifically serve as a supplement to the city's current code enforcement staff. This will include addressing abandoned buildings and those that have been condemned by the citys building official. Felkel said the company will not provide any new services but "will be assisting in performing the same services as the city, but additional manpower to help with the citys current workload." The city currently has one building official, one full-time code-enforcement officer/building inspector, and one part-time code-enforcement officer that works one day a week, Felkel said. "Staff will continue to perform their normal day-to-day duties in the enforcement of code violations and building inspections for the city," Felkel said. Felkel said the city is also addressing code compliance by working harder to educate the public on city codes and ordinances; using door hangers to inform owners of code violations; implementing daily routes for staff to cover the entire city per week to address violations; increasing warning tickets and citations for non-compliant cases; and having a code-enforcement officer on patrol during weekends to assist in identifying offenders and violators. "We are going to take a more aggressive approach in our code enforcement in order for us to get the city where we want it to be: to attract the business and the tourism, and the industry that we want to see," Evering said. "We have to take pride in our city and our community. That is what this effort is all about." "If you have dilapidated property around he city, if you have weedy lots, if you have unkempt properties that are violating code ordinances than we are going to be taking a more aggressive approach to make sure we will bring you into compliance," Evering continued. The specific properties the city will be targeting for code enforcement were not immediately identified due to the fact that property owners have yet to be notified. Councilman Bernard Haire expressed concerns that there are a number of individuals who cannot afford to fix the houses. Haire asked if funds were available through grants to assist homeowners. "I am very cognizant that there might be folks who might not have the financial wherewithal to always comply," Evering said. "But there are also a number of individuals who have properties that are dilapidated and they don't even live in Orangeburg. Those are the ones that we want to give special attention to. They are just allowing their properties to go unkept and they are not even here to notice it." Councilman Dr. Kalu Kalu asked Evering to specify what he means by aggressive. Evering said it is about being more proactive in enforcing the city's ordinances already in place. "We start the process or we don't follow through or complete the process because we do not have enough people power," Evering said, describing the city's current situation with code enforcement. "We are really buttressing our ability to do the process." Kalu asked about the expense for the city to contract out the company. "How do we recoup what we are spending out?" Kalu said. Everning said the code enforcement will make for a more attractive city for investors and businesses, which will increase the tax base. Kalu asked would the city take over the buildings that are not being kept up to code. Everning said the city would condemn them or demolish them if abandoned. He said the city would go through the proper legal processes before conducting any condemnations or demolitions. Orangeburg Mayor Michael Butler said, "We are enforcing what we put in place." "We put these rules and ordinances in place as it relates to the dilapidated properties," Butler said. "I think the owner should be held accountable for their properties." "There are some people who are not able (to upgrade property). We are not going to be insensitive to that," Butler continued. "There are people, especially in the downtown area, they have those buildings but they live in New York, the live in Florida. They are well able to come back and bring those buildings up to code or sell them." "We can't afford to continue to allow our city to sit like this and we not do anything," Butler said, noting the city's code-enforcement department is currently short-staffed with two code enforcement officers for the entire city. Evering encouraged council to "hold firm" when and if they receive phone calls about the matter. "We want to be fair and equitable to everybody but by the same token we have to hold folks accountable for their properties like everybody else," Evering said. Councilman Jerry Hannah said many times the situation is a "monkey see, monkey do" issue where improvement of property can become a ripple effect for improving entire areas. Evering said one reason for the code ordinance will be to solve a situation like the current one on Russell Street where there is a brand new library and then a couple blocks away abandoned and dilapidated buildings. "These are the types of things we want to improve on," he said. Evering noted SafeBuilt has over 25 years of experience specializing in performance of inspection services and the enforcement of local codes and ordinances for the private and public sectors. Felkel said the company is being used by other municipalities in the state. Company officials say they are helping in areas such as Cheraw, St. George, Elloree, Walterboro, Saluda, Summerton and Woodruff to name a few. SafeBuilt is no stranger to Orangeburg. They have been used in the past to assist the citys building official in performing plan reviews for large projects within the city, Felkel said. According to its website, SafeBuilt has 18 locations throughout the country, including an office in Anderson. The company provides building department services, plan review, code enforcement, inspection services and permitting services, according to its website. Love 3 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Longwood Plantation and Magnolia Place held their ninth annual Rock to Remember event to raise money for the South Carolina Alzheimers Association on Monday, Nov. 1. The celebration included a silent auction with handmade crafts, homemade goodies and donations from individuals, area businesses and organizations. Palmetto Jazz performed live music as they have since the fundraisers inception by Carol Livingston in 2012. Residents, facility staff and community members were excited to be able to interact in person again this year as last years event had to be virtual due to COVID-19 restrictions and health concerns. Over the past nine years, we have been able to raise almost $40,000 for the S.C. Alzheimers Association and that goes for research and respite stays for people that are caring for people with Alzheimers, said Jerri Johnson-Still, the administrator for Longwood Plantation and Magnolia Place. All of the proceeds from the silent auction go to the S.C. Alzheimers Association. We received items from many of the local businesses, including coffee shops, resorts in Santee and The Oaks, she said, indicating that the auction would continue throughout the day. Johnson-Still said that even before the event kickoff, they had already received donations through the mail from individuals and churches. We are well on our way to beating last years total, she said. I am very excited. I enjoy doing anything they want me to do, said first-time attendee, Longwood resident Dene Wolfe, the designated banker for the event. The Rev. Beth Yarborough of Williston Presbyterian Church offered up a prayer to start the official celebration. Her mother, who is 101 years old, has been living at the facility for the past six years. Loving God, we pray for those who suffer from the anxiety, ambiguity and confusion of dementia and for their caregivers, she said. Phillip Ford said, I am the perennial emcee for the event. I am honored. I grew up at Longwood and Magnolia Place. My mom, Michele Bossi, is the previous owner. We are always happy to support Rock to Remember and the S.C. Alzheimers Association to end Alzheimers and hopefully find a cure, Ford said. Michele Bossi, who also acted as administrator for 18 years, said, We built Longwood Plantation back in 1994. Weve always had a love for the elderly and knew that we needed something like this here. We were the first in the tri-county area. We are very proud of that. Bossi said that she and her former husband, Fred Ford, along with Jean and Bobby Hooker, began the care facility over 25 years ago and later added Magnolia Place. Referring to the importance of the days events, Bossi said, This is my baby. This is something I have always loved to do, working with Alzheimers residents. So every amount we can raise to help with this illness is clearly something that is very near and dear to my heart. Longwood Plantation is celebrating more than 25 years of providing assisted-living care for the community. If you are interested in learning more about the facility or donating to the Alzheimers fundraiser, contact Marcie Britton, director of admissions, at 803-268-9990. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Launching what he considers his most difficult reelection fight to date, U.S. Rep. Tom Rice says that voters may disagree with his vote this year to impeach President Donald Trump, but he hopes that it won't be enough to overshadow his other accomplishments for South Carolina's 7th District. I know that I did the right thing, Im happy with where I am, and Ill take the consequences of it, Rice told The Associated Press in an interview this week, ahead of his official campaign launch for a sixth term. Even maybe some of them that didnt like my vote, I think theyll appreciate my honesty and my effectiveness, and I can win them back over. But well see. On Monday, Rice will take that argument directly to voters in all eight counties of the 7th District, which stretches across South Carolina's northeastern corner. With agricultural, industrial and commercial areas, its heart is Myrtle Beach, one of the focuses of the state's multibillion-dollar tourism industry and a burgeoning base for some of South Carolina's most conservative voters. The framework of Rice's tough reelect was forged in January, when he was one of 10 House Republicans who joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 violence at the U.S. Capitol. Trump was not convicted as a result of the Senate trial. The vote came as a surprise, as the Myrtle Beach congressman had always been a consistent supporter of the former president, representing an area that voted heavily for Trump in both presidential elections. Long a reliable backer of Trump, who campaigned with him, Rice voted 94% of the time in favor of Trump-backed legislation, according to FiveThirtyEight the highest percentage among South Carolinas delegation at that time. A day after his vote, Rice told AP it hurts my heart to have gone against the president, but he decided to back impeachment after seeing what he characterized as Trumps inaction during the riot. Since then, Republicans in his district and across the state have declared their displeasure with Rice, who has represented the 7th since its creation in 2012. The South Carolina GOP formally censured him to show disapproval over his vote, a step also taken by party committees across the country to punish many of the 10 House Republicans who supported Trumps impeachment. A dozen Republicans are seeking to challenge Rice in next summers GOP primary, according to federal election filings. Rice has led the pack in fundraising, bringing in more than $1.3 million. Another hopeful, veteran Graham Allen, has raised more than $750,000, Rices closest competitor in the money race. Last weekend, Republicans gathered at two separate events in Myrtle Beach, one headlined by prominent Trump surrogates Diamond and Silk, and former GOP congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik. A simultaneous gathering hosted by the state party featured notables including U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, considered a rising GOP star. Rice said he didn't attend either nor was he invited. If we run on our ideas, and not on allegiance to one very polarizing man, I think weve got the winning message, Rice said, of his hope for Republicans moving forward. And if we dont, I think were destined to fail. ... I hope we havent moved away from a party of ideas to a party of one man. Running on his record, Rice said he hopes voters will think of the districts falling unemployment rates during his tenure, and its rising job numbers. My focus is on jobs and American competitiveness, he said. Im real proud of what I got done. ... People can see the result, and I believe that will win the day. But for some, Rice said he knows it still comes down to the impeachment vote, and perhaps nothing else. But, he noted, while the issue has surfaced in many of the town halls hes held over the past year, he felt that more voters had thanked him for taking a stand than castigated him for opposing Trump. For people to say that Im not conservative because I voted to impeach Donald Trump, in fact that was a conservative vote, Rice said. The conservative wants to preserve our freedom and our rights that are guaranteed under the Constitution. On Friday, Rice told the AP that his argument to voters boiled down to hoping that they didn't put stock in the sole critique he said he's heard from his challengers. The only criticism of me and my performance that I hear from those folks is that I voted to impeach Donald Trump," he said. "And if thats all theyve got, that doesnt seem like much one vote, in 10 years. Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Many Facebook employees felt their own company helped instigate and organize the mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. "Haven't we had enough time to figure out how to manage discourse without enabling violence?" one worker wrote afterward. "We've been fueling this fire for a long time, and we shouldn't be surprised it's now out of control." An enormous trove of internal documents leaked to the press by a former Facebook employee, Frances Haugen, make the answer to that question crystal clear. It is "no" -- Facebook has not figured out how to encourage free speech, a bedrock principle of American democracy, while discouraging the use of its platform to undermine that same system. Many factors contributed to the poisonous polarization that erupted on Jan. 6 -- including treacherous leaders like Donald Trump -- but Facebook was a prime co-conspirator. As Haugen told Congress: "Facebook's products harm children, stoke division and weaken our democracy. The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram safer, but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. Congressional action is needed. They cannot solve this crisis without your help." The case against Facebook boils down to two points. One: The company has been far too slow to restrict the reach of figures like Trump and his toadies, who use the platform to spread damaging disinformation -- "the election was rigged, vaccines are dangerous, climate change is a hoax," etc. Two: Facebook doesn't just tolerate disinformation. The company employs powerful and secret algorithms to amplify its impact by promoting posts that trigger anger and outrage. These emotional reactions lead users to spend more time on Facebook, which in turn makes them far more valuable to advertisers. That's what Haugen means by putting "profits before people." At the core of this debate is the "harm principle," articulated by the 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill. The nonprofit Ethics Centre defines it this way: "The harm principle says people should be free to act however they wish unless their actions cause harm to somebody else." The harm done by Facebook abusers is obvious. Disinformation about vaccines, for example, can cost countless lives. Therefore, limiting how those abusers are free to act is certainly justified. But here's the problem: Who gets to define "harm"? What standards are used in reaching that judgment? And how is that definition applied to real-life situations? None of the answers are easy. But they are critical to the functioning of a healthy democracy. Overly harsh restrictions on free speech can be even more detrimental than overly timid ones. So what are the options? Platforms like Facebook could regulate themselves, but as Haugen notes, her former employer has largely failed to do that. The profit motive is simply too powerful. And in fact, the company's Maximum Leader, Mark Zuckerberg, who controls more than half of Facebook's stock, largely agrees with her. Facebook hosts nearly 3 billion monthly users, and Zuckerberg has often said that he and his brainchild should not be the "arbiters of truth." Amen to that. "Every day, we make decisions about what speech is harmful, what constitutes political advertising, and how to prevent sophisticated cyberattacks," he has written. "But if we were starting from scratch, we wouldn't ask companies to make these judgments alone. I believe we need a more active role for governments and regulators." But is that really the answer? Call me old-fashioned, but I kind of like the First Amendment, which says pretty bluntly, "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech." "There oughta be a law!" is not always the right answer to a public policy crisis. In fact, it often is not. Should the partisan politicians who run the government have the power to define what counts as harmful speech -- and therefore dilute it? One promising third option is the Oversight Board created by Facebook, a panel of 20 independent experts who are empowered to make critical decisions for Zuckerberg & Co. But that concept has flaws, too. The board recently issued a report accusing Facebook of not being "fully forthcoming" about its policies toward prominent platform users. Another reasonable alternative: legislation that would force Facebook to be far more transparent about the algorithms it employs, which can spread so many toxic falsehoods so quickly. As policymakers grapple with how to apply Mill's "harm principle" to the digital space, they should remember another version of that idea, contained in an adage often preached to young doctors: "First, do no harm." Steven Roberts teaches politics and journalism at George Washington University. He can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 This subscription will allow existing subscribers of The World to access all of our online content, including the E-Editions area. NOTE: To claim your access to the site, you will need to enter the Last Name and First Name that is tied to your subscription in this format: SMITH, JOHN If you need help with exactly how your specific name needs be entered, please email us at admin@countrymedia.net or call us at 1-541 266 6047. Baklava can be a demanding dish, according to Zoey Aldahash especially when cooking from scratch. The sweet pastry is made by stacking layers of phyllo dough, which is paper-thin and tears if youre not careful. But its the dishes that take time, she said, that remind her most of family. When Aldahash was growing up in Iraq, baklava was the quintessential celebration dish. Making it was usually a collective effort, something you did with family. Not just because the pastry could always use a few helping hands, but because it was more fun that way, she explained. Everyone would pitch in talking, laughing, enjoying one anothers company as they piled layer on top of layer. Those hours mean something, she said. Its those moments Aldahash taps into at her restaurant, Sweet Zoey, she said. The popular Middle Eastern eatery began as a home baking business in Casper in 2018. Her cooking quickly gained a dedicated following, and Aldahash launched a small cafe in the Sunrise Shopping Center soon after. Now, Sweet Zoey is reopening as a full-fledged restaurant. In late October, the business moved to a much larger location on CY Ave and 12th Street. The new space means Aldahash finally has the chance to build the restaurants menu, and a dining area that can accommodate more than a few tables and chairs. But to Aldahash, its more than that. Its about having a place to call home. Beautiful life Sweet Zoey started with just a tray of baklava, Aldahash likes to say. She and her husband Basheer are both from Iraq, but moved to Wyoming in 2017 after a short time living in Bengaluru, India. Aldahash, who holds a degree in architectural engineering, found a job at a firm in downtown Casper. Business at the firm was slow-going, however, so she decided to sell baklava on Facebook to make a little money on the side. To her surprise, her first batch sold out in a matter of hours, she said. Though an architect by trade, Aldahash has always been something of a chef, too. She would cook for her younger siblings growing up, so she had plenty of family recipes under her arm. After her baklava earned such high praise, she decided to add hummus and fatira, a kind of savory stuffed bread, to her rotation. She also launched her own Facebook page and website. Soon Sweet Zoey was a regular at events, including the farmers market, the Holistic Expo and the Cowboy State Expo, and Aldahash was catering to places like The Bourgeois Pig and Hat Six Travel Plaza. It was time to take a leap of faith, she thought. She quit her job at the firm and decided to focus on Sweet Zoey full-time. I was like, This is it. I have to follow my dream and just keep going, she said. The first location in Sunrise Shopping Center was originally supposed to be a commercial kitchen, Aldahash explained. She needed room to accommodate her businesss growing clientele; to supply all those event booths and catering gigs. But after some nudging from customers, Sweet Zoey rebranded as a cafe, complete sit-down dining space. It was a little cramped, but Aldahash made it work. Since then, Casper has become a second home to Aldahash, and its community, like family, she said. The name Zoey means beautiful life in Greek, she pointed out. So Sweet Zoey is her vision of a sweet, beautiful life. Its a lot of hard work, of course. These days, shes on the job from five in the morning to nine at night, she said. But then Im happy, right? she said. At the end of the day, Im happy. Its feelings and its dreams With a full kitchen now at its disposal, Sweet Zoey now offers Middle-Eastern staples like falafel, fries cones and shawarma. Breakfast options, like gyro burritos, bagels, muffins and smoothies, have also joined the mix. All the fan-favorite items are still available, of course: salads and soups, hummus (in three flavors) and baklava (in both pistachio and nut-free varieties). It didnt take long for Sweet Zoey to outgrow its inaugural address. Aldahash said shes been looking to move the operation somewhere roomier for a while. She bought the new space on CY in July from Bustard & Jacoby Funeral Home, which is right next door. Shes happy with the location its closer to the heart of town, she noted, and within walking distance of Natrona County High School. Aldahash put her background in architecture to good use customizing the space, she said. She was mindful of every detail from the layout of the kitchen, the earth-tone colors of the walls, tables and chairs, the decals on the windows. The light fixtures mounted on the front counter, she said, were made to look like Moroccan lanterns. Aldahash also commissioned a painting of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon, which will hang in the dining area once its done. The ancient city is right by Hillah, her hometown, she said. She wants the restaurant to be as personal as her dishes, she said a place that reflects that same sense of home, of family. Its not only time or place, its feelings, she said. And its dreams. Though the space is new, the restaurants logo the unmistakable pink apron isnt going anywhere. Its a reminder of where everything started, she said: baking baklava. Love 6 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. Extreme temperatures broke records in June, setting the stage for an unusually hot, dry and smoky summer. Conditions were severe enough to inspire many Wyoming residents to take stock of what appear to be changing climate patterns in the state. Anglers report that lower streamflows and warmer stream temperatures a threat to trout fisheries seem to be arriving earlier in the summer. Cyanobacterial blooms appear to be more common too, and ranchers lament the continuing drought and what feels like increasingly unpredictable seasonal conditions. These anecdotal observations align with more than 100 years of Wyoming-specific data, according to J.J. Shinker, professor at the University of Wyoming Department of Geology and Geophysics. While increases in temperature dont appear to be reflected in significant changes in precipitation, the temperature increases are impacting water resources through early snow melt, faster runoff and greater evaporation at the surface, all of which enhance drought, Shinker said. To better understand how climate is changing in the state, Shinker said, its important to consider Wyomings place in the world and its wide-ranging topography from lowlands at 3,101 feet elevation to high peaks of 13,809 feet. Perhaps the most significant climate trend in Wyoming is that its highest elevations are warming fastest. Thats important, Shrinker said, because less than 8% of Wyomings surface 10,000 feet in elevation and higher serves as a snow and glacial waterbank, and a primary driver of annual spring runoff. And spring runoff helps drive large portions of Wyomings biological health and economy. Intense springtime warming and increasing variability in both temperature and precipitation are also critical trends. The annual mean springtime temperature in the Upper North Platte Valley, for example, has increased by 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1920, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. Thats more than triple the global average increase of 1 degree Fahrenheit. That rate of warming has major implications for a watershed that millions of people depend on. In other words, when and where temperatures are increasing most, and when and where precipitation falls and melts, shapes the pulse of life and commerce in Wyoming. And that pulse is changing in ways that indicate significant disruptions. With the help of MITs Environmental Solutions Initiative and the University of Wyomings Department of Geology & Geophysics, WyoFile examined Wyoming climate data to learn how climate change is playing out in the state. The statewide annual mean temperature increased 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit from 1920 to 2020, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data. Whats more consequential to Wyoming residents, though, are the geographic- and seasonal-specific trends. Thats because temperature significantly drives water availability in arid Wyoming both generally throughout the year and more specifically during spring runoff. And water availability defines much of Wyomings natural and human-built systems. Underlying the annual mean temperature change of +2.2 degrees Fahrenheit are more granular changes. Temperatures are increasing every month and every season of the year and at different rates. Wyomings winters, for example, are warming at an alarming pace. The annual mean temperature trend for Wyomings winter season since 1920 is +2.8 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the annual mean temperature rise. This increases the likelihood of rain-on-snow events at high elevations, which erodes the longevity of high-elevation snowpack. In the context of water availability, that plays directly into Wyomings critical spring season. Among Wyomings seasons, the annual springtime mean temperature trend is steepest: +2.9 degrees Fahrenheit. This results in earlier and accelerated melt, which presents myriad changes and challenges. Not only does it increase the likelihood of springtime flooding and surface-to-atmosphere evaporation, it also means that irrigated crop and ranching operations have a shrinking time window to benefit from spring runoff. Reservoirs and irrigation systems have only so much capacity and work most efficiently with an ample and steady supply of melt runoff. A more intense and shorter-lived spring runoff may overwhelm irrigation and storage capacities, meaning the state cant make beneficial use of its water. These dynamics are already at play in south-central Wyoming. The rate of annual mean springtime temperature change for the Upper North Platte River region around Saratoga is +3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The result is, on average, the snowmelt starting approximately 13 days earlier than it did a century ago, according to research by the University of Wyoming. When spring runoff comes fast and short like that, its there and then its gone, Wyoming Water Association President Jodee Pring said. [Irrigators] are not prepared for anything like that. So I think we need to think about changing irrigation methods. Some of that is the timing of when they might plant and when they may harvest, because I think a lot of [irrigation and ag practices] are built on tradition. Although Wyomings summer and fall seasons are warming at slower rates, those changes still threaten to compound the effects of warming winter and spring seasons. The annual mean temperature increase is +1.6 degrees Fahrenheit for the summer season and +1.5 degrees Fahrenheit for the fall. Absent ample summertime rainfall, reservoirs might not be replenished for mid- and late-summer irrigation. The combination of warmer springtime and summertime temperatures also contributes to more evaporative loss and increases the likelihood of lower and warmer streamflows earlier in the summer a threat to aquatic life, including Wyomings trout fisheries. The trend has major implications for the Upper North Platte River Valley where its impact to water resources pose a threat to an economy rooted in agriculture and tourism. It also poses a threat to municipalities, businesses and agricultural operations throughout the 350-mile-long Platte River drainage in Wyoming, as well as for downstream users in Nebraska. Wyomings latitude and relatively high- and wide-ranging elevation are major factors when it comes to where warming temperature trends and variability are most consequential. Even slight temperature trends at high elevations can play an outsized role for natural and human systems for much of the state. Even during an exceptionally cold year, 2019, the temperatures at Wyomings highest elevations stood out as anomalous against a 30-year average, showing warmer temperatures than lower elevations that year. The same applies to 2012, Wyomings warmest year in recent history, revealing a persistently steeper trend in warming at high elevations. Variability and unpredictability have always been the hallmarks of precipitation in Wyoming and the interior Rocky Mountain Region, UWs Shinker said. Theres very little seasonality for precipitation here, with the general exception for winter snow accumulations at high elevation. That generally holds true when examining precipitation data trends over the past century; unpredictability and variability are still the primary hallmarks only more so. Consider the change in Wyomings annual mean precipitation over the past 100 years: -0.13 inches a mere 0.008% decrease from the annual mean of 15.93 inches. That alone is not substantial. However, the 100-year dataset reveals a distinct trend of increasing variability thats especially prominent in recent decades. The most extreme example is 2011, one of the wettest years on record in Wyoming, only to be followed in 2012 with the driest (and warmest) year in Wyomings history. Broken out by season, the annual mean precipitation trends over the past century are a mix of slight increases and decreases: winter, -0.04 inches; spring, +0.3; summer, -0.57; fall, +0.2. The data, which appears inconsequential, makes it difficult to project future trends. However, theres a clear increase in springtime precipitation variability, even compared to the increasing variability throughout the rest of the year. Combined with rising springtime temperatures, it increases the likelihood of severe springtime conditions, including dangerous late blizzards and flooding. Its also important to understand that an increase in variability and extreme conditions can have major implications for a state where life is generally dialed into seasonal patterns and relatively dry conditions. For example, 2019 was exceptionally wet the 17th wettest on record in the state but came during a long period of drought. Although it was some measure of relief, it also wreaked havoc for some ag operations. When an extremely wet year came along it [overwhelmed a lot of] infrastructure, said Rhonda Brandt, Wyoming state statistician for the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. The animals couldnt go to their normal grazing places because they were flooded out. The ranchers, they couldnt do their normal rotation through their pastures because things were coming ripe at different times. There was more disruption by that one wet year than by the last 50 years of dryness. Climate trends are also moving toward more intense and longer-lasting droughts in Wyoming. The Palmer Drought Severity Index uses temperature and precipitation data to estimate relative dryness. The trend over the past century indicates that Wyomings climate is moving toward more persistent moderate drought conditions than in the past. With continued warming, and if there is little to no increase in precipitation, the trend could escalate further, to more persistent severe drought in the future, according to the PDSI. Climate trends and their potential impacts could touch many aspects of life in Wyoming. Wildfires have already become more intense and more frequent. Warming trends also increase threats of invasive insect, plant and aquatic species. Changes already being measured, and felt, indicate transformation for all manner of habitat that supports wildlife, human health and economic activity. With those implications in mind, the time has come to start a statewide conversation, many say. Lets have a conversation about what we can do and how we can start preparing ourselves, Pring of the Wyoming Water Association said. What are we missing? What do we need to do, and what do state agencies need to do to educate people? Are we not publishing the right data? Is it too hard to understand? Existing data and ongoing analysis must be compiled and made readily accessible in ways that Wyoming stakeholders can understand it, UWs Shinker said. A climate assessment, led by a state climatologist, would be an important step in planning for Wyomings climate future, Shinker said. Assessing changing climate on Wyomings environment and economy is imperative for people in the state to prepare for future impacts. So far, theres no effort to conduct a comprehensive Wyoming-specific climate assessment, and Wyoming has been without a State Climatologist for a decade. A state climatologist is charged with making sure weve got that reliable data and then being able to serve that up to people to help them come to the table and have those collaborative conversations, Pring said. If people dont even have a base of where everybody starts and has the same information, the conversation isnt going to go very far. While there are no plans to fill the vacant State Climatologist position, a group of University of Wyoming faculty has applied to the National Science Foundation for financial support to build upon the Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment. Our aim is to develop the resources at UW to help communities across the state adapt and address the various challenges tied to the climate and related economic transition that is underway, said Bryan Shuman, director of the University of Wyoming-National Park Service Research Center in Grand Teton National Park, a lead author of the Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 1 Angry 0 Keep the faith. God is great and he knows best. Thats the uplifting message from New York-based singer Kevon Carter to the people of T&T during the current spike in Covid-19 cases here at home. T&T recorded 537 new cases of Covid and 17 deaths on Thursday. Carter, who returned to the United States earlier this year following the reopening of international borders, says he is disturbed by the continued rise in Covid cases in T&T. Trinidad and Tobago has experienced its deadliest day of the Covid-19 pandemic to date, with a record 28 new deaths being recorded yesterday. Among the deceased is a child. The Ministry of Health reported the deaths in its daily update yesterday evening. Given the low rate of vaccination, our population is wide open to death or hospitalisation from the Delta variant. That was bluntly stated in my column of September 5, ten weeks ago, with the foresight that the Government would helplessly wait around, self-praise tying up its brain, while its bouffs and bullying failed miserably to motivate the population to get vaccinated in sufficient numbers. No attempt at a creative legislative intervention to support vaccination was made. Green Valley resident Andy Lukomski is a retired businessman, a pit bull owner and, by his own admission, a devotee of medical marijuana. That last item, he says, is important for the reader to appreciate, as it explains his tongue-in-cheek, somewhat meandering approach to telling the story of how he launched a successful business provisioning prison commissaries. This is not your typical how to succeed in business handbook, although it offers useful take-aways and sensible advice. Lukomskis adventure in entrepreneurship reads more like a memoir, beginning with his upbringing in a Polish neighborhood in Michigan. He recalls how his business began and grew in a series of anecdotes about employees, warehouses, customers, and suppliers, freely interlaced with his opinions on any number of subjects that irk him, like organized religion, politics, and health insurance. The result is a fever dream of sorts, but the author does bring his message home: entrepreneurship is by no means an easy path, but success is possible with determination, a sense of humorand, maybe, some edibles. Helene Woodhams My Army Vacation and Other Struggles By Eugene Lowe (self-published). $7.44 paperback; $5.15 Kindle. My guess is, it will take a couple of weeks before things really start to pick up, he said. Water has already traveled further downriver than he thought it would, said Bogan, adding hes heard secondhand reports its reached as far north as Julian Wash, just south of 29th Street, and about 1.75 river miles north of the discharge point. What we dont know is how the infiltration dynamic will change over time, he said. When water first flows over soil, the soil tends to be a little hydrophobic, a little water repellent, because it hasnt had water on it for a long time. That allows water to travel farther, at first. But eventually, all the sands and gravel you see here become saturated, so the infiltration rate could increase, so the water wouldnt travel as far, he said. Still, Maybe the water here could get all the way to the other one, he said, referring to the original Heritage Project where water dumped into the river at about 25th Street. He thinks the Irvington area has the potential to match the richness of wildlife and habitat at 25th because of the channels relatively untouched nature at Irvington, he said. Its west bank is packed with desert shrubs and the sediment remains in place, he said. If you raise taxes too much, people will work less, Langhofer said. Even the differences between the tax rates here and in other states, he said, affect the economy, and by extension, state tax revenues. We all know people whove moved here from California partly for taxes, Langhofer said. He said Cooper is not free to determine that a referendum on the tax cuts wont ultimately affect state operations. The judge, however, said she must consider, and honor, the fact that the framers of the Arizona Constitution specifically gave voters the right to review and, if appropriate, repeal measures enacted by the Legislature. She said the constitution gives the Legislature the power to enact laws, including changes to the tax structure. The constitutional language does not stop there, however. But the people reserve the power to propose laws and amendments to the constitution, and to enact or reject the same at polls, independently of the legislature, Cooper said, quoting that constitutional language verbatim. And they also reserve, for use at their own option, the power to approve or reject at the polls, any act or item, section or part of any act, of the legislature. Bhattacharya recalled Gouris compassion, dignity and graceful appearance. For decades, Gouri gave donations for cancer research to various organizations, including St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital. The couple not having met married in 1967 in Kolkata after Rabis best friend, who was Gouris cousin, spoke to their families. She was the best thing that happened in my life, said Bhattacharya, who received his bachelors and masters degrees from Presidency College and the University of Calcutta, respectively. He completed his doctorate in statistics from the University of Chicago in 1967. The couple moved to California where Bhattacharya was hired as an assistant professor in the department of statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and then went to work at the UA as associate professor in the department of mathematics. In 1982, he joined the faculty of Indiana University as a math professor, and Gouri enrolled in classes, receiving a bachelors in history. They returned to Tucson in 2002, and Bhattacharya was hired as a tenured full professor in mathematics at the UA, retiring in 2018. During his career Bhattacharya had to travel to present at conferences, and Gouri, who enjoyed going on trips, accompanied him to Western Europe, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Brazil. Ask any diehard Hamilton fan what led them to the Tony Award-winning hip-hop musical and not a one of them will say they were searching for a history lesson. But dont be surprised if when you mention Hamilton they start singing The Schuyler Sisters or Satisfied or practically anything from the soundtrack that all of them will confess theyve listened to so much they can sing every word. The music itself, I cant get enough of it, gushed Tucson native Nikki Sanchez, a social worker who practically memorized the soundtrack long before seeing the show live for the first time a few years ago. Sanchez is one of five Hamilton fans we found who have been anxiously waiting for the show to hit the Centennial Hall stage with Broadway in Tucson after the show was put on hold in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The show runs Nov. 17-Dec. 5. Sanchez falls into our category of Diehard fan; shes seen the show live four times and has plans to see it three more in the next three weeks. The other fans have less of a relationship with the show but their devotion is just as strong. Diehard fan OPINION: Have an opinion on something or are you an expert on a subject? Write an opinion piece or a Letter to the Editor at tucson.com/opinion. It was shot long before the COVID shutdown, and when we were finished, Marty talked about sending a camera crew out to get shots of how empty New York looked during that time, she said. But I said to him, Marty, we arent journalists. People are going to know this was done before COVID. Just let it be. Lebowitz first moved to New York City in 1969, and has lived there ever since in large part, she once said, because I dont believe Id be allowed to live anywhere else. One of her principal subjects has been the evolution of her home city, especially as it has become more gentrified and prohibitively expensive. She said New York City is beginning to return to some semblance of activity now that restrictions have been lifted, but said she has no expectations of the city going to back to normal. Everyone hates change when its drastic and obvious and unusual, Lebowitz said. But heres the thing. Since Ive lived here, not one square foot of this city is the same as it was when I first got here. New York City changes constantly. Thats what people like about the city, and they wouldnt have it any other way. Lebowitz herself had to change to accommodate the way life was being lived in the Big Apple during the pandemic. Many of us have a love-hate relationship with our trees. We love them, but when the leaves begin to come down in the fall, that relationship sours a bit. By now it should be a familiar story for Tulsa readers: An investor buys a vacant and rather nondescript building, remodels it beyond recognition and puts it to use in a way thats entirely different from what it was originally designed for. Weve seen it happen, for example, with downtowns old OTASCO store, now a trendy mix of restaurant and retail space called Patio 201, and with downtowns old Chevrolet dealership thats now a collection of stylish apartments, and with several old warehouses in the downtown Tulsa Arts District. Now a local firm has gutted the long-empty Green Onion restaurant and given it a mixed-used makeover with new tenants that include Big Whiskeys American Restaurant & Bar and The Collaborative Coffee & Wine Bar. Most creatively, the Black Gold Group added kitchenettes and bathrooms to some nearby storage units to turn them into a series of 1,400-square-foot suites that can be used as co-working spaces, which some downtown property owners think will be a booming market in the age of COVID. But this isnt downtown. This is 51st Street near Yale Avenue. It just looks like a downtown development. Leadership Tulsa is honoring leaders across various sectors who have made a difference during the pandemic response as part of the groups 2021 Paragon Awards presentation. Members of the Tulsa community submitted nominations from which the award winners were selected. Sue Ann Bell is being recognized for her work keeping Tulsa Public Schools safe, clean and in good repair. As an already difficult job became exponentially more difficult during the pandemic, Bell exemplified leadership that inspires, encourages and supports her team. They would walk through fire for her, and her ability to stay positive and make each of them feel special is like nothing I have ever seen, the nomination letter states. Bruce Dart has served five local health departments in three states during his 36-year career in public health. He is the executive director of the Tulsa Health Department, with 340 team members. Dart has provided calm leadership and evidence-based information to keep Tulsans safe and informed while ramping up extraordinary efforts to provide community members data, testing and vaccination opportunities. The only difference between a child in the womb and a child outside of the womb is time," Lankford said. "Since the 1970s, science has progressed and confirmed a baby in the womb has a heartbeat and feels pain, yet, as a nation, we dont recognize that baby has value and worth." Many medical researchers disagree. According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, fetuses are not able to feel pain until at least 24 weeks of gestation. Little guys: First District Congressman Kevin Hern claimed during a Republican round table that "Democrats are trying to crush small businesses, so that big businesses can prosper. "The Democrats idea of the American Dream today is forever dependence on the federal government," Hern said. "Youre not smart enough, youre not intelligent enough, you dont have the wherewithal unless the federal government is engaged in everything you do and all aspects of your business. Bottom lines: U.S. Sen. James Lankford said CVS pharmacies have rejoined the TRICARE prescription drug network, thus resolving an issue for some veterans. State GOP Chairman John Bennett, in his weekly video address, acknowledged that the party has come under pressure from what he called "RINOs and the establishment" because of his aggressive targeting of Republican incumbents but said, "I am not going anywhere." Gov. Kevin Stitt asked the U.S. Secretary of State to delay implementation of a vaccine mandate for Oklahoma National Guard members. The state's Chief Protocol Office shifted last week from the secretary of state to the Department of Commerce. State Rep. Tom Gann, R-Inola, said he'll file legislation to block businesses from requiring employee vaccinations without full Food and Drug Administration approval, which until recently would have included COVID-19 vaccines. State Sen. Nathan Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, filed legislation that would require schools to teach the "atrocities of communism." People who were unvaccinated and had a recent COVID infection were found to be five times more likely to contract the novel coronavirus than those who were recently fully vaccinated and didnt have a prior infection. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention research shows the path toward COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease like the flu rather than a global pandemic is vaccination. The study, published Oct. 29 in CDCs Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, examined the cases of more than 7,000 individuals in nine states who were hospitalized with COVID-like illness. Dr. Dale Bratzler, University of Oklahomas chief COVID officer, said one of the most common questions he receives comes from individuals who have recovered from the disease and wonder if they should still get vaccinated. The general answer is yes based on CDC recommendations, Bratzler said, and he pointed to the CDCs latest research that shows the mRNA vaccines to be more protective than natural immunity. Bratzler also noted that many breakthrough infections people who were fully vaccinated and then caught COVID-19 occurred in individuals who were older. Peace is the desired order of our lives. Human beings overwhelmingly yearn to live in peace. Sustaining our peaceful existence in the face of substantial threats is at the core of our being. Keeping this peace requires the active participation of every community member. Thus, communities must be skilled in the art of threat assessment, which includes the ability to determine the credibility and seriousness of a potential threat as well as the probability that the threat will become reality. Today, our countrys peace and our ability to maintain and expand it is endangered by the proliferation of attacks on our Constitution and the democratic processes it protects. During my time as an Oklahoma peace officer, it became increasingly clear that threats to our peace extended beyond criminality and deep into political culture. While Tulsas police chief, I attended the FBI National Executive Institute in Washington, D.C., where two colleagues and I lunched with former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger. Not surprisingly, our conversation with Burger turned to constitutional issues. However, most of those seeking entry to the U.S. are being deported immediately without being granted the right to begin the asylum process. Some have even been sent back to Haiti, a country mired in economic and political chaos. The fundamental problem is that the laws, facilities and personnel now in place at the border were set up to handle migration flows of a quarter century ago, when most of those looking to cross were single adults from Mexico seeking employment. The system was not designed to handle families, unaccompanied children or a large number of asylum seekers. The result is a deeply backlogged system, with tens of thousands of individuals detained for extended periods in overcrowded detention centers. There are no silver bullet solutions, although many promising ideas for reform have been suggested that would speed up the asylum adjudication process and reduce the reliance on detention facilities. At the same time, any long-term solution needs to confront the reason so many people are migrating in the first place by investing in multilateral approaches to addressing violence, corruption and poverty in Central and South America. U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe recently said he was concerned mandating COVID-19 vaccines for our Armed Forces might harm the country's military readiness. This is ridiculous. The senator served in the Army and so did I. I remember standing in long lines to get multiple shots. When I was sent to Vietnam, I received more shots. Why would the Army force us to get vaccinated? We didn't ask for those shots. The Army vaccinated us solely to maintain military readiness. The Army didn't take a survey, a vote or ask permission. You got vaccinated to protect not only yourself, but your comrades. On a recent trip to Sapulpa's Ascension-St. John Hospital, the staff was very kind and appreciative that I wore a mask and was vaccinated, except for one nurse who is returning to truck driving because he doesn't want the government telling him what to do. A functional society requires us all to obey laws and do things for the benefit of all. A good example is polio, which most are vaccinated against. Polio didn't go away because a president promised it would "in a few days." Though Vietnams park rangers have no qualms about braving some of the countrys harshest terrains in order to protect wildlife, networks of camera traps deployed throughout nature reserves have absolutely increased their ability to observe, study, and protect the most cherished resource Mother Nature. In mid-September, six park rangers from Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary set off into the jungles of Thua Thien-Hue Province in central Vietnam to set camera traps digital cameras which detect motion or body heat that would allow them to protect and study the local wildlife. Led by 27-year-old Hoang Tan Phat, the group began their journey with a one-kilometer motorbike ride from the Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary park ranger kiosk to the edge of the forest. From there, they hiked 25 kilometers through lush forests and over several small waterways until they reached a place for setting up a night camp. A team of six people crossed many streams on the way to their campsite in Thua Thien-Hue Province, Vietnam. Three of the six team members were part-time employees of the reserve, tasked with navigating the group through the forest and doing most of the heavy lifting. The other three all full-time technical experts joined the trip to help set a network of camera traps across the reserve. These experts included Hoang Tan Phat, Nguyen Van Vien, and Tran Van Nhat. At just 23 years old, Nhat may have been the youngest member of the group, but he had already been on four trips to set camera traps throughout the forest. This trip, however, was special for Nhat because it fell on his birthday. About eight kilometers into the groups journey, two members of the team raced ahead to set up the camp and prepare dinner. The park rangers charged with setting the camera traps at Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary in Thua Thien-Hue Province, Vietnam relax with a simple lunch in the middle of nature. The rest traveled a bit slower, stopping often to lay camera traps. Still, even at the slower pace, the group did not waste any time dilly-dallying. We had to be quick in case it rained. That would have made the trip very dangerous, Phat said. That evening, they reached their campsite a small hill shaded by lush trees and flanked by a stream. It was a great spot to camp because we are sheltered from the rain, Phat explained. Harsh forest rains The next day, it rained until 3:00 pm, yet the team worked through the rough weather, using a specialized device to locate previously placed camera tracks. Camera traps at Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary in Thua Thien-Hue Province, Vietnam Their mission took them over massive rocks and fallen trees, with one member of the group clearing the way for the others using a small hatchet. The group found the first two cameras they were looking for quite easily. It was the third camera that forced them to descend a steep hill covered with large tree trunks, bushes, and branches. For nearly an hour, the group braved the hill and strong winds to reach the third camera, but the success did not mean they could let down their guard on the treacherous path. We may have to be very careful during the rainy season. If were not, we could pay dearly, Vien said shortly after slipping and nearly tumbling down a steep hill. According to park rangers, placing a camera trap is considerably more difficult than removing one, especially when it comes to picking the right spot. This Vietnamese crested argus (Rheinardia ocellata) was captured at 6:30 am on May 23, 2021 in this photo supplied by the Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary management in Thua Thien-Hue Province, Vietnam. Sometimes, it takes as many as four tires before they find the perfect location to capture images of the specifical animals they are targeting. There are times were out here in the forest for three or four days trying to make sure everything is perfect, Vien said. Happy fruits The 41,000-hectare Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary was established on November 13, 2002 and is considered crucial to the protection of the areas unique bird species, including the Vietnamese pheasant, or Lophura edwardsi. The first camera traps were laid in the sanctuary on June 5, 2016 and produced 2,306 photographs of 18 species of mammals and nine species of birds during their first 43 days in operation. The red-shanked douc an endangered species in Vietnam was recorded in 2017. Camera traps play a vital role in maintaining biodiversity and developing a better understanding of the populations of various animal species in national parks and reserves. Using this information, park rangers can develop appropriate measures to manage and protect the wildlife in their care. In the past, environmentalists and park rangers depended on footprints, feces, and other observable evidence to better understand the species under their supervision. Camera traps have eased the burden of these often ineffective and time-consuming methods. The 63 camera traps in Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary are funded by the World Wildlife Fund of Vietnam under the German-sponsored CARBI project. The cameras used in the traps primarily target land animals. For birds and primates, sound-based tracking devices are utilized, including the analysis of singing, hoots, and even food trails. Two wild boars were captured in 2021. The technical experts that set the traps need a sound understanding of each and every species they hope to capture in order to pinpoint the best place to hide the cameras. Reserves in Vietnam where camera traps are installed report vast improvements in keeping a record of birds and mammals. Among the first photographs taken with these hidden cameras was a picture of a large-spotted civet one of the rarest small-sized carnivores in the world. The large-spotted civet was considered highly endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature in June 2016 and experts even thought that it had become extinct in China and Vietnam. On March 12, 2016, 56 camera traps were installed in various areas of Phong My Ward in Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary and captured thousands of photos in just two months. A red-faced monkey was captured in 2021. The animals recorded included wild boars, porcupines, red-shanked doucs, lemurs, and even an endangered Truong Son muntjac a species which had not been spotted in Vietnam since 1997. Camera traps usually capture one member of a species at first, but later record an entire group, said Phat. It is not just a joy for us, but also an opportunity to learn about the animals and to keep them safe. The September trip to remove the cameras was the last one in 2021. The next trip will take place in April 2022. Each camera trap works with a set of either 12 or 20 batteries. They usually last for about two months before they need to be replaced. The park rangers at Phong Dien take two trips each year to substitute the cameras. The Truong Son muntjac, or Annamite muntjac (Muntiacus truongsonensis), was captured on camera on March 12, 2021 in this photo supplied by the Phong Dien Animal Sanctuary management in Thua Thien-Hue Province, Vietnam. The camera traps operate on battery power. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Fire swept through the intensive care unit (ICU) of a government hospital in India's western city of Ahmednagar on Saturday, killing at least 10 people and injuring several, a health official said. The incident is the latest in a series of such fires, some blamed on short circuits in electronic equipment, that have killed dozens of patients this year, including some in the richest state of Maharashtra, home to Ahmednagar. Authorities are still investigating the cause of Saturday's fire, said state health official P.D. Gandal, adding that just seven of the 17 ICU patients could be rescued from the blaze. "Two patients are critical, and five are stable," Gandal told Reuters. On Twitter, Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed anguish over the deaths, and offered condolences to the bereaved, adding, "May the injured recover at the earliest." At least 99 people were killed and more than 100 injured in the capital of Sierra Leone late on Friday when a fuel tanker exploded following a collision, local authorities said. Emergency crews worked to clear the scene on Saturday in Freetown's eastern suburb of Wellington where a burnt body and the blackened shells of cars and motorbikes blocked the road following the crash, a Reuters reporter said. The wounded were treated in hospitals and clinics across the capital, deputy health minister Amara Jambai told Reuters. Victims included people who had flocked to collect fuel leaking from the ruptured vehicle, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, mayor of the port city, said in a post on Facebook, although that post was later edited to remove the reference. An accident scene is pictured after a fuel tanker explosion in Freetown, Sierra Leone November 6, 2021. Picture taken with a drone. Photo: National Disaster Management Agency-Sierra Leone/Handout via Reuters "We've got so many casualties, burnt corpses," said Brima Bureh Sesay, head of the National Disaster Management Agency, in a video from the scene shared online. "It's a terrible, terrible accident." Videos shared online shortly after the explosion showed people running through clouds of thick smoke as large fires lit up the night sky. Reuters was not able immediately to verify the images, but witnesses described the horror. "We are all in shock. A lady I had just bought bread from died. A lovely woman. I cant get over this grief," said Abdul Kabia, crying at the crash site surrounded by mangled vehicles. Burnt collided trucks are pictured after a fuel tanker explosion in Freetown, Sierra Leone November 6, 2021. Photo: National Disaster Management Agency-Sierra Leone/Handout via Reuters Hospital overwhelmed The crash provided a major challenge for Freetown's health service already creaking from years of underfunding. The 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic gutted the country's ranks of medical staff, 250 of whom died, and the system has not recovered. Connaught Hospital was overwhelmed with the influx of patients, so some of the injured were moved to other locations, including a military hospital, said Swaray Lengor, a programme manager at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "The situation at the hospital, especially Connaught hospital ... is overwhelming. Inadequate medical consumables and bed capacity," Lengor told Reuters by text message. "NGO partners were requested to support with equipment, medical commodities and food." People watch burnt car and motorcycles after a fuel tanker explosion in Freetown, Sierra Leone November 6, 2021. Photo: National Disaster Management Agency-Sierra Leone/Handout via Reuters The death toll would likely rise, he said. The World Health Organization said it would send supplies and deploy specialists in burn injuries. "We will provide more support as needed at this terrible time for the people of Sierra Leone," it said on Twitter. People look at fire blaze following a fuel tanker explosion in Freetown, Sierra Leone November 5, 2021 in this still image obtained from a social media video on November 6, 2021. Photo: Facebook @FODAY.KONDEH.5/via Reuters Accidents with tanker trucks in Sub-Saharan Africa have previously killed scores of people who gathered at the site to collect spilled fuel and were hit by secondary blasts. In 2019, a tanker explosion in Tanzania killed 85 people, while around 50 people were killed in a similar disaster in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018. "My profound sympathies with families who have lost loved ones and those who have been maimed as a result," President Julius Maada Bio tweeted. "My government will do everything to support affected families." Here are todays leading news stories: Politics -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinhs working trip from October 31 to November 5, which included his attendance in the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) and visits to the UK and France, attracted committed investments worth over US$30 billion, according to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs To Anh Dung. COVID-19 Updates -- The Ministry of Health recorded 7,491 COVID-19 cases in 55 provinces and cities on Saturday evening, raising Vietnams tally to 961,038, with 839,101 recoveries and 22,470 deaths. -- Health authorities on Saturday carried out mass COVID-19 testing on residents linked to nine infection clusters that were recently detected in Xuan Thoi Thuong and Ba Diem Communes in Hoc Mon District, Ho Chi Minh City. Society -- Tidal water in Ho Chi Minh City reached 1.72 meters high on Saturday evening, breaking the previous record on November 16, 2020 and resulting in serious flooding in multiple neighborhoods. -- Police in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City confirmed on Saturday they were investigating a case where a man allegedly electrocuted his wife to death as she was being treated at a local hospital. The man had a failed suicide attempt following the killing. -- Many residents in the north-central province of Quang Binh blocked the entrance of a cement factory on Saturday to voice their complaints about serious environmental pollution brought about by the factorys operation. -- A one-year-old girl was killed after an automobile crashed into a room of a motel in the southern province of Binh Phuoc on Friday night, local authorities confirmed on Saturday. -- Police in north-central Quang Binh Province announced on Saturday they had arrested a 35-year-old man for stealing belongings worth over VND70 million ($3,090) of people inside a COVID-19 quarantine facility. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Residents of a province in Vietnam have blocked the entrance of a cement factory over the past days to express their grievances about serious environmental pollution brought about by its operations. People in Van Ninh Commune, Quang Ninh District, Quang Binh Province have set up fences, banners, and tents in front of Van Ninh Cement Factory over the past couple of days, Nguyen Huu Luong, the communes chairman, confirmed on Saturday. Such a protest has prevented trucks carrying production materials from entering the venue. Many officials have arrived at the scene but were unable to convince these residents to go home, chairman Luong added. In the banners, the residents demanded that authorities either shut down the factory or relocate them to another place. They said that environmental pollution cause by the operation of the facility has become increasingly serious, which negatively affects their health. The affected residents have complained to relevant agencies many times but the problem has not been solved. In early 2017, local residents used rocks to block the path leading to the cement factory for the same reason. Following the incident, the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment temporarily suspended the facility and fined the operator VND70 million (US$3,090) for releasing untreated dust into the environment. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A wall surrounding a resort in Vietnam collapsed on Saturday, killing two construction workers, local authorities said on Sunday. The resort is located in Cam Pha City under Quang Ninh Province, according to the local Peoples Committee. The two victims were identified as Pham Minh T., 38 and Trinh Tien T.,19, both hailing from Hanoi, who succumbed to serious injuries after being taken to the hospital. Early reports said that the wall around the resort suddenly fell down as builders had dug trenches about 1.5-1.6 meters deep close to the footwall to install electricity and groundwater systems. Binh Son Refining and Petrochemical Joint Stock Company (BSR) is the operator of the resort. Authorities had examined the accident scene and took samples for COVID-19 testing from the victims bodies before handing them over to their families. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! A shipment of more than 1.2 million Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine doses donated by the U.S. to Vietnam touched down in Ho Chi Minh City on Sunday, according to the U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City. Good news this morning! the diplomatic agency said in a post on its verified Facebook account. A shipment of 1.2 million Pfizer vaccine doses arrived in HCMC. With these safe and effective vaccines, we are one step closer to beating back COVID-19. The U.S. Consulate General attached a photo showing 1,203,930 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses having arrived in the city and the U.S. having donated upwards of 14.6 million vaccine shots to Vietnam as yet. Stay tuned for more great news! the consulate said in the same post. More than 1.3 million Pfizer-BioNTech shots given by the U.S. had been delivered to Hanoi on Saturday. Vietnam and the U.S. have cooperated in capacity building to help the former respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi. Such cooperation is built on their long-standing partnership, with the U.S. having provided almost US$1 billion to help improve the Vietnamese healthcare system over the past few years. The U.S. has committed $26.7 million to Vietnams effort to cope with the health crisis since it began early last year. In October, the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi received 77 out of 111 ultra-low temperature freezers, sponsored by the U.S. government via the Department of Defense, to store Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine doses. U.S. President Joe Biden said in September that Washington would donate an additional 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine jabs to nations around the world, taking its total donations past one billion doses, Reuters reported. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! The Ministry of Health reported 7,646 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, in addition to 1,301 recoveries and 61 fatalities. The latest cases, including 15 imported and 7,631 local transmissions, were recorded in 56 provinces and cities, the ministry said, adding that 3,332 patients were infected in the community. Ho Chi Minh City documented 1,009 of the domestically-transmitted infections, Dong Nai Province 997, Binh Duong Province 826, An Giang Province 427, Kien Giang Province 398, Tay Ninh Province 393, Bac Lieu Province 298, Dong Thap Province 289, Binh Thuan Province 279, Soc Trang Province 238, Can Tho City 210, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province 150, Hanoi 72, Khanh Hoa Province 60, Da Nang 18, and Quang Nam eight. Vietnam had detected 7,480 locally-infected patients on Saturday. The country has confirmed 963,757 community transmissions in all its 63 provinces and cities since the fourth virus wave emerged on April 27, 837,585 of them having recovered from the respiratory disease. Ho Chi Minh City is the largest hotbed with 438,624 patients, followed by Binh Duong Province with 238,905, Dong Nai Province with 72,173, Long An Province with 35,688, Tien Giang Province with 18,104, An Giang Province with 13,422, Tay Ninh Province with 12,656, Kien Giang Province with 12,090, Dong Thap Province with 10,788, Khanh Hoa Province with 9,256, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province with 5,368, Hanoi with 5,203, and Da Nang with 5,048. Vietnam detected only 1,570 locally-transmitted infections in total in the previous three waves. The health ministry announced 1,301 recovered patients on Sunday, lifting the total to 840,402. The toll has increased to 22,531 deaths after the ministry registered 61 fatalities on the same day, including 31 in Ho Chi Minh City, seven in Bac Lieu Province, and five in Binh Duong Province. Vietnam has logged 968,684 infections since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit it early last year. Health workers have administered nearly 90 million vaccine doses, including 1,214,737 shots on Saturday, since inoculation was rolled out on March 8. More than 28.7 million people have got two doses. Health authorities target to inoculate at least two-thirds of a population of nearly 98 million people against COVID-19 by the first quarter of next year. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Authorities in Vietnam have locked down an entire district with over 100,000 residents following the detection of a COVID-19 cluster. The lockdown was imposed on Yen The District, Bac Giang Province from 6:00 pm on Saturday and will be in force until further notice, according to the decision of the provincial Peoples Committee. During this period, local residents are required to stay home and only go outdoors for food, medicine, emergency health service, and work at certain factories. All non-essential services and businesses are suspended. People must keep a minimum distance of two meters in social interaction, while gatherings of over two outside offices, schools, and hospitals are banned. Residents are not allowed to leave their homes after 9:00 pm. The administration in Yen The District has been tasked with penalizing violators of these public health orders. The infection cluster in Yen The was first detected on November 1, and at least 20 cases have been linked to the cluster so far. The district is home to more than 100,000 residents, according to a local official. Bac Giang has documented more than 6,100 local COVID-19 infections since the fourth outbreak hit Vietnam on April 27. The province was the countrys largest epicenter during the first months of the outbreak, before the pandemic began to subside in the locality in late July. However, the number of cases there has been on the rise again, with 225 patients detected from October 26 to November 5. Bac Giang is home to five industrial parks covering more than 1,000 hectares and about 40 industrial clusters spanning over 1,380 hectares, according to the provinces news portal. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Japan's Sunny Side Publishing House has recently released an Ehon, a Japanese term referring to picture books, named Nhung Nguoi Ban (Friends) with illustrations by a Vietnamese artist. The collaboration between Japanese writer Aihara Hiroyuki and Vietnamese illustrator Vu Thuy Ngoc Ha, whose pen name is Dom Dom, materialized when the famous Japanese author suggested having the Vietnamese partner feature in the Friends comics. The copyright for the original version had been purchased by Vietnams Kim Dong Publishing House. Dom Dom was then tasked with drawing illustrations for the Vietnamese version, which was released in Vietnam last year. Author Aihara Hiroyuki (left) pays a visit to the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan and presents Friends comic book to Ambassador Vu Hong Nam. Given the books highly educational values, Hiroyuki cherished his wish for publishing it with the Vietnamese artists illustrations in Japan right after receiving the Vietnamese version of Friends. Until now his dream has come true when the release with Japanese discourse and paintings by Dom Dom has been introduced in Japan by Sunny Side Publishing House, keeping the same cover template of the Vietnamese version. The original combination of Japans content and Vietnam's visual is meant to bring out the beauty of daily stories in a familiar look, presenting lively drawings and poetic images, to Vietnamese readers. The childrens book Friends tells the story about Brown Bear, a big yet shy teddy bear, that is lost after a picnic with his owners family and the helpful Mun Cat who happens to show up and awaken Brown Bears bravery and warm heart while he is left alone in a completely unfamiliar place. The story characterizes the calm Brown Bear and the brave Mun Cat, while narrating how their warm friendship was struck up on a journey during which they earn each others trust from a chance meeting. The touching story educates children to explore the world of emotions, gain a profound understanding of the value of friendship, and to get to make friends with surrounding people. In a letter to readers, Hiroyuki spoke highly of Dom Dom, saying the Vietnamese artist once again revived [his] feelings with her wonderful paintings. I really like her paintings and hope you do too, he said. Have you seen the images of Japanese people embodied in the calm Brown Bear and brave Vietnamese people in Mun Cat? By showing the true friendships between the main characters, the Japanese author happily believes that children of the two countries will, over time, build such a close bond, that of Friends. The collaboration marks an integration event for Vietnam's book publishing industry and an important milestone for the Vietnamese illustrator, in recognition of her long-built and promising career in comic drawings. This supplied photo shows Vu Thuy Ngoc Ha, whose pen name is Dom Dom, who has been tasked with the visual presentation of Friends comic book written by Japanese author Aihara Hiroyuki. Dom Dom won the first prize of the Scholastic Picture Book Award 2019 (SPBA) for her comic book The Girl on the Roof and the Boy on the Beach. The book has recently been published in 2021 by Scholastic, a U.S.-based publishing group with over 100 years of experience. Dom Dom has noticeably provided multiple covers and illustrations published in Vietnam, including Hoang Tu Rom (The Straw Prince) in 2017, Ban Tay Cua Bo (Father's Hand) in 2017, and Chuyen Nay Chuyen Kia (This and That Story) in 2020. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam! Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. (Psalm 95:1-2) A planned trip to Cop26 by Irelands Environment Minister is back on after a negative Covid-19 test. On Saturday, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan announced that he had cancelled his visit to Glasgow after testing positive for coronavirus. On Sunday, he said a second test had a returned a negative result so he now intends to travel to Scotland for the climate change conference. Having previously been scheduled to travel to Glasgow on Sunday, Mr Ryan will now make the trip on Monday. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan will travel to Glasgow on Monday (Brian Lawless/PA) A statement from the ministers department said the HSE (Health Service Executive) had recommended a second test after the initial positive result. The public health advice in this instance is that the case is de-notified, close contacts are informed and the person can continue about their business, the statement added. Minister Ryan now plans to travel to Glasgow for Cop26 tomorrow (Monday). Minister Ryan has not been symptomatic at any point. He underwent the initial test as a precautionary measure as recommended by the organisers of Cop26. On receipt of the initial result he followed all HSE protocols, including self-isolation and informing close contacts. Mr Ryan has informed Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin and deputy premier Leo Varadkar of the development. Last week, the Irish Government published a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by the end of the decade. The 125 billion euro plan is set to transform how people travel around the country, heat their homes, and use public transport, as well as the production of food. Watch: COP26: What weve learned so far and whats next Tens of thousands of Ethiopians rallied in Addis Ababa on Sunday in support of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmeds government as federal troops fight rebellious forces who are threatening to march on the city. Some demonstrators denounced the United States government, which is among the foreign powers that have called for a ceasefire as a year-long war that has killed thousands of people intensified amid rebel advances last weekend. The United States, the U.N. Security Council, the African Union, and Kenya and Uganda have called in recent days for a ceasefire. Abiys government has pledged to keep fighting. On Friday, the government said it had a responsibility to secure the country, and urged its international partners to stand with Ethiopias democracy. Some of those gathered in Meskel Square in central Addis Ababa draped themselves in the national flag. Many singled out the United States for criticism. U.S. President Joe Bidens administration on Tuesday accused Ethiopia of gross violations of human rights and said it planned to remove the country from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) trade agreement. Shame on you USA, read one demonstrators placard, while another said the United States should stop sucking Ethiopias blood. Other demonstrators expressed anger at the U.S. call for the government and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) to begin talks. The conflict in the north of the country started a year ago when forces loyal to the TPLF seized military bases in the Tigray region. In response, Abiy sent troops, who initially drove the TPLF out of the regional capital but have faced a sharp reversal since June this year. Why does the U.S. government not negotiate with terrorists like al Shabaab? said 37-year-old Tigist Lemma, referring to an al-Qaeda linked militant group in Somalia. They want to destroy our country like they did to Afghanistan. They will never succeed, we are Ethiopians. Speaking at the rally, Addis Ababa Mayor Adanech Abiebe invoked Ethiopias history of resisting colonial power to justify the war. Story continues The conflict has killed thousands of people, forced more than 2 million from their homes and left 400,000 people in Tigray facing famine. No youth to front lines During the rally, there was one call for restraint, from popular musician Tariku Gankisi, whose songs call for unity of all Ethiopians. Let no youth go to the front lines to fight, let the elders go holding the fresh grass and ask for reconciliation, Tariku told the crowd, before his microphone was switched off, it was unclear by whom. Fresh grass is a symbol of peace in the country. A state of emergency declared by the government on Tuesday allows it to order citizens of military age to undergo training and accept military duties. Reuters has not been able to confirm independently the extent of the TPLF advance. The TPLF and their allies told Reuters last week they were 325 km (200 miles) from the capital. The government accuses the group of exaggerating its gains. The government has also complained about foreign media coverage of the conflict and some people at the rally held signs denouncing fake news in Ethiopia. Billene Seyoum, Abiys spokesperson, said in a Twitter post late on Saturday: Orchestrated media propaganda against Ethiopia is escalating ... Despite it all Ethiopia will overcome! (REUTERS) The world's second-largest military power may export its next-generation version of mobile S-500 air defense system to India and China in the future, said Dmitry Shugaev, who heads the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation (FSMTC). Once the national armed forces receive enough of those systems, Russia will start exporting its cutting-edge S-500 anti-aircraft missile systems abroad. Caspian News writes that Moscow is considering India, as well as China and all the states with which we have a longtime partnership and predictable mutual relations, as future owners of this cutting-edge system. According to Shugaev, India is a long-standing strategic partner of Russia. The parties had sealed a multi-billion deal that would supply New Delhi with the S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile system. The $5.43-billion contract the biggest of its kind in the history of Russian-Indian cooperation and the largest to date for Russias state arms exporter Rosoboronexport. The contract envisages the delivery of the first battalion set of S-400 to India by the end of the year. "That is why it is quite logical that they will display their interest in the foreseeable future and request the S-500 from us as well," Shugaev concluded. Russian S-500 anti-aircraft missile systems, dubbed Prometheus, are by far the most advanced anti-missile system in Russia and regarded as the best in the world. Branded as a silver bullet against stealth fighters in general and the F-35 in particular, the S-500 is reportedly capable of destroying low-orbit satellites and fifth-generation aircraft, in addition to its primary targets - cruise and ballistic missiles, which could already be dealt with by existing S-300 and S-400 units. Created on the basis of the S-400, the range of the new Russian air defense system is expected to significantly surpass its predecessors. The S-500 will likely use a variety of missiles in addition to the 77N6 missile series, currently under development for the S-400, as a hit-to-kill interceptor for ballistic missile targets.With a widely expected maximum operating range of 600 km (373 miles) and a system response time of 3 to 4 seconds, the S-500 reaches a whopping 200 km (124 miles) farther and is around 6 seconds faster to respond than its S-400 predecessor. The cutting-edge Russian S-500 system is developed by the state-owned Almaz-Antey Corporation, which also developed the S-400 and S-300 air defense systems. Currently, the S-400 Triumf is considered Russias latest long- and medium-range surface-to-air missile system. It can engage targets at a distance of up to 400 kilometers and at an altitude of up to 30 kilometers under intensive enemy fire and jamming. Meanwhile, Russia continues gradually building up its defense capability with the S-500 Prometheus anti-aircraft missile systems. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the system will be put into service in the nearest future. At the same time, the other cutting-edge weaponry will be supplied to the Russian armed forces amid a surge in NATO military activity along Russia's border. Russia is the largest arms exporter in the Caspian region and the worlds second-biggest after the United States. Russia is expected to export over $15 billion in defense products by the end of this year, according to the preliminary estimates. A year ago, on September 27, 2020, Azerbaijan's Patriotic War began. On that day, Armenia's occupying forces subjected the positions of the armed forces of Azerbaijan along the front line and the adjacent populated areas in Azerbaijan to intensive fire with the use of large-calibre weapons, artillery and mortars. Baku decided to launch a counter-offensive operation to ensure the safety of the civilian population. Vestnik Kavkaza offers its readers to follow the events of the 44 days of Azerbaijan's Patriotic War as they were covered a year ago At night and in the morning of the forty-second day of the war, November 7, exhausted artillery formations of the occupation forces of Armenia fired their last shells at the settlements of the Terter and Agjabedi regions, as well as the Aghdam region. The military unit of the Armenian special forces was completely eliminated. In the morning, the liberation of 16 villages in 6 regions of Azerbaijan was announced, the liberation Azerbaijani army entered the Khojaly region. The fighting for the advance to Khojavend continued all day. In response, Yerevan continued to spread fakes about strikes on Shusha, which by that moment had been almost completely liberated by the Azerbaijani special forces without the use of artillery and drones. Fakes about the destruction of the Azerbaijani column near Lachin and about the shelling of the Armenian village of Davit Bek were refuted. It became known about the elimination of several officers of the occupation forces of Armenia near Shusha. The occupants of Karabakh asked for help from the Armenians living in Abkhazia. After 16:00 Armenia committed the third terrorist attack in Barda. It was stressed in Baku that Yerevan continues to commit war crimes against the civilian population. In the evening, video documents were presented about the catastrophic state of the liberated villages of the Jebrail region. The invaders suffered serious losses in the Aghdam direction of the front. Unofficial messages about the liberation of Shushi were published. The Armenian Defense Ministry has recognized heavy fighting near Shusha. There were rumors about the resignation of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Late in the evening, while trying to retreat from Aghdam to Khankendi, an occupying military column was defeated. On Sunday night, the Russian media reported not only about the liberation of Shushi, but also about the escape from Khankendi of the remnants of the invaders, separatists and illegal settlers. Thus, on the forty-second day of the war, the defeat of Armenia was only a matter of time. The shelling of Azerbaijani settlements was reduced to a minimum, although an attempt was made to shell Barda again. Now the war was fought to a greater extent on the pages of the media, where the information field was attacked by an Armenian fake factory. Shusha was de facto liberated from the occupation, the liberation Azerbaijani army entered the Khojaly region of Azerbaijan. Everyone who could escaped from the occupied land to Armenia Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soder urged to speed up the commissioning of the "Nord Stream-2" gas pipeline as soon as possible, he said in an interview with the Funke media group. "A reasonable strategy is needed to ensure energy supply. For this, it is advisable to launch the "Nord Stream-2" pipeline soon in order to put gas prices in order," the TASS politician quotes. Soder stressed that the German authorities do not have the right to idly watch the rise in gas prices before the cold winter, noting that the residents of Germany are waiting for a prompt decision. The prime minister recalled that Germany is abandoning coal and nuclear energy, in connection with which the country increasingly lacks resources, in addition, prices and energy demand are rising in connection with digitalization and electromobility. Therefore, he specified, gas-fired power plants would become a reliable basis for stable gas production. In Dagestan, an action plan is being prepared to celebrate the anniversary of the poet Rasul Gamzatov. This was reported by the press service of the republican government. "We are forming a plan of events that we organize in the anniversary year - these are festivals, theater, school and other cultural events. In addition, we must determine what facilities we can build or reconstruct as part of the celebration of the anniversary," said the Prime Minister of Dagestan Abdulpakh Amirkhanov. He clarified that key events will take place in the Khunzakh region, native to Rasul Gamzatov, and in Makhachkala. Let us remind you that the centenary of the poet's birth will be celebrated in 2023, in accordance with the decree of the President of the Russian Federation, the organizing committee was approved. The first winter weather will come to Moscow and the Moscow region on Wednesday, said Yevgeny Tishkovets, the leading employee of the Phobos weather center. According to him, a meteorological winter is approaching Central Russia: next week "late autumn" will be replaced by "pre-winter". "For the first time this season, the average daily air temperature will be below zero, the earth will be covered with a symbolic unstable snow cover, freezing rain will be frozen over, and the roads will be covered with a crust of ice," the TASS forecaster quotes. Tishkovets explained that the corresponding changes will begin the day after tomorrow: on this day, by 06:00, the rain will turn into snow, which will create a temporary cover of 1 cm. gusts up to 12-17 m/s at real zero will give a sensation for minus 5-7 degrees in December. On Wednesday, the first "noticeable frosts" will come to Moscow, Tishkovets noted: it will get colder at night to minus 2-7 degrees, during the day the air will not warm to above zero, as a result, the average daily temperature will be negative for the first time in autumn. This, the forecaster pointed out, is the first sign of a meteorological winter. On Thursday, November 11, in the afternoon, the thermometer will reach a mark from 2 degrees below zero to 3 degrees Celsius, in the morning it can start freezing rain. It will mostly rain on the next two days, and wet snowfalls are predicted on Sunday in a week. The next day, real snowfalls will begin. "It will get colder to zero - minus 5 degrees, a snow cover up to several centimeters thick will form (in Moscow about 2-3 cm, in some places in the Moscow region up to 3-8 cm). On November 15, a meteorological winter will come," the meteorologist summed up. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will hold a trilateral meeting next week, said the press secretary of the Russian leader Dmitry Peskov. "Yes, indeed, such a meeting is being prepared, and it is being prepared in the format of a video conference," Interfax quoted him. Thus, Peskov confirmed the message of the Russia-1 TV channel (VGTRK) that next week there could be events with the participation of the Presidents of the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev, as well as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, dedicated to the anniversary of the signing of the trilateral statements dated November 9, 2020. According to the sources, the corresponding events in the mode of video conferencing are planned for the beginning of next week. The attempt on the life of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kazimi was committed tonight, the country's security forces told about it. The politician's residence, which is located in the well-fortified "green zone" of Baghdad, together with foreign embassies and state institutions, was attacked with mined UAVs, TASS reports. The head of government assured on Twitter that he was not hurt. The power structures clarified that he is in a safe place. Later, the Iraqi Interior Ministry reported that the attempt was made with the help of three drones, two of them were destroyed. The collection and reuse of agricultural by-products not only helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also helps farmers have the opportunity to enrich themselves. In the northern mountainous province of Son La, corncobs are no longer waste but have become "black gold". Millions of tons of corncobs have been processed into a kind of coal that generates high heat energy and produces low emissions exported to many countries. In Ho Chi Minh City, Trai Viet Company collects all kinds of agricultural by-products such as cassava residue, molasses, bagasse and corn cobs to process into tablet-formed animal feed for domestic consumption and export. Former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong introduced mushroom-growing models in the provinces of Vinh Phuc and Lam Dong, which used bagasse to cultivate mushrooms, earning very high profits. According to Cuong, for this model, bagasse is more valuable than sugarcane juice. He advised Vietnamese businesses to go to Japan to learn more about this technology. Huge resources Tong Xuan Chinh, Deputy Director of the Department of Livestock Production (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), said that in 2020 Vietnam produced a large amount of food and foodstuff products to meet the needs of over 97 million Vietnamese and for export, earning over 41 billion USD. In the production, preservation, preliminary processing and processing of agricultural products, the proportion of agricultural by-products was up to 156 million tons. A report of the Working Group 970 (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) indicated that by-products in the cultivation sector amounted to 88.9 million tons, accounting for 56.7% of Vietnam's agricultural by-products with three different sources. In particular, the post-harvest by-products mainly come from annual crops, firewood from perennial plants and from processing nuts, fruits, and vegetables. In 2020, post-harvest by-products from cultivation, mainly from stems, leaves, tops and roots of annual plants are estimated at 68.8 million tons; plus 3.5 million tons of firewood from perennial trees and 16.7 million tons from by-products from processing pulp, shell, silk shell, fiber, and coconut shells. Post-harvest by-products from cultivation with large volumes come from main crops, including: 42.8 million tons of rice straw, 10 million tons of corn stalks, 3.6 million tons of vegetables and fruits, 3.1 million tons of cassava stalks, and 6.1 million tons of other types. By-products from agricultural processing of the cultivation industry with large volumes include: 8.6 million tons of rice husks, 3.5 million tons of bagasse, 1.4 million tons of corn cobs, 1, 3 million tons of cassava barks and 2 million tons of other crops. In 2020, it is estimated that the total herd of cattle and poultry in Vietnam discharged 61.4 million tons of manure. In addition, there were 5.5 million tons manure from the forestry and nearly 1 million tons from fisheries. The Mekong Delta and Southeast regions currently have the largest amount of by-products in the country, with 39.4 million tons and over 13.9 million tons, respectively. From the perspective of a circular agricultural economy associated with green growth, according to Tong Xuan Chinh, by-products must be considered a renewable resource, not waste. This is an important input source of another circular process to extend the value-added chain in agriculture. For example, straw is used as raw fodder for grazing cattle, to plant mushrooms, and to use as manure plants... The market for collecting, packing, transporting and trading rice straw in the Mekong Delta is growing. However, a significant amount of straw is burned in fields in some places in the North and Central region, causing air pollution. In the central province of Binh Phuoc, cashew nut output is about 200,000 tons/year and the by-product from cashew trees is up to 800 tons/year, but it has not been used. Turning waste into cash Prof. Dr. Vo Tong Xuan, a leading expert in the field of agriculture, said the collection and reuse of agricultural by-products not only helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions but also helps farmers have the opportunity to enrich themselves. For example, longan seeds and lychee seeds have a lot of uses that we have not fully exploited. They can be used as fertilizer or processed into animal feed or even functional foods. But we are wasting precious things, Xuan said. Expert Nguyen Quang Thach affirmed that by-products are the "gold" of agriculture because the output of one industry will become the input of another industry. With 156 million tons per year, this is a huge source of raw materials, a precious resource, and a strength of Vietnam. Tong Xuan Chinh said that in recent years, some seafood companies have invested in high technology to process by-products into high added value products, earning hundreds of millions of US dollars each year. For example, Vinh Hoan Collagen Joint Stock Company in the southern province of Dong Thap is the first in the country to process fish heads, fish intestines, fish bones, fish tails into fish powder - raw materials for producing animal feed. This firm has also built a factory to produce collagen and gelatin from pangasius skin. Chitosan Production and Trading Co., Ltd. produces Chitin from shrimp shells and squid bones and chitosan and organic fertilizer from by-products of the seafood processing process. The seafood by-product processing industry in Vietnam reached about US$275 million in 2020. If exploiting all the by-products of nearly 1 million tons of the seafood industry by high technology, Vietnam can earn $4-5 billion. Investing in high-tech in processing aquatic by-products into raw materials for the cosmetic, pharmaceutical, medical and agricultural industries, especially in the production of raw materials for animal feed... has great potential, laying the foundation for the circular economy in the seafood industry, Chinh said. Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Tran Thanh Nam said that many by-products are still wasted, but this is a valuable source of raw materials that can increase agricultural value. He said that the potential for exploiting by-products agriculture is huge, but there must be accompanying policies. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan also affirmed that by-products of this industry will become raw materials for other industries if we know how to use appropriate technology. However, Vietnamese farmers have easily accepted and satisfied with what they have. Growing cashews is only for nuts, and other by-products are wasted. This is part of the reason why Vietnamese farmers, although working hard, cannot increase their income. To take advantage of by-products, the Minister said that it is necessary for research institutes and universities to find other values in discarded products. With the assistance of the State, farmers and businesses will jointly create new products from agricultural by-products. Thus, Vietnam will have a new billion-dollar strength, and farmers can also get rich. Tam An This year the Ministry of Education and Training was allocated with over VND5,430 billion for recurrent spending, over VND850 billion less than 2020. Vietnam plans to spend over VND299,325 billion (nearly US$13 billion) on education in 2021, down 4.7% from 2020, according to the Government's report to the National Assembly on education activities and disbursement of budget capital for education in 2021. Photo: Thanh Hung The paper points out numerous issues , including the fact that the state budget expenditure ratio for the entire education sector in 2021 is only around 17.3% of the total budget spending, which is below the required rate of 20% of the Law on Education. Many provinces and cities have not yet secured the required rate of 18% of spending the budget allocation for education on expetise activities in Decision No. 46/2016/QD-TTg, presenting difficulties in assuring local education quality. In 2021, the total revenues of education and training institutions at all levels is estimated at 38,550 billion VND, 15% less than 2020. According to the government, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and natural calamities such as storms and floods are the reasons behind the reduction of revenue of education and training institutions in 2021. Revenue from tuition fees dropped by 13%-18%. The National Assembly approved VND249,971 billion in recurrent expenditures for the entire education sector in 2021, accounting for 83.5 percent of the total budget allocated to the sector. According to reports by the Department of Education and Training of 63 provinces and cities in the country, the National Assembly-approved target will be fulfilled this year. The Government also pointed out concerns over the balance of recurrent expenditures and spending on investment and development in the field of education. It is noteworthy that the education sector is the most heavily reliant on finances so it is very difficult to reduce recurrent expenditures under a roadmap in accordance with Resolution No 19-NQ/TW (25/10/2017). In 2021, the Ministry of Education and Training is allowed to manage the disbursement of 2.2% of budget allocated for recurrent expenditure for education, which is sufficient to cover only 70% of the Ministry's minimal proposals. This year the Ministry of Education and Training was allocated with over VND5,430 billion for recurrent spending, over VND850 billion less than 2020, which is insufficient to cover essential demands. The ministry has proposed to be granted with an additional of VND721 billion for its recurrent spending in 2021. The Government has provided over VND293 billion, nearly VND428 billion less than the proposal. According to the Government report, by June 30, 2021, the education sector disbursed more than 2,513 billion VND of the allocated budget for recurrent spending, reaching 46% of the year plan. It is estimated that the yearly plan on recurrent spending will be completed this year. Thanh Hung Experts discuss State budget estimate for 2022 State budget allocation should prioritise poor localities with a high number of migrant workers, said Dr Nguyen Duc Thanh, director of the Vietnam Centre for Economic and Strategic Studies (VESS) at a seminar. The numbers are dropping now, and its probably safe, he said in a follow-up interview. But its too late for us to step in. Coffman said the organization does not support Parkers decision to proceed with planning and holding a parade. Nothing against him or his organization, and nothing against his support for veterans, but Coffman said the McLennan County Veterans Association felt it acted in good faith for all concerned. More power to them, Coffman said. But there are people out there who are not going to be a part of the parade. We are not going to be represented as an organization. Now, if someone from our group wants to attend as a member of another organization, thats their decision. Im a Mason and a Shriner, and Shriners have served as an escort group. Im not going because it sounds not two-faced but along those same lines. Parker dismissed any idea that he is attempting to hijack the parade. He said he simply wanted to pluck it from COVID-19s clutches this year, and he gladly will relinquish its sponsorship whenever Coffmans group wants it back. Discover Waco Craft Expo The Womens Society of St. Jeromes Catholic Church will host Discover Waco Business and Craft Expo from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at St. Jerome Catholic Church in the Mother Teresa Center, 9820 Chapel Road. The expo will feature many local businesses and craft vendors, food trucks and food vendors. To become a vendor, call Glenda Ruiz at 281-216-1859. HOT CROP Hunger Walk The Heart of Texas CROP Hunger Walk will start at 3 p.m. Nov. 14 at the Bledsoe Miller Pavilion, 300 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The walk will benefit Caritas of Waco and Church World Service, an international, interfaith relief-and-development organization. The event is sponsored by the McLennan County Hunger Coalition and the Greater Waco Interfaith Alliance. Registration will start at 2 p.m. Ten walkers will receive prizes selected from the Hidden Treasures by Caritas stores. For more information about the event, contact Charley Garrison at centexmcc@earthlink.net or Katie Cook at 254-755-7745 or seedseditor1@gmail.com. Special COVID-19 service Across the nation, there is a never-ending drumbeat to entice lawmakers, the media, and the general public into supporting policies that create competition for local electric companies. Known as deregulation, this policy allows third-party retailers to sell individuals and businesses their electricity. Supporters of deregulation portray competition as good for consumers, but this couldnt be further from the truth. In reality, these third-party retailers are often shady companies that rip off unsuspecting customers with promises of lower electric bills that actually go up over time; in other words, a bait-and-switch. Recent studies in favor of third-party retailers have used all kinds of tricks and statistics in attempts to prove the customers in deregulated states benefit. An analysis of a recent study by the Pacific Research Institute found that competition in power markets has been a boon for consumers and that their rates have been steadily declining or flat over the last five years. That is a nice statistic, but also misleading. The system that brings food to our family tables is a remarkable feat of science, engineering and skilled labor. Its many components agricultural production, marketing, transportation and retail keep spinning along. The system is always reliable and never failing, until it does. Our food system has not failed but it is showing serious signs of stress in this pandemic-shocked time. It only seems to be flawless and infallible. Most of us never think about it. Then, we see a few empty shelves and corresponding news reports. The result can be a scare that ranges from annoyance to panic buying. Our food supply is not a constantly full larder but more like a conveyor belt that moves products to us in a steady stream. At least it was built to work that way. It is subject to breaking down. Much of the bounty we see in grocery stores is perishable. Most of it arrives by truck. Its more fragile than we think, and subject to external factors. While driving toward a carbon-free future, Mansoor cautioned against utilities going so fast into renewables the nation ignores the ongoing carbon-reduction programs of other industries. Further, if utilities cant meet the electricity demands of transportation or manufacturing, these industries will turn away from the electric solution. Overall, we looked at the numbers and they showed a huge national role in decarbonization for the electric utility industry, Mansoor said. However, the transition is fraught. It must be managed, sometimes using more gas until the system can be totally weaned from fossil fuels, he said. An orderly transition is vital. Vince said the electric utility world has experienced a lot of volatility from severe weather due to climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic and cyberintrusions. If I were to boil down to one word what is vital for utilities, it would be resilience. Resilience is an ongoing utility goal: It is the ability of a single utility or a group of utilities to bounce back from adversity, often by restoring power quickly. Anterixs Robert Schwartz said that with his companys private broadband networks and the deployment of enough sensors, a utility could identify a power line break in 1.4 seconds, before it hits the ground. Republican state Rep. Matt Krauses formal Oct. 25 letter initiating a statewide inquiry into what books regarding race or sexuality sit on school library shelves and whether they make students feel discomfort has prompted some Texans to panic over whether this action paves the way for good, old-fashioned book burnings. Probably not, but who knows anymore? Let pause, however, to consider some of the dynamics in play. First, lets stamp Krauses inquiry as what it is a campaign stunt concocted by a guy with little to no statewide name recognition whos running against three heavyweights in the fast-approaching Republican primary election for state attorney general. If Krauses inquiry was serious, he would have made such a move in concert with other members of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating that he chairs. He didnt. Lost leader I remember when the Y burned and while it was still smoking, Hyden asked me if I could go into the fire over near the wall and find her computer. I told her that I would, and got my men to place a ladder on the wall and hand me another one so I could go down to her area once I was inside. Randle Kyle helped me get to her computer and to pull it up over the wall. We turned it on, and it appeared to still be in working condition. Once she cleaned it up, it ran perfectly. It had no backup, but all the information was still there and not ruined. Imagine ... being hunkered down for months ... making art, then coming out of the pandemic and getting that art out and into peoples hands." For parents living in poverty, diaper math is a familiar and distressingly pressing daily calculation. Babies in the U.S. go through six to 10 disposable diapers a day, at an average cost of $70 to $80 a month. Name-brand diapers with high-end absorption sell for as much as a half a dollar each and can result in upwards of $120 a month in expenses. One in every three American families cannot afford enough diapers to keep their infants and toddlers clean, dry and healthy, according to the National Diaper Bank Network. For many parents, that leads to wrenching choices: Diapers, food or rent? The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the situation, both by expanding unemployment rolls and by causing supply chain disruptions that have triggered higher prices for a multitude of products, including diapers. Diaper banks community-funded programs that offer free diapers to low-income families distributed 86% more diapers on average in 2020 than in 2019, according to the National Diaper Bank Network. In some locations, distribution increased by as much as 800%. Yet no federal program helps parents pay for this childhood essential. The governments food assistance program does not cover diapers, nor do most state-level public aid programs. California is the only state to directly fund diapers for families, but support is limited. CalWORKS, a financial assistance program for families with children, provides $30 a month to help families pay for diapers for kids under age 3. Federal policy shifts also may be in the works: Democratic lawmakers are pushing to include $200 million for diaper distribution in the massive budget reconciliation package. Without adequate resources, low-income parents are left scrambling for ways to get the most use out of each diaper. This stressful undertaking is the subject of a recent article in American Sociological Review by Jennifer Randles, a professor of sociology at California State University-Fresno. In 2018, Randles conducted phone interviews with 70 mothers in California over nine months. She tried to recruit fathers as well, but only two men responded. Randles spoke with KHNs Jenny Gold about how the cost of diapers weighs on low-income moms, and the inventive mothering many low-income women adopt to shield their children from the harms of poverty. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Q: How do diapers play into day-to-day anxieties for low-income mothers? In my sample, half of the mothers told me that they worried more about diapers than they worried about food or housing. I started to ask mothers, Can you tell me how many diapers you have on hand right now? Almost every one told me with exact specificity how many they had five or seven or 12. And they knew exactly how long that number of diapers would last, based on how often their children defecated and urinated, if their kid was sick, if they had a diaper rash at the time. So just all the emotional and cognitive labor that goes into keeping such careful track of diaper supplies. They were worrying and figuring out, OK, Im down to almost my last diaper. What do I do now? Do I go find some cans [to sell]? Do I go sell some things in my house? Who in my social network might have some extra cash right now? I talked to moms who sell blood plasma just to get their infants diapers. Q: What coping strategies stood out to you? Those of us who study diapers often call them diaper-stretching strategies. One was leaving on a diaper a little bit longer than someone might otherwise leave it on and letting it get completely full. Some mothers figured out if they bought a (more expensive) diaper that held more and leaked less, they could leave the diaper on longer. They would also do things like letting the baby go diaperless, especially when they were at home and felt like they wouldnt be judged for letting their baby go without a diaper. And they used every household good you can imagine to make makeshift diapers. Mothers are using cloth, sheets and pillowcases. Theyre using things that are disposable like paper towels with duct tape. Theyre making diapers out their own period supplies or adult incontinence supplies when they can get a sample. One of the questions I often get is, Why dont they just use cloth? A lot of the mothers that I spoke with had tried cloth diapers and they found that they were very cost- and labor-prohibitive. If you pay for a full startup set of cloth diapers, youre looking at anywhere from $500 to $1,000. And these moms never had that much money. Most of them didnt have in-home washers and dryers. Some of them didnt even have homes or consistent access to water, and its illegal in a lot of laundromats and public laundry facilities to wash your old diapers. So the same conditions that would prevent moms from being able to readily afford disposable diapers are the same conditions that keep them from being able to use cloth. Q: You found that many womens concept of being a good mother is wrapped up in diapering. Why is that? Diapers and managing diapers was so fundamental to their identity as good moms. Most of the mothers in my sample went without their own food. They werent paying a cellphone bill or buying their own medicine or their own menstrual supplies, as a way of saving diaper money. I talked to a lot of moms who said, when your baby is hungry, thats horrible. Obviously, you do everything to prevent that. But theres something about a diaper that covers this vulnerable part of a very young babys body, this very delicate skin. And being able to do something to meet this human need that we all have, and to maintain dignity and cleanliness. A lot of the moms had been through the welfare system, and so theyre living in this constant fear (of losing their children). This is especially true among mothers of color, who are much more likely to get wrapped up in the child welfare system. People cant necessarily see when your babys hungry. But people can see a saggy diaper. Thats going to be one of the things that tags you as a bad mom. Q: Was your work on diapers influenced by your experience as a parent? When I was doing these interviews, my daughter was about 2 or 3. So still in diapers. When my daughter peed during a diaper change, I thought, Oh, I can just toss that one. Here, let me get another clean one. Thats a really easy choice. For me. Thats a crisis for the mothers I interviewed. Many of them told me they have an anxiety attack with every diaper change. Q: Do you see a clear policy solution to diaper stress? Whats kind of ironic is how much physical, emotional and cognitive labor goes into managing something that society and lawmakers dont even recognize. Diapers are still not really recognized as a basic need, as evidenced by the fact that theyre still taxed in 35 states. I think what California is doing is an excellent start. And I think diaper banks are a fabulous type of community-based organization that are filling a huge need that is not being filled by safety net policies. So, public support for diaper banks. The direct cash aid part of the social safety net has been all but dismantled in the last 25 years. California is pretty generous. But there are some states where just the cost of diapers alone would use almost half of the average state TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) benefit for a family of three. I think we really do have to address the fact that the value of cash aid buys so much less than it used to. Q: Your body of work on marriage and families is fascinating and unusual. Is there a single animating question behind your research? The common thread is: How do our safety net policies support low-income families parenting goals? And do they equalize the conditions of parenting? I think of it as a reproductive justice issue. The ability to have a child or to not have a child, and then to parent that child in conditions where the childs basic needs are met. We like to say that were child and family friendly. The diaper issue is just one of many, many issues where we dont really put our money or our policies where our mouth is, in terms of supporting families and supporting children. I think my work is trying to get people to think more collectively about having a social responsibility to all families and to each other. No country, but especially the richest country on the planet, should have 1 in 3 very young children not having one of their basic needs met. I interviewed one dad who was incarcerated because he wrote a bad check. And as he described it to me, he had a certain amount of money, and they needed both diapers and milk for the baby. And Ill never forget, he said, I didnt make a good choice, but I made the right one. These are not fancy shoes. These are not name-brand clothes. This was a dad needing both milk and diapers. I dont think it gets much more basic than that. ___ KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 WATERLOO Antiques from Waterloos past are hitting the auction block this week to clear the way for the sale of the citys historic Blacks Building. Richard Penn Auctions, known for vintage finds, is administering the sale of pieces from Vern and Donna Nelsons private collection, many of them stored in remote corners of the eight-story building at 501 Sycamore St. Excavating the 501 building was a real adventure, Penn said. Great pieces were stuffed away on just about every floor. The collection includes fixtures, cabinets and signs from businesses both based at the Blacks Building and elsewhere around Waterloo as well as antiques the family brought over from Europe. Theres a lot of memories in this building, said Penn, recounting how as a child he met his hero, singing cowboy Gene Autry, during a special event at Blacks. He still carries of photo of the encounter on this cellphone. After posting photos of some of the historic items online, Penn was inundated with messages from people sharing their own memories of the department store and how it was a community hub. The upcoming auction has other personal ties for Penn. He points out a grouping of stained-glass windows and remembers how they had originally been auctioned off by a church years ago. Donna Nelson bought some of them, Penn bought some of them, and now hes selling Nelsons for her. Were just renting this stuff, and then someone else gets to rent it, he said of the nature of antiques. The three day sale runs Friday, Nov. 12, through Sunday, Nov. 14, with both online and in-person bidding at two locations the Blacks Building and the Waterloo Convention Center at Sullivan Brothers Plaza, 200 W. Fourth St. The auction totals 1,700 lots from the Nelsons and other sellers and the contents of a 1890s drugstore from West Point, Iowa. Fridays auction will be at the Blacks Building with about 500 lots from Nelsons collection. It starts at 10 a.m. with a two-hour, in-person-only bidding on last-minute finds that arent included in the catalog. The catalog session, with internet participation, begins at noon and includes a collection of stained glass. If there were to be a department store for stained glass, this could be the beginning, Penn said. Dozens of stained glass window sets with monumental examples from the 1900s are included. Other pieces include a Hallet & Davis concert grand piano, post office and bank teller windows, five-foot wide copper cheese vat, a Brunswick Monarch pool table, a Chandler & Price printing press circa 1900, and a walnut British lift cab elevator. The item so far gathering the most interest online is a small coffin. Penn lifts the lid to reveal a real skeleton minus the skull inside. He said the casket and remains were found in the Blacks basement and may have come from a fraternal club. The Saturday and Sunday auctions will be at the Waterloo Convention Center starting at 9 a.m. with items from other sellers. The two sessions at the Convention Center have a fun feeling and fun flavor completely different than the Friday session, Penn said. Saturday items include a low-mileage 1979 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow the lone Saturday item from the Nelsons and a 1963 Jaguar Mark 2 as well as smaller items like Teddy bears, early hand-carved rocking horses and cast iron toys and mechanical banks. There is also a small collection of vintage guitars including a 1960s Gibson Les Paul, Gibson mandolin and a Gibson Arch-Top. Also featured Saturday is the contents of the 1890s West Point drugstore. The first hour Sunday will offer about 100 non-cataloged items for in-person bidders before catalog bidding begins at 10 a.m. Lots include drug store items, cash registers, kiddie rides and juke boxes. The catalog can be found online at www.RichPennAuctions.com and contains items too many to list. Absentee and phone bidding is also allowed, for more information call (319) 291-6688. Both the Nelsons and Midtown Development, which operates the Blacks Building, filed for bankruptcy reorganization this summer. Court records indicate the auction items owned by the Nelsons are being removed to help with the buildings sale. No further details were available about the buildings sale. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get local news delivered to your inbox! Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. WATERLOO A 28-year-old man badly damaged a bathroom at a National Cattle Congress venue early Sunday when his pickup truck crashed through the wall. Waterloo Police said the vehicle driven by Leonardo Ruiz Mendez, of 320 Courtland St., hit the side of the Pepsi Pavilion. It broke through the corrugated metal wall and partially ended up in the womens bathroom, knocking a counter with four sinks off the wall. No one was in the bathroom when the crash occurred. Officers were called to the scene, 257 Ansborough Ave., at 1:35 a.m. Mendez refused a field sobriety test, police said, but they determined him to be intoxicated. He was arrested for first offense operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated. The Cattle Congress patched the exterior of the building Sunday morning, but the interior of the bathroom remained a mess. Officials were waiting to get estimates on the cost of repairing the damage. Karen Coffin, who manages the Pepsi Pavilion and Electric Park Ballroom, said some upcoming events will not be able to be held at the pavilion with the bathroom out of commission. When officers arrived at the Cattle Congress grounds for the incident, they saw a fight in progress nearby. According to police, several people were trying to restrain a woman later identified as Jennifer Marylyn Ramirez, 26, of 1032 Lincoln St. Ramirez allegedly punched someone in the face, cutting the person, and spit on someone else. Police arrested her and when they were putting her in the squad car, she allegedly spit on one of the officers. She was charged with simple assault, assault causing bodily injury, assault of a police officer without causing injury and public intoxication. Love 0 Funny 2 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1 Sign up for our Crime & Courts newsletter Get the latest in local public safety news with this weekly email. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. WATERLOO The county tapped a small fraction of nearly $25.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds its received to get started on some much-needed projects. Black Hawk County Supervisors unanimously agreed Tuesday to fund all projects county department heads would like to see completed within the next year, with the exception of requests from the public health department due to questions about whether its entire vehicle fleet needs to be replaced. If all projects had been approved, the cost would have been just under $2.3 million, or 8.9% of the total amount the county is receiving, said James Perry, finance director. We have a lot of room in there for the extremely large projects, Perry told the board. Projects included in the first phase are $168,500 for dredging, repairs and upgrades at the Washburn lagoon, which the Iowa Department of Natural Resources says must be done and which would otherwise raise Washburn residents user fees dramatically. The county owns the system of grinder pumps and lagoon and hires a contractor to operate it. Customers in the unincorporated community south of Waterloo support the costs with user fees. I think this is a perfect example of what this funding should be used for, said chair Dan Trelka. Perry noted the repairs should get the lagoon through the next 30 years. The veterans affairs office will receive $54,000 for a shelter behind its new offices in the Pinecrest building. The jails clothing washer and dryer will be replaced at a cost of around $20,000 each, while digitizing the books from the auditors office will run around $85,000. The courthouse will replace its X-ray machine and metal detector for $82,000 and upgrade its phones for $70,000. The maintenance department will add three additional bays at a cost of $200,000, and Pinecrest will receive a half-million dollars to upgrade the HVAC system. Supervisors tabled the health departments request over questions of whether to spend $800,000 upgrading its fleet of vehicles, some of which supervisors speculated might not be that old. I think we need to come to some sort of criteria that we dont rotate cars out that have 90,000 miles on it, said Supervisor Tom Little. All of the approved projects will be added to a budget amendment for this fiscal year, supervisors said, while other projects will be added to the fiscal year 2023 budget and beyond. ARP funding needs to be allocated by December 2024 per federal guidelines. A space needs assessment, not done since 1995, is also part of phase one at a cost of $125,000. Its designed to prioritize projects for phase two of the funding, which could include larger infrastructure projects, supervisors said. The nice part of that is it will, just like 1995, lay out phases we can go on. They are going to know our timeline and the budgeted dollars, Perry said. That study is going to lay out everything for us in a nice little bow. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Get Government & Politics updates in your inbox! Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy. DES MOINES As Gov. Kim Reynolds promised, Iowa joined 10 other states Friday in filing suit against the Biden administration to challenge a new vaccine requirement for workers at companies with more than 100 employees. This mandate is unconstitutional, unlawful and unwise, according to the 14-page lawsuit filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit based in St. Louis, Mo., in which the challenging parties assert the authority to compel vaccinations lies with states, not the federal government. The suit filed by attorney general offices in 11 states asks the court to set side the new federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule on vaccines for employees of companies employing 100 or more pending judicial review. The petition was brought by Republican attorneys general of Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. The office of Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, a Democrat, joined in the suit, along with several private, nonprofit and religious employers. I believe the vaccine is the best defense against COVID-19, but I also firmly believe in Iowans right to make healthcare decisions based on whats best for themselves and their families, and I remain committed to protecting those freedoms. President Biden should do the same, Reynolds said in a statement. Under the OSHA directive, workers at larger businesses will have to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4 or face regular testing. According to U.S. Labor Department guidance, workers who choose the testing option may have to bear the cost, as well as beginning Dec. 5 being required to wear a face mask on the job. Officials within Democratic President Joe Bidens administration have been encouraging widespread vaccinations as a way to halt the spread of COVID-19 and end the pandemic. Last week Reynolds signed legislation that allows employees in private Iowa businesses to claim they are medically vulnerable or have a religious objection to a mandated vaccine based solely on their statements. rather than with the backing by a professional. Under the bill that took effect upon enactment, Iowans who lose their jobs for refusing to comply with an employers COVID-19 vaccination requirement will still be eligible for unemployment benefits if they are terminated. On the same day, Reynolds announced that Iowa had joined nine other states in a lawsuit challenging Bidens vaccine mandate for all workers employed by a federal contractor, which is one-fifth of the nations workforce. Ross Wilburn, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, noted that vaccination requirements are not new and have been implemented in schools, the military and other places as an effective way to control disease outbreaks. The governor is giving Iowans a false choice between the common good and personal freedom, said Wilburn, advising Iowans to get vaccinated, wear masks and stay home when sick. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 One rainy November day 20 or so years ago, the lovely Catherine and I were hopelessly lost in the streets and lanes of Glasgow, Scotland, while searching for an art museum. By the time we finally conceded defeat and hailed a taxi to take us there, we were soaked, shivering, and couldnt have cared less about art. That memory comes to mind as leaders of more than 120 countries meander around often-wet Glasgow for COP26, the United Nations latest climate summit, which, tellingly, had been delayed a year because of another curveball from Mother Nature, a global pandemic. So far, though, no leader there has gotten close to where these talks must go: a decisive international plan to stop killing ourselves with carbon, as requested by Antonio Guterres, the U.N.s secretary-general in the conferences opening speech. Instead, most have done the bare minimum of light lifting; theyve signed promises to curb methane emissions, end deforestation, and spend billions to help developing countries adapt to climate change. Therein lies the problem with climate change conferences. Earnest talk almost always relies on an economic analysis of todays ecological overshoot, says William Rees, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and the originator of the popular carbon footprint calculus. (An earlier paper on climate change by Rees was highlighted in an August Farm and Food File. That column is posted at farmandfoodfile.com.) The real problem, Rees recently explained in the online journal real-world economics review, is physics the laws of thermodynamics not economics and the laws of supply and demand. The human enterprise is in a precarious state of ecological overshoot propelled by excessive economic activity and growing populations, Rees writes. As such, this is not a technical problem amenable to technological fixes but rather a meta-problem with deep roots in both biology and culture. In short, any fix at this late date cant involve economic carrots like tax credits, government subsidies or, say, farmer/corporate partnerships in carbon sequestration because climate change isnt an economic problem fixable through tax code tinkering or cottony corporate subsidies. Indeed, its how we got here in less than 200 years. We created a dominant socio-economic system that, at its core, is economically extractive, not nature regenerative. That makes us unexceptional; most animals, in fact, do the same. Moreover, Mother Nature knows we are no different and, like other species (we are) subject to the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, the most important of which are the first and second laws of thermodynamics and the law of conservation of mass. They are laws, Rees explains, because everything in nature including us is a self-producing dissipative structure and the more important flows in the economy are not circular flows of abstract money value but ... irreversible one-way flows of energy and matter. And those one-way flows have been headed south for decades with us as the drivers. Equally important is that no amount of net-this or net-that has a snowballs chance in our ever-hotter world of ever working. Real change is net reversal everything, not net zero anything, and will require dramatic change. How dramatic? Upside-down dramatic, suggests Rees, who lists nine specific ideas like Create national sub-systems of self-reliant bioregions centered on existing smaller cities and Reintegrate animal husbandry with food-cropping in keeping with sound soils management. All are 180 degrees from the capital intensive, growth-oriented solutions supported by governments, corporations, and international organizations now in Glasgow that are narrowly focused on climate change, a solitary symptom of economic overshoot that emerges from an economic vision devoid of bio-physical insight. There is room for hope, though. The tide may be turning. Increasing number of thoughtful citizens recognize that the most effective stimulus for rapid social progress has always been popular resistance. In short, we need to stop waiting for political leaders to solve this problem; theyve had more than 40 years and are still walking in circles in the Glasgow rain. The Farm and Food File is published weekly through the U.S. and Canada. Source material and contact information are posted at www.farmandfoodfile.com. Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 My how quickly things can change with the right message and the right messenger. Glen Youngkins impressive victory over Democrat retread Terry McAuliffe in the race for Virginia governor ought to be a reminder that kindness wins over name-calling and that issues are more important than personality. Parents in Virginia saw the curtain pulled back on the indoctrination of values counter to their own in public schools. McAuliffe denied critical race theory was being taught in public schools, but a visit to the Virginia Department of Education web page shows three different instances in which it was promoted, including back in 2015 when McAuliffe was governor. The site also uses the term white fragility and references a presentation that encourages teachers to embrace Critical Race Theory in order to re-engineer attitudes and belief systems. The constant focus on race, class and division is wearing thin and it would appear, at least in Virginia, that many voters have tired of it. Can we move on from divide and conquer in favor of promoting togetherness as Americans? In his victory speech that is what Youngkin did, speaking less about himself and more about his fellow Virginians and fellow Americans. Donald Trump take note. Lt. Governor-elect Winsome Sears achieved historical success once before when in 2002 she became the first Black Republican woman elected to the House of Delegates, defeating a 20-year incumbent Democrat. Her victory is a slap in the face to those Democrats who are the real racists when they keep pitting us against each other. It was a clean sweep for Republicans as they also took back the office of attorney general and flipped the House of Delegates from Democrat to a GOP majority. Suddenly all those claims that Virginia has turned irreversibly blue seemed to have been wishful thinking by Democrats and the media, which kept promoting it as a state lost forever to Republicans. Independents, who helped Joe Biden win the state by 10 points last year, moved in large numbers to Youngkin. Vice President Kamala Harris, who made a video targeting Virginias black church members, urging them to vote for McAuliffe, predicted before the election that results in Virginia would forecast what next years congressional races will look like, as well as the 2024 presidential contest. Republicans can only wish she has the gift of prophecy. The New Jersey governors race was surprisingly close, another shock to Democrats in a deeply blue state. And Minneapolis voters, apparently, took a sanity pill and refused to cancel their police department, despite millions of dollars that poured into the city from left-wing groups, most of them outside the city and state. Youngkin perfectly positioned himself when it came to Trump and his supporters. He did not reject Trumps endorsement, but neither did he dwell on it, or ask the former president to campaign for him. Those rural voters who voted for Trump appeared comfortable voting for Youngkin. Will that strategy work elsewhere? It might. A lot depends on whether Trump runs in 2024. Youngkin and his administration will be judged on whether they are able to fulfill their promises, which is as it should be. Meanwhile for Virginia Republicans, happy days are here again, at least for now. Email Cal Thomas at tcaeditorstribpub.com. Love 4 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 Four years ago, a Democratic sweep in Virginia and victories in scattered off-year suburban elections were the forerunner of the partys future success in regaining the House in 2018 and the presidency in 2020. Republicans hope their similar victories Tuesday in Virginia and elsewhere prove the same advance indicator. And many Democrats fear the GOP breakthroughs and a negative political environment from the COVID pandemics continuing impact foreshadow a poor mid-term showing in 2022 that could cost them the House and perhaps the Senate. Perhaps more importantly, Glenn Youngkins election as Virginias next governor showed Republicans a path to benefit from the GOP enthusiasm engendered by former President Donald Trump and avoid the negative fallout from the former presidents controversial presidency and his continuing claims that fraud caused his 2020 defeat. A businessman and neophyte candidate, Youngkin succeeded in keeping some distance from Trump. Virginias voters rated him 10 points more favorably than the former president, exit polls showed. Of course, next year may prove harder for GOP candidates who owe their nominations more directly to the former presidents backing. The Democratic defeat also reflected Bidens poor political standing. The president made two visits to boost Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe, but exit polls showed the two veteran politicians with almost identical negative ratings. Barring an economic pickup, Bidens poor job approval numbers loom as a real drag for Democrats in 2022, just as Trump damaged GOP House candidates in 2018. More immediately, the results could complicate the efforts by Democratic congressional leaders to maintain the party unity needed to pass Bidens two signature legislative proposals, especially the $1.75 trillion package of social and environmental proposals. Youngkins victory was far from the only positive for Republicans. In Virginia, they won the other two statewide offices, lieutenant governor and attorney general, and recaptured at least a share of control of the House of Delegates. And in the other governors race in New Jersey, GOP candidate Jack Ciattarelli threw an unexpected scare into heavily favored Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy in a very tight race. In New Yorks Long Island suburbs, Republicans recaptured two district attorney posts. In Pennsylvania, they held a statewide Supreme Court seat. And in Texas, they narrowly picked up a legislative seat in heavily Hispanic San Antonio. In Virginia, McAuliffe initially was a strong favorite to regain the governorship he held from 2014-2018 in a state that has recently voted increasingly Democratic. But the result represented the repetition of a persistent historical pattern, as, for the 11th time in 12 gubernatorial elections, Virginians chose the party that lost the presidency the previous year. Only McAuliffe in 2013 broke that pattern. The GOP nominee ran strongly in conservative areas and, by skillfully reflecting parental concerns about problems in their schools, he cut recent Democratic margins in the Washington suburbs. He was helped by McAuliffes impolitic statement in a debate in which he said, I dont think parents should be telling schools what they should teach and by the continuing economic slowdown from the pandemic. The reaction against the party in power and the looming signs of future political problems fit a recent electoral pattern in which one partys triumph is inevitably followed by a reaction as the victors struggle to fulfill their promises. Bidens job approval numbers have suffered from his inability to achieve his primary campaign promises of halting the pandemic and restoring economic growth, and from such self-inflicted wounds as the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and his mishandling of the immigration situation. Even before Tuesday, independent analysts and party strategists were predicting Republicans are likely next year to regain one and maybe both congressional houses. In the last four mid-term elections, the party in the White House has lost the House three times and the Senate twice. A potential short-term danger for Biden is that some congressional Democrats from competitive districts may see Tuesdays results as a warning to rethink their support of his costly, far-ranging social programs. There was a reason Democratic leaders sought to have the House vote on Bidens agenda before Tuesdays elections. At the same time, one Democratic hope of averting a mid-term 2022 disaster is to show by passing his agenda that they can govern. They believe that millions of Americans will benefit from his proposals for infrastructure reconstruction and for uniform pre-kindergarten schooling, assistance with day care costs, and expanded support for health and drug costs. Despite Youngkins victory in Virginia, Republicans have their own potential problems, especially since Trump remains a political wild card. In Californias September gubernatorial recall election, the fact that the main alternative to the Democratic incumbent was an all-out Trump backer helped Gov. Gavin Newsom decisively retain his office in that heavily Democratic state. Trumps efforts to play a major role in choosing GOP candidates in key 2022 Senate races in Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania could affect his partys chances in the general election. The Virginia result suggests Republicans would do better in contested states by nominating less Trump-like alternatives. Still, for the first election in five years, Republicans have every reason to be pleased and Democrats every reason for concern. Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Readers may write to him via email at carl.p.leubsdorf@gmail.com. Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Readers may write to him via email at carl.p.leubsdorf@gmail.com. Love 8 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0 In his victory speech Tuesday night, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said he believes hes put the city on the right track and hes staying the course, calling his 30-percentage point win over his nearest competitor truly a referendum. Kellers win over Bernalillo County Sheriff Manuel Gonzales and radio talk show host Eddy Aragon was indeed decisive. But receiving 56% of the votes cast is not a mandate, its more like a wake-up call. Put another way, 44% of Albuquerqueans voted to toss Keller out of office no small fringe group. Gonzales, with 26% of the votes, said he was stunned crime didnt play a greater role in Tuesdays election. But it did, according to Journal polling. Gonzales and Aragon simply were not the candidates able to gain the support and trust of enough voters to wage competitive campaigns. Crime Journal polling prior to Tuesdays election showed earth-shaking percentages of people concerned about crime, says Journal pollster Brian Sanderoff. The poll taken two weeks before the election found 87% of respondents were concerned about crime, and that concern transcends political affiliation and age. The poll found 79% of voters ages 18 to 34 were concerned about the crime rate, compared with 90% of those 65 and older. More than a third of registered voters felt very unsafe or somewhat unsafe. Not surprising with the near-daily reports of shootings. Homes and vehicles were struck by a barrage of gunfire, and three people were killed and eight wounded, at parties Halloween weekend. The body count continued last week with shooting victims found dead in a parking lot, apartment complex and in the street. So, its little surprise only 18% felt very safe. One of Kellers top second-term challenges will be building a sense of security among city residents, especially the 44% who didnt support him. Homelessness The Journal Poll also showed Albuquerqueans are far more concerned about homelessness than in a similar Journal Poll four years ago before that city election. While two-thirds of likely voters this year named crime the biggest issue, 23% named homelessness. No other issue was raised by more than 5% of respondents. Four years ago, more voters identified the economy, education and even Albuquerque Rapid Transit construction as the top problem behind crime. Democrats and Republicans alike expressed concerns about homelessness, while there were dramatic political disparities on most other questions. The citys purchase of the former Lovelace hospital along Gibson for $15 million earlier this year was the largest investment in homelessness in its history. Gonzales and Aragon opposed the proposed Gateway Center. With the election behind us, so should be any uncertainty about ramping up services to address the homeless crisis. Police support Keller is fortunate to have a police department with strong community support across the ideological spectrum. A solid majority of those polled, 61%, approve of the job Albuquerque police officers are doing, while only 20% disapproved; 17% had mixed feelings. That strong support unfortunately doesnt trickle down to the 18-34 age group. Only 44% of voters in the group approved of the job Albuquerque police officers are doing, with 36% of that group disapproving. The polling shows that mistrust of police among younger people has not dissipated since last years protests over police brutality and racial bias. Building support for police among younger people and improving cooperation will be monumental tasks. Vaccine mandate Keller has so far avoided mandating that city employees must get vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing, citing unspecified legal and collective bargaining considerations. Now, with a second term secured, and COVID numbers going in the wrong direction at an alarming rate, he should reconsider. Its entirely unfair to require state, federal, hospital and school workers and military members to be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs, but not city employees. Overall, 63% of voters surveyed by the Journal said they support COVID-19 vaccine mandates, while 32% were opposed. That near 2-to-1 ratio should embolden Keller to do whats necessary and implement a vaccine mandate. He said on election night hes up for making tough decisions. This is one of them. Heavy turnout Keller and the new City Council (final composition depends on two runoffs in December) have a big job ahead. Theres much to do to tackle crime, homelessness, public health and the economy only 25% polled said the city economy is good; just 2% said excellent. The polling shows Albuquerque voters are very concerned about whether the city is on the right track. Keep in mind those surveyed have cellphones/land lines and are in better shape than those who couldnt participate because they dont have a phone. While we believe the turnout Tuesday should have been higher the fact there were 22,000 more voters than for the past mayoral election demonstrates the level of concern. People dont show up to vote when theyre happy; they do when theres a lot at stake. Polling and turnout suggest residents know Albuquerque is in crisis. That needs to guide current and new city councilors, and ensure Keller and his administration use this second term to turn things around. Its critical for all of Albuquerque that they do so. This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers. Lets face it, redistricting is intrinsically an overwhelming, highly technical and elitist process that was set up this way to suppress public input and participation in the once-a-decade process. But as it is now customary, community organizers and leaders have been able to dismantle many of these systemic barriers and obstacles, elevating the voices of community members in this highly important conversation. So, what is redistricting? Well, every 10 years, much like in 2020, the U.S. government carries out a complete head count of every person living in the country to track population increases or decreases. This information is used to determine how to best distribute funding and resources to every community nationwide. But, perhaps most importantly, census data is used to redraw political representation maps, which determine how much or how little of a say you and your community will have in our federal and state governments. In other words, depending on how the redistricting process is carried out and by whom, you could experience a more responsive, representative government that works for the needs and aspirations of everyday New Mexicans or the complete opposite for the next decade. In comes the Peoples Power, Peoples Maps campaign. Its a community-led effort to educate the public and engage historically disenfranchised New Mexicans by taking part in the public hearings hosted by the newly formed Citizens Redistricting Committee, our independent, nonpartisan entity tasked with providing our Legislature with concept maps for consideration as it finalizes the redrawing of districts. Since the launch of our campaign, we have held dozens of community-based trainings, community meetings and debriefs to ensure everyday New Mexicans, from every corner of the state, had an opportunity to voice their wishes and concerns about our district maps. From this process, with the approval and endorsement of community leaders and hundreds of community members, we developed and introduced during the CRC hearings our very own Congressional Concept H and House Concept E: The Peoples Maps a set of comprehensive and unapologetic concept maps that represent the change people in our state wish to see. Thanks to the outpouring of support, with over 200 comments in favor of these concept maps submitted both in person and online, The Peoples Maps now head to our N.M. Legislature, where our elected officials will have the opportunity to elevate the publics input, asking for better, more equitable representation over the next 10 years. Now, as we head into a special session before the end of the year, where the final maps will be created, the space for public participation and input is still open and available. This is the opportunity for everyday New Mexicans to take the reins in shaping the democracy they need and deserve. This is the time to set the best foundation possible for our families and communities to be truly represented and afforded the opportunities they need to thrive. This is the time for bold, courageous leadership to implement The Peoples Maps. To find out more about redistricting, how to get involved in our effort, or to join upcoming opportunities to have a say in shaping our representation for the next decade, visit: newmexicoredistricting.org. President Bidens recent National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality calls for an end to cash bail and most pretrial incarceration. This policy puts criminals first, victims last. And if weve learned anything in New Mexico since the rise of the Defund the Police movement, coddling criminals only worsens crime and threatens public safety. The Biden administration is attempting to blackmail state and local governments into letting criminals back on our streets by using grant money for state and local law enforcement as leverage. But forcing so-called bail reform does not promote fairness or equality, especially for female victims whose attackers are freed to intimidate and re-victimize them before trial. The best policy to promote womens rights is to protect them from abusers and predators and ensure offenders receive justice. Americas murder rate skyrocketed by 30% in the last year. The push to eliminate cash bail is yet another example of progressive ideology trumping common sense. In New Mexico, no-cash bail has been such a failure that even far-left Bernalillo County District Attorney Raul Torrez and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham want the law changed to allow for more pretrial incarceration. One study on Cook County, Illinois, found releasing criminals without cash bail led to defendants committing 45% more new crimes. New violent crime by released defendants increased by 33%. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that when you release criminals without any penalties or guarantees, they tend to commit more crimes. According to a report by progressive prosecutor Kim Ogg in Harris County, Texas, new crimes by suspects released on bond increased from 6,344 in 2015 to 13,160 in 2020 after no-cash bail was introduced. These are not just statistics they are very real families that are hurting, endangered children and unsafe neighborhoods. These are the forgotten victims of far-left policies. In Brooklyn, a man freed under New Yorks no-cash bail reform raped a woman in a subway bathroom in January 2020. In Rochester, N.Y., an accused murderer was released on house arrest after killing a 31-year-old man. Bail is a vital part of our legal system, protecting society from dangerous criminals while allowing judges to determine whether release is appropriate on a case-by-case basis. Blanket release shows a disdain for the safety of law-abiding Americans. Even President Obamas former solicitor general Donald Verrilli Jr. supported bail, stating bail acts as a reconciling mechanism to accommodate both the defendants interest in pretrial liberty and societys interest in assuring the defendants presence at trial. For the sake of the American people, I will make every effort to stop this administration from endangering American communities by eliminating successful bail programs. President Biden should learn from New Mexico, New York and Chicago and preserve bail to keep criminals from preying upon the innocent. A high-powered collection of mariachi maestros will headline the upcoming Las Cruces International Mariachi Spectacular Concert on Friday, Nov. 12. The Spectacular is the culmination of the four-day Las Cruces International Mariachi Conference in which budding musicians of all ages are exposed to the particular genre of music, learning it from the ground up. Its a workshop for students, said Robert Palacios, conference director. We teach all of the main instruments of the mariachi orchestra; violin, trumpet, guitar and guitarron, vihuela and voice. The awesome part is this year our teachers for the workshops are Mariachi Cobre, celebrating its 50th anniversary. Like most other events in the state, the conference and concert were shut down last year by virus-related health mandates, so this year organizers wanted something special. This year were celebrating 28 years, Palacios said. Its going to be a nice celebration because last year we were unable to because of COVID. Its the first time weve had an in-person event since 2019. Its been greatly missed. The students learn traditional dance and music, with dancers drilled in the ballet folklorico moves. Its very intensive, he said. We have a repertoire and choreograph for the dancers. A majority of the students are school-age drawn from community programs or schools. But we accept all ages, Palacios said. We do have older students that come to the workshops and we take all levels from beginner to advanced. Its good to have some experience but we take all levels. The students then kick off the Spectacular at the Pan American Center at New Mexico State University, he said. At the beginning of the Spectacular, the student opening numbers, alongside their instructors, Palacios said, as a payoff for the hard work they put in. Then the professionals take the stage. The headliner, Steeven Sandoval, La Voz del Mariachi, a violinist and vocalist, will play alongside Mariachi Cobre. Steeven Sandoval was part of the two best mariachis in the world, Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan for 14 years and Mariachi Nuevo Tecalitlan for five years, both as a violinist and vocalist, Palacios said. Sandoval is considered one of the best proponents of the Ranchero Genre behind such songs as, Por Amor, A los Cuatro Vientos, Te Hubieras Ido Antes, Si La Ven and 100 Litros de Tequila. Shortly before the pandemic, Sandoval sold out one of the most emblematic theaters in Mexico, El Teatro Degollado, in Guadalajara, Jalisco. Joining Sandoval from Disney World in Orlando, Florida, Mariachi Cobre has played across the world, accompanying such notables as Lola Beltran, Linda Ronstadt, Pepe Aguilar, Pedro Fernandez, Ana Barbara and Graciela Beltran. The group has been the conferences primary instructors for more than two decades. Adding to the star-power of the evening, Mariachi Femenil Flores Mexicanas, celebrating its 20th anniversary, will perform in the Spectacular for the first time. The band is notable as an all-female group that has accompanied Grammy-winning and international vocalist and performer, Lila Downs. The group also accompanied Juan Gabriel in concert in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. The group was featured in the November 2019 issue of Vogue Mexico magazine and participated in the filming of the PBSs La Frontera with Pati Jinich, which aired this past October. Were doing a big push and grassroots effort to get people to attend, Palacios said. The conference has had a number of very good years, but its hard. For me, the most important thing are the workshops and passing on the traditions. The Spectacular, thats the part they get to get see their hard work. Were trying to find a happy place between bringing in well-known mariachis and also highlighting the educational opportunities for the students. Editors note: The Journal continues Whats in a Name?, a twice a month column in which staff writer Elaine Briseno will give a short history of how places in New Mexico got their names. Thomas Benton Catron was for over half a century probably the best known man in New Mexico So the obituary read the day the man, for whom the states largest county in land size was named, died. Catron County borders Arizona to the west and it became a county in 1921, the year Catron died. Its population might be tiny, just over 3,500, but its land size is massive. The largest in New Mexico, in fact. It spans nearly 7,000 square miles of mostly mountainous, rugged terrain in the Gila, Apache and Cibola national forests. Its a mostly Anglo county, according to the U.S. Census and steeped in a rural lifestyle. Popular destination spots are Pie Town, known for exactly what its name implies, and the Gila Wilderness. Catron was a hefty man physically, mentally, financially and most especially, politically. He was a complicated figure both admired and criticized. A lifelong Republican, Catron was bold, generous, a visionary who admired French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte, and a sometimes old-fashioned and controversial man who lived life unapologetically. While in the senate Mr. Catron always was a pronounced stand patter of the old school, a fact demonstrated by his uncompromising stand against womans suffrage, his obituary in the May 16, 1921 Santa Fe New Mexican read. friends and opponents always recognized his brains, ability and shrewdness and he was never an opponent to be lightly regarded. He held several political offices, including attorney general and U.S. senator, and was a driving force behind New Mexicos statehood. He lead the Santa Fe Ring, which was a group of lawyers and land speculators who some believe became rich through political corruption and fraud. A shrewd man, Catron familiarized himself with the intricacies of old Mexican land grants and became a juggernaut among land owners. He was owner or part-owner of 3 million acres of land in the state, making him the largest single landowner in New Mexico and one of the largest in the country. Catrons life started in 1840 on a small farm four miles from Lexington, Missouri. When the Civil War came, he sided with the South, standing against the government. As a Confederate solider, Catron did not shy away from public or political life when the South fell, even when others might have hoped he would. He returned to Missouri after the Civil War, hoping to finish his law studies, only to discover the political climate had shifted. Missouri had passed a statute prohibiting any person from becoming a licensed attorney unless they signed an oath stating they had not borne arms against the United State government. This was something he obviously could not do, so he set his sights on New Mexico. In his May 16, 1921 Santa Fe New Mexican obituary, Catrons family described how he prepared for life here. He knew Spanish was the prevalent language and purchased a Spanish grammar and dictionary for the 60-day journey to New Mexico. He studied it every day and by the time he set foot on New Mexican soil, he had amassed a large Spanish vocabulary. But that didnt quite mean he could speak it. He went about fixing that, too. He decided to live for a few months in Alcalde, where English was not spoken so he could immerse himself in the Spanish language. After becoming a decent conversationalist, he headed down south to Las Cruces, where he was able to finish his studies and was admitted to the bar in 1867, finally seeing his dream of being a lawyer come true. He launched his political career in 1866, first serving as a district attorney and then a territorial attorney general. He was the United States Attorney for the New Mexico Territory from 1872 to 1878. Although he was a rich and powerful man, his devotion was always to the community. He served on the local school board in his later years and often worked pro bono for local Native Americans. He was the first of two senators to represent New Mexico in Congress after it earned statehood in 1912. By this time, his life had shifted to Santa Fe and he was married with four sons. His grandson Thomas B. Catron III, also a lawyer, was a founding member of the Santa Fe Opera. Catron never truly retired. According to his obituary, he lobbied his party to make him the foreign minister to Chile shortly before his death. The governor closed the state house down for a day as a tribute to Catron upon his death. Curious about how a town, street or building got its name? Email staff writer Elaine Briseno at ebriseno@abqjournal.com or 505-823-3965 as she continues the monthly journey in Whats in a Name? Lisa Hepners life as a nuclear medicine tech was one she enjoyed. While in the position for 20 years, there was always something missing. She yearned to write more. Ive always had a passion for writing, she says enthusiastically. Hepner moved back to New Mexico from Oregon about three years ago to care for her mother. Within those days, Hepner and her mother would spend time together watching Hallmark Christmas movies. What can I say, Im a sucker for a happy ending, Hepner says with a laugh. These films are full of heart and just bring joy to life, especially in the world we live in today. She was raised in Albuquerque from the age of 3 and went to Bellehaven Elementary School, Grant Middle School, Sandia High School and the University of New Mexico. Now living in her hometown with her husband, Hepner finally had the courage and the time to write screenplays. She spent her days watching her mother and then writing in the down time. The words would flow from her imagination. Flash forward to today, Hepner has not one but two Christmas films streaming on Roku. The two films began streaming on Nov. 1 and will stream through the end of the year on the platform. The films are A Christmas Wish in Hudson and Christmas Lovers Anonymous. A Christmas Wish in Hudson tells the story of Lori, played by Alex Rinehart, who needs a break for Christmas. When she sees Patrick Jacobs, played by Rib Hillis, a widowed firefighter from Hudson, Wisconsin, on a reality cooking show, she feels a strong attraction and decides to take a shot at love, but shes not the only one. Hepner says the concept for this movie came to her while watching the TV competition series, Chopped, with her husband. One of the contestants on the show was a widowed firefighter, she explains. I told my husband, I wonder how many women will take an interest in him. It was meant as a joke, but the idea stuck with me. Hepner says she wrote the script about three years ago. Meanwhile, Christmas Lovers Anonymous was written last year during the pandemic. Elizabeth Snoderly, worked with me on (A Christmas Wish in Hudson), she says. (For this movie) she had a basic idea and paid me to write the movie. I have a co-writing credit on this one. Its been amazing to be part of this. The movie stars Brooke Burfitt, Houston Rhines and Bridget Fitzgerald. Hepners leap into screenwriting was possible because of her passion. People will ask me how I sold two Christmas movies, she says. My response is that you have to be passionate. I taught myself how to watch the Christmas romance movies and took notes. Theres a formula to these movies and you have to pay attention. Hepner is constantly looking for inspiration and shes often jotting notes down in the notebook she carries with her. The ideas come to me and I try to work with them if theres enough of a story, she says. The Christmas movies have happy endings and thats the goal for me. I want to tell and interesting story that works out well. Now streaming Albuquerque resident Lisa Hepners two films, Christmas Lovers Anonymous and A Christmas Wish in Hudson are streaming on Roku. When De Haven Solimon Chaffins was growing up at Laguna Pueblo, she thought of the nearby Anaconda Jackpile Uranium Mine as a dragon. The beast took a deep breath and exhaled its contamination across both her village and her family. Open at Santa Fes IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, Exposure: Native Art and Political Ecology explores the impact of nuclear testing and uranium mining on Native people and the environment around the world. More than 500 abandoned uranium mines and mills span the Navajo Nation and pueblo lands. Most of these are unmarked. Before 1962, Native American miners worked in these mines without any protective equipment and lived in houses constructed from contaminated materials. Many died as a result of uranium-related illnesses. Generations later, family members continue to suffer from cancer and birth defects. Some of these homes, their houses were only 50 yards from the mines, IAIA curator Manuela Well-Off-Man said. So when the wind blew, it contaminated everything. The more than 50 artists in the exhibition tell personal stories of illness, struggle and resilience in the face of government and corporate ignorance and complicity. Mallery Quetawki (Zuni Pueblo) uses her paintings to help tribal members impacted by uranium exposure discuss their symptoms. Quetawki is the artist-in-residence and research assistant with the University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy Community Environmental Health program. Her diptych Extraction and Remediation (2020) explores the collision, then cooperation of traditional beliefs and technology. Although Zuni was not subjected to uranium mining, it lies downwind from the 1979 Church Rock uranium mining spill on the Navajo Nation. A lot of our waterways do mix and combine, Quetawki said, so it affects us, too. Her great-uncle worked on the Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine near Laguna. He suffers from chronic breathing problems, although he never smoked. Cancer rates doubled in the Navajo Nation from the 1970s to the 1990s. Many Navajo people have died of kidney failure and cancer, conditions linked to uranium contamination. New research from the Centers for Disease Control shows uranium in babies born today. Scattered with petroglyphs, the left side of Quetawkis diptych represents her ancestors as the DNA helix swims beneath them. Closer to the right, the hazard symbol replaces flowers blooming in the grass. On the right panel, a circuit board melds with traditional culture. We are not supposed to take more than we should, Quetawki said. We should never desiccate the Earth. An old prophecy the tribe traces to Chaco Canyon has proven prescient. They prophesied something under the lands that should stay there; that its dangerous, that it would cause war. Chaffins (Laguna and Zuni Pueblos) spent time at her grandparents home in Paguate, near the Jackpile-Paguate Uranium Mine, as both a child and an adult. The Environmental Protection Agency designated it a Superfund Site, a polluted location requiring a long-term response to clean up hazardous material contaminations. Chaffins used humor to create two paintings playing on the brand name ShurFine baking products. One day I saw a box of ShurFine yellow cake and thought, wow, in reference to yellow cake, the purest form of uranium, she said in a telephone interview from Laguna Pueblo. It is so ironic because we were living 1,000 feet away from the uranium mines. I thought, What a play on words. For years after the mine closed in 1982, Chaffins noticed people who were once healthy developed cancer and other health issues. Her grandfather died of cancer, then her grandmother, next her uncle. She was regularly sick as a child. Eventually, doctors diagnosed her with congenital cervical dystonia, characterized by involuntary contractions or intermittent spasms of the neck muscles. Her daughter developed autism. Her only son died at age 2. We wondered why all this stuff was going on, she said. Chaffins grandfather had been the Laguna governor in the 1950s. He and the pueblos council made the decision to allow the mining. Later, many pueblo members blamed him for their health and land issues. I just remember being outside when the siren went off and I heard the blast, Chaffins said. They were blasting so they could remove the ore. We ran inside and closed the windows. Sometimes the wind would come in our direction. Id look up and it seemed like a dragon breathing. Copyright 2021 Albuquerque Journal SANTA FE Partners Dennis Larranaga and Iesha Barela have been together 10 years. They and their 7-year-old daughter, Eternity, who is blind, have never owned their own home. Thats about to change. Iesha, 26, who said she is nine years clean from drugs, has lived a difficult life. My family has always been very poor, on Section 8 (subsidized housing) and food stamps, she said. My family was homeless at times. Now the Larranaga-Barela family are successful applicants for one of two Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity homes being built this week outside Santa Fe. Its going to become our first one (home), said Larranaga, 29. I cant wait, Im very excited. The couple plans to marry next year. Barela shares that joy. Im the first one in my family to become a homeowner, she said. Its an amazing blessing, and Im very, very grateful. Theirs was not the only celebration at the job site this week. Volunteer Elmer Leslie celebrated his 83rd birthday in typical and perhaps also atypical fashion. I built walls out here, and then I went home and had pizza and beer with my son, Leslie said. Out here means numbers 8 and 12, Blue Feather Road in Oshara Village, where the spry octogenarian was part of a crew of a few dozen volunteers and professionals building the Habitat homes. Leslie, from Santa Fe, has helped build Habitat homes for the past 20 years and hopes to continue as long as I can until I get to the point where I feel Im not being able to really help. The young got in on the building. Terri Strauss, academic and vocational leader with the Rio Arriba Youthbuild Project in Espanola, brought eight young men and women for the day. Some are working for their GED diplomas or to get building experience for a career. Joint effort The weeklong effort is a collaborative project between several national organizations who volunteer their efforts with Habitat for Humanity International to showcase building with insulating concrete forms (ICFs) that utilize poured concrete for the homes walls. Local companies Los Alamos Transit Mix and Espanola Transit Mix are donating the concrete and Chavez Concrete Pumping of Albuquerque is donating its equipment and manpower to pump the concrete into the walls. The ICF method derived from an aha moment in the 1960s when a Canadian building contractor realized that a plastic cooler on the beach could be morphed into foam plastic materials to reduce building costs, according to the Insulating Concrete Forms magazine. The Habitat workers fitted together the recyclable, non-combustible ICFs that are then stuffed with rebar and later filled with cement. The construction method is almost toy-like in its simplicity. Basically they snap together not unlike Legos and once they are in place and braced they are ready to have concrete poured into the cavity, said Gregg Lewis, executive vice president of the Virginia-based National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. When that sets up you have a complete structural wall system, said Lewis. Our members are the concrete producers that actually deliver the concrete to the project sites across the United States, he said. The Concrete Association is helping build 15 Habitat houses across the country this year with plans to build 50 in every state over five years. The two Santa Fe homes are averaging about 40 volunteers a day, said Rob Lochner, construction director for Santa Fe Habitat, which builds about six or seven homes a year here. Lochner realizes they are not going to solve the citys affordable housing issue, but we do our part, he added. The organization targets those in lower income brackets and theyve had situations with six families in a home and they were living in sub-standard living (conditions) previously and its also going to take a financial burden off of them, Lochner said. Santa Fe Habitat selects six or seven families or individuals a year from over 100 applications. The families are selected based on need, said Marilyn Perryman, Santa Fe Habitats director of development and marketing. Individuals also may be eligible. Applicants need to have lived or worked in Santa Fe or Santa Fe County for over a year. A couple has to put in about 550 of sweat equity hours working to construct the home they will live in, Perryman said. The benefits of a new home extend beyond just a roof over their heads. They are hopefully going to be able to save up, have some expendable income and not be living paycheck to paycheck, Lochner said. That will also give them a secure place to live, a safe place, the kids will hopefully be able to study better, do better in school and its shown that over the years that thats the case and they get to plan a little bit for the future, Lochner said. New techniques Greater Albuquerque Habitat for Humanity was in line for last weeks coalition effort with the national concrete organizations but was still securing the land, said Pete Hosenfeld, construction coordinator for the Albuquerque Habitat. Three pieces of land throughout the city are expected to be acquired with plans to build 25 homes with the first breaking ground in January or February, said Hosenfeld. About 20 Albuquerque volunteers were at the Santa Fe site last week. We are here learning how to build and install the ICF foundation system, said Hosenfeld. Its fun. You watch videos online how to do it and you come out here and there is always a difference and you learn to meld the two, he said. Like Santa Fe, the affordable housing need is great in Albuquerque. The median rental range recently went from $1,300 to almost $1,900 for a two bedroom rental, said Hosenfeld. He knows the last 22 clients Habitat has housed in the city. They are all hard working members of the city; there are at least three that work for APS schools, theres one that works for Costco part-time all different walks of life. The Ready Mixed Concrete Association and their partners, the Insulating Concrete Forms Manufacturers Association, the American Concrete Pumping Association and BuildBlock, have a vested interest in building with ready mixed concrete. The value comes down to not only first cost, where its cost competitive with traditional frame construction you get an extremely energy efficient structure that goes up very quickly and makes for a very quiet home and a very comfortable home from a thermal standpoint, said Lewis. The concrete will be poured Friday with the roofing set for Monday. The Barela-Larranaga family cant wait for their Santa Fe housewarming. It seems like its going to a great place, said Larranaga. Its a nice neighborhood. Copyright 2021 Albuquerque Journal After nearly a year of contentious testimony and debate, a final decision over PNM Resources and Connecticut-based energy giant Avangrids proposed merger is now squarely in the hands of the Public Regulation Commissions five elected members. PRC hearing examiner Ashley Schannauer who oversaw eight months of evidence-gathering, plus two weeks of public hearings in August with parties in the case recommended last week that commissioners reject the deal. The potential harms of the proposed transaction outweigh the benefits, Schannauer concluded in his recommended decision, a nearly 300-page document that the elected commissioners must now consider when voting on whether to accept or deny the companies request for regulatory approval. That vote will likely come in early December in an open public hearing. Whats at stake is a merger that would impact some 800,000 customers in New Mexico and Texas. Supporters say that as the nations third largest wind energy developer, Avangrids financial resources and expertise would help transform the local grid to renewable energy as the state works to achieve its goal of 100% non-carbon generation over the next two decades. If the PRC approves the merger, Avangrid would acquire PNM Resources and its two utility subsidiaries Public Service Company of New Mexico and Texas New Mexico Power in an all-cash transaction valued at $4.3 billion. But before the PRC votes, the merger partners and intervening parties can still respond to Schannauers findings in written exceptions, which commissioners may consider before voting. And the commissioners themselves could allow parties to directly address them in oral testimony during an open meeting, although that doesnt usually occur in such proceedings. But whether through written or oral testimony, the merger partners hope to convince commissioners to focus on the benefits of the merger, which they say outweigh the perceived risks that Schannauer outlined in his recommended decision. In an exclusive interview with the Journal last week, top executives from PNM Resources and Iberdrola, S.A. a Spanish energy giant that controls 81.5% of shares in Avangrid discussed their reactions to Schannauers findings and their strategies to continue pursuing the merger in coming weeks. The first thing is, we remain as committed as ever, Iberdrola Chief Development Officer Pedro Azagra Blazquez told the Journal. Our commitment in New Mexico is long term. That means doubling down on efforts to sway commissioners to support the merger, both by highlighting the benefits already contained in a negotiated settlement, or stipulated agreement, with intervening parties who now back the deal, and through continued negotiations with those parties to address additional concerns raised by Schannauer. Were reviewing all the commitments and conditions now to try to put together a proposal that addresses most, if not all, of the hearing examiners recommendations, Azagra Blazquez said. The merger partners and supporters are already re-grouping, said PNM Resources Chairman, President and CEO Pat Vincent-Collawn. Weve read the recommended decision, were looking closely at it, and were working with other (settlement) signatories to talk with them about what makes sense and what doesnt, Vincent-Collawn told the Journal. The commission will make its decision in December, but we believe the merger benefits already outweigh the risks. If the commission does reject the deal, there are still options to move forward. That could include a request to re-open hearings to hammer out an expanded settlement agreement with supporting parties for renewed consideration by the PRC. But it could also mean appealing to the New Mexico Supreme Court. We can ask for a re-hearing, or go to the Supreme Court, and I think thats definitely an option, Vincent-Collawn said. The merger partners hope to avoid that through collaborative efforts with the commission and intervening parties. We want to make sure were welcome in New Mexico, Azagra Blazquez said. Well go to commissioners and put forth our case there with other parties who want to get this transaction done. Schannauers concerns But merger supporters could face an uphill battle now to sway the PRC, given the extensive concerns raised by Schannauer. In general, the hearing examiner believes Avangrid and Iberdrola have demonstrated a clear tendency to put corporate profit over the interests of consumers through their management of electric and gas utilities in the U.S. Northeast, and through Iberdrolas actions in other countries. He said that includes consistently poor performance by Avangrids eight northeastern utility subsidiaries, where local communities have faced lengthy electric outages during severe storms. If PNMs service under Iberdrola, S.A./Avangrid Inc.s ownership is anything like the service provided by the Iberdrola/Avangrid Inc. utilities in the Northeast, the quality of PNMs service is likely to be diminished, Schannauer said. Avangrid is primarily interested in using New Mexico as a launch pad to extend its renewable business interest throughout the Southwest, Schannauer said. The company would draw on New Mexicos vast wind and solar resources by building new generating facilities and transmission lines to dominate the regional renewable industry. As a result, providing reliable, quality electric service through PNM would likely be of secondary concern, posing substantial risks for local consumers, he said. To protect New Mexico ratepayers, the PRC would need to ensure effective local control over PNM decision-making, along with strict regulatory standards and PRC intervening authority to adequately operate and maintain the electric grid, Schannauer said. And the PRC could face an ongoing battle to push Avangrid and Iberdrola to abide by regulatory commitments in New Mexico, given those companies resistance to fully comply with regulations in the current merger-hearing process, Schannauer said. That included continuous failure to hand over complete sets of documents in discovery, leading to Schannauers recommendation that commissioners impose sanctions for lack of adequate response to interrogatories by New Energy Economy, the one party in the case that directly opposes the merger. Commitments ignored Merger supporters say the settlement agreement already includes substantial safeguards against the risks raised by Schannauer, including measures to reinforce local control of the PNM Resources board of directors following the merger, plus reliability and quality-of-service standards to be overseen by the PRC. The problem, they say, is that Schannauer ignored some 40 commitments made by Avangrid over the summer, many of which address Schannauers concerns. Indeed, the hearing examiner discarded those measures when writing his recommended decision, because they were negotiated with individual parties and not all settlement signatories together. As a result, Schannauer based his conclusions on a smaller platform of agreements originally presented in June, and then recommended that if commissioners decide to approve the merger, most of the new commitments should be added back in, along with additional recommendations proposed by the hearing examiner himself. The hearing examiner recommends rejecting the stipulation agreement from June, but that doesnt include many things we agreed on later, Azagra Blazquez said. We want the commission to focus on the full list of commitments. Merger partners could potentially negotiate terms to accommodate many of Shannauers additional recommendations, such as stricter reliability and quality-of-service standards than previously negotiated in the settlement agreement. But one key recommendation that the post-merger PNM board of directors be controlled by a majority of independent members could be a deal-breaker if the commission accepts that suggestion by Schannauer. Avangrid and Iberdrola have steadfastly resisted that demand, which some parties that now support the merger had previously sought. But the parties themselves negotiated a compromise that makes three of the future seven board members independent and disinterested representatives who will have veto control over dividend policy and approval, and over setting executive compensation. One of the major concerns by parties seeking a majority of independents on the board is that we wont drain cash out of (PNM), Azagra Blazquez said. But three independent board members must now agree on all dividends, which protects against cash going out. All the parties that were requesting an independent majority are no longer requesting it because they believe local control and reliability will be obtained with what is already in the stipulation agreements. Iberdrola and Avangrid have previously warned that insisting on majority-independent control of the board could be the one demand that forces them to abandon the merger. The problem is, if theres a requirement for a board majority that does not have a legal or other obligation to protect the owner of a company, then thats a deal killer for nearly anyone, said Doug Howe, a utility economist and 35-year veteran of the utility industry who previously served as a PRC commissioner. It would be a deal killer for me, Howe told the Journal. I wouldnt buy a company and turn over complete control to people that dont have my interests in mind. Thats a non-starter. Howe also said the hearing examiners focus on Avangrids northeastern grid-reliability problems may be overblown. I think too much has been made of it, Howe said. I think there are regulatory solutions, and theyve already been suggested in this case. Still, one concern raised by Schannauer that some top Iberdrola executives are under criminal investigation in Spain for potential bribery and other legal violations could indeed merit serious consideration, Howe said. Schannauer warned that the investigation issue may reflect questionable corporate culture. Ill admit, thats troubling, Howe said. If it was a U.S. utility under investigation for possible criminal activity, I think that would be a headline issue. With the investigation happening in Spain, people here dont really know what it means, but its thrown a cloud over everything and made the whole merger process more difficult. In fact, the entire process has been dogged by controversy and conflict, including acrimonious interaction between the merger parties and the hearing examiner over transparency and compliance in the discovery process. Frankly, its become a comedy of errors, Howe said. Even so, like many people, I thought the hearing examiner would ultimately find a way to move the merger forward by subjecting it to any number of conditions. But he chose outright denial of the deal. Coming Monday In Business Outlook, a detailed look at hearing examiner Ashley Schannauers controversial recommendation Its been three years of not knowing for a Valencia County family, as they waited for Rita Jaramillo to come home. Late last month, the Albuquerque man charged with Jaramillos killing led New Mexico State Police agents to her remains. Arthur Lovato, 61, took them to an area near Interstate 25 and U.S. 60 in Socorro County on Oct. 26, where they located Jaramillo, 49, of El Cerro, according to officer Ray Wilson, a State Police spokesman. Ms. Jaramillos body was positively identified by the Office of the Medical Investigator on Oct. 27, Wilson wrote in an email. Lovato agreed to take law enforcement officers to the location in exchange for a plea agreement. On Oct. 26, Lovato entered a guilty plea to a voluntary manslaughter charge. The plea agreement calls for a sentence of six years, with Lovato receiving credit for the time hes been in custody at the Valencia County Detention Center since May 2019. The remainder of the sentence is to be suspended, and Lovato wont serve any probationary time, according to the plea agreement, so long as he led officers to the location of Jaramillo and the remains were positively identified. A sentencing hearing for Lovato, where Jaramillos family members and friends will be allowed to speak, has not been scheduled. Thirteenth Judicial District Attorney Barbara Romo said the case prosecutors had against Lovato would have been very difficult to prove without a body. Also, our key witness, Kevin Rangel, had serious credibility issues, Romo said. We had a hard time getting cooperation from the feds to even get him back. Rangel was arrested on a federal firearms charge in early June. The gun was a .44 caliber revolver, allegedly given to him by Lovato. According to court records, Rangel said Lovato showed up at a home where he was staying in Albuquerque, driving Jaramillos car. Rangel claimed he could see a partially covered womans body inside on a seat, and that Lovato confessed to shooting and killing (Jaramillo). Rangel told State Police agents Lovato gave him the gun and told him to destroy it, but Rangel kept it for insurance, in case something ever came back on him. Romo said there was also an outstanding suppression motion filed by Lovatos attorney to suppress evidence found on his clients property during an illegal search. There was a search of the property without a warrant. The motion is still pending and there is a very good chance we would have lost, the DA said. We were left with the choice of going to trial and risk getting nothing. Frankly, if we had gotten a conviction, there would have been no obligation (for him) to disclose the location of Rita. It was communicated to us by his lawyer we were never going to find her if we went to trial, and thats probably true. Where she was buried theres no way she would have been found. Romo said her office wanted to at least give Jaramillos family closure and find her. Sometimes you have to make a deal with the devil to get something for the family, Romo said. This is not the resolution we hoped for when the case began. Jaramillos daughter, Leslie Romero, last spoke with her mother on Sept. 20, 2018, but became concerned for her safety just days later when Jaramillos home at 6 San Luis Rey Place in El Cerro burned down. Valencia County Fire Marshal Casey Davis said the fire started in the bedroom in the south end of the home and while he couldnt report the cause of the fire at that time, did call it highly suspicious. Romero said she and family members were allowed into the house after the fire, and they found two tires, which reportedly can be used as an accelerant and to make a fire burn hotter and longer. In June 2019, Lovato was indicted on five charges first-degree murder (depraved mind), first-degree murder (willful and deliberate), second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence and entered a plea of not guilty. After his plea was heard, the judge ordered Lovato held without bond. The parent of an Albuquerque Public Schools special education student has filed a lawsuit against the district alleging that a former education assistant restrained and attacked the sixth grader in 2019 at Harrison Middle School. The suit alleges that the former educational assistant, Derikk Mirabal, confined the 12-year-old boy in a quiet room for about 10 minutes on Oct. 29, 2019, where he pulled the boys arms behind his back and repeatedly shoved his face into a wall. Mirabal also kicked a chair out from under the boy, according to the suit filed Oct. 25 in 2nd Judicial District Court. The suit was filed by the boys father, Vincent Chavez. Mirabal resigned from APS in December 2019, said APS spokeswoman Monica Armenta. She declined to offer additional comment about the lawsuit. The New Mexico Public Education Department permanently revoked Mirabals educational assistant license in May 2020, according to PEDs licensing website. Efforts to reach Mirabal on Friday were unsuccessful. Court records indicate he does not have an attorney. Mirabal later summoned a social worker, Bruce Lindsey, to the room, the suit alleges. Mirabal and Lindsey prevented the boy from leaving the room and later collaborated to conceal facts about the incident, it alleges. Both men are named as defendants in the suit. Lindsey, now a social worker at Sandia High School, did not immediately respond Friday to voice and email messages seeking comment. Chavez took his son to an urgent care clinic, where medical staff found cuts on the boys face, head and back and bruising on his arms and face, the suit said. The boy was reluctant to return to school after the incident and continues to be fearful of adults at the school, it alleges. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. During his 27 years in the U.S. Army, Leonard Gruppo joined the Special Forces, served in four war zones and led a team of combat medics in Iraq before retiring in 2013 as a lieutenant colonel. During his six minutes inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, Gruppo joined a slew of other military veterans as a mob of pro-Trump rioters carried out an unparalleled assault on the bastion of American democracy. The New Mexico man is among dozens of veterans and active-service members charged in connection with the insurrection. Now, cases like his are presenting a thorny question for federal judges to consider when they sentence veterans who stormed the Capitol: Do they deserve leniency because they served their country or tougher punishment because they swore an oath to defend it? The Justice Department has adopted the latter position. In at least five cases so far, prosecutors have cited a rioters military service as a factor weighing in favor of a jail sentence or house arrest. Prosecutors have repeatedly maintained that veterans service, while commendable, made their actions on Jan. 6 more egregious. The participation of veterans in the riot was particularly shocking because some of them apparently used training they received in the U.S. military against their own government to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Several veterans are among the far-right extremists charged with plotting coordinated attacks on the Capitol, including Oath Keepers members who marched up the Capitol steps in a stack formation used by military infantrymen. Prosecutors arguments about rioters military service didnt sway one of the first judges to hear them at Gruppos sentencing hearing on Oct. 29. I dont view his military service that way. I just cant bring myself to do that, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said before sentencing Gruppo to two years of probation, including 90 days of house arrest. A prosecutor argued that Gruppos military service supported the Justice Departments recommendation for a 30-day jail sentence. Assistant U..S. Attorney Hava Mirell said Gruppo, 56, of Clovis, was trained to recognize the obvious danger at the Capitol and to assist rather than to harm. But the fact that he did receive that training and the fact that he intentionally overlooked his oath to commit one of the most destructive acts against our Constitution and our democracy, that does affect the governments view of his conduct, she said. Defense attorney Daniel Lindsey argued his clients service to the country shouldnt be used against him. He said Gruppo initially wanted to keep quiet about his military service because he felt he had dishonored it. And he did, Howell interjected. Lets not mince words. But the judge said she was surprised by the Justice Departments position because she believes most Americans would have enormous respect for Gruppos service. And its not just because I grew up on military bases around the world, Howell added. In most criminal cases, judges typically view a defendants military service as a mitigating factor that favors leniency, said James Markham, a professor of public law and government at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. But he recognizes how the Justice Department could conclude that rioters with military experience should be held to a higher standard than those without it. Its obviously not related to their military service directly, but its also not entirely conceptually unrelated that somebody who is a veteran or had military service could be viewed as having a more refined understanding of the importance of civilian control and electoral stability, said Markham, a lawyer and Air Force veteran. More than 650 people have been charged in the Jan. 6 attack. Some of the rioters facing the most serious charges, including members of far-right extremist groups, have military backgrounds. A handful of riot defendants were on active duty, including an Army reservist who wore a Hitler mustache to his job at a Navy base. More than 100 riot defendants have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanors punishable by a maximum of six months of incarceration. Two dozen had been sentenced as of Oct. 29. At least three of the sentenced defendants are veterans, according to an Associated Press review of court records. In September, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg sentenced Air Force veteran Derek Jancart to 45 days in jail for joining the riot. Prosecutors had sought a four-month jail sentence for Jancart, an Ohio steelworker. He swore an oath to defend the country and instead he participated in an attack on democracy itself, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Goemaat. Jancart said he loves his country and is ashamed of his actions. The judge told Jancart that he respects his military service, particularly his deployment to Afghanistan, but said it wasnt the only factor to consider. You attempted with others to undermine one of our countrys bedrock acts, which is the peaceful transfer of power following a democratic election, Boasberg said. Another Air Force veteran, Thomas Vinson, was sentenced on Oct. 22 to five years of probation. Prosecutors had recommended three months of house arrest for Vinson, a Kentucky resident who served in the Air Force from 1984 through 1988. Vinson, whose wife also was sentenced to probation for entering the Capitol on Jan. 6, told U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton that he loves his country and joined the military to defend it. I took that oath to the Constitution, and I know I broke that oath that day by entering that building, Vinson said. At least two other rioters who served in the military are scheduled to be sentenced in the coming days. Prosecutors have recommended two months in jail for Boyd Camper, who served in the U.S. Marines from 1987 to 1990. The Montana man told the FBI that he believed he was on the front line and entered a combat state of mind at the Capitol, where he used a camera with an extension pole to record himself inside the building, according to prosecutors. His voluntary decision to storm a guarded government building is nothing short of shocking in light of his former military service and training, prosecutors wrote ahead of Campers Nov. 12 sentencing. Prosecutors are seeking two months of house arrest for Air Force veteran Jonathan Ace Sanders Sr., who is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday. Surveillance video captured the Indiana man wearing a military-type vest as he walked through the Capitol, according to prosecutors. As an Air Force veteran, Sanders was well aware of the great jeopardy posed by the rioters violent entry into the Capitol, prosecutors wrote. His repeated assertions that he had done nothing wrong is not credible his background shows he knew better. APD conducts a homicide investigation after a shooting left one dead and another injured outside a convenience store at Pennsylvania and Central Sunday morning.(Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal) Albuquerque police investigators look for evidence after a shooting left one dead and another injured outside a convenience store at Pennsylvania and Central early Sunday morning. (Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal) Occupants of the white sedan seen with its doors open in the parking lot were involved in a shooting that left one dead and another injured. (Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal) Two men look on as APD conducts a homicide investigation at Pennsylvania and Central Sunday morning. (Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal) Occupants of the white sedan seen with its doors open in the parking lot were involved in the shooting that left one dead and one injured Sunday. (Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal) APD conducts a homicide investigation after a shooting left one dead and another injured outside a convenience store at Pennsylvania and Central early Sunday morning.(Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal) APD conducts a homicide investigation after a shooting left one dead and another injured at Pennsylvania and Central early Sunday morning. (Robert Browman/Albuquerque Journal) Prev 1 of 7 Next A man is dead and another is in the hospital after being shot in the early hours of Sunday morning on East Central. Hence Williams, an Albuquerque police spokesman, said the condition of the injured man is unknown. He said police responded around 1 a.m. to Pennsylvania and Central SE and found two men with gunshot wounds. Williams said one man was already dead when police arrived and the other was taken to the hospital. The Homicide Unit has been called out, Williams said. He gave no other details. MADISON, Wis. Prosecutors trying to convict Kyle Rittenhouse of murder have been working to paint him as an inexperienced teenager who misrepresented his age and medical training to other armed civilians in his group on the night he shot three men during a protest against police brutality in Wisconsin last year. Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger has drawn out testimony during the first week of Rittenhouses trial from several witnesses, including two military veterans, saying the Illinois teen appeared inexperienced, that he falsely claimed that he was old enough to possess a gun and that he was a certified medic when he was really just a lifeguard. Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor and attorney in Chicago who isnt involved in the case, said Binger is trying to show jurors that Rittenhouse didnt know what he was doing and that they shouldnt believe his self-defense claims. In terms of how he reacted, they want to show it in context that hes young and hes not experienced and would be more likely to perceive (the protest) as a more threatening situation (than an older person), Turner said. A younger guy is going to think this guy is going to hurt me when really its not true. Rittenhouse brought a semi-automatic rifle to the protest in Kenosha in August 2020. The city on the Wisconsin-Illinois border was in the throes of several nights of chaotic demonstrations after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, who was resisting arrest during a domestic dispute. Rittenhouse was 17 years old at the time and said he had gone to Kenosha to protect downtown businesses from looters. Just before midnight, he shot Joseph Rosenbaum, killing him, after Rosenbaum chased him into a parking lot. Bystander video shows a crowd chasing Rittenhouse down the street. In a matter of seconds an unidentified man tried to kick him in the head, Anthony Huber hit him in the head with a skateboard and Gaige Grosskreutz charged him with a pistol. Rittenhouse fired at the man who kicked him but missed, shot and killed Huber and wounded Grosskreutz in the arm. Prosecutors have charged Rittenhouse with multiple counts, including homicide and being a minor in possession of a firearm. Rittenhouse has argued that he shot the men in self-defense. That means his attorneys must persuade jurors that he reasonably believed his life was in danger and that the amount of force he used was reasonable. Binger maintains that Rittenhouse was the aggressor and overreacted to the situation. Ryan Balch, a former U.S. Army soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, testified Thursday that he traveled to Kenosha on the night of the shootings armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol to help protect businesses, and that he met Rittenhouse there. Balch later told FBI investigators that Rittenhouse seemed very interested in him and his military deployments. He said Rittenhouse told him that he was 19 and a certified emergency medical technician; he was actually a lifeguard at a recreational complex in nearby Pleasant Prairie, which is between Kenosha and Rittenhouses hometown of Antioch, Illinois. He seemed like a young and impressionable kid, Balch said. He seemed a little under-equipped and under-experienced as well, which is one of the reasons we kind of stayed with him. Balch did not say why he felt Rittenhouse was under-equipped. Balch said he kept an eye on Rittenhouse throughout the evening, protecting him as Rittenhouse walked around shouting that he was a medic and could help anyone who was injured. Balch recounted one protester insulting Rittenhouse with profanity and Rittenhouse yelling back I love you, too, maam. Balch said he told him not to respond because it would only antagonize the crowd further. Thats when I told him, hey, dont say that,' Balch testified. It can cause somebody to escalate the situation if they feel like youre making fun of them a little bit. So, just wasnt needed. Former Marine Jason Lackowski testified Friday that he also traveled to Kenosha armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a knife to protect businesses. He said Rittenhouse introduced himself and said he was an emergency medical technician. Rittenhouse didnt say how old he was, but Lackowski testified that he thought Rittenhouse was at least 18 because minors cant possess firearms in Wisconsin and he thought a person had to be 18 to get an EMT license. He went on to testify that Rosenbaum was acting belligerently, tried to start fights with Lackowskis group and asked members of the group to shoot him. He said he didnt consider Rosenbaum a threat to him or anyone else, however. Richie McGinniss, a videographer for the conservative website The Daily Caller, testified Thursday that he met Rittenhouse while documenting the protest and asked him how old he was. I believe the response was something along the lines of Im an adult,' McGinniss said. I actually told police the night of that I believe that he was in his mid-20s. But I believe I said exactly that he had a baby face. Rittenhouses attorneys pushed back at any suggestion that Rittenhouse overreacted to a non-threat. They noted that Lackowskis encounter with Rosenbaum occurred in a group setting and that he never faced Rosenbaum one-on-one like Rittenhouse did. When defense attorney Corey Chirafisi asked Lackowski if he would feel threatened if Rosenbaum charged him at full speed and tried to take his gun, Lackowski responded, Yes. But Rittenhouses team left unchallenged the testimony that Rittenhouse had lied about his age and his medical certification and that he appeared inexperienced. Turner, the Chicago attorney, said the defense may be content to let jurors believe Rittenhouse is basically just a kid. If I was defending this case, I would be happy with that because its true. Hes young and inexperienced and that goes to your intent to kill because you perceive a situation as being dangerous, Turner said. His youth actually helps him. If its an older person, then they think this guy knows better.' ___ Associated Press reporter Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report. ___ Find APs full coverage on the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse at: https://apnews.com/hub/kyle-rittenhouse TORRINGTON, Wyo. An inmate who died Wednesday is the fourth death in as many weeks at the Wyoming Medium Correctional Institution in Torrington. The Casper Star Tribune reports 66-year-old Frank Lee Apodaca died Wednesday at the Community Hospital in Torrington. The Wyoming Department of Corrections said it will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Apodaca was from Fort Collins, Colorado, and sentenced to nine to 12 years in prison in 2017, after being convicted of third-degree sexual assault and intrusion on a victim under age 16 in Laramie County. BERNALILLO Sandoval County is moving forward with allowing a second solar farm along Encino Road. The commission unanimously approved a resolution Thursday to consider an industrial revenue bond that would go toward the Encino North solar farm, more than two years after the existing Encino solar site entered the picture. (Additional renewable energys) a goal in and of itself, but also an increased tax revenue in the form of PILT payments to the county, County Manager Wayne Johnson told the Observer. Right now, you have basically agricultural land with a very low tax assessment rate This is a great way to bring in revenue to the county. PILT refers to payment in lieu of taxes, whereby a company agrees to a payment to a governmental entity instead of paying taxes. Rob Burpo, president of First American Financial Advisors, told the board the Encino North site will be 494 acres with an estimated cost of $50 million and that Public Service Company of New Mexico utility will be the initial purchaser under a power purchase agreement. Burpo also told the board solar farms are designed to generate lower consumer rates. The commission previously approved an industrial revenue bond worth up to $70 million in 2019 to finance construction of the first facility. The existing solar farm, about 9.3 miles northwest of Unser Boulevard and Paseo del Volcan, generates a $100,000 PILT each year. The Encino North site will be just north of the existing site. Johnson told the Observer the county can officially launch negotiations on the IRB terms for the Encino North Solar Farm. He also said its possible the new farm can bring 150-200 new construction jobs in the process. The way IRBs work is that the property during the term of the IRB is actually owned by the county, which is where the tax abatement comes from, which is why you negotiate the PILTs, Johnson said. Thats significant money over time, but it allows these projects to work over time. The Encino North solar farm would be developed by New Mexico Renewable Development, a venture between PNM and American Electric Power. The project will feature up to 50 megawatts of generating capacity. The countys goal is relatively simple in this case: We now have higher revenue than we ever wouldve gotten from the land had it not been developed for any other purpose, Johnson said. The amount of revenue from the new project is still to be determined. Sandoval County will get about two-thirds of the PILT from the new solar farm. About 33% of PILT funding for the new project will go to five area school districts: Rio Rancho Public Schools, Bernalillo Public Schools, Jemez Valley Public Schools, Cuba Independent Schools and Albuquerque Public Schools (because of places like Corrales Elementary School, Burpo noted). Johnson told the Observer there was a change in the law pertaining to PILT distributions during the last legislative session to require that money be divided equally among those school districts. Johnson said that prior to the change, only Jemez Valley Public Schools benefited from the 2019 solar farm project. Construction for the Encino North solar farm project is expected to commence in spring 2022, with power production getting underway in June 2023. Netflix Movie The former Bond girl balks at directing herself following her experience of taking on a double duty as a helmer and lead star in the mixed martial arts drama. Nov 7, 2021 AceShowbiz - Halle Berry has ruled out directing any more of her own movies after her experience on "Bruised". The actress stars as a disgraced MMA fighter in the film, who returns to fighting to redeem herself after the son she gave up as an infant re-enters her life unexpectedly. According to Halle, the role was "written for a 25-year-old white Irish Catholic woman," but she re-imagined the narrative and, when it came to finding a director, she told producers "probably one of the funniest things they had ever heard - that I should direct it myself!" "It was crazy but to my surprise they said yes," she tells Britain's "The Graham Norton Show" - before insisting it's the first and last time she'll take on dual responsibilities. Asked if she will direct more films, she says, "I hope so, I loved it, but I doubt I will ever star in it and direct again - both jobs are large enough. I have been bitten by the directing bug and I have a lot of stories I'd love to tell." The role required lots of physical work and, during filming, Halle ended up with two cracked ribs but insisted on pushing through for the sake of the job. "It threatened production so I made the decision not to tell anyone in case we were shut down," she explains. "I carried on and I think the fighter side of my training took over. It was only when we finished that I told everyone, and I went to the hospital!" MARYSVILLE, Calif. - A 13-year-old boy is dead after his dirt bike collided with a tree on Nov. 6. The California Highway Patrol was dispatched to a solo vehicle traffic collision on Edgewater Circle near Bywood Way at approximately 3:50 p.m. The 13-year-old was transported to Rideout Hospital in Marysville where he succumbed to his injuries. There was a helmet found on the ground near the 13-year-old, according to CHP. Officials are investigating if the boy was wearing the helmet at the time of the crash. SHASTA LAKE, Calif.- This morning, the City of Shasta Lake hosted its 28th Annual Veterans Day Parade after COVID-19 canceled last years parade. The parade included over 80 different organizations, marching and driving down Shasta Dam Blvd. to honor veterans in the community. The Shasta Lake Lions Club said this is the second-largest Veterans Day Parade in California. Ed Cuellar has been with the Lions Club for over 40 years and was happy to see such a big turnout after losing the event last year. Its great to see the people show up today and honoring our vets because theyre the ones that protect our country, and they mean a lot to us and thats what keeps us safe and free, said Cuellar. To honor them and the ones in the past, its a great honor. Veterans from all generations came to the event, either riding in a float or enjoying the parade from the crowd. While many are thankful to be celebrated today, the overwhelming honoring can be a bit uncomfortable for some veterans like Wesley Tucker. I guess, when people thank you for your service it does kind of put you on the spot, but at the same time I enjoyed my time and it was such a wonderful experience for me and I was honored to do it, said Tucker. So, its almost like you want to thank people for being people worth serving. One person told Action News Now that she's been coming to this parade since she moved to Shasta Lake. She said she brought her grandchildren for the first time today to pass down the tradition of honoring local veterans. Before the parade, the public was invited to a breakfast at the Shasta Lake Fire Protection District main fire hall to kick off the festivities. The celebration continued after the parade with a public lunch with first responders and veterans from the community. More from this section Dan McCaleb is the executive editor of The Center Square. He welcomes your comments. Contact Dan at dmccaleb@thecentersquare.com. DESOTO, Ill. Its been nearly 80 years since Jack Tripp battled Germans in the mountains of northern Italy, but he remembers it like it was yesterday. He was thrust into a hot mess virtually the minute his transport ship arrived in Europe. The first 24 hours were as bad as anything I went through over there, said Tripp, sharp and sassy at age 97. We were always in a battle here or there. As a member of the 88th Infantry Division, Tripp landed in Naples in 1944. He spent eight months in German-held Italy, where combat was a regular occurrence. Though death and destruction was all around him, he managed to come home without a scratch. I never got wounded, he said. I didnt get a Purple Heart. I didnt want a Purple Heart. His life began on the family farm in Jackson County. His father had contacted the doctor because Tripps mother was in labor. The doctor said she was not yet ready to give birth, and he headed out for another house call. But it wasnt a false alarm after all. My dad had to help with the birth, Tripp said. He cut the umbilical cord. His parents never registered the birth, so Tripp didnt have a birth certificate. When he became draft age, he had to report to the clerk in the county seat of Murphysboro with an affidavit signed by his mother attesting the date of his birth: Aug. 11, 1924. After 17 weeks of basic training in Texas, he took a train to Newport News, Virginia. The next day I was on a damn ship, he said. There were 96 ships in the convoy. We zigzagged all across the Atlantic because the Germans had submarines. We had a sub chaser in our convoy. One of the four owners of the Club West Golf Course said he and his partners will seek talks https://www.aish.com/jw/s/The-Dreyfus-Affair-5-Important-Facts-for-Today.html The worlds first museum devoted to Alfred Dreyfus trial just opened in Paris. Its lessons are needed today. Frances newest museum is dedicated to preserving the memory of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish military officer who was falsely accused of espionage over a century ago. His trial ripped apart France, and the issues debated during Dreyfus court martial including the role of Jews in France, antisemitism and the need for a Jewish homeland continue to reverberate today. I say to the young: forget nothing of these fights, French President Emmanuel Macron said when he formally opened the museum on October 26, 2021. In the world in which we live, in our country, and in our Republic, they are not over. Here are five facts about the Dreyfus Affair, and why its crucial we continue to remember Captain Dreyfus today. Falsely Accused of Espionage In 1894, France was facing growing military strength and bellicose language from its newly unified neighbor Germany. Barely a generation before, France had lost the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1; Germany still occupied the Alsace region in the east of France and many French citizens were still living in exile from that region. Alfred Dreyfus One of the French families that had been forced out of Alsace was that of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, at the time the only senior Jewish officer in the French military. In 1894, Dreyfus was 36 years old and living with his wife and children in Paris. When a letter was discovered in 1894 that indicated someone in the upper reaches of the French military was selling sensitive secrets to Germany, French officials turned on Cpt. Dreyfus. Though they claimed to have damning evidence against him, there was nothing at all to indicate that Cpt. Dreyfus was the spy, including his handwriting which differed markedly from that of the real spy. On October 15, 1894, Cpt. Dreyfus was summoned to military headquarters. Arrested, he was questioned repeatedly and kept in a cell for months. Dreyfus later described his treatment as amounting to torture. For Cpt. Dreyfus, being accused of betraying the country he loved was horrible, and he soon began to suffer a mental breakdown. Since his last interrogation, undergone Thursday, he has fainting spells He always protests his innocence and shrieks that he will become mad before it is recognized. He constantly asks for his wife and children, recorded the governor of the prison where Dreyfuss was held. (Quoted in Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century by Ruth Harris. Metropolitan Books, New York: 2010.) The real spy was Commandant Ferdinand Esterhazy, whod been selling French military secrets to Maximilien von Schwartzkoppen, the military attache at Germanys embassy in Paris. Yet few officers probing the crime bothered to conduct a real investigation. Dreyfus trial was conducted against a backdrop of extreme antisemitism, with mobs of people and French newspapers openly calling for death to Jews and spreading vile antisemitic slurs. One of the most advanced newspapers in France at the time, the Catholic journal La Croix, reached a huge audience during the Dreyfus era, and mixed lurid antisemitism with other themes of interest According to La Croix the Jews had virtually taken over the Republic Every incident was linked to the purported conspiracy of Jews to subvert Christianity and French society (quoted in The Dreyfus Affair: Art, Truth & Justice, edited by Norman L. Kleeblatt. University of California Press, Berkeley: 1987). A young Alfred Dreyfus General Auguste Mercier, Frances Minister for War, insisted that Dreyfus be convicted, no matter what the evidence. Realizing that the armys case against Dreyfus was weak, one of his men, Major Hubert Henry whod found the original letter and realized it had been written by a spy fabricated damning evidence in handwriting that was similar to Dreyfus. He then perjured himself in court saying that hed been told by a secret source that Dreyfus was indeed guilty. Insisting on Lies Court-martialed, Dreyfus was stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devils Island, off the coast of French Guiana in South America. There, he faced incredibly harsh treatment: guards were under orders never to speak to him, he received spoiled rations that made him sick, and he was manacled to his bed each night. Evidence soon emerged that Maj. Esterhazy, not Dreyfus, was the true spy. When Esterhazy applied for a promotion, another French officer, Major Georges Picquart, noticed that Esterhazys handwriting matched that of the original spys letter. He realized that Esterhazy was in regular contact with the Germans and was likely the culprit. Yet even then, French authorities refused to act to free or retry Dreyfus. Esterhazy was court-martialed in 1898 but little evidence was presented against him and he was acquitted. Instead, Maj. Picquart was arrested and charged with forgery. In 1898, Major Hubert Henry, the officer whod forged the documents that framed Dreyfus, admitted his guilt. Sent to a military prison for more questioning, Maj. Henry took his own life. Yet it would be another year before Dreyfus would be retried (again, in a sham trial), and eight more long years before his name was finally cleared. The Trial Split France The Dreyfus Affair split France. By the fin de siecle period of the late 1890s, France was split into two bitterly opposing camps: the Dreyfusards who wanted the army to open a new trial and possibly exonerate Dreyfus, and the Anti-Dreyfusards who vociferously asserted Dreyfus guilt, often using harsh anti-Jewish imagery. In several cities, anti-Jewish mobs used the Dreyfus affair as justification for attacking Jews and property owned by Jews. A January 18, 1898 New York Times article gives a sense of the scale of the violence. A free anti-Dreyfus and antisemite meeting tonight at the Tivoli Vauxhall produced extraordinary scenes. At 9 oclock, on the opening of the meeting, the hall was a seething sea of humanity, crowding every part, gesticulating, shouting A bas Zola! Vive larmee! and Vive la revolution sociale! The members of the antisemite Committee displayed banners bearing the inscription, Death to the Jews.... Hundreds of people then left the hall and marched through the streets of Paris, shouting Anti-Dreyfusard slogans and "Death to Jews". Windows of Jewish shops and synagogues were smashed and broken. The violence playing out on the streets was bitterly fought in the press and the salons of France. Some of the most vocal Dreyfusards and Anti-Dreyfusards read like a Whos Who of Paris Belle Epoch. The painter Edgar Degas was an outspoken Anti-Dreyfusard. When one of his models once told the painter she thought Dreyfus was innocent, Degas screamed at her You are Jewish! and ordered her to leave. Other artists, including Claude Monet and Mary Cassatt, were ardent Dreyfusards. The most famous Dreyfusard was the French writer Emile Zola, who wrote an open letter to the President of the French Republic, accusing the army of framing Dreyfus and then of covering up their lies. He named specific officers he accused of lying and leveled a charge of antisemitism at the French Government. The letter began Jaccuse, I accuse, and sparked even more criticism and interest in Dreyfus case. In the aftermath of his letter being published, Zola was convicted of libel and fled to England for nearly a year. Facing intense anti-Jewish and anti-Dreyfus sentiment, Zola refused to backdown. The new Dreyfus Museum in France is located adjacent to Emile Zolas house. The Dreyfus Trial Sparked Modern Zionism One of the journalists covering Dreyfus trial was an Austrian named Theodore Herzl who worked for a Viennese newspaper called the Neue Freie Presse. Hed recently become the papers Paris correspondent, and he attended Dreyfus trial. What he saw shocked him. Alfred Dreyfus during WWI Herzl was an assimilated Jew who believed that Jewish assimilation was the key to ending years of antisemitism. Yet sitting in the courtroom, hearing chants of A la mort les juifs - Death to the Jews created a turning point in Herzl's life. He began attending synagogue services, and began planning a novel which would envision the return of Jews to their homeland. He published his novel Der Judenstaat, The Jewish State, in 1896 and became a tireless advocate for the establishment of a national Jewish home. In 1897, Herzl convened the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, where he and other Jewish leaders called for the establishment of a Jewish country in the ancient Land of Israel. Elected president of the newly-founded Zionist Organization, Herzl founded a weekly Zionist newspaper and began seeking a charter for Jewish settlement in Israel. Dreyfus is Still Being Called Guilty Today In time, the incontrovertible evidence that the spy in French military ranks was Esterhazy, not Dreyfus, became impossible to ignore. In 1899, Dreyfus was brought back to France and court-martialed for a second time. The court found him guilty, but reduced his sentence. Embarrassed by this obviously unfair decision, French President Emile Loubet granted Dreyfus a pardon. He was only fully exonerated many years later, in 1906. Reinstated in the army at the rank of Major, Dreyfus went on to serve in World War I. He died in 1935 at the age of 76. Even though the Dreyfus Affair was one of the most famous miscarriages of justice in French history, Dreyfus innocence has been questioned again. During World War II, the pro-Nazi Vichy regime that governed parts of France openly celebrated the anti-Dreyfusards of a generation before, renaming some streets after prominent Dreyfusards and changing names of streets named after Anti-Dreyfusards. Dreyfus innocence has been questioned even in recent months. In October 2021, the BBC announced a new Saturday night drama, Paris Police 1900. The series begins just before Dreyfus second trial: in promotional material for the show, the BBC described Dreyfus as the notorious Jewish spy. No mention was made of his obvious innocence. The Dreyfus Museum in Paris, France In France, far-right Jewish journalist and presidential hopeful Eric Zemmour has falsely claimed that the Dreyfus Affair is murky and that Dreyfus innocence is not obvious. The new Dreyfus museum, called Maison Dreyfus, is believed to be the first museum in the world devoted to Alfred Dreyfus and his trial. Museum Director Lois Gautier has said he hopes the site will show and tell about the affair but also pose questions on vital issues of tolerance, othering, human rights, womens rights, the separation of church and state and the contract between the republic and its citizens. Local featured popular urgent Living the American McDream Staff Photo: Carlton Fletcher George Suarez and his wife Denisse, right, and 14-year-old daughter Destiny meet over breakfast recently at the McDonalds restaurant on Dawson Road, one of 13 restaurants Suarez owns. Special Photo George Suarez. Staff Photo: Carlton Fletcher George Suarez, with wife Denisse, right, and daughter Destiny, bought his first three McDonalds franchises in Southwest Georgia in 2007. Today, he owns 13. Staff Photo: Carlton Fletcher George Suarez joins his morning crew at the Dawson Road McDonalds during a recent breakfast shift. The Ecuadoran native said he looks for employees who were dreamers like he was when he started working at a McDonalds in New York at age 15. ALBANY People in southwest Georgia see George Suarez go to work each morning dressed, as always, like a million dollars and they assume hes busy making sure the burgers are cooked to perfection, the fries crispy brown, and the Happy Meals just so at any of his 13 regional McDonalds restaurants. And, to a degree, theyre right. Suarez is not a man who leaves things to chance. But this native Ecuadoran who embodies the ideals of the American Dream is doing more than checking on the operations of his restaurants. When he stops in at one of his McDonalds in Blakely, Dawson, Leesburg, Sylvester, Moultrie, Lakeland, Quitman, Americus or Albany, Suarez is not content just to sell burgers. Hes planting seeds. I go back to one of my favorite teachers, Ms. Hitter in the fourth grade (in the New York City Public School System), who had a huge impact on my life, Suarez said. She had us do a science experiment with a bag of dirt and a packet of seeds. What I got from that, taking those seeds and watching them grow into plants in that soil, was how you take advantage of the opportunities that life gives you. My goal in my business life is to, like I did in the fourth grade, plant seeds in peoples lives. Then I help them water the seeds of opportunity, help provide the nutrients and sunlight, and encourage them to nurture those plants. They may not quite get it at first, but eventually they pick up the values that allow roots to grow. Thats when they start to ask themselves if the things theyre doing each day help them better themselves. And thats when they begin to grow. Suarez knows a thing or two about nurturing. He started wiping tables at McDonalds for $3.35 an hour as a 15-year-old school boy in New York City. He wanted to make his own money so he didnt have to ask his single mom for $20 to go to the movies with a friend. He and his best pal Victor Nunez hopped on the subway train one weekend and went from job to job to job seeking employment. We applied over and over and over, about 60 places, Suarez said. All we heard was no, no, no, no, no. We got off the train at the same stop on the way home, and Victor was upset. We happened to stop in a McDonalds to get something to eat, and he just said to the manager, Im looking for a job. Amazingly, they hired him on the spot. He told them, My friend is looking for a job, too, and they told him to have me come in tomorrow, too. That bit of happenstance was the beginning of a career that has lasted for some three decades and allowed the former busboy to reach the pinnacle of the fast-food industry: owner of 13 restaurants and holding right now. One thing my older sister Angela taught me when we were young was that I should save my money, Suarez said. Shed already been working, and she showed me how saving my money could benefit me. So while all the other kids were buying Nikes and Air Jordans and things like that, I was saving my money. And I used that money to buy my first house, my second house, my third house. It turns out I loved investing in real estate. But it was all part of following my dream. Suarezs dream started in Guayaquil, Ecuadors largest city. And, as fate would have it, that dream became an American dream when his mother and father divorced. My family told me that my father had died when he and my mother separated, and while I didnt understand all that was going on then, I understood that my mother was searching for a better life for our family when she sold our home and moved to America, he said. She worked three jobs in New York City its like that Frank Sinatra song: If you can make it there ... to make enough money to bring Angie and me to America. Before we left, though, something happened that changed me, helped make me the man I am today. We were having a picnic one day when this man came up to us. Angie and I thought we were seeing a ghost. It was our father. He obviously was not dead, and the fact that he came to see us when he learned we were leaving soon for America showed me that he did care for his children. (Suarez would make a trip back to Ecuador in 2006 with only a photograph of his father, searching in vain, as it turned out for the man whod made such a dramatic impact on him as an 8-year-old boy.) Once young George hired on at McDonalds, his work ethic immediately impressed the restaurants management. By the time he graduated high school, hed been promoted to general manager. Among the staff he now oversaw was the person whod hired him as a 15-year-old. Within the next five years, Suarez had saved enough money to buy his first house, an important step in his evolution because he would use his real estate investments to buy in as a McDonalds franchise owner in south Georgia. I kept moving up the ladder: general manager, supervisor, director, Suarez said. It was lonely at the top, though, and after 19 years I decided to look into becoming a franchise owner. But corporate needed a bilingual training manager, and I did that for a couple of years under one condition: that I get the opportunity to become not a VP but an owner. Before that happened, though, Suarez was talked into helping turn around restaurants in the Bronx by a McDonalds corporate executive, John Palmaccio. The quick (18-month) turnaround got both Palmaccio and Suarez promotions. When the time came to look for ownership opportunities, the sharp businessman in Suarez noted the high cost of doing business in the New York area. He looked elsewhere: upstate New York, Boston, Myrtle Beach, S.C. Atlanta-area executive Bridgette Freeman suggested he look into the southwest Georgia market, and after selling two of his New York properties, he and wife Denisse (Suarez and Denise have a 14-year-old daughter, Destiney, and grown children Christine and George III) came South, where he became owner of franchises in Blakely, Dawson and Leesburg. The experience was, to say the least, overwhelming initially. With my background in operations, I focused on getting the right people and the right standards in place in the restaurants, Suarez said. But here I was in corporate America, now a business owner, and I said, What the hell did I do? I had a friend who owned 30 stores, so I called him and said, This is crazy. He told me to hang in, that if I could make it through 31 days, it would be a breeze. That was in 2007. By 2010, Suarez was ready to expand. He acquired franchises in Sylvester and Moultrie, and four years later completely remodeled and re-opened the Dawson store before acquiring a franchise in Lakeland. The next year Suarez expanded his budding empire to include a franchise in Quitman. In 2019, Suarez purchased three Albany franchises North and South Slappey and East Oglethorpe locations and in 2020 he added a franchise in Americus. In January of 2021, he added the other two Albany locations, bringing his total to 13 restaurants. Heres what I do: I surround myself with dreamers like me, Suarez said. I have this thing I do: I hire the behavior; I can teach the skills. Sure, there are challenges like the pandemic but I try to plant the seeds that allow others to live their own American dream. People like my general managers Jasper Hall, Mary Stephens, Gail Neal I tell them they have an opportunity to change their lives, just like I did. They can make their dreams come true. Yes, George Suarez is a dreamer. But hes also a doer. And in this life hes made for himself and his family, this former part-time $3.35-an-hour table cleaner has proved that thats a potent combination. I saw Tucker Carlsons Patriot Purge (all three parts) for free on RoxyTube yesterday along with 175 others. (Thats right only 175 people were watching it then.) There is a lot to recommend. Indeed, everyone should see it and determine for themselves if Tucker has raised relevant issues as to whether there was an insurrection on January 6 at the U.S. Capitol or not. Most of you who read American Thinker know that Tucker set out to tell the truth. For reasons discussed below, he may not yet have the complete truth, but there are numerous markers he reveals that suggest what may have happened. Tucker has lots of video footage of the events of January 6. After the Trump rally, thousands walked down the Mall to the Capitol. They thought they were exercising their Constitutional right to demonstrate in favor of Trump. Many thought that Mike Pence had the power to invalidate electoral votes from questionable states as a result of fraudulent voting and throw the Presidential contest into the House Of Representatives to be resolved. They thought that, by being near the Capitol, they could stiffen Pences backbone. There was no plan to enter the Capitol. When the crowd arrived at the Capitol there were people with bullhorns urging the crowd to enter the Capitol and express their views. It is highly unlikely that these were Trump supporters. If not, who were they representing? Could they have been FBI, BLM. or ANTIFA, or any of a host of other organizations that wanted to frame Trump? It is interesting to view the videos that Tucker puts up. On the one hand, a few very strong people were scaling the walls as though there was an assault in progress ala Pont du Hoc in Normandy. At the same time, everybody else was being ushered into the Capitol by merely walking up the steps, where the Capitol Police ushered them in. Come on in, they were told. Just dont do any damage. In fact, there was little damage. Trump supporters dont do damage. I can only assume that those scaling the walls were not Trump supporters, but those who wanted to create a lasting visual of an assault. When the citizens entered the Capitol our brave members of Congress were told to hide. They did. Not one member of Congress came out to greet their fellow citizens. A horrifying episode is the video of Ashli Babbitt being shot after putting her hands on a window into the Speakers Lobby. There is no warning. She is unarmed. She is not attacking anyone. An eyewitness journalist reports all this. Nothing then or now explains why she was shot. You see her on the floor bleeding to death. You hear her mother lament her loss unable to understand what happened. After January 6, Tucker tells us that the FBI mounted the greatest manhunt in the history of the U.S. to capture and prosecute 630 citizens who were possibly entrapped mainly into trespassing. They knocked doors down and terrified families with shock and awe. Tucker claims they wanted to emulate our Iraq experience. Those who likely did the entrapping have not been prosecuted. Hundreds of January 6 trespassers have been held in the D.C. jail for months on end without either bail or a trial, and they experience gulag-like political punishment. One who is out on bail describes the horrors of the DC gulagbeatings and inhuman conditions are rampant. The prosecutors and judges in D.C. are adamant that these people are domestic terroristsyet there is no evidence to support this. How are the jailers allowed to continue to abuse Trump supporters? Tucker makes a strong case that half the country and most all of D.C. have gone mad. This ties in with Tuckers earlier historical listing of hysterias throughout the ageswitch trials, heretic trials, pogroms, and so forth. There is a House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Attack in the committees name seems to imply that its already passed judgment. Censorship of committee members also suggests the committee has already arrived at its conclusion. If you read some of the documents the committee released, it is obvious that its entirely anti-Trump membership has already made up its mind that Trump supporters are domestic terrorists and that Trump instigated the insurrection. The committee has asked for all relevant information regarding January 6. Ask this: Will the committee watch Patriot Purge? The main flaw in the documentary is something over which Tucker had no control: I dont believe he had access to those members of the government who could have provided more details on what happened. Obviously, the FBI was not available. The FBI has a long history of being a police force unto itself, able to act without consequences. This extends back to J. Edgar Hoovers blackmailing presidents. It has continued thru Ruby Ridge, Waco, and right to the present. Does anyone believe that the FBI is a national treasure and that we couldnt do without it? The FBI has an agenda that doesnt necessarily support a constitutional republic with checks and balances and a rule of law under which all are treated equally. Agents specialize in early morning arrest raids that are totally unnecessary and in infiltrating innocuous organizations and then leading them into illegal activities. The basic rule for anyone who is paying attention is that you never answer questions from the FBI. They are very good at entrapment, as we know from what happened to Michael Flynn. But the FBI is only one branch of the federal police. How many federal police are there? Almost every federal agency has its own police. Bureau of Land Management, Customs, IRS (adding thousands of agents to attack conservative tax filings), EPA, FDA, Secret Service, Federal Marshals, Capital Police (which now has set up new operations outside of D.C.), Interior Department, Border Police (which now waves anyone across the border), DEA, CIA, Transportation, National Park Police, and on and on, not to mention secret government organizations. And dont forget the National Guard deployed from all over the country to protect the Capitol from further domestic terror attack after January 6. Exactly where the threat came from no one knows since no evidence has ever been presented that there was a viable threat. The total number of Federal Police we know about is greater than 100,000 not counting support staff. With support staff, its around the size of the Marines. This might tell you something about how afraid DC is of ordinary citizens who must be kept under control. But Tucker couldnt get information from any of them. Julie Kelly would have provided an interesting interview for Patriot Purge regarding who really are the most dangerous people in DCa few hundred mainly peaceful and older trespassers for a few hours on January 6 or the everyday crowd in Congress. She could explain, as she did here, that the D.C. in-crowd is the most dangerous given its utter contempt for fellow citizens, enactment of legislation detrimental to the country, and wild spending coupled with excessive taxation on an ongoing basis. Take the time, as I did, to watch the documentary (which is also available for free at TuckerCarlson.com)and then contemplate how much more Tucker could have shown if our government was transparent about the events of January 6. Christopher Garbacz is a former economics professor. Image: It was a peaceful protest. Patriot Purge screen grab. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. We are indeed in the most interesting of times -- times that call upon us, as freedom-loving Americans, to rise to our moment in history and to fight to save the freedoms and rights that were won for us across the years through the blood and treasure of our forefathers. On Thursday of this week, OSHA released its rules that will require approximately 84 million American workers to be vaccinated by January 4 of 2022. The enforcement of President Brandons executive order is harsh, with employees ultimately bearing untenable responsibility for their own testing and masking, and the threat of steep fines for businesses that choose to not comply or fail to comply. Many businesses have not pushed back and many, even prior to the OSHA rules, have been proactive and enthusiastic in mandating that their employees be vaccinated. It is an obvious fact that America has a labor shortage and supply chain crisis of its own making and that the current administration is hellbent on doubling down on the regulations and actions that have led to the current crisis. The heavy-handed pressure being placed upon free businesses to force vaccination compliance upon their workers will result only in increased labor shortages across the county and will further negatively affect the supply chain as more hard-working Americans, upon whom our economy relies, choose to exit the labor market. In short, its not looking very rosy on the horizon. The survival of businesses in America relies upon the general goodwill of both their employees and customers. When goodwill is lost among employees, businesses can suffer greatly as employees begin to reassess their commitment to the vision of those for whom they toil. A reassessment of commitment could manifest itself in terms of dramatic losses in productivity (why would employees give any extra effort or time to companies that dont care about the freedoms of their employees?), increased absenteeism (why would employees not start taking more time for sicknesses, whether real or imagined, that previously employees would have powered through in pursuit of that raise, promotion, or performance rating?), and theft of materials and equipment, among other things. The loss of goodwill among customers can result in decreased demand for products and services that may lead companies to financial losses and layoffs or reductions in hours. Either way, employees who choose not to fight now against federal and employer mandates may not only be forced to bear and suffer the immediate consequences of their choices in terms of loss of bodily sovereignty and dignity but may also suffer the secondary consequences of the loss of goodwill that could threaten the survivability of those businesses that employ them. Businesses, trained to always comply with the government, would be foolish to trust that the mandate is all that is necessary to return to normal, whatever normal now is. After a brutal year of lockdowns that decimated small and independent businesses throughout the land, especially in Blue states, it would not be unreasonable to assume that the current authoritarian regime does not really care so much about workplace safety but of workplace submission. Workers and businesses are generally disposed to follow rules and regulations because of the assumption that they have been promulgated and implemented for our own good. But are they really good? Are rules that punish businesses with crippling and destructive fines for noncompliance with an overreaching Executive Order really good? Is pitting Americans against one another good? Is condemning dissenting Americans to destitution really good? Is punishment against Americans for their personal health choices good? Obviously not. Rather than spur confidence in workplace safety, the rules appear designed only to serve the dark purpose of fanning the flames of continued chaos that this administration has encouraged. The result would not be increased productivity, workplace safety, and a return to normal, but would instead result in increased labor shortages, increased skills shortages, and increased employee dissatisfaction. Americans are in a high-stakes game of chicken. We the People, for whom and by whom the government exists, find ourselves facing off against an extreme set of lawless dictates and unconstitutional presidential overreach. Americans could be forgiven for incorrectly assuming that its just a shot, that compliance will lead to freedom, that resistance is futile, and that the loss of a job just is not worth the inconvenience of the fight. But it is more than those incorrect assumptions -- once this hill is ceded, how long will it be until there is a mandate imposed upon schoolchildren to attend in-person learning, until the definition of fully vaccinated includes yearly (or more frequent) boosters to remain employed, until the next disease requires global vaccination before normal can return? The ultimate prize in this game of chicken is the precious and irreplaceable gift of liberty and freedom to our families and communities. Americans must realize that the Biden administration is at war with them. The sooner this realization is made, the sooner a strategy can be planned, and the best strategy would be to deprive the other side of its supply lines. Americans must take note that the federal government is highly dependent upon Americas supply chains -- not only material supply chains but also the supply chains of obedience and traditional deference to rules and regulations. By disrupting and destroying the supply chains of obedience to the mandate, the administration would find itself isolated, weak, and lashing out for attention. Destroying the supply chains of obedience means not giving in to tyranny, realizing that the government cannot fine all businesses into bankruptcy, and reminding it that it serves at the pleasure of the people. Americans now must take the offensive position. Rather than watch their freedoms and rights be stripped away slowly, Americans should proactively oppose the mandates through mass civil disobedience. The mandate calls for a January 4 deadline, which is right after the holidays, perhaps so that mass firings do not destroy the holiday shopping season and are pushed into the new year. Seeing the end-goal of destruction and tyranny, the offensive position to take would be to initiate mass civil disobedience during and throughout the holiday season, including but not limited to boycotting or refusing to purchase from any businesses that have imposed mandates on their employees, by taking all leave over the holidays, by refusing to travel by plane and refusing to fly planes. Having disclosed the date of his offensive move should inform Americans that their timeline to mount a counteroffensive is now. Now is the time to make our voices heard loud and clear; now is the time to shut down the supply chains of obedience; now is the time to ensure that America rediscovers and reclaims its freedom this Christmas season. If Americans care about the future of their freedoms and rights, there should be no limit on the peaceful methods of engaging in peaceful mass civil disobedience with the end goal of destroying the supply chains of obedience and liberating the land from tyranny. It only takes a minority to make a change. Freedom-loving Americans are at the point where the actions that we take this Christmas season, whether in the service of obedience or resistance to it, will shape our understanding of freedom and liberty going into the future. God bless us all -- every one. Image: National Archives To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. Save for the Wall Street Journal, few big media operations have reporters with the background or editors and media producers with journalistic principles to accurately inform you about legal matters. This week, looking at John Durhams Danchenko indictment and the Kyle Rittenhouse case in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that point was made crystal clear. The Hillary Dossier It has taken far too long for the Department of Justice to reveal the underpinnings of the phony Trump-Russian collusion story, a story in which Clinton associates and contractors fobbed off shoddy opposition research as intelligence to a credulous and corrupt FBI and press. But this week, we are finally getting to the genesis. We know now that the FBI was not duped, but knew the truth -- that the Dossier which the press had trumpeted as proof of the collusion was a complete lie, and yet kept the public in the dark about it. We know also that the factual underpinnings of the Dossier were created by a Russian national (Igor Danchenko) who was introduced to a Clinton associate and Democrat party operative (Charles Dolan) who himself for years had represented Russian interests. We know the two men were introduced to each other by Fiona Hill, a Russian expert for the National Security Council under Trump who just happened to testify against the President in the phony unrelated Ukrainian impeachment case, and that she also introduced Danchenko to Christopher Steele, opposition researcher for hire and author of the fabricated Dossier. Kimberly Strassel: [Charles Dolan] had far more ties to Russians than anyone in Mr. Trumps circle, having for eight years helped handle global public relations for the Russian government and throughout 2016 interacted frequently with senior Russian officials and Russian Embassy staff. The indictment reveals that in August 2016, Mr. Danchenko asked Mr. Dolan for any thought, rumor or allegation regarding the summers resignation of Paul Manafort as Mr. Trumps campaign manager. Mr. Danchenko explained he was working on a project against Trump. Mr. Dolan replied that hed had a drink with a GOP friend of mine who knows some of the players and provided gossip. Sentences of this email appear nearly verbatim in the Steele dossier, though they are (hilariously) sourced to a close associate of TRUMP. To add farce to fantasy, the indictment says the Mr. Dolan later told the FBI hed fabricated meeting a GOP friend and had simply passed on info hed read in the press. [snip] The indictment flags meetings, emails and calls that suggests Mr. Dolan passed plenty of other information to Mr. Danchenko for the dossier. This includes information he might have obtained during visits to the Russian Embassy in Washington. (Did the Russians know where this was going?) Mr. Dolan was also in regular communication with Olga Galkina, another Russian who fed information to Mr. Danchenko for the dossier. Ms. Galkina noted in two separate emails that she was expecting Mr. Dolan to get her a State Department job in a Hillary Clinton administration. The indictment alleges Mr. Danchenko lied about Mr. Dolans interaction with the dossier when the bureau belatedly tried to check the dossiers accuracy. The indictment says all this deprived the FBI of the ability to learn about the reliability, motivations, and potential bias of the Democratic source. True, though this latest indictment again paints the FBI as either inept or biased. How many more years will it take for Durham to prove beyond peradventure of doubt that the Russian-Trump Collusion was, in fact, the Russia-Hillary Collusion? Will it take even longer for the media to acknowledge it swamped the public with a fake conspiracy theory funded and concocted by criminals for partisan gain? Glenn Greenwald claims that the Hillary Conspiracy was aided by a partisan, dishonest press and fellow travelers in the FBI and CIA: ...we have heard so little about these indictments from these media figures. Why? Because they know that as long as they stay united in silence, the only people who will point out what they did are those they have frozen out of their circle and trained their audience not to hear The NYT, the WPost, CNN, NBC and the digital liberal outlets are all vastly more guilty of what they have spent years claiming Trump and the GOP are: they basically ran a dangerous disinformation campaign, full of lies, in conjunction with CIA/FBI, and now won't own up to it. From the start, Russiagate -- which drowned US politics and dangerously ratcheted up tensions with a major nuclear-armed power -- was concocted from whole cloth by serial liars paid for by the Clinton campaign and spread by their media servants: David Corn, Isikoff, Frank Foer. They all made gigantic profit from this set of lies: all of them. Their ratings skyrocketed by scaring liberals about Kremlin control of the US. They wrote best-selling books and gave themselves Pulitzers based on this massive fraud. FBI lied to the FISA court. CIA fueled it all. It has taken five years for the damnable Russian collusion lies to be exposed. Andrew Weissman really ran what was supposed to be the Robert Mueller investigation (even Congressman Adam Schiff has admitted, Mueller was not all there). Despite years of pecksniffing and millions of dollars even this richly financed and rabidly partisan counsel was able to create only one thing out of nothing -- a very generous $1.5 million book contract for Andrew Weissmann from Simon & Schuster, the money bags of choice for Democrat party figures. Not only the media lapdogs benefitted financially from the Hillary conspiracy. Another Legal Travesty: the Trial of Kyle Rittenhouse Even the testimony of the witnesses called by the bumbling prosecutors of Kyle Rittenhouse is making a strong case that the defendant acted in accord with recognized law on self-defense in the middle of a violent riot. The best coverage is by Andrew F. Branca at Legal Insurrection: Two of the states own witnesses, and arguably their star witnesses with the greatest immediate personal knowledge of the events surrounding the shootings -- journalist Richard McGinnis who was filming and interviewing Kyle that night, and former Army Infantryman Ryan Balch, who was also armed along with Kyle that night -- provided lengthy testimony that not only failed to assist the states efforts to attack Kyles claim of self-defense, their testimony substantively strengthened that claim of self-defense. So clueless was media coverage of the case that the judge commented on it: On Wednesday, Judge Schroeder griped specifically about Toobins coverage of the victim ruling. This was on CNN, Jeffrey Toobin and another attorney there, and a comment was made that the ruling was incomprehensible, and I think they obviously are not familiar with this rule, the judge said. He continued, taking aim at the broader press, saying, Im going to comment about the media again because there was a gentleman on TV night before last who said this is the most divisive case in the country to date. So anything that undermines public confidence in what happens here is very important. Its important for this town, Schroeder said, its important for this country, to have people have confidence in the result of this trial, whatever it is. And I dont care what it is. Earlier, during jury selection on Tuesday, Schroeder also bemoaned what he characterizes as a glut of irresponsible news coverage, including reports that are deliberately biased. In the Rittenhouse case, too, the FBI apparently has mud on its face. It had taken a high overhead thermal image video of the incident, which fact it did not disclose until recently to the defense and which it now claims is missing. Defense lawyer Mark Richards told the judge he believes there was other video taken by the FBI thats no longer available. Richards said he was incredulous that the FBI could take video that captured alleged homicides and then got rid of that video. That is preposterous, Richards added. The judge balked when prosecutor Binger told him regarding footage from the plane that the federal government is not under our control. I beg your pardon, the judge said, interrupting Binger. I dont get this, the judge said. This is a criminal prosecution if there is going to be cloak and dagger stuff. Whats going on? Indeed, what is going on? To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. The Expendables isnt just a movie anymore. It is fast becoming the American way of life under the most callous and dictatorial Presidential administration this nation has ever seen. On Wednesday, November 3, US House Representatives Marjorie Taylor-Greene and Luis Gohmert attempted a welfare check on the January 6 prisoners in the D.C. jail in which they are being held. They were turned away. The US Marshals, however, when they conducted a surprise inspection of the jail in which the 1/6 prisoners were being held, were able to obtain admission. They found the conditions so deplorable that 400 pretrial detainees were transferred to another facility. The January 6 prisoners were not among them. They continue to languish under brutal conditions. Why werent they moved with the other detainees? To ask the question is to answer it. Meanwhile, due to the despicable COVID vaccine mandate, thousands if not tens of thousands of first responders who exhausted themselves saving countless lives during the pandemic will now be out on the streets and struggling to support their families and keep roofs over their heads. That they declined the vaccine due to natural immunity or for personal medical or religious reasons is of no consequence. Do what we tell you or we will destroy you! is a hell of a way to pay back those armies of heroes. Its no way to treat any Americans under any circumstances. Yet possibly hundreds of thousands of Americans face the same ugly fate for the crime of noncompliance with this totalitarian mandate. Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, the State Department confirmed that four hundred American citizens, possibly more, are trapped inside the terrorist hellhole state the Biden Administration itself created through the single most devastating act to America since the 9/11 attacks. If you are wondering about their fate, you have good reason. A search on the State Department website for Afghanistan leads to a page announcing that, on November 9 at 1:30 pm, there will be an Afghan Resettlement Stakeholders Town Hall...whatever that means. So far, the true American citizen stakeholders in all this havent fared so well. My search results indicate that the last State Department briefing held on the status of American citizens held in Afghanistan was on September 27. It all looks very grim. But the news isnt all bad, depending on who you are. The hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens that have crossed our Southern border are not required to be vaccinated at all before they spread out all across the American wild. Unlike American citizens, illegals are encouraged but not compelled under duress. Members of Congress and their staffers, of course, are exempt from the mandate, as per the Orwellian-named Safer Federal Workforce Task Force. If you are ultraviolent Antifa Flying Squad Blackshirts, no worries compared to the 1/6 detainees. Your charges, even up to felony assault of a federal law officer, will be dropped before you ever see the inside of a courtroom. Also, unlike the 1/6 detainees who have been detained without bond, Antifa and BLMers have high-ranking Democrats up to the Vice President herself who will do all they can to bail you out. If you firebombed an NYPD van or even committed murder, you have all the right people on your side. Even the FBI. Its almost enough to lead you to believe that Antifa, like the Klan before it, is the enforcement arm of the Democratic Party. What they protest and who they attack has yet to deviate from DNC policy that I can see. Strange, no? There are countless other Expendables such as parents doxxed, blacklisted, and fired for the audacity of challenging their school boards over anti-white racist constructs, gender insanity, and Marxist orthodoxy. Even though the National School Boards Association has rescinded its infamous domestic terrorist parents letter, AG Garlands FBI memo on parents is still in full effect. Why? If you back way up and look at the overall picture here, it has all the appearances of a Stalinist purge of the non-compliant and brutal examples made of those who would challenge Democrat authority as a warning to others. This left-wing Democratic fascism is also apparent in cancel culture and the purge of American culture in exchange for one that is repugnant to most Americans, yet familiar to our immigrant citizens who have experienced it. Big Tech and Big Media are also doing their part in full to demonize and silence any who would dare challenge the Orthodoxy. A Congressman who dares declare that DHHS Secretary Rachel Levine, a biological male for half a century, is a male isnt safe from unpersoning on Twitter. Even comedians such as Dave Chappelle arent safe. Where this is all going, I have no idea, but it really looks bad. What happened in Virginia is a huge breath of relief for parents. Under a second term of Terry McAuliffe, does anyone doubt that he would have resisted allowing undercover FBI agents to operate in the state to collect intel and prepare to arrest parents whose only concerns are their childrens education? Given that the FBI memo is still active, I have no doubt that this is happening in Democrat-run states. How I wish that we had a proactive Republican opposition in Congress. Serving as a wall for the Democrats Destroy America bills (and a very weak wall as Fridays House vote showed) is all well and good, but its nowhere near enough. A select handful, like Reps. Taylor-Greene and Gohmert are being proactive and getting directly involved. As to the vax mandate, Nicki Minaj has single-handedly done more to counter the fascist vax mandate than the entire GOP. It makes me wonder. Are Republicans so quiet on the mandate because they are all receiving Vegas paydays from Pfizer? In the meantime: Do Not Comply! Challenge any school boards trying to mess your kids up so bad they dont even know who they are anymore (which is the idea in my humble opinion). When people have no identities or are so screwed up they dont even recognize their own bodies, programming is far easier and resistance far less forceful. In closing, I will make a prediction. If the Biden administration tries to force a vaccine mandate on children under duress as they have adults, they are asking for q catastrophic pushback. Voices far more influential than mine are saying the exact same thing. The adult vax mandate is poking a stick into a tiger cage. With a child vax mandate, that tiger is out. And Republicans, do every damn thing you have to to get our citizens out of Afghanistan. Hire mercenaries if you must. State is useless. Get them out. And free the January 6 Detainees. Issue Congressional orders or obtain court orders. Sue. Get them out. Ill be watching. You better at least try. Or I will have no problem doing all I can to support primary challengers to as many of you feckless, cowardly, and corrupt Uniparty worms next year as humanly possible. The nations black mood is on my side, not yours. Words to the wise. Do your jobs! Image: American under attack. (American map by George Hodan. Public domain. Military Missile from freeiconspng.) To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. Were experiencing an increasing racial divide when there should be a remarkable decrease. What is the basis for this historical anomaly, given that American has no more prejudicial race-based laws? No race currently faces legal obstacles to equal justice and opportunity. The most likely culprit for the divide is the simplistic, inaccurate approach to American history in our schools. When people try to explain the racial divide, they offer many reasons: Critical Race Theory, which divides everyone into oppressed/oppressor categories; the Black Lives Matter movement; politicians pandering to receive ethnic-based votes; or the emphasis on police actions involving race. Something deeper is involved. Americans are taught that slavery is Americas original sin. Wrong. Slavery was not Americas original sin. It existed before any White or Black person arrived. Native Americans practiced it before they ever came alongbut even then, it wasnt their original sin. Slavery is humankinds sin. In elementary and secondary schools, slavery is now and has long been taught very simply: American slave owners were White and slaves Blackperiod. Students learn slaves were shipped from Africa, without any focus on who caught them, enslaved them, or sold them to Europeans to be shipped to Europe or the Americas. Only after school ends do some learn the whole story. I broadened my knowledge by reading Unspoken Reality: Black Slaveholders Prior to the Civil War, co-written by Yulia Tikhomirova and Lucia Desir at Mercy College. Tikhomirova is Russian and Desir is Black. They draw upon and include information from Black historians and scholars (e.g., John Hope Franklin, Larry Koger, and Carter G. Woodson, et al.). The truth is Blacks were also slaveholders. American slavery begins in Africa. Black Africans, chieftains, and Arabs were the main participants and oppressors of the enslaved. They captured, kidnapped, enslaved, and sold millions of Black Africans into slavery. Millions were sent to Europe and the Americas and millions more to the Middle East and North Africa. A missionary colleague of mine from Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania) admitted to his children that his Muslim family-owned slaves and was in the slave-trading business. Somehow, our school history textbooks and teachings tend to omit this primary information. Returning to American history, we learn half the truth, which is that slaves were Black. Its assumed slaveholders were all White. However, the same research paper and other resources reveal facts previously ignored or purposely omitted: American slaveholders were multiracial, not just White. There were thousands of Black slaveholders in the South. Five Native American tribes, i.e., Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, held thousands of black slaves. The Chickasaw and Choctaw would not emancipate their slaves after the Civil War. They were forced to free them when signing a treaty with the United States. The honesty and candidness of Black historians and scholars should not be ignored. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has forthrightly admitted that there were Black slave owners in the South. Those historians uncovered facts revealing such enslavement was not intended to protect family membersan excuse frequently givenbut was based on economics, as was true for all slave owners. Their slaves experienced cruelty, beatings, deprivation, and rape. Census records reveal over 3,000 Black slave owners in New Orleans. It is alleged the wealthiest slave owner with the most slaves in Louisiana to be Black. Its believed over 20,000 slaves in the Carolinas were owned by Blacks. And most surprising to many, the first Black slave brought to America was brought by a Black African slave owner. Why does this matter? Omitting it from what we teach children creates in them lifelong perspectives and opinions. If they dont learn about the African side of the slave trade, about free slaves, and about Black and Native American slave owners, they are learning a falsehood, one that promotes animosity between races from a very early age. Some children take this half-truth personally, internalize it, and continue to act upon and promote it throughout life. Reparations to descendants of Black slaves are a renewed issue. Who should pay it and who should receive it? Would the descendants of free Blacks and Black slaveholders be lumped in with genuine descendants of slaves because this historical fact is being ignored? How just would that be? It isnt too late to correct the historical record and teach the truth. Slavery was never black and white, involving only Whites enslaving Blacks. It was multiracial just as most evils existent today are multiracial. Its time to correct Americas history. Its also time to cease promoting racial division based on the falsehood of Americas original sin and its selective omission of facts about all the oppressors and practitioners. If we fail to correct how we teach history, we will reap untold and potentially horrific consequences. Falsehoods cruelly harmed millions of Blacks, Jews, Asians, and Caucasians. Lets learn from history and determine not to repeat its worst moments and evils against the innocent. Image: A slave market in Zanzibar. Public domain. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. Victor Davis Hanson is as articulate a defender of the American spirit of liberty as we have, but I have to take issue with the way he ended his October 29 article at The Federalist. After asking a long series of questions along the lines of how did we get in the fix we're in, with unelected partisans like Gen. Milley, Dr. Fauci, former CIA director John Brennan, former FBI director James Comey going beyond their authority to warp the very political process of the nation; with "a small number of extremists hijack[ing] our culture," farmer/classicist Hanson predicted that "the intolerant Woke" movement will face its reckoning. As noted, the article appeared October 29, and on November 2, Woke-ism and Biden seemed to have begun to face their reckoning, indeed. That is, until the Republicans put a stop to that, providing the votes to pass Biden's lots-of-goodies-for-the-left Infrastructure bill, November 5, a bill that will likely cost 2 trillion dollars. Thirteen House Republicans voted in favor of this giveaway to the left measure, to be paid for on the backs of middle-class voters, the GOP base. That's right, thirteen House Republicans acted to impose onerous taxes on those suburban families that supposedly deserted the Republican Party in 2020. YouTube screengrab (cropped) What did President Trump ever do to make life harder for the middle class? Indeed, for all Americans. Not a damn measure. That's what. And did suburbia show gratitude? No way. Still, on November 2, Republican voters in Virginia elected Glenn Youngkin governor over the execrable Terry McAuliffe, and three days later House Republicans de-reckoned Biden and the radical left by giving Biden the excuse to claim victory with the passage of the huge infrastructure bill. This suggests that were Speaker Pelosi to put before the House a bill to outlaw the Republican Party as racist, neo-Nazi, Islamophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, the measure would pass with the votes of fourteen House GOPers (the 13 for giveaways called "Infrastructure" plus Liz Cheney, and seven Republican senators. There can be no day of reckoning for the leftist totalitarians if congressional Republicans undo the efforts of the voters to protect the American spirit of freedom. The GOP (Grand Old Party) must become the GOPAT (Grand Old Phalanx Against Tyranny) if there is to be a successful reckoning to the partisans warping our politics and the extremists hijacking our culture as Victor Davis Hanson put it. What profiteth us deplorables if we elect Republicans who, on taking office, bend before the winds of the woke? If we continue to elect to Congress Republicans who, unlike Donald J. Trump, are lacking a backbone, then the words of the malevolent Fiona Hill are indeed appropriate: "democracy is done." A Republican elected to political office is not worth a damn if he or she does not realize that every leftist attack on Republicans informs the leftist mindset. It would seem, thus far, that Republicans are intimidated by being called threats to democracy by the left, boomed out by the media. Before any candidate receives the imprimatur from local, state, or federal Republican organizations, the candidate should be asked to answer this one question: Which major political party, today, if any, represents a threat to the American spirit of freedom? If the candidate does not immediately reply, "why the Democrat party, of course," the nomination must go to another candidate, one with clear eyes, a mind that will not be deceived, and a strong backbone. Only then can the needed day of reckoning, envisioned by Victor Davis Hanson, occur. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. On October 27, Gavin Newsom, an apparently healthy young man without any known comorbidities, nevertheless sat down in Oakland, California, for a vaccine booster. Since then, no one has seen him in public. Although I would never wish illness on someone just because I disagree with them politically if Newsom did in fact have a bad reaction to the booster, that might affect his tyrannical ukase requiring all children who attend either public or private schools to get a COVID vaccine. Heres footage of a cheerful Gavin Newsom getting his vaccine booster and then flexing his muscles to prove that hes super healthy: Now, though, theres a question about whether hes healthy at all, let alone super healthy. The Daily Mail ran an entire article on Saturday wondering about the whereabouts of the states governor: California Governor Gavin Newsom has disappeared from public view for 10 days and abruptly canceled plans to attend the COP26 climate summit in Scotland over unexplained family obligations. Newsom was last seen in public on October 27, receiving a COVID-19 booster shot in Oakland. He said it was painless and then flexed in celebration, urging others to get boosters as well. Two days later, his office issued a statement citing unspecified family obligations, abruptly cancelling his plans to attend the global climate conference, a huge gathering of international leaders on a subject that is among his highest priorities. The statement claimed that Newsom would attend the summit virtually, though he still has not made a video appearance. Californias lieutenant governor led the delegation in his place. No further information on the family obligations that caused the sudden alteration to his schedule have been shared. Since then, Newsom has been seen only in prerecorded video statements, and in family Halloween photos posted on Monday, in costume as a pirate with his wife and four young children. When pressed, a Newsom spokesperson pish-toshed the idea that there was something wrong with him, despite his having canceled a chance to fly to Scotland and consort with the rich, famous, and fossil-fuel profligate hanging out there. The article notes little tweets Newsom has done, a pre-recorded Diwali message for Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, and some Buddhists, a photo of him with his family (wife and four children) showing off Halloween costumes, and a few announcements from his officeincluding the promise of a robust vaccination program for children now that the FDA approved for them an experimental vaccine with no long-term studies because there hasnt yet been a long term. On Saturday, AP reported that Newsom praised the infrastructure bill that nine quisling Republicans helped the Democrats pass. However, theres neither footage nor a photo of Newsom making that statement. The same is true for the Sacramento Beeit reports his statement without a video or a photograph. Regarding the vaccine that Newsom is so desperate to mandate for children, Dr. Ted Noel sent me some interesting data: CDC Director Walensky is urging kids to be vaccinated. Her justification is 745 deaths in kids under 18 in the last 12 months. Since there are 41,490,000 kids through age 19 (I know, not a perfect match, but close) in the US, this works out to 17.956 (round up to 18) deaths PER MILLION. Bicycles are more deadly. If you like statistics, the chance of a child dying from COVID is 0.0018% or, if you round it up, 0.002%. That rate is bad luck not a childhood disease epidemic. Should Newsom indeed be hiding a bad reaction to the booster, thats not going to be a selling point for the pressure hes putting on California parents to inject their children with a minimally tested vaccine that has resulted in numerous side effects, some of which are extremely serious. Given that children are minimally affected by COVID, any risk from the vaccine may seem to the parents like too big a risk to take with their most precious possessions. Image: Gavin Newsom gets a vaccine booster (edited in befunky). YouTube screen grab. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. To put it bluntly, liberals can't handle guilt. They live with an uncomfortable tension. They ambivalently believe they deserve to feel guilty because they're sort of sure they are. After all, they are Democrats. When a Democrat friend leaves the table in a huff at Starbucks, that's what's worrying him. At the height of COVID-19, Democrats' guilt anxiety was especially obvious as they hassled their fellow citizens to put those masks on. Last summer as we walked from the post office parking lot, a man chastised my wife for being insufficiently masked. Minutes later, ahead of us in line, the same man stepped up to the Plexiglas barrier. He got two words out before the clerk interrupted: "Sir, you need to pull your mask up over your nose." Caught off guard, he said, "Oh, yes, of course." Likely he was a liberal Democrat. He acted like one. Democrats recognize that what they should do, they would rather not do, and so they mostly don't. They fret but are obliviously lax hence their anxious tension. They release that tension by pompously policing strangers on the street such as my wife. The other piece of liberal Democrats' guilt is their ineffectual attempt at its expiation. Is that not the purpose of virtue-signaling? People who shift about in their hard "guilt chairs" are happy to nudge them over to others. How else can one interpret a sign in the window of an apartment that reads, Hate Has No Home Here? The syllogism implied is that hate exists, just not in [my] home; therefore, it must exist in [your] home. That too-familiar yard sign, We Follow the Science, is self-inoculation by someone who is anxiously uncomfortable. Let's parse it. "We" suggests a peer group. "Follow" suggests approval by that peer group, and "The Science" suggests not just any old science but a noble science born of serious consensus. One has to be pretty uncomfortable to require that level of support group; a kind of "consensus anonymous." Recently the APA (American Psychological Association) posted its own guilt-expiation statement announcing that it had "failed in its role leading the discipline of psychology, was complicit in contributing to systemic inequities, and hurt many through racism, racial discrimination, and denigration of communities of color, thereby falling short on its mission to benefit society and improve lives." Maybe APA stands for American Pathological Association. To borrow from the CRT "style sheet," one could deconstruct the APA's apology as a deflection of its acknowledged systemic guilt onto the unconscious white privileged power structure. After all, they did admit to racial denigration complicity and hurt. Why trumpet such misanthropy? Why not just quietly improve? They needed someplace to dump their self-absorbed guilt and slough off that uncomfortable tension. This brings me to Dr. Leon F. Seltzer, writing in Psychology Today, who sums it up. It's hardly exemplary behavior to try to escape blame or criticism by "passing the buck." And projecting our mistakes, or misdeeds, onto others represents a psychological defense. ... A good deal of our anger is motivated by a desire not to experience guilt. There is something sad and weak about liberal Democrats that they can't muster owning their human agency. With predictability, they default to blaming others while they hide behind constructs of virtue camouflage. Spruce Fontaine is an artist and retired college art instructor. Image via Public Domain Pictures. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. Procter & Gamble (P&G) is one of Americas largest corporations, with over 100,000 employees worldwide. It is putting a vaccine mandate into place for its more than 26,000 America-based employees, which will require them to get vaccinated, meet a company-approved exemption, or take weekly COVID tests. Those employees opposed to the vaccine mandate are pushing back. To that end, they released a powerful video warning, not P&G, but all Americans, what will happen if these employees lose their jobs. Its unlikely that youve navigated through life without ever purchasing a product from P&G. Its list of products includes Charmin, Crest toothpaste, Tide laundry detergents, Gillette razors, Oral-B dental products, Tampax, Head & Shoulders shampoo, Pepto-Bismol, Pampers, and many more items that show up in most American households. Throughout the scary first months of COVID, before it became both manageable and endemic, rather than epidemic, thousands of workers across America kept going to work to keep products on American shelves. Now, however, even without Bidens unconstitutional OSHA mandate, most of Americas big corporations have issued vaccine mandates. The same workers who kept America going are, therefore, facing a Hobsons choice: (1) Take the vaccine or (2) prove to a soulless American corporation that your faith means something to you and precludes the vaccine or (3) get weekly COVID tests, an expensive, uncomfortable, time-consuming, and ultimately pointless exercise. Many of these workerswhether because they have already had COVID, giving them natural immunity; or they oppose the vaccine on a variety of grounds; or they do not want to give up their bodily autonomy with endless tests that have dubious accuracyare objecting. Very intelligently, theyve made their objections public via what appears to be a professionally-produced video. To avoid repercussions, their faces are hidden, but the employees explain their long ties to P&G, the work they put in at the height of the COVID panic, and the way their employer is now forcing them to give up their principles and bodily autonomy. If that doesnt move you, the video makes clear that, if these workers go, consumers will be hit even harder with empty shelves. This time, the problem wont be Chinese products that are stuck off the California coast. Instead, the factory slowdowns will be right here at home. Consumers may find themselves brushing their teeth with twigs and salt and boiling their clothes in lye-based soap to get them clean, as was done in the pre-modern era. Procter & Gamble employees, who are being threatened with termination if they refuse to get vaccinated, have a message to their CEO & America: What youve already seen happen to the airline industry will soon happen to many other organizations pic.twitter.com/NOduHriGx8 Sav (@RapidFire_Pod) November 5, 2021 Anyone who tried to fly either Southwest or American Airlines recently understands just how powerful a threat it is when Americas workers say that they will stand on their principles against a vast, corporate conglomerates tyrannical dictates. If you love libertyand you love your shampoo, toothpaste, or laundry detergentyou may want to contact Procter & Gamble directly and let it know that the information we have about COVID today makes vaccine mandates unreasonable and inconsistent with a free country. Just FYI, here are some talking points: Image: P&G employee video screen grab. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. Yesterday, reports appeared in The New York Times and elsewhere that the FBI searched the home of James OKeefe, the founder of Project Veritas, on Saturday as part of its investigation into the possible theft of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, President Bidens daughter. Mr. OKeefe released a statement acknowledging that the raid had indeed occurred and that the FBI had taken materials of current and former Project Veritas journalists despite the fact that Project Veritass legal team previously contacted the Department of Justice and had voluntarily conveyed unassailable facts that demonstrated Project Veritas lack of involvement in criminal activity and/or criminal intent. OKeefe also states that the Department of Justice had requested Project Veritas to not disclose anything related to the raid or the associated subpoenas. However, what astounded them is that within an hour of one of the raids, The New York Times contacted Project Veritas for comments. OKeefe was understandably perplexed as to how The New York Times became aware of the existence and execution of a search warrant. OKeefe also states that he was approached by tipsters claiming they had a copy of Ashley Bidens diary. Project Veritas states that they investigated the claims and took steps to corroborate the authenticity of the diary. Since they couldnt determine the authenticity of the diary, they decided to refrain from publishing any of its contents. They also state that they attempted to return the diary to an attorney representing Ms. Biden, but that attorney refused to authenticate it. In the past, Project Veritas had performed sting ops on the likes of Twitter, Planned Parenthood, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), NPR, CNN, and The Washington Post. The media covered this raid and made sure to prefix Project Veritas with adjectives such as far right, alt right, right wing, and conservative. The coded message here is that Project Veritas deserved the raids because they are doing work that benefits the right, also that they are crazy conspiracy theorists crackpots who like the January 6th insurrectionists deserve to languish in prison. It is impossible to know if the DOJ had a valid reason to raid them. We can only look at how the FBI reacted in the past when journalists received material through questionable channels. Four years ago, MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow had acquired President Trump's tax returns from 2005. She made a big deal about it on Twitter and on her show on MSNBC. It turned out to be a non-issue and proved that Trump had indeed paid his taxes contrary to the claims being made. Clearly, these tax returns were obtained through illegal means. Perhaps there was a mole in the IRS who handed Maddows team the highly confidential documents. IRS laws say that willful unauthorized disclosure of returns or return information by an employee or former employee is a felony. The penalty can be a fine of up to $5,000 or up to five (5) years in jail, or both, plus costs of prosecution. However, there has been no raid or even basic inquiries by the FBI on any of Maddows offices or properties, so far. In 2017, the NYT carried a report that phone records and intercepted calls proved that members of President Trumps 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election. They claimed the source was four current and former American officials. Once again obtaining phone records and intercepting phone calls is illegal. However, there has been no raid by the FBI on any of the NYT offices or on the properties and offices of the people who carried the story. Since 2016, the legacy media carried the Trump Russia collusion hoax as if it were real. This even caused the appointment of a special counsel who eventually exonerated Trump. The stunning revelations emerging from the Durham probe continue to prove that this was the Democrat- and media-driven concoction. Clearly, the legacy media colluded with politicians on the Hill and rogue intelligence agents to concoct and propagate this hoax for ages. However, there has been no raid by the FBI on any of the offices or the properties of any members of the legacy media to investigate this. We have seen this happen over and over again: a blatant dual standard in punitive action from various law enforcement agencies. There are almost two different legal systems in the US. If Trump or anybody who is seen to be pro-Trump, such as Project Veritas, General Flynn, Roger Stone, Michael Cohen, is involved the FBI becomes Dirty Harry. Regular, decent, hardworking people could be rendered unemployed for refusing to take a vaccine, could be punished for not wearing a mask, and could end up in jail for protesting in Washington. However, Democrat-favored groups such as BLM can riot and burn down cities and nothing will happen; at worst there may be perfunctory arrests especially if photographs or video of the perpetrators become public. Democrat allies in the legacy media and beyond can break laws to spread propaganda but there is no punishment. In a democracy, it is essential that law enforcement agencies function as watchdogs. It is essential that they are apolitical since they are the controls that need to be applied uniformly It is not that these agencies are not functioning as controls; it is just that their objectives have changed to serve the Democrat establishment. Their goal now is to detect and prevent any occurrence that could harm the Democrat establishment and also to correct i.e. reduce the impact of any occurrence that harms the Democrat establishment Legal egalitarianism that causes all citizens to be equal before the law is a fundamental tenet of any functioning democracy. When that essential principle begins to fail and the law is selective applied, it is time to worry. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. For thousands of years, our gender was determined by science and anatomy. Basically, everyone could look down to see what body parts we have. When I was born in 1953, the doctor looked me over and determined that I was a male. It was not rocket science. My parents were not given a choice as to what gender to go on my birth certificate. If I had chosen to go into the girls locker room in high school in the early 1970s and walked around naked, I would have been expelled, arrested, and classified for life as a dangerous sexual predator. No one would have cared if I said I felt like a girl that day. Today, the party of science says that gender should not be determined by science. Instead, you can pick your gender by how you feel. Essentially you can choose off a menu, just like Biden could choose a flavor of ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Girls should not demand the right to privacy. If someone with a penis wants to invade their facilities, they should just accept it. If anyone disagrees with this strange, dangerous policy they will be labeled a hater. Personally, it has nothing to do with hate. I just dont think anyone with a penis should be strolling around in female facilities. In New York City, there are now at least 31 acceptable genders. If I got to New York, I would Identify myself as #27, Gender Gifted. My preferred pronoun will be GG, and if anyone calls me something different I would sue because my feelings have been hurt. New York City legally recognizes 31 different gender identities Being gender identities, New York City residents can simply choose their identity, without ever having to show proof of gender. So Im guessing a person could even choose a separate gender for each day of a 31-day month, and that would be legal. Apparently, you can be fined upto $ 250,000 for failure to use and/or recognize an employees, tenants, customers, or clients preferred name, pronoun and title (e.g., Ms./Mrs.) regardless of the individuals sex assigned at birth, anatomy, gender, medical history, appearance, or the sex indicated on the individuals identification. Anyway, heres the complete list of 31 genders: Bi-gendered Cross-dresser Drag King Drag Queen Femme Queen Female-to-Male FTM Gender Bender Genderqueer Male-to-Female MTF Non-Op HIJRA Pangender Transexual/Transsexual Trans Person Woman Man Butch Two-Spirit Trans Agender Third Sex Gender Fluid Non-Binary Transgender Androgyne Gender Gifted Gender Blender Femme Person of Transgender Experience Androgynous You are commanded to call this person a woman: Photo credit: Governor Tom Wolfe CC BY 2.0 license Todays oppressors are people who mislabel themselves as progressives moving towards government control, even to the point of forcing people to deny fundamental truths about male and female. They are politicians who seek to fire people because they won't follow dictatorial mandates. There is nothing progressive about people who falsely label themselves as progressive. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. It is no accident that Palestinians and many Arab political and religious leaders are hostile to Jews and to the nation of Israel. This bitter animosity resulted from a little-known historical event that led to the dark origins of Islamofascism. Starting in 1933, a cozy relationship bloomed between the National Socialists of Germany and the Arab-Muslim political elites in Palestine. The Arab-Muslim world had always been receptive to various authoritarian, socialists, and nationalistic political systems. So it is not surprising that a cordial ideological commonality soon developed between the Nazis and the Arab-Muslim world. Within a few weeks of Hitler's rise to Germany's chancellorship in 1933, the German consul-general in Jerusalem for Palestine, Heinrich Wolff, touted Mohammed Amin al-Husseini's eager support of the Nazis, especially their anti-Jewish boycott across Germany. Wolff relayed to Berlin that Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem since 1921, had asserted that the Muslims in Palestine "looked forward to the spread of Fascism throughout the region." To many in the Middle East, Nazi Germany was considered the natural ally of the Arab and Muslim world. Spending much of his time in Nazi Germany during World War II, Amin al-Husseini finally met Benito Mussolini in 1941 and declared his intentions to ally with the Axis. Many Fascist leaders were overjoyed at such an alliance with the Palestinian leader. Mussolini, who had been a hardcore atheist since his youthful Marxist days, declared to his Fascist Cabinet that "Islam was perhaps a more effective religion than Christianity." A number of high-level Nazi leaders learned of this encounter and invited the Palestinian leader to visit Hitler in Berlin. Hitler was interested in the Arab world and its rising animosity toward Jews, capitalism, and British influence. The Fuhrer agreed to meet with Amin al-Husseini on November 28, 1941. In that meeting, Al-Husseini pressed for Arab independence, particularly the liberation of Palestine from the British. He also sought to prevent the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine, as had been proposed by the British government. This might look like normal political negotiations between nations, but al-Husseini had a darker side. He began to work for the Nazis and became involved in the Arabic-language service broadcast program. He made a series of propaganda broadcasts from Berlin in an effort to "foment unrest, sabotage, and insurrection against the Allies." Obviously, al-Husseini was a Nazi collaborator and used his influence to turn Arabs against the Jews and Western allies. In a Nazi-sponsored radio broadcast in 1944, he asked Arabs to rise up and "kill the Jews wherever you find them." In his supervision of pro-Nazi radio broadcasts out of Zeesen, Athens, and Rome, al-Husseini was considered more effective than any other Arab leader at "promoting hatred of the Jews among Muslims." But the Nazis did more than broadcast messages to the Middle East by Arabic National Socialists. There was a drive to give students from Arab countries German scholarships, to have business firms take in Arab apprentices, and to invite Arab party leaders to "Nuremberg party rallies and military chiefs to Wehrmacht maneuvers." In fact, the Nazis established an "Arab Club" in Berlin as the "center for Palestine-related agitation and Arabic-language broadcasting." Some Nazi leaders, such as Heinrich Himmler, talked about the "ideological closeness" of National Socialism and Islam, coming up with the concept of Muselgermanen or "Muslimo-Germans." Adolf Hitler himself admitted in private conversations that he favored Islam over Christianity. Albert Speer, a member of the Fuhrer's inner circle, revealed Hitler's anti-Christian stance in his book Inside the Third Reich: Memoirs. Hitler told Speer: "The Mohammedan religion too would have been more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?" As for creating an Arab-Nazi army, Amin al-Husseini by 1943 had helped to arrange the creation of the 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division (also called the "Handschar"), mostly manned by Bosnian Muslims, to fight the Allies. Some 24,000 to 27,000 Arab recruits signed up to fight with the Nazis. Because of his collaboration with the Nazis, the American Jewish Congress (AJC) has described Amin al-Husseini as "Hitler's henchman." But oddly, anyone today who dares to criticize the modern ideological and theological positions of Islam is often faced with accusations of islamophobia. And yet, the close link of German Nazism and Italian Fascism to Islamic fascism is undisputable. Hitler's and Mussolini's national socialism matched well their Arab fascist counterparts. This is not a prejudice against the Islamic religion; it is abhorrence of the violence, racism, and socialism of the Islamic fascism movement. L.K. Samuels is the author of Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum (2019) and other books. Image: CreaPark via Pixabay, Pixabay License. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. On Tuesday evening, I anticipated a Youngkin victory in Virginia. Like most of you, I did not really pay attention to New Jersey. Maybe I was reading too many stories and polls about New Jersey staying blue again. Then the reds surprised us, and the blues were looking for late-night boxes full of ballots. So what happened in New Jersey? Maybe the pollsters don't have a clue after all. Maybe they are just desperately dialing and hoping somebody talks to them. Or maybe they are talking to too many adults or so-called registered voters, who often don't really vote. Or maybe too many Republicans are not taking their calls and completely messing up their samples. I don't know the answer, but one pollster decided to come clean. I am talking about Patrick Murray of the Monmouth Poll. This is what he wrote: I blew it. The final Monmouth University Poll margin did not provide an accurate picture of the state of the governor's race. So, if you are a Republican who believes the polls cost Ciattarelli an upset victory or a Democrat who feels we lulled your base into complacency, feel free to vent. I hear you. I owe an apology to Jack Ciattarelli's campaign and to Phil Murphy's campaign for that matter because inaccurate public polling can have an impact on fundraising and voter mobilization efforts. But most of all I owe an apology to the voters of New Jersey for information that was at the very least misleading. OK, Patrick. Thank you for accepting responsibility. Maybe your colleague who said Biden would win Wisconsin by 10 points should do the same. Maybe your colleague down in Texas who printed on the Friday before the election that Biden would win the Lone Star state by 1 should resign for incompetence. My take is that people just don't trust pollsters. They are not comfortable telling strangers on the phone about their political choices. Maybe they don't want a gang showing up at their door calling them a racist because their "choice" was leaked to the other side. Last, but not least, too many journalists are just living by polls. They sit in front of the computers and write articles based on polls. Some talk to voters, like Selena Zito, but most don't. You can't outlaw polls, but we can stop paying attention to them. I hope New Jersey teaches everyone that important lesson. In other words, read the polls, but remember that no expert last spring predicted that the Braves would win the World Series. PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk). Image: Phil Murphy via Flickr, CC BY 2.0. To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here. PLEASE NOTE: ALL ONLINE PURCHASES ARE AUTOMATIC RENEWALS UNLESS YOU EMAIL JPAYNE@ANNISTONSTAR.COM OR CONTACT CUSTOMER SERVICE @ 256-235-9253.... Purchase an online subscription to our website for $7.99 a month with automatic renewal. Each online subscription gives you full access to all of our newspaper websites and mobile applications. To cancel you may contact Customer Service @ 256-235-9253 or email JPAYNE@ANNISTONSTAR.COM *NEW SUBSCRIBERS ONLY join with a NEW ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION is just $59.99 for the first year. Existing customers do not qualify for the specials! AMEX is not accepted through this site. After the first year, well automatically renew your subscription to continue your access at the regular price of $69.99 per year. Please note *Your Subscription will Automatically Renew unless you contact Customer Service To Cancel* A British man has appeared in court in Ireland accused of threatening an MP. Daniel Weavers, 41, who is originally from England but now resides in the Douglas area of Cork, was brought before a special sitting of Cork District Court on Sunday. He is charged with making a menacing message via phone on October 18. The offence runs contrary to section 13 of Irelands Post Office Act 1951, as amended in 2007. The court heard Weavers made no reply when the charge was put to him by gardai in custody. He was granted bail with a variety of conditions attached during Sundays hearing. It is understood the person targeted by the alleged menacing message is a Westminster MP. Bail conditions include a requirement to abstain from all intoxicants; to surrender his passport to gardai; to make no unwarranted communication to police authorities; that he be contactable on his Irish mobile phone; and that he sign on twice a week at a Garda station in Cork. Weavers was arrested on Saturday as gardai executed a search warrant at a residential property in Douglas. During the course of the search a number of electronic items were seized. The accused, who is represented by Cork defence solicitor Eddie Burke, was held at Bridewell garda station in the city where he was charged ahead of Sundays court appearance. The case will be heard again on January 12 when directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions will be given. A planned trip to Cop26 by Irelands Environment Minister is back on after a negative Covid-19 test. On Saturday, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan announced that he had cancelled his visit to Glasgow after testing positive for coronavirus. On Sunday, he said a second test had a returned a negative result so he now intends to travel to Scotland for the climate change conference. Having previously been scheduled to travel to Glasgow on Sunday, Mr Ryan will now make the trip on Monday. Green Party leader Eamon Ryan will travel to Glasgow on Monday (Brian Lawless/PA) A statement from the ministers department said the HSE (Health Service Executive) had recommended a second test after the initial positive result. The public health advice in this instance is that the case is de-notified, close contacts are informed and the person can continue about their business, the statement added. Minister Ryan now plans to travel to Glasgow for Cop26 tomorrow (Monday). Minister Ryan has not been symptomatic at any point. He underwent the initial test as a precautionary measure as recommended by the organisers of Cop26. On receipt of the initial result he followed all HSE protocols, including self-isolation and informing close contacts. Mr Ryan has informed Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin and deputy premier Leo Varadkar of the development. Last week, the Irish Government published a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by the end of the decade. The 125 billion euro plan is set to transform how people travel around the country, heat their homes, and use public transport, as well as the production of food. Police arrested 21 people during the climate rally in Glasgow, with demonstrators kettled and protesters forcibly removed from a city centre bridge. Tens of thousands of protesters marched through the streets of Glasgow to demand action to tackle the climate emergency as the city hosts the Cop26 summit. Crowds walked from Kelvingrove Park to Glasgow Green, with organisers estimating that more than 100,000 people took park in the march. Police officers removed activists from the Scientist Rebellion movement who had chained themselves to the King George V Bridge, and were seen to block in other protesters in a kettle in the city centre. Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie looks back on today's #COP26 climate march: "Glasgow has today hosted a public protest the size and scale of which was beyond anything many of us both within and outwith policing can ever remember." More info https://t.co/Lro9Qc06Q2 pic.twitter.com/PmR90VnID4 Police Scotland (@PoliceScotland) November 6, 2021 Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie claimed that the day had passed largely without incident, although 21 people had been arrested. Mr Ritchie said: Glasgow has today hosted a public protest the size and scale of which was beyond anything many of us both within and outwith policing can ever remember. As one of the key events of Cop26, the Climate March this afternoon brought together thousands of people from across Scotland, the UK and the world. Months of planning has gone into the policing operation for the procession and through regular discussion with organisers and key campaign groups, we clearly set our expectations for the behaviour of participants. Our Police Liaison Team is engaging with protesters on King George V Bridge at Broomielaw, Glasgow.We have facilitated a peaceful protest, but to balance right to protest with public safety & rights of the wider community, our Protest Removal Team is safely removing protesters. pic.twitter.com/i1GqS3iwmQ Police Scotland (@PoliceScotland) November 6, 2021 He added: The procession has been generally good natured, with participants in high spirits, keen to draw attention to their respective causes with Police Scotland officers deployed alongside mutual aid officers from across the UK. As weve made clear throughout, our aim has been to deliver a safe and secure conference, and ensure peoples right to protest and counter protest and having their voices heard is upheld through the facilitation of peaceful, lawful protest. However, weve also been steadfast in our commitment that we will not tolerate damage to property, violence or disorder. A group of people was contained by officers after their conduct deteriorated, pyrotechnic devices were used and they brought the procession to a halt. The containment remained in place for a short time before being lifted as the march came to a conclusion. One person was arrested following the end of the march. In a separate incident this morning, our Police Liaison Team and Protest Removal Team attended to ensure the safe removal of people involved in a lock-on at the King George V Bridge at the Broomielaw in Glasgow. As a result, 21 people were arrested and have been released on an undertaking. I want to thank the vast majority of those who attended both the Youth March and the Climate March for their positive attitudes and for following instructions from our officers. Police refused to estimate how many people were marching, but organisers the Cop26 Coalition claimed more than 100,000 people had turned out despite the weather, as an estimated 300 events were taking place worldwide. Asad Rehman, spokesman for the Cop26 Coalition, said: Many thousands of people took to the streets today on every continent demanding that governments move from climate inaction to climate justice. We wont tolerate warm words and long-term targets any more, we want action now. Rescue services in western Australia were searching for a man who was attacked by multiple sharks, police said. Two teenagers on a boat saw what they believed was a shark attack at Port Beach in the North Fremantle suburb of Perth on Saturday morning and alerted other swimmers to get out of the sea and called emergency services. Police were unable to confirm how many sharks were involved in the attack but Western Australia Police Acting Inspector Troy Douglas said it was obviously at least one. Some reports quoting witnesses said the attack involved a White shark and a Tiger shark. I was about to go into the water and actually a lady stopped me and said dont go in there, theres been a shark sighting, said Suzette Harding. And then within a minute or so these young boys in the dinghy came screaming up along the beach, waving everyone out of the water. Mr Douglas said the 57-year-old man was a regular at the beach. He said the search would go on for as long as possible on Saturday and resume at first light on Sunday, if he is not found. Mr Douglas praised the teenagers for making a fantastic effort and reacting quickly by alerting emergency services and providing information to assist the search. At least five Water Police and rescue boats and two helicopters were scouring the area and an ambulance was sent to the scene. All beaches in the area have been closed. The most recent fatal shark attack in Australia was on September 5 in New South Wales state on the eastern coast. The relationship between police and protesters has been non-contentious in the first week of Cop26, a senior police officer has said. Fewer than 50 arrests have been made since the Glasgow summit started last weekend, including during marches on Friday and Saturday which attracted 25,000 and 100,000 people respectively, according to organisers. Police Scotland said before the conference they would facilitate peaceful protest throughout, and Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie said he hoped the atmosphere continued into the final week. Some 21 arrests were made during the Saturday rally, which also saw a group of protesters blocked in a kettle operation in the city centre. Assistant Chief Constable Gary Ritchie looks ahead to the second week of COP26 while praising both protesters and police.READ MORE HERE: https://t.co/Xz2VWMyrrS pic.twitter.com/rz0F38D9Vo Police Scotland (@PoliceScotland) November 7, 2021 For such a highly significant event, to reach the end of the first week with fewer than 50 arrests being made is testament to the fact the relationship between protesters and the police has been largely non-contentious, Mr Ritchie said. Despite today being a rest day at the conference, Police Scotland has, once again, engaged positively with protest organisers and attendees at a number of events across Glasgow, with minimum disruption to the wider community. As youll no doubt know, Police Scotland has spent more than 18 months preparing for Cop26, and a great deal of effort has gone into ensuring our policing plan is robust but reactive, but also welcoming, while balancing the right to protest with the rights of our communities. Officers from across the country have been sent to Glasgow to police the event, which brought more than 100 world leaders to Scotlands biggest city last week. Mr Ritchie added: All of our work is underpinned by human rights and a great deal of effort has been taken to ensure our response to Cop26-related incidents and events is necessary and proportionate, and that our ethos and values of integrity, fairness and respect is shared by both our own officers and our mutual aid colleagues who have travelled to Scotland from across the UK to support us. This event has already provided us with some unique challenges, but our officers and staff have risen to face them, and the broadly good nature of the members of the public we are interacting with has made this a widely positive experience. I very much hope this atmosphere continues into the second week ahead of Cop26 coming to its conclusion next weekend. Travis Scott is continuing to speak out following the death of eight concert-goers and injuries of several more during a crowd surge at his Houston, Texas Astroworld concert on Friday. The rapper, 30, spoke out on Saturday evening in a series of black-and-white Instagram Stories. "I just want to send out prayers to the ones that was lost last night," Scott said to the camera, referencing those who died when the crowd of more than 50,000 reportedly began pushing toward the stage. "We're actually working right now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time. My fans really mean the world to me, and I always just want to leave them with a positive experience, and anytime I can make out anything that's going on stop the show and help them get the help they need... I just could never imagine the severity of the situation." Rapper Travis Scott, 30, spoke out on Instagram regarding the tragic deaths and injuries sustained during a crowd surge at his Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas on Friday. (Photo: Erika Goldring/WireImage) Scott continued, sharing some of the work that's being done to determine how the tragedy unfolded. "We've been working closely with everyone just to get to the bottom of this," the Houston native added, expressing gratitude to his hometown and its police and fire departments. "If you have any information, please contact the local authorities." Scott born Jacques Webster II repeatedly asked followers to keep those who were killed or injured in their prayers. "I'm honestly just devastated. I could never imagine anything like this," he said, pledging to keep followers updated and informed. He closed out his statement with, "Love you all." As Yahoo previously reported, Scott posted a statement to his Twitter account earlier on Saturday, writing, Im absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival. I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need. Scott's statements were echoed by his girlfriend Kylie Jenner, who was also in attendance at the concert on Friday and could be seen posting videos of the concert before she realized the crowd surge was happening. "Travis and I are broken and devastated. My thoughts and prayers are with all who lost their lives, were injured or affected in any way by yesterday's events," Jenner wrote on Sunday in an Instagram Story. "And also for Travis who I know cares deeply for his fans and the Houston community." Jenne, who is expecting her second child with Scott, also stated that she was unaware that any concert-goers had died during the show, only finding out about it after the show was over. "I want to make it clear we weren't aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing," the reality star wrote, referencing social media backlash over the show not being stopped earlier, despite requests from attendees who recognized people were getting hurt. Travis Scott's girlfriend, Kylie Jenner, posted a statement reacting to the Astroworld incident. (Screenshot: Instagram/Kylie Jenner) She closed out her statement by saying, "I am sending my deepest condolences to all the families during this difficult time and will be praying for the healing of everyone who has been impacted." In a news conference on Saturday, Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena explained how the incident accelerated. "The crowd for whatever reason began to push and surge towards the front of the stage, which caused the people in the front to be compressed," Pena said. "They were unable to escape that situation." Texas Governor Greg Abbott said of the event, What happened at Astroworld Festival last night was tragic, and our hearts are with those who lost their lives and those who were injured in the terrifying crowd surge." As news of the tragedy continues to unfold, information on some of the victims who died, who ranged in age from 14 to 27, is being released. The youngest fatality was John Hilgert, 14, a ninth-grade student at Memorial High School in Northwest Houston, according to USA Today. Brianna Rodriguez, a 16-year-old student, from Heights High School in Houston, was also killed, along with Rodolfo Angel Pena, 23, an aspiring model and student who hoped to become a U.S. Border Patrol agent, and Franco Patino, 21, a mechanical engineering technology student.. Online Access for Print Subscribers. Do you have a print subscription with the Argus-Press? If yes, then click here to enjoy complimentary access to our Online Content! Nadda said the party will constitute booth level committees at all 10.40 lakh polling stations by December 25 this year Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National President JP Nadda as they arrive to attend party's national executive committee meeting at NDMC convention centre in New Delhi, Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. (PTI/ Shahbaz Khan) New Delhi: Setting the tone for upcoming assembly elections in five states, BJP president JP Nadda on Sunday set targets to further strengthen the party's organisation and asserted that its best is yet to come. Addressing the party's national executive, Nadda also reached out to Sikhs, who are in majority in poll-bound Punjab, by listing a number of measures the Modi government has taken for the community, including expediting action against 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurudwaras and keeping langars outside the review of the Goods and Services Tax. Briefing reporters about the meeting, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said the executive hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi's effective leadership during the Covid pandemic, 100 crore vaccinations and providing free food grains to 80 crore poor people. He said that Nadda noted that this is the largest food programme in human history. On BJP's growth in West Bengal, Pradhan quoting Nadda said if one looks at its growth in the state from the political science perspective, then there will be very few parallels of it in Indian political history. According to Pradhan, Nadda said that if one looks at the BJP's vote share in the 2014 assembly elections and the 2016 assembly elections in West Bengal, and compares them with the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and 2021 assembly polls, it shows substantial growth of the BJP in the state. Setting new organisation targets for the BJP's expansion, Nadda said the party will constitute booth level committees at all 10.40 lakh polling stations by December 25 this year and have "panna committees", in reference to each page of voters' list by April 6. Citing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Pradhan said the executive lauded Modi for his foresight of enacting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which aims at providing citizenship to minorities in some neighbouring countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. The chief minister of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, presented the party's political resolution while national general secretary Tarun Chugh read out the condolence resolution. Prime Minister Modi will address the valedictory session of the meet. The BJP's national executive meeting, which should be normally held once in three months according to the party's constitution, is being held for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. The party's national office-bearers, its national executive members from the national capital and Union ministers will be physically present in the meeting, while the chief ministers of states where the party is in power and national executive members from these states will virtually attend the meeting. At the NDMC Convention Centre, the meeting venue, musicians from across the country played traditional instruments to greet those attending the meet. Prime Minister Modi while entering the venue met women, who in their traditional Chath attire and singing songs praising the Sun god, performed puja and rituals. Chath will be performed in many parts of the country, especially in eastern parts of poll-bound Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand on November 10. The probe agency had arrested Mr Deshmukh on November 2 in connection with the alleged Rs 100-crore extortion and money laundering case The EDs case against Mr Deshmukh is based on the first information report (FIR) filed by the CBI in April 2021 alleging corruption and bribery. (DC) Mumbai: A special holiday court in Mumbai on Saturday refused to grant the Enforcement Directorate (ED) additional custody of former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh for nine days and sent him in a 14-day judicial custody in connection with a money laundering case. The ED had sought Mr Deshmukh's remand for nine more days. But, the Mumbai court rejected its plea and sent the NCP leader to judicial custody. The probe agency had arrested Mr Deshmukh in the early hours of November 2 in connection with the alleged Rs 100-crore extortion and money laundering case under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). The ex-ministers son Hrishikesh Deshmukh had also approached the court with an anticipatory bail plea in the case filed by the ED. The court has posted the matter for final hearing on November 12, refusing to grant interim relief till then. The EDs case against Mr Deshmukh is based on the first information report (FIR) filed by the CBI in April 2021 alleging corruption and bribery by the then minister. According to the agency, it found during the probe that Mr Deshmukh, while acting as the home minister, received illegal gratification of approximately Rs 4.7 crore in cash from various orchestra bar owners between December 2020 and February 2021 through the now-dismissed Mumbai police assistant inspector Sachin Waze. The CBIs FIR came after former Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh alleged that Mr Deshmukh had asked police officers, including Mr Waze, to collect Rs 100 crore each month from 1,750 bars and restaurants in Mumbai. The key organisational body of the ruling BJP will meet for the first time following the Covid-19 outbreak The BJP will hold the first meeting of its recently reconstituted national executive on Sunday where coming Assembly polls in five states will be on top of the agenda of the party leadership to discuss. (PTI file photo) New Delhi: The BJP will hold the first meeting of its recently reconstituted national executive on Sunday where coming Assembly polls in five states will be on top of the agenda of the party leadership to discuss. Keeping in mind the Covid protocol, the meeting will also be attended virtually by some national executive members from respective headquarters of the party's state unit. While BJP president J.P. Nadda will deliver the inaugural speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give the concluding remarks where he is expected to give mantras to the party leaders and the cadre with an eye on the coming electoral battles. The key organisational body of the ruling BJP will meet for the first time following the Covid-19 outbreak. Addressing a press conference, BJP general secretary Arun Singh said that 124 national executive members, including the PM, Mr Nadda and many Union ministers, will attend the meeting physically while the members based in various states, including chief ministers, will join it virtually in line with the Covid protocol. Mr Singh added that the Prime Minister's remarks would provide a way forward for the volunteers and supporters. Links to the programme will be provided to the state leadership to ensure that the message can be delivered to as many BJP workers as possible. One political resolution is expected to be passed at the meeting, where the party leadership will also deliberate on organisational issue. The meeting will also pass a condolence message for Covid victims. "Presentations, highlighting government schemes for the poor, will be on display. Apart from this, visuals of our volunteers working amid the pandemic and a clip on the administration of 1 billion vaccine doses would also be shown," Singh said. At the venue of the national executive meeting, the party will hold exhibitions about the Modi governments Aatmanirbhar Bharat programmes and pro-poor measures like providing free grains to the poor and the Covid vaccination exercise. PM's quantitative commitments at Glasgow earlier this month require a closer look than usual Pared of its rhetoric-as-usual toolkit, Prime Minister Narendra Modis quantitative commitments at the UNs Conference of the Parties 26 (CoP26) in Glasgow earlier this month require a closer look than usual. Of the five key commitments, the first one about net zero carbon emissions by 2070 remains a distant target as of now though there would be a need for policy initiatives to be able to meet the target half a century later. The detail about a net zero carbon economy is that the quantity of carbon emissions is matched by carbon mitigation. The carbon emissions may increase proportionately by 2070 but there would be a need for technologies to remove the equivalent quantity through low-carbon processes in one sector for example, generation of electricity to balance the increase in carbon emissions in another for example, the manufacturing sector. What seems to be an eyesore for experts looking at different energy scenarios in India is that the use of coal would peak in 2040, or later in 2050, before the tapering would begin, and it could reach its minimal phase sometime by 2060 or 2070. The Indian economy will grow and expand in the decades to come, and coal will remain the mainstay of the countrys economic growth. It is an important detail to keep in mind. The climate warriors, either in India or elsewhere in the world, will find it difficult to argue against it though they may want to curb the use of coal, if not eliminate it completely. And in their partisan zeal, some of them may argue for a no coal climate agenda. When policymakers with climate change imperatives on their mind speak and write, they remain silent on coal, which turns out to be the proverbial elephant in the room. In all the future projections of the Indian economy this century, analysts foresee a huge expansion in the steel and cement industries, which will depend mostly on coal as the main energy source, and automobiles that depend on crude oil sources. The electric car at a mass level is still in the future, and it is projected that by about 2070, 80 per cent of cars in use would be electric. The argument is that India has not reached the peak levels in its carbon emissions, and that it will reach it between 2040 and 2050, and so will the consumption of coal and oil. The other major feature of the Indian economy in the next 25 years and more will be increased urbanisation, and therefore construction will be a boom sector. Urbanisation would also mean an increase in consumption of electricity, and it will be a great challenge for the renewable sources to be able to undertake the supply of electricity to the urban centres where about 750 million people, or 50 per cent of the population, are expected to live. It is also seen as an opportunity for energy-efficient electric appliances and gadgets and green-friendly buildings. And urbanisation would also increase the demand for automobiles. The idealistic solution would be an increase in the share of public transport. But that cannot be achieved unless there is an imaginative urbanisation policy. The Narendra Modi government is quite enthusiastic about energy-efficient public buildings, but this enthusiasm must spread among the construction companies that will be building entire cities. There is no clear blueprint for a smart city except that of using LED bulbs and improved public transport running on CNG. The increased consumption of gas creates its own market dynamic of supply and pricing, When the BJP and Mr Modi came into office for the first time in 2014, they were quite enthusiastic about shifting rural population to cities as a way of dealing with rural distress and raising people out of property as did China. But the Prime Minister now seems to want to keep the people in the villages and provide them jobs in their present locations. This has been a key consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic, where overcrowded cities had become hotspots of the pandemic. It is the rise in renewable sources of energy like solar power and wind that should enable India to keep its carbon emissions balance within the 1.5 degrees Celsius frame of temperature rise by 2100. Mr Modi and his advisers seem to have done some back-of-the-envelope calculations that promise that a steady rise in the renewable energy component will help in keeping the carbon emissions management within the limits. The Prime Minister has made two promises on the renewable energy front. One is that of increasing the share of the renewables in the energy basket to 50 per cent by 2030. This looks a reachable goal because the share of renewables stands at 40 per cent, of which hydro is 12 per cent, and solar and wind account for 26.1 per cent. Nuclear power remains a negligible factor. Despite the governments intent to push for renewables, the investments and credit facilities needed for the sector to pick up pace are just not there. The renewables compete for the same pool of available bank credit like coal. While the industry and service sectors have the lions share in bank credit, that of the energy sector remains just 10 per cent. Similarly, there is a bottleneck on the supply front. Until now, there have been too few Indian manufacturers of photovoltaic cells. It is only that domestic manufacture is being encouraged. To connect solar and wind energy to the power grid both at the local and national levels poses the challenge of storage, and the battery technology which is needed for this is still at the developmental stage. It is inevitable that even as India emerges as an important global player in dealing with climate change challenges, and Mr Modi has tried well to keep Indias interests in mind and the inescapable Indian responsibility to the world at large, the commitments he made in Glasgow look modest, a bit timid even. But the problems are too huge, and though India is a major player its economy is simply not big enough to lead the battle. And India is also not the leader in technology to offer the solutions that are needed. Prime Minister Modi has recognised the opportunity for India to play the global leader. But his hands are tied by Indias narrow base of knowhow. As per The Verge, the event could unveil new hardware The event arrives just over a month after the company released Windows 11. (Photo: AP/File) New Delhi: American tech-giant Microsoft will be hosting an event focused on education technology">technology, next week. According to The Verge, the company plans to discuss 'new and existing technology">technology from Microsoft Education' on November 9 at 12 PM ET. Microsoft described the event as: "Join us at 9 a.m. PT on Tuesday, Nov. 9, as we share an inside look at the latest tech solutions while examining gaps in learning left by the pandemic. Hear from Microsoft partners, school leaders and a few special guests, and learn about new and existing technology">technology from Microsoft Education," read the statement. As per The Verge, the event could unveil new hardware. The company just revealed a wave of new Surface products at an event in September. For the unversed, the event arrives just over a month after the company released Windows 11, its next major operating system. Perhaps the company will detail upcoming education-focused updates on the way for Windows 11, as per The Verge. Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Numarine took shape in 2007 when its founder Omer Malaz set out on a goal to construct a luxury motor yacht that could pound through the waves of the wildest seas. The first step was to save weight in order to meet the performance, economy, and range an explorer yacht would need.So he took inspiration from the aviation and racing industries, where material choices resulted in weight savings while also providing unrivaled power and comfort. As a result, vacuum infusion and composites were the options chosen for delivering the ideal vessel.From there, the yachts had to be paired with amenities that could offer owners the comfort needed when cruising the vastness of the sea. Another important part was offering the clients the ability to customize them. The plan was set in motion, and shortly after, a purpose-built facility was established in Gebze, Turkey. That's where Numarine's XP range of explorer yachts was born, including its latest, the 37XP.Unveiled at the Cannes Yachting Festival 2021 for the first time, the vessel blends a sleek look with great functionality to deliver a "first-class experience." The 37XP is the shipyard's largest explorer yacht to date and it features a full displacement steel hull and composite superstructure with soft lines.To create this spectacular vessel, Numarine teamed up with long-standing partners Umberto Tagliavini, in charge of the naval architecture, and Can Yalman, which took care of the exterior.Measuring 37 meters (121 feet) in length, the yacht features the same beam as its smaller sibling, the 32XP. Although there were no changes to the beam's overall size, the the engine room bulkhead gained another four meters (12 feet).From this, the upper deck and sky lounge are also benefitting some extra space, allowing the guest and crew accommodation to expand in volume. According to Boat International , the 37XP includes a master bedroom on the main deck and four guest cabins, and a nanny cabin on the lower deck.The overall design of the interior is more classic than the shipyard's other explorer yachts. Numarine worked with Italian studio Hot Lab to create a luxurious space for the guests and the owner. The large windows make the outside seem like it blends with the inside, creating a feeling of openness. Moreover, they let the natural light bathe every suite and corner of the vessel. The decorative elements and the materials used were combined into a clean design that features hues of beige and gray (which also give the impression of a bigger interior).Other impressive features that 37XP comes with are a 10-meter (33-foot) long luxurious flybridge that provides unobstructed views of the vessel's fore, aft, and sides. From there, the owner can get a clear view of the nine-meter (29-foot) tender if waking up with a view directly to the water toy is not enough.The upper deck has enough space to include the tender and up to three jet skis, and it can expand to become a large sunbathing platform. Other luxe amenities guests will enjoy are a designated beach club and a sundeck jacuzzi.Tech-wise, the yacht was designed to perform in rough seas. According to Boat International, the 37XP takes power from two 800 bhp MAN diesel engines that deliver a top speed of 15 knots (17 mph/ 28 kph). The vessel can cruise at a speed of 10 knots (11,5 mph/ 18,5 kph) on distances of up to 5,000 nautical miles (5,754 miles/ 9,260 km). What's so fantastic about RCR's exquisitely modified 1960 Ford Falcon is the fact that if they hadn't told us about all the mods, most wouldn't have guessed this was anything less than the same jalopy that left the Ford factory 61 years ago. But could we expect anything else knowing what we know about this crew?Finding the more subtle details held within otherwise perfectly regular everyday vehicles is what Brian and Roman pride themselves on doing with ease. And that's what they did with this classic, both before and after its major mods and tunes. Brian made it clear he knew exactly where this car originated: in the garages of the slimmed-down, Robert Mcnamara-operated carmaker still a few years away from the Mustang, making them the "hip" American brand.Brian even explains how completely unbeknownst to most people, the Falcon was very nearly the basis for a very different car than what the Mustang would turn out to be. If Robert McNamara hadn't left a leadership position at Ford, the Falcon was going to become the basis for a striped down model called the Cardinal.One can only imagine Mr. Mcnamara saw himself as pious as an actual Catholic cardinal when he thought of a car so unashamedly untiltarian. Thankfully, Lee Iacocca stepped in and ensured our spot in the objectively better timeline.On this particular car, the stock four-cylinder engine made around 80 horsepower when it left the Ford factory all those moons ago. To say that it and the rest of this classic's innards have been profoundly changed would be understating it slightly. As Brian himself describes it, the Vagabon Falcon is, "on top, a 1960 Ford Falcon and a 1993 Fox Body Mustang ."In actuality, that's entirely accurate, as he also states the drivetrain is actually from a Thunderbird, a car on the same platform as the Mustang. Granted, that does go a long way towards describing these mods to a non-car-enthusiast, as some RCR fans might attempt, much to their family's Christmas dinner table's chagrin.The ever-humble Roman and Brian go to great lengths to emphasize that the RCR fans were the ones who made this Falcon possible. But they also mention that it was the mechanical wizard Bruce Henn, owner of Bruce Henns's Garage in Eastern Pennsylvania, that truly made this car come together.For starters, Bruce knew the flimsy chassis rails of the pre-Mustang 1960 Falcon could make any modern V8 engine flex it to the point of cracking the windows. Some custom chassis bracing done by a knowledgeable veteran of the trade sorted that out. On top of that newly rugged foundation sat a 302 or 5.0 Windsor V8 fed through a Ford AOD four-speed automatic gearbox and driven by 98 Explorer 8.8 rear gears.The 302 V8 is regulated with an Edelbrock carburetor, as fuel injection likely wouldn't have fitted the totally stock aesthetic Roman and Bryan were known for aspiring for. That would also explain the choice of a mechanical fuel pump. Good for 240 to 250 horsepower, or so says Bruce Henn's "butt dyno."Needless to say, both the front and rear end suspension on the car was changed to suit the new power. Complete with Ridetech coil-overs in the front and period-correct leaf springs in the rear. Drilled and slotted front disk brakes help ensure the Vagabond Falcon stops as well as it goes.On the inside lies a couple of other clues that this Falcon is more than what it appearsstarting with the B&M Shifter to help row through the AOD transmission's gears. The shifter was donated by Mogel Innovations, one of several sponsors who donated parts and labor to this product, along with a new set of pressure and temp gauges in the dashboard.And so, the RCR Vagabond Falcon was more than just a loud, show-offy restomod made to wow people who aren't the least bit interested. It was made to be, in Brian's own words, "the ultimate regular car." If that was the goal, there was not much argument that they didn't succeed.But as most custom cars tend to do, its time under RCR's ownership eventually came to an end. It sold for $9,469 to Twitch streamer 'SimmyKenz.' If you ask us, it should have sold for at least four times that. Since then, however, Google Maps has evolved and evolved until it eventually reached a major historic milestone last year. No less than 1 billion people were using Google Maps every month in 2020, and this shows just how much the platform has improved throughout all these years.Google Maps is no longer just a navigation app but a fully-featured platform capable of doing so much more. But at the core of its functionality, theres still the navigation module that makes it so convenient to find an address using nothing more than your mobile device.And during all these years, Google has introduced all kinds of extra features to enhance the navigation experience, including options to manage your trips much more efficiently.This is the case of a Google Maps setting allowing users to set a reminder to leave at the right time.First and foremost, lets detail the purpose of this feature.Options to set reminders in Google Maps arent new, but right now, few people actually know Google Maps is actually capable of letting you know when its time to leave to a specific destination.And in case youre wondering who needs this, just think of Google Maps as a personal assistant that wants to make sure youre not late to a certain appointment.And thats exactly the purpose of the feature. You only tell Google Maps where you want to go and when you should arrive, and the app then lets you know with a notification on your mobile device when its time to leave.If youre curious to find out how accurate this feature is, the answer is as simple as it could be: its just as accurate as the navigation data provided by Google Maps in the first place. This is because the application continuously monitors the traffic conditions to your destination and, based on the same algorithm for finding the right route to an address, it can estimate when its the right time to leave.This means youre getting a very accurate estimate of a departure time, just to make sure you arrive on time. Of course, dont always count on Google Maps for the whole thing, as I learned the hard way that setting the reminder a few minutes in advance helps deal with any possible slowdown the app cant anticipate.So how you do set up a reminder and how exactly does the whole thing work?On your iPhone , launch Google Maps and define a new destination just like you do when setting up the navigation. When youre on the main screen ready to start the navigation, tap the three-dot button in the top right corner and look for the option called Set a reminder to leave.Google Maps allows you to choose between getting an estimate based on your departure time or the arrival time. And depending on your settings, the application can issue a notification to make sure youre not late.The notification shows up on the lock screen and reads Time to leave for [user-defined address]. Leave by [time] to arrive at [time]. Open to see directions and updated travel time.A quick tap on this notification launches Google Maps right to the navigation screen where you can start getting guidance on how to reach the previously defined navigation.The experience overall is as straightforward as possible, and it doesnt take more than a couple of minutes to set a reminder. Once again, dont take everything for granted, though. Google Maps cant anticipate whats happening on the road, so youd better set your reminder a few minutes earlier to make sure you arrive on time. EV While Apple is without a doubt the biggest tech firm currently developing a self-driving EV , others have already confirmed similar plans too, including Chinese phone manufacturer Xiaomi.The company wants to launch its own car by 2024, so right now, Xiaomi is hard at work preparing its automotive offensive on pretty much all fronts.While the development of the vehicle is obviously the main focus right now, Xiaomi is also trying to make sure that once the launch takes place, everybody can come in and see what its car is all about.Thats why the company has recently announced an ambitious plan of opening no less than 30,000 stores, with Chinese media revealing that many of them will be specifically built to double as a car dealership.In other words, Xiaomi wants to build all-in-one stores that will serve more than just a single purpose.The Chinese tech behemoth aims to create locations of at least 600 square meters that would allow visitors not only to get a hands-on experience with the latest devices, be they smartphones, tablets, or smartwatches, but also to see the Xiaomi cars live.The plan is mostly aimed at China, so theres one big question that Xiaomi is yet to answer: is the company planning to go international with its upcomingor will it just focus on the domestic market?Without a doubt, if Xiaomi plans to compete directly against Apple and its upcoming Apple Car, expanding the availability of its vehicle beyond the borders of China is the only way to go. On the other hand, itll be a challenge for Xiaomi to bring its cars to Europe and the United States, so itll certainly be interesting to see how the companys automotive ambitions evolve in the coming years. 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. PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- Some children in Arizona got their first dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine on Saturday. Clinics and pharmacies across the state have been working to administer shots quickly as federal health officials approve emergency use. It was a big day for some Valley kids. Kids as young as five years old were given the opportunity to get the COVID-19 vaccine for the very first time this weekend. I did it to keep other people safe and myself, 11-year-old Kaila Rhodes said. Last month, the Arizona Department of Health Services told Arizona's Family that more than 900 providers, not including pharmacies, were ready to distribute the vaccine. Walgreens and CVS announced they would begin giving out the vaccine this week. Both big-box pharmacies are encouraging parents to snag an appointment online first to guarantee a spot. I was really excited because I would hate if my grandparents got sick and I wanted everyone to be safe and now I can finally go back to school, 11-year-old Evangeline Harper said. Families lined up for the vaccine at Pleasant Pediatrics in Ahwatukee, a moment some have been anticipating. I have been waiting two years for it, Bishop said. I know he (his son) is a lot safer now and if he contracts COVID-19 he wont have the same reactions that he would without the vaccine. That wasnt the only event going on in the Valley today. Parents and kids gathered at Joseph Zito Elementary for the shot. We will vaccinate anybody who walks through the door, Shannon Fears, the Community Health Manager with Adelante Healthcare said. We want our kids to feel like theyre the superheros that will overcome this pandemic. Angel Villa with Pleasant Pediatrics says the demand is there. The company had thousands of people sign up online once the vaccine was approved. Its about a third of the dose that we are giving adults and thats just to minimize any of the side effects they could possibly get like body aches and headaches, Villa said. The most common side effect is just a sore arm. Of course you can get some mild body aches and headache but we havent seen that too much. Parents at the events said having their kid vaccinated allows them to return to normalcy. It means we can spend time with family and have that relief instead of being so nervous about being indoors with multiple families, Suzanne Harper said. We have been waiting to get her vaccinated. We really want to send her back to school but my parents are older and immunocompromised, and we are just trying to be as careful as we can. This now adds a layer of protection. As far as those who received the vaccine today, they wanted to give some insight for those who may be hesitant. As far as those who got the vaccine today, they have give some insight for those who may be hesitant. It didnt hurt. Its really quick simple, Rhoades said. It just felt like a little pinch and then was a little sore after, one little boy said. It didnt hurt, Harper added. There is another event that will be coming up on Tuesday, November 9 at Cortez High School from 3:30 p.m. through 7:30 p.m. and more events next weekend. To see the ADHS map, click here. ADHS has updated its online find-a-vaccine tool so people can filter providers to see which ones have the pediatric vaccine. Those who have questions should contact ADHS at 844-542-8201 or visit the agency's vaccine registration page. PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- Crime tape is still up, and there are droplets of blood in the driveway. Jose Aguirre pointed to the spot where his neighbor, Rodolfo Garcia, was brutally stabbed to death on Halloween morning. "I understand one stab, 2 or 3 or 5," said Aguirre. "But 40 times, that's like hate." According to court records, Garcia, 21, had gotten into an argument with a former co-worker and friend in front of a house off 10th Avenue and Buckeye Road in Phoenix. It's unclear what the fight was about, but it ended with Garcia being rushed to the hospital with more than three dozen stab wounds. His sister and father are still in shock from what happened. "It's a hard blow to our family," said Celeste Garcia. "We would never imagine that his life would end this way. The worst part of it was that they were people he knew. It's hard knowing we're never going to see him again. Who would imagine he would be taken away at 21-years old." "Things aren't adding up," said Arturo Garcia. "We don't understand if they lived together. Why didn't anyone stop them when they started fighting?" 19-year old David Orozco has been arrested and charged with 1st-degree murder. The victim's family was hoping Orozco's cousin, who is also Garcia's girlfriend, could shed some light on what went wrong. She was there at the time of the stabbing but hasn't been seen since. "They are really devastated," said Aguirre. "It's really hard for them to accept what happened. They keep asking why did he get killed like that?" A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family with funeral expenses. For more details, click here. Bakersfield, CA (93308) Today Morning clouds will give way to afternoon sunshine. High 66F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low 42F. Winds light and variable. UC Hastings College of the Law to rename school after reviewing founder's role in mass killings of Yuki Indians MORE INFORMATION The McKinney-Vento Law requires K-12 schools to identify, enroll, and serve children and youths who are experiencing homelessness. Students who are temporarily staying with someone else or in a motel, campground, shelter, outside or an inadequate place, have special rights at school. Every school district has a McKinney-Vento liaison who can discuss whether the student qualifies for help. Or call the Kern County Superintendent of Schools Homeless Education Program at 661-636-4900. For more information about the Bakersfield-Kern Regional Homeless Collaborative, visit www.bkrhc.org Kern County Network for Children's Dream Center is located at 1801 19th St. in Bakersfield, 661-636-4488. A major industrial property that has sat idle for years in the heart of Bakersfield is coming back to life to refine used cooking oil, rendere Thank you for reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading. Bluefield, WV (24701) Today A steady light rain early...then remaining cloudy with a few showers. High 54F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 39F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. LONDON (AP) South African writer Damon Galgut won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction on Wednesday with The Promise, a novel about one white familys reckoning with South Africas racist history. Galgut had been British bookmakers runaway favorite to win the 50,000-pound ($69,000) prize with his story of a troubled Afrikaner family and its broken promise to a Black employee a tale that reflects bigger themes in South Africas transition from apartheid. Galgut took the prize on his third time as a finalist, for a book the judges called a tour de force. He was previously shortlisted for The Good Doctor in 2003 and In a Strange Room in 2010, but lost both times. Despite his status as favorite, Galgut said he was stunned to win. Galgut said he was accepting the prize on behalf of all the stories told and untold, the writers heard and unheard, from the remarkable continent that Im part of. He noted that this years Nobel literature laureate, Zanzibar-born writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, was also African. Please keep listening to us more to come, Galgut added. His novel paints a troubling picture of modern-day South Africa, though Galgut said he did not set out to be negative. I didnt plan for the overall trajectory of the book to be a downward one, he said though thats how it turned out. I think the portrait it paints of modern South Africa is not a happy one, he said. I had no agenda in describing it that way, but things are not great with us right now. You could read that as a warning or a portrait, I dont know, but South Africa has seen better days. Historian Maya Jasanoff, who chaired the judging panel, said The Promise was a profound, forceful and succinct book that combines an extraordinary story, rich themes -- the history of the last 40 years in South Africa -- in an incredibly well-wrought package. Galguts ninth novel traces members of the Swart family the word is Afrikaans for black haunted by an unkept promise to give their Black maid, Salome, her own house. The book is structured around a series of funerals over several decades; Galgut has said he wanted to make readers fill in the narrative gaps themselves. He is the third South African novelist to win the Booker Prize, after Nadine Gordimer in 1974 and J.M. Coetzee, who won twice, in 1983 and 1999. The Promise was selected over five other novels, including three by U.S. writers: Richard Powers Bewilderment, the story of an astrobiologist trying to care for his neurodivergent son; Patricia Lockwoods social media-steeped novel No One is Talking About This and Maggie Shipsteads aviator saga Great Circle. The other finalists were Sri Lankan author Anuk Arudpragasams aftermath-of-war story A Passage North and British/Somali writer Nadifa Mohameds The Fortune Men, about a Somali man falsely accused of murder in 1950s Wales. Jasanoff said many of the shortlisted novels, including Galguts, reflected on the relationship between past and present. This is a book thats very much about inheritance and legacy, she said of the winner. Its about change over a period of decades. And I think its a book that invites reflection over the decades and invites and repays rereading. Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize has a reputation for transforming writers careers and was originally open to British, Irish and Commonwealth writers. Eligibility was expanded in 2014 to all novels in English published in the U.K. The judging panel winnowed their list from 158 novels submitted by publishers. Only one British writer, Mohamed, made the final six, a fact has renewed debate in the U.K. about whether the prize is becoming U.S.-dominated. Last year there also was only one British writer on a U.S.-dominated list of finalists, Scotlands Douglas Stuart. He won the prize for Shuggie Bain, a gritty and lyrical novel about a boy coming of age in hardscrabble 1980s Glasgow. For a second year, the coronavirus pandemic has scuttled the prizes usual black-tie dinner ceremony at Londons medieval Guildhall. The winner was announced in a ceremony broadcast live on BBC radio and television. Bedford, PA (15522) Today Light rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. High 47F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Rain showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low 38F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Bennington, VT (05201) Today A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High around 50F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Periods of rain. Low 42F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Bennington, VT (05201) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High around 50F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Periods of rain. Low 42F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch. As Berkshire County has seen its population age and decline, immigrants have made up a growing portion of the workforce. In the 90-minute debate, the four incumbents and two challengers vying for the At Large City Council seats responded to a series of 12 questions on housing, policing, economic development and hot button topics like the North Street bike lanes, the Verizon Wireless cell tower and the city's trash system. What Do We Know about John the Baptist? John had been chosen before his birth to be both a prophet and preacher, and the impact of his ministry was foretold hundreds of years before, by Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah. A voice of one calling: In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isaiah 40:3). The Lord also spoke of Johns coming in the book of Malachi. I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the Lord Almighty (Malachi 3:1). The most complete story of Johns birth is found in Luke 1. It starts with the introduction of Johns parents, the priest Zachariah and his wife Elizabeth, a relative of Jesus mother Mary. They were both considered righteous, and devout in observing Gods laws. One day while doing his duties, Zachariah received a very unexpected visitor. Once when Zechariahs division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. And when the time for the burning of incense came, all the assembled worshipers were praying outside. Then an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was startled and was gripped with fear (Luke 1:8-12). The angel then delivered amazing news. But the angel said to him: Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteousto make ready a people prepared for the Lord (Luke 1:13-17). Since the couple had been childless, the priest was naturally taken aback by this idea. His questioning response led the angel to seal his lips, leaving him unable to speak until the birth of his son. Elizabeth, however, was able to give voice to her gratitude for the miracle right away. The Lord has done this for me, she said. In these days he has shown his favor and taken away my disgrace among the people (Luke 1:25). Photo credit: Unsplash/Kyle Cottrell According to recent surveys, Americans don't trust the federal government nor do they have much faith in the press. Whether the topic is the 2020 presidential election, or the Covid vaccine, or spending billions of taxpayer dollars to stop global warming, suspicion reigns. And that skepticism is well placed. Back in 2016, when Donald Trump began succeeding in his quest to become the 45th President, a nasty scheme emerged to destroy him. The media dubbed it "Russian Collusion" and, for years, ran wild with speculation that Russia was either helping or blackmailing Donald Trump. Perhaps both. Here's how it worked. The FBI was fed phony accusations by "operatives" that led to the Bureau launching a formal investigation. Using unverified information which turned out to be fictional, secret federal warrants were obtained that allowed spying on the Trump campaign. Along with that, untrue information was leaked by "anonymous sources" to the leftist media led by the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and NBC News. The Times even won a Pulitzer Prize for covering the phony story. Not for exposing it as bogus, but for printing the falsehoods without attribution. One Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, reportedly wrote more than 100 stories critical of Trump using anonymous sources. Let me repeat: the New York Times won the most prestigious journalism award in the world for essentially spreading false information. The American taxpayer then picked up a $35 million dollar tab for a "special investigation" headed by Independent Counsel Robert Mueller. The probe found there was no verifiable collusion with Russia. But it took two years for that to be determined. In the meantime, Donald Trump was savaged daily in the press. Now another investigation, this one headed by US Attorney John Durham, is finally issuing indictments in this incredible situation. Three individuals have been charged and the emerging picture is that the bogus Russian Collusion story was concocted and financed by Hillary Clinton's campaign. If true, that would be one of the most corrupt political actions in American history. Mrs. Clinton will, of course, deny any knowledge of criminality. And she is entitled to the presumption of innocence that Donald Trump did not receive. Mr. Trump, himself, is rightfully furious over this whole thing and has called for the Pulitzer committee to revoke the prize. That will never happen. Why? Because the media industry is so corrupt that false stories no longer matter. Not one news agency has apologized for dereliction of duty in using a fabricated scenario to vilify and smear the Republican presidential candidate. The lesson here is frightening: when the national press is corrupt, devious political players know they can get away with outright fraud and massive deceit. And that's where we are in the United States today. Ronald Reagan once said: "trust but verify." But verification no longer matters to a national press infected with an ideological virus. Thus, there is no trust. A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administrations vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4 or face mask requirements and weekly tests. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the action stops Democratic President Joe Biden from moving forward with his unlawful overreach. The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution, said a statement from Landry, a Republican. Such circuit decisions normally apply to states within a district Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, in this case but Landry said the language employed by the judges gave the decision a national scope. With last night's loony response to the indictment of Igor Danchenko, the MSNBC anchor takes a bold leap off the credibility cliff Yesterday, Special Counsel John Durham indicted Brookings Institute analyst Igor Danchenko, better known as the primary source for Christopher Steele, the ex-spy who compiled the now-infamous Steele Dossier on behalf of Hillary Clintons presidential campaign in 2016. The case has implications for higher-ranking figures, but the indictment is most immediately devastating to the reputation of the many famous news personalities who hyped the Steele story. They almost all look terrible today, but the response by MSNBCs Rachel Maddow was a thing beyond. Whatever the category below disgraced journalist is, she entered it with gusto with last nights performance. Much of the indictment concerns false statements Danchenko allegedly made to the FBI concerning his interactions with PR Executive-1, described as a U.S.-based individual who was a long-time participant in Democratic Party politics and was then an executive at a U.S. public relations firm. New York Times reporter Charlie Savage received confirmation from the lawyer of a man named Charles Dolan that Dolan is, in fact, the executive: UPDATED: With description of the five false-statements charges and scene from the presentment hearing, which @ChrisCameronNYT attended. https://t.co/OzIFXiIeB3 Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) November 4, 2021 Russiagate is already a sizable boil on the face of American journalism, but the indictment of Danchenko has the potential to grow the professions embarrassment to fantastic dimensions. For instance, a key claim of the Steele dossier involved a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between Trump and Russia that supposedly went back years, and was managed on the Trump side by Paul Manafort and Carter Page. At one point, it was believed this claim was sourced to an anonymous phone call Danchenko thought came from the former president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, Sergei Millian. Danchenko moreover reportedly told the FBI that he and the anonymous caller made an appointment to meet in New York. The indictment, however, asserts that Danchenko never even spoke to Millian, repeatedly emailing him and getting no response. As for that trip to New York, hoo boy: From on about July 26, 2016 through July 28, 2016, DANCHENKO traveled to New York with a family member. On or about July 28, 2016, DANCHENKO visited, among other places, the Bronx Zoo with the family member. During this trip, DANCHENKO did not meet or communicate with Chamber President-I. Its bad enough that the well-developed conspiracy tale appears to have been sourced to a graduate of the Jayson Blair school of investigation, who was strolling in the Bronx Zoo during the time when he was supposedly landing the scoop of a lifetime (note that Steele himself reportedly believed the pee tape was sourced, in part, to Millian). Every reporter who touched that allegation should be ashamed, and Rachel is at the front of that huge crowd. Among other things, she emphasized the importance of Steeles broader assertions, repeating the claim that the Russia regime has been cultivating, supporting and assisting Trump for at least five years, going so far as to praise Steele for keeping his head down and listening to his deep cover sources like Danchenko. However, thats not the most damning part. It turns out at least one assertion by Steele, a relatively minor observation in an August 2016 report that claimed a senior member of Trumps inner circle was glad when Paul Manafort resigned as campaign manager, came directly from Dolan, via Danchenko. The indictment shows an email chain in which Danchenko tells Dolan hes working on a project against Trump, and is looking for any thought, rumor, allegation that might be useful. Dolan replies, after Manaforts resignation, that I had a drink with a GOP friend of mine who told him a number of people wanted [Manafort] gone. It is a very sharp elbows crowd. On one hand, this exchange almost makes Steele look not-dishonest, because it shows there was at least some attempt by some of the people involved in his project to gather information from someone, at one point. However, the indictment goes on to quote Dolan about that tidbit: PR Executive-I later acknowledged to the FBI that he never met with a GOP friend in relation to this information that he passed to DANCHENKO, but, rather, fabricated the fact of the meeting in his communications with DANCHENKO. PR Executive-I instead obtained the information about Campaign Manager-I from public news sources. A source whose lawyer has confirmed his identity is saying, outright, that he fabricated a story that made it into the Steele dossier. This is degrees worse even than the assertions of the previous Durham indictment of former Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussman. That case detailed how the sources behind the infamous Trump-Alfa Bank story speculated that it might be easier to fake a scenario to make Trump and the Russians appear to communicate, even using the word faking. If I were Rachel Maddow and had a record of saying things on air like, Above all else, we know this about the now-famous dossier: Christopher Steele had this story before the rest of America did. And he got it from Russian sources, news like the Dolan item would make me furious. Not only did she flog the Steele document for years, she specifically hyped its credibility on the grounds of how it was put together, and by whom. Now, we find out that the actual construction of the reports was like something out of a Three Stooges episode, with Igor, Chuck, and a Bronx Zoo zebra standing in for Moe, Larry, and Curly. The mere fact that some of Steeles supposed Russian sources turned out to be this absurd stateside parade would have any honest journalist fuming. Rachel not only isnt upset, shes expressing pride in having been burned, and is digging in for more. On Wednesday, an industry-led and UN-convened alliance of private banking and financial institutions announced plans at the COP26 conference to overhaul the role of global and regional financial institutions, including the World Bank and IMF, as part of a broader plan to transform the global financial system. The officially stated purpose of this proposed overhaul, per alliance members, is to promote the transition to a Net-Zero economy. However, the groups proposed reimagining of international financial institutions (IFIs), according to their recently published progress report, would also move to merge these institutions with the private banking interests that compose the alliance; create a new system of global financial governance; and erode national sovereignty among developing countries by forcing them to establish business environments deemed friendly to the interests of alliance members. In other words, the powerful banking interests that compose this group are pushing to recreate the entire global financial system for their benefit under the guise of promoting sustainability. This alliance, called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), was launched in April by John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change; Janet Yellen, US Secretary of the Treasury and former chair of the Federal Reserve; and Mark Carney, the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and former chair of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada. Carney, who is also the UK Prime Ministers Finance Advisor for the COP26 conference, currently co-chairs the alliance with US billionaire and former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg. GFANZ Leadership; Source: GFANZ Upon its creation, GFANZ stated that it would provide a forum for strategic coordination among the leadership of finance institutions from across the finance sector to accelerate the transition to a net zero economy and mobilize the trillions of dollars necessary to accomplish the groups zero emissions goals. At the time of the alliances launch, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson described GFANZ as uniting the worlds banks and financial institutions behind the global transition to net zero while John Kerry noted that the largest financial players in the world recognize energy transition represents a vast commercial opportunity. In analyzing those two statements together, it seems clear that GFANZ has united the worlds most powerful private banks and financial institutions behind what they see as, first and foremost, a vast commercial opportunity, their exploitation of which they are marketing as a planetary imperative. John Kerry in conversation with CNNs Christine Amanpour at COP 26; Source: CNN GFANZ is composed of several subsector alliances, including the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM), the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA), and the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). Together, they command a formidable part of global private banking and finance interests, with the NZBA alone currently representing 43% of all global banking assets. However, the largest financial players who dominate GFANZ include the CEOs of BlackRock, Citi, Bank of America, Banco Santander and HSBC, as well as David Schwimmer, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group and Nili Gilbert, Chair of the Investment Committee of the David Rockefeller Fund. Notably, another Rockefeller-connected entity, the Rockefeller Foundation, recently played a pivotal role in the creation of Natural Asset Corporations (NACs) in September. These NACs seek to create a new asset class that would put the natural world, as well as the ecological processes that underpin all life, up for sale under the guise of protecting them. Principals of GFANZ, including BlackRocks Larry Fink, have long been enthusiastic about the prospects of NACs and other related efforts to financialize the natural world and he has also played a key role in marketing said financialization as necessary to combat climate change. As part of COP26, GFANZ a key group at that conference is publishing a plan aimed at scaling private capital flows to emerging and developing economies. Per the alliances press release, this plan focuses on the development of country platforms to connect the now enormous private capital committed to net zero with country projects, scaling blended finance through MDBs [multilateral development banks] and developing high integrity, credible global carbon markets. The press release notes that this enormous private capital is money that alliance members seek to invest in emerging and developing countries, estimated at over $130 trillion, and that in order to deploy these trillions in invest the global financial system is being transformed by this very alliance in coordination with the group that convened them, the United Nations. Proposing a Takeover Details of GFANZs plan to deploy trillions of member investments into emerging markets and developing countries was published in the alliances inaugural Progress Report, the release of which was timed to coincide with the COP26 conference. The report details the alliances near-term work plan and ambitions, which the alliance succinctly summarizes as a program of work to transform the financial system. The report notes that the alliance has moved from the commitment stage to the engagement stage, with the main focus of the engagement stage being the mobilization of private capital into emerging markets and developing countries through private-sector leadership and public-private collaboration. In doing so, per the report, GFANZ seeks to create an international financial architecture that will increase levels of private investment from alliance members in those economies. Their main objectives in this regard revolve around the creation of ambitious country platforms and increased collaboration between MDBs and the private financial sector. Per GFANZ, a country platform is defined as a mechanism that convenes and aligns stakeholders, i.e. a mechanism for public-private partnership/stakeholder capitalism, around a specific issue or geography. Examples offered include Mike Bloombergs Climate Finance Leadership Initiative (CFLI), which is partnered with Goldman Sachs and HSBC, among other private-sector institutions. While framed as being driven by stakeholders, existing examples of country platforms offered by the GFANZ are either private-sector led initiatives, like the CFLI, or public-private partnerships that are dominated by powerful multinational corporations and billionaires. As recently explained by journalist and researcher Iain Davis, these stakeholder capitalism mechanism models despite being presented as offering a more responsible form of capitalism instead allow corporations and private entities to participate in forming the regulations that govern their own markets and giving them a greatly increased role in political decision-making by placing them on equal footing with national governments. It is essentially a creative way of marketing corporatism, the definition of fascism infamously supplied by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. In addition to the creation of corporatist country platforms that focus on specific areas and/or issues in the developing world, GFANZ aims to also further corporatize multilateral development banks (MDBs) and development finance institutions (DFIs) in order to better fulfill the investment goals of alliance members. Per the alliance, this is described as increasing MBD-private sector collaboration. The GFANZ report notes that MDBs play a critical role in helping to grow investment flows in the developing world. MDBs, like the World Bank, have long been criticized for accomplishing this task by trapping developing nations in debt and then using that debt to force those nations to deregulate markets (specifically financial markets), privatize state assets and implement unpopular austerity policies. The GFANZ report makes it clear that the alliance now seeks to use these same, controversial tactics of MDBs by forcing even greater deregulation on developing countries to facilitate green investments from alliance members. The report explicitly states that MDBs should be used to prompt developing nations to create the right high-level, cross-cutting enabling environments for alliance members investments in those nations. The significantly greater levels of private capital investment, which are needed to reach Net-Zero per GFANZ, require that MDBs are used to prompt developing nations to establish investment-friendly business environments; a replicable framework for deploying private capital investments; and pipelines of bankable investment opportunities. GFANZ then notes that private capital and investment will flow to these projects if governments and policymakers create the appropriate conditions, i.e. enabling environments for private-sector investments. In other words, through the proposed increase in private-sector involvement in MDBs, like the World Bank and regional development banks, alliance members seek to use MDBs to globally impose massive and extensive deregulation on developing countries by using the decarbonization push as justification. No longer must MDBs entrap developing nations in debt to force policies that benefit foreign and multinational private-sector entities, as climate change-related justifications can now be used for the same ends. BlackRock CEO and GFANZ Principal Larry Fink talks to CNBC during COP26; Source: CNBC This new modality for MDBs, along with their fusion with the private sector, is ultimately what GFANZ proposes in terms of reimagining these institutions. GFANZ principal and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, during a COP26 panel that took place on November 2nd, explicitly referred to the plan to overhaul these institutions when he said that: If were going to be serious about climate change in the emerging world, were going to have to really focus on the reimagination of the World Bank and the IMF. Fink continued: They are the senior lender, and not enough private capitals coming into the emerging world today because of the risks associated with the political risk, investing in brownfield investments if we are serious about elevating investment capital in the emerging world Im urging the owners of those institutions, the equity owners, to focus on how we reimagine these institutions and rethink their charter. GFANZs proposed plans to reimagine MDBs are particularly alarming given how leaked US military documents openly admit that such banks are essentially financial weapons that have been used as Financial Instruments and Diplomatic Instruments of US National Power as well as Instruments of what those same documents refer to as the current global governance system that are used to force developing countries to adopt policies they otherwise would not. In addition, given Finks statements, it should not be surprising that the GFANZ report notes that their effort to establish country platforms and alter the functioning and charters of MDBs is a key component of implementing pre-planned recommendations aimed at seizing the New Bretton Woods moment and remaking the global financial governance system so that is promote[s] economic stability and sustainable growth. As noted in other GFANZ documents and on their website, the goal of the alliance is the transformation of the global financial system and it is quite obvious from member statements and alliance documents that the goal of that transformation is to facilitate the investment goals of alliance members beyond what is currently possible by using climate change-related dictates, as opposed to debt, as the means to that end. The UN and the Quiet Revolution In light of GFANZs membership and their ambitions, some may wonder why the United Nations would back such a predatory initiative. Doesnt the United Nations, after all, chiefly work with national governments as opposed to private-sector interests? Though that is certainly the prevailing public perception of the UN, the organization has for decades been following a stakeholder capitalist model that privileges the private sector and billionaire philanthropists over national governments, with the latter merely being tasked with creating enabling environments for the policies created by and for the benefit of the former. Speaking to the World Economic Forum in 1998, then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made this shift explicit: The United Nations has been transformed since we last met here in Davos. The Organization has undergone a complete overhaul that I have described as a quiet revolutionA fundamental shift has occurred. The United Nations once dealt only with governments. By now we know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships involving governments, international organizations, the business community and civil societyThe business of the United Nations involves the businesses of the world. With the UN now essentially a vehicle for the promotion of stakeholder capitalism, it is only fitting that it would convene and support the efforts of a group like GFANZ to extend that stakeholder capitalist model to other institutions involved in global governance, specifically global financial governance. Allowing GFANZ members, i.e. many of the largest private banks and financial institutions in the world, to fuse with MDBs, remake the global financial governance system and gain increased control over political decisions in the emerging world is a bankers dream come true. To get this far, all they have needed is to convince enough of the worlds population that such shifts are necessary due to the perceived urgency of climate change and the need to rapidly decarbonize the economy. Yet, if put into practice, what will result is hardly a greener world, but a world dominated by a small financial and technocratic elite who are free to profit and pillage from both natural capital and human capital as they see fit. Today, MDBs are used as instruments of power that utilize debt to force developing nations to implement policies that benefit foreign interests, not their national interests. If GFANZ gets their way, the MDBs of tomorrow will be used to essentially eliminate national sovereignty, privatize the natural assets (e.g. ecosystems, ecological processes) of the developing world and force increasingly technocratic policies designed by global governance institutions and think tanks on ever more disenfranchised populations. Though GFANZ has cloaked itself in lofty rhetoric of saving the planet, their plans ultimately amount to a corporate-led coup that will make the global financial system even more corrupt and predatory and further reduce the sovereignty of national governments in the developing world. Help Our Community Please help local businesses by taking an online survey to help us navigate through these unprecedented times. None of the responses will be shared or used for any other purpose except to better serve our community. The survey is at: www.pulsepoll.com $1,000 is being awarded. Everyone completing the survey will be able to enter a contest to Win as our way of saying, "Thank You" for your time. Thank You! Take The Survey Michael Keaton needed "a fair amount" of persuading to star in 'The Flash'. The 70-year-old actor will again portray Batman - which he played in 1989's 'Batman' and 1992's 'Batman Returns' - in the upcoming DC Extended Universe (DCEU) film, which he was reluctant to do, though he insisted he wasn't "fleeing" the role which made him a household name. Asked if he needed much persuading to sign up for the film, he said: A fair amount. But I wasnt fleeing it. It just wasnt in my consciousness and then, when it was, it was a question of them calling when they had something. But Michael refused to give any details about his appearance in the movie because he doesn't want to spoil it. Asked if he will be playing his age, he told the Sunday Times Culture magazine: "Ill be frank, I dont want to talk about it because it takes the fun away. Michael famously turned down around $15 million to play the Caped Crusader for a third time in the 1990s but it isn't something he's interested in discussing now. He said: I dont remember. Thats in my past. Its 2021 or whatever the f*** it is who gives a s***? Lets talk about things that matter. Years ago someone asked Batman questions. I said, You realise theres a logjam of bodies floating down a river in Rwanda? Who the f*** cares about Batman? The 'Toy Story 3' actor has taken on a range of projects that have highlighted various social issues in recent years, including 'Spotlight', a drama about abuse in the Catholic church, 'The Founder', which is about the rise of McDonalds, and civil rights saga 'The Trial of the Chicago 7', and can next be seen in 'Dopesick', but he insisted he isn't making deliberate choices because of his "social conscience. He joked: It was a conscious decision to be as pretentious as I can." He then added: No, good scripts are just good scripts. Ive always had a social conscience I come from that generation. But it would not shock me if people say, OK, Mike, lighten up and have a laugh. But who knows what Ill do next? Want to praise someone or get something off your chest? Darts and Pats is the place to do it. For his first ever tutu ballet, Butterfly based on Petipas Le Papillon, choreographer Lucas Jervies wanted to mix things up. I decided to flip the genders and have the male lead as the butterfly when it would normally be the girl because I wanted to show a male whos strong but also soft and beautiful which is a type of comment on masculinity, he says. Lucas Jervies and The Australian Ballet School student Hannah Sergi. Credit:Chris Hopkins My Spartacus was the same I wanted him to be a pacifist and a lover, not just a brute. I think were finally growing up as a society and can deal with some of those issues. As a gay man who lives today, its good to explore that. Classical ballet was the reason Lucas Jervies became a dancer, but his love for contemporary dance led into choreography. While world leaders met behind closed doors at COP26, its been the relentless leadership of First Nations people that gives me strength and ignites a fire in my belly. This global climate conference, labelled the one to save humanity, has been frustrating to say the least. Yet again, weve seen political power holders together with their fossil-fuel donors, turn a blind eye to the consequences of their poor leadership and decision-making. Protestors dressed as US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson who were among the world leaders to attend the summit. Credit:Getty Images But as the oceans are rising, so too are First Nations people. We are the first scientists, the first innovators, and we have cared for our lands and waters for thousands of generations. It was the words of India Logan-Riley, a young Maori activist, who said what many of us have been thinking: In the face of mediocre leadership, Indigenous people shine through This COP, learn our histories, listen to our stories, honour our knowledge and get in line, or get out of the way. Last week was a big one for Victorians, with travel finally allowed between the states regions and metropolitan Melbourne, and crowds let back into Flemington for the Melbourne Cup. It was a big week, too, for Victoria Police, who ramped up their patrols with Operation Compass and caught more than 8600 people for traffic offences. Nearly 4000 motorists were caught speeding in an eight-day safety blitz. Victoria Police caught more than 8600 people for traffic offences last week. Credit:Paul Rovere Officers monitored major roads and highways leading to regional areas and tourism hotspots, and caught more than 1500 people speeding in the regional areas of Banyule, Wangaratta, Geelong, Cardinia, and Latrobe. Among the people docked for speeding was a 46-year-old Doncaster man whose Porsche was impounded after he allegedly did 155km/h in an 80km/h zone. More than 340 people were fined for using a mobile phone while driving, while nearly 300 people were caught drink driving. Additionally, police saw more than 230 people return positive drug tests, and more than 280 unlicensed drivers. Over the AFL Grand Final weekend, almost 200 Victorian motorists were detected drink and drug driving, while 920 people were caught speeding. Assistant Commissioner Road Policing, Glenn Weir, said while it was great that Victorians could now travel across the state, it was extremely disappointing police have seen such disregard towards road safety. We have caught far too many people undertaking high-risk driving behaviour during this period the number of people detected speeding at mid-range to high levels is alarming, he said. Operation Compass ran across eight days from 12.01am October 29 to 11.59pm on Melbourne Cup day, and then again from 12.01am on November 5 to midnight on November 7. THE SHATTERING: America in the 1960s Author: Kevin Boyle Publisher: WW Norton Price: $32 Pages: 480 Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Eckford walked alone through the crowd of jeering whites. She hadnt heard about the escorts assigned to the nine Black youngsters integrating Little Rocks Central High School because her family had no telephone. So Elizabeth took the city bus, filed past the screeching adults, went up to the guardsmen who blocked her way with raised bayonets, turned around, returned to the bus stop, sat down and tried not to cry as the mob around her kept screaming. It was 1957 and Americans were about to plunge into the 1960s. A seemingly unified nation would confront its original sin, endure all kinds of vertiginous changes and never quite recover. Kevin Boyle, a professor of history at Northwestern University, tells this story and many others in The Shattering, his luminous guide to a tumultuous decade a season of hope, he writes, and a season of blood. Going back to one of the books cover photos, three dozen smiling neighbours pose on July 4, 1961, to celebrate the 38 flags theyve hoisted over their bungalows on Chicagos northwest side. Its a snapshot from the time before: A simple era of patriotism and consensus. But not for everyone. Not for African Americans pushing against white supremacy. In the South, they demanded simple things the right to vote, play in the park, get care at the nearest hospital, attend a school whose roof didnt leak. Mr Boyle emphasises both the implacable violence they met with and the media images that shocked so many. Birminghams snarling police dogs, leaping at young Black students, flashed onto the front pages of newspapers around the world. In the early days of television, NBC interrupted its programming with video of helmeted troopers, some on horseback, slamming their clubs into peaceful protesters in Selma. Those pictures changed the United States. For starters, as Mr Boyle explains, they transformed both political parties. Democrats had traditionally defended enslavement and then segregation, but in the 1930s and 1940s Northern Black voters clambered into the party Republicans were taking their votes for granted while Franklin Roosevelts New Deal offered help during the Great Depression. Democratic leaders frantically tried to hold together an improbable coalition of Southern segregationists and Northern civil rights activists till the images streaming out of the South forced a moral reckoning. After Selma, President Lyndon Johnson bet everything on civil rights. This was, he insisted in a national address, nothing less than a test of Americas soul. Across the aisle, Republicans long the party supportive of Black rights grabbed the Southern votes that the Democrats were leaving behind. President Nixon, elected in 1968, honed the tactic to a fine art. No Democratic presidential candidate has won the white vote since. Beyond the parties, Mr Boyle traces the racial reckoning as it coursed through the nation. Young African Americans in the North bristled at the Southern violence. Up north, they did not face legal segregation, but they were jammed into congested neighbourhoods, pushed into marginal jobs and always at risk of violence. Violence begot violence, south and north, until Martin Luther King Jr.s horrific murder. Mr Boyle twines this story of racial revolution with two others. First, the rise of a sprawling military. He portrays four presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson flailing to get control of what Eisenhower had called the military-industrial complex. College campuses increasingly raged against the government as it blundered into an Asian war that seemed unwinnable. Second, a sexual revolution had taken hold in the country. Magazines like Playboy were bringing sexuality out of the shadows. And then Estelle Griswold challenged Connecticuts ban on birth control devices. In 1965, the Supreme Court, balancing the rights of married couples against Victorian-era moral codes, found a right to privacy in the penumbra of the Bill of Rights. The Shattering wears its scholarship lightly. The book traces each of its themes to a different finale. Racial reform seemed to drift to a dead end when Nixons Supreme Court appointees limited school busing. Northern whites were fine with racial equality until it impinged on their own privileges. Dreams of racial justice would have to await future generations. The peace movement petered out, too. Nixon succeeded in diffusing antiwar politics while troubling questions about the military-industrial complex slipped entirely from sight. In contrast, the eras sexual politics ended with Roe v. Wade. A terrific hullabaloo over abortion, gay rights, morality and the nature of sexuality was about to burst onto the American scene. The Shattering begins with middle-class Americans proudly waving their flags. But along the way something vital did indeed shatter. White Americans were forced to confront the injustices perpetrated in their name, both at home and abroad. Those flags would continue to fly over Chicago for a few more years, but they would never mean quite the same thing. Electric scooter rental Bounce is making of about USD 100 million (around Rs 742 crore) over the next 12 months across manufacturing of e-scooters and expanding the battery swapping infrastructure, its co-founder and CEO Vivekananda Hallekere said. Speaking to PTI, Hallekere said the company will unveil its first e-scooter towards the end of the month and deliveries will start by February next year. "We want to make EV mainstream...when we're talking about transition to EVs, we want to make sure millions of vehicles can actually practically look at it and not worry about charging infra, range or battery related issues....We will have two variants and by November-end, we will start pre-booking and deliveries will start February-end," he said. Hallekere added that the company expects upwards of one lakh vehicles to be booked in pre-bookings. "There will be two types of pricing - one will be with battery and one without battery. I think we should be able to price it under Rs 70,000 with battery and without battery, we should be able to price under Rs 50,000," he said. With batteries the cost of the scooter would be a little higher; what this means is a user will be able to charge the batteries at their homes using the portable charger that would be made available to them. For the without batteries variant, users will be able to use 'batteries as a service'. Bounce would be setting up swappable charging stations across the city, and a user would be able to go to these stations and swap their batteries and move on. Asked about manufacturing, Hallekere said the company has a plant in Bhiwadi, and is now scouting for a second location. "In the first phase, we have a factory in Bhiwadi in Rajasthan with a production capacity of 1.2 lakh scooters per year, and it will create employment opportunities for over 1,000 people in the next 3-4 quarters. The number of people employed currently in the unit is around 100," he said, adding that the in the plant for the next 12 months is around USD 25 million. Bounce had bought 22 Motors, including its manufacturing unit in Bhiwadi. The entire team from 22 Motors has joined Bounce, and the deal size was estimated to be about USD 7-10 million. Hallekere noted that while the entire industry has been impacted by the global chip shortage, the company had planned it well and has capacity for meeting the demand. Hallekere said the company is working on building battery swapping infrastructure for 1-2 million scooters in the next 24 months. in battery swapping infrastructure over the next 12 months will be USD 50-75 million, and a large part of this is being debt financed, he added. "Since we have a mobility business, we have already built a pretty good network in Bengaluru and Vijayawada and we have already done half a million swaps. Within Bangalore, within two kilometres of anywhere you are, the network already exists but our idea is to take it to half a km. We have already partnered with most of the petrol pumps...we are working with parking spaces, commercial spaces," he explained. Hallekere said there are about 170 such points in Bengaluru and take it to 500-plus by the time the delivery of e-scooters starts. This battery swapping infrastructure will be expanded to six cities, adding cities like Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad. Bounce's e-scooters will be sold online as well as through a network of about 200 dealers. The company is also looking at international sales of its e-scooter. Hallekere said Bounce has already signed an agreement for supplying about 30,000 scooters in Turkey over a period of one year and those will start shipping by March-end. "We have already signed an MoU with the company in Turkey...we're also looking at Latin American and African So, we initially give them scooters and technology for battery swapping, the batteries everything comes from us but they set up the infra," he said. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) has turned to using biomass and industrial waste to protect itself from fuel price fluctuations that are eating into its margins. The company is also looking to raise Rs 10,000 crore for capital expenditure between FY22 and FY24 after reaching a negligible debt level. We are almost debt-free now. This capex will be a combination of internal accruals and debt, said Singhi. The firms net debt to EBITDA ratio was at 0.48x as of September 30. We have increased the share of green fuel (biomass and industrial waste) in our total fuel consumption to 12 per cent and plan to take it to 20 per cent in a year. The idea is to gradually phase out the use of fossil fuels, said Mahendra Singhi, managing director and chief executive at (Bharat). The companys green fuel is an industrial waste derived from chemical, pharma, and even automobile units through pyro-processing, which helps to reduce reliance on coal. The overall cost of this green fuel is about 60 per cent lower than the normal fuel that we use, said Singhi, without divulging much on total cost savings because the transition to green fuel is still in the initial stage. Despite high coal costs, the company was able to manage the September quarter thanks to better inventory levels than the previous quarter. The gradual shift to green fuels would be able to keep the high input cost scenario under control. Dalmia Cements earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell 11 per cent to Rs 621 crore in the September quarter compared to the same period last year. About rising power costs, Singhi said changes to the existing clinker facility and adoption of newer technology at its plants led to a drop in power consumption. Our per tonne of cement power consumption was 67 kwh per tonne of cement, which we have been able to bring down to 62 kwh now. This is one of the lowest not just in India but also globally. While cement demand has not been too strong in the first half of FY22, expects the scenario to change from December as the Covid-19 vaccination drive ramps up. We expect rural housing demand to pick up, which has been a laggard in the past year due to Covid, Singhi said. Even upcoming elections should prompt states to spend towards infrastructure, which will push up demand beyond pre-Covid levels, said Singhi. Uttar Pradesh goes to the polls in 2022.The company is also gearing up to increase its capex to 48.5 million tonne from 36 million tonne now (after adding Maharashtra plant capacity which currently has trial runs on). A vulnerability at a subsidiary, Ventures Limited (CVL), has exposed personal and financial data of over 4 crore Indian twice in a period of 10 days, according to cyber security consultancy startup CyberX9. The Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL) is a SEBI registered depository and Ventures Ltd is a KYC registering agency separately registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). CDSL said that CVL has taken immediate action and the vulnerability has been mitigated now. According to CyberX9, it reported the vulnerability on October 19, to CDSL and the securities depository took around 7 days to fix it which could have been resolved immediately. "We verified the fix before publication and it was no longer exploitable. Later, on October 29th, our research team got to work again and within a couple of minutes they found an easy and complete bypass for the fix that CDSL implemented to patch the earlier reported vulnerability. "CERT-In and NCIIPC also accepted our vulnerability report for CDSL," CyberX9 Founder and Managing Director Himanshu Pathak told PTI. The exposed data includes name, phone number, email address, PAN, income range, father's name, date of birth etc, CyberX9 said in its blog. When contacted CDSL said that there has been no security issue or data vulnerability at CDSL. "CVL had received a vulnerability alert on the website of CVL which has since been mitigated. We would like to state that CVL took immediate actions to mitigate the vulnerability and have worked proactively to further address any other potential security issues," CDSL said. Both the entities CDSL and CVL, as separate regulated entities with SEBI, have a clear arm's length relationship, CDSL said. CyberX9 said that the vulnerability was not highly complex the second time its team discovered it. "We strongly suspect that the data might have already been stolen by malicious attackers. There is a need for a fair security audit of CDSL by the government," CyberX9 blog said. The Chandigarh-based cyber security startup said that the information exposed by CDSL could be a virtual gold mine for phishers and scammers involved in the so called business of e-mail compromise which often impersonate brokers, banks, and businesses in a bid to trick individuals and into transferring funds to fraudsters. "Armed with such access to CDSL KYC data, phishers and scammers would have an endless supply of compelling scamming templates for calls and emails to use. A database like this would also give fraudsters a constant feed of new getting KYC to target them," CyberX9 said. The sensitive personal and financial data exposed to massive numbers of people can lead to things like financial fraud, identity theft, and exposing people to things like extortion, targeted attacks against people, etc. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Pulling out from the Rs 4,000-crore Carlyle-led deal was a conscious choice of Finance as the company did not want to entangle in a protracted legal battle and lose focus on the lending business, its Managing Director and CEO Hardayal Prasad said. Last month, the company said it has decided not to proceed with the Rs 4,000-crore capital infusion deal led by Carlyle as a legal battle will not be in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders. The deal was finalised on May 31. Soon after, it mired into a controversy with regards to the valuation of the shares being offered to the investors. Subsequently, the matter reached the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) after the intervention of markets regulator Sebi. "If you look at it, there is nothing that we did wrong. We followed the policy of the Sebi, the LODR instructions, we tried to do everything. It was only a question of interpretation. "The way we were looking at it, and the Sebi was looking at it, there was a little disconnect over there and that is why we took it to the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) also," Prasad told PTI in an interview. He said the split verdict of the SAT also proves that it was a matter of interpretation only as the company's contention was vindicated by one of the judges in the matter, reiterating: "I don't think we did anything wrong". Prasad added that one of the judges, the presiding officer, gave the judgment in the company's favour. "But, we are very clear that we don't want any protracted legal battle. We want to concentrate on our work and go ahead." He said a significant amount of bandwidth is utilised when you are going to do it and it would have been a slightly long-protected legal battle. "I am not in that business, we are in the business of lending, in the business of financing. What is the point in remaining distracted by these kinds of things. So, we decided that okay they are the regulator and we decided to go ahead with the pull-back (from the deal)," Prasad said. After the split verdict of the SAT in August, Sebi had approached the Supreme Court. However, the apex court dismissed Sebi's appeal in late October as it became infructuous when Finance said it will pull out from the deal. The company has filed an application to withdraw its appeal to the Securities Appellate Tribunal. Prasad said the company is much in the need of the desired capital and it will look for all the venues to raise money, be it through borrowings, qualified institutional placement (QIP), rights issues or preference issues. "Whether we do it through borrowings or QIP, preferential issue, rights issue, any other things that we can do, we are keeping everything open and we will see to it and at the right time, we will approach the board to permit us to raise the money," Prasad said. He added that the company will continue to look for opportunities. "We remain engaged with everybody. See how we can move forward in terms of capital raising. We require to raise the capital, despite a solid capital adequacy ratio, and the gearing position. "But, we would still like to raise capital to enable us to grow even faster than we are growing," he said. Right now, all stakeholders of the company remain supportive of the company. They know that the capital is required, they know that the company has a great, bright future, Prasad added. They have also seen that in the past nine quarters, there has been a slow and steady movement on a lot of fronts. "So, we would do it, since they are all supportive and they understand that the company requires it. We will look at all options that are there in terms of raising the money," Prasad said. State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) is the company's promoter with a 32.6 per cent holding in the company. On being asked what was PNB's opinion on pulling out from the deal, he said: "We explained to them that this is the reason and we would like to pull back from the deal. Because of the protracted legal nature, it is not taking us anywhere and it is distracting the overall focus of the business." All of them agreed that this is the right thing to do, Prasad added. In the second quarter ended September 2021, the company posted a net profit of Rs 235 crore, down by 25 per cent from a year ago, mainly on account of a fall in interest income and higher provisioning for bad loans. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In an interesting turn of events, a Chicago-based tech firm called Meta Company is going to court against Facebook, saying the social network stole its name and "livelihood" after it rebranded its name to Meta. In a statement, Meta Company Founder Nate Skulic said that when failed to buy them, it aimed to "bury" the company by force of media. On October 28, " decided to commit trademark infringement and call themselves Meta," Skulic said in a public letter. "They couldn't buy us, so they tried to bury us by force of media. We shouldn't be surprised by these actions - from a company that continually says one thing and does another," Skulic added. Meta Company has decided to file the necessary legal actions against "This message may be regarded as a public cease and desist," Skulic said. "Facebook and its operating officers are deceitful and acting in bad faith, not only towards us, but to all of humanity." Facing intense scrutiny over users' data privacy, Facebook founder last month announced that his company will have a new name, Meta. Somewhat predictably, Zuckerberg downplayed that this rebranding, the first in Facebook's 17 years of existence, is to divert a barrage of bad PR. The name "Facebook" doesn't fully encompass everything the company does now, and is still closely linked to one product, he added. "But over time, I hope we are seen as a metaverse company." Skulic said that for the last three months, Facebook lawyers have been hounding "us to sell our name to them". "We refused their offer on multiple bases. Namely, the low offer wouldn't cover the costs of changing our name, and we insisted on knowing the client and intent, which they did not want to disclose," he noted. At least two law firms were involved: One in the US that requested its trademark and domains and the other in Europe aggressively contacting trying to get "us to sell its domain registrations," he alleged. A live trademark was filed for Meta Company in 2016 that lists the registrant owner at Chicago, Illinois. However, there is a 2015 trademark listed for Meta with the owner listed as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. "It's unfortunate to have been associated with a company so rooted in controversy and fixated on domination. We aim to be distinguished from Facebook's totalitarian view of the future. We hope the negative association with Facebook and its founder will be forgotten -- but we won't ignore the damages done," Skulic elaborated. Meta was yet to react to his allegations. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Star systems come in all shapes and sizes. Some have lots of planets, some have larger and others have no at all. But a particularly unusual system about 150 light-years from our own has scientists scratching their heads. In 2016, astronomers discovered two orbiting the star HD 3167. They were thought to be super-Earths between Earth and Neptune in size and circled the star every one and 30 days. A third planet was found in the system in 2017, orbiting in about eight days. Whats unusual is the inclinations of the outer two planets, HD 3167 c and d. Whereas in our solar system all planets orbit in the same flat plane around the sun, these two are in polar orbits. That is, they go above and below their stars poles, rather than around the equator. Now scientists have discovered the system is even weirder. Researchers measured the orbit of the innermost planet, HD 3167 b, for the first time and it doesnt match the other two. It instead orbits in the stars flat plane, like planets in our solar system, and perpendicular to HD 3167 c and d. This star system is the first one known to act like this. It was clearly a surprise, said Vincent Bourrier, from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, who led the discovery published last month in the journal & Astrophysics. This is something radically different from our own solar system. Were you to stand on one you would see a rather intriguing view. If you had a telescope and you were looking at the trajectory of the other planets in the system, they would be going vertically in the sky. Union Home Minister is slated to visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency Varanasi on November 13 to attend Akhil Bharatiya Rajbhasha Sammelan, Home Ministry sources said. The Home Minister will chair the inaugural day of the two-day event in Varanasi beginning on November 13, said the sources. Shah's visit is significant in view of the upcoming high-stake assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh as he is considered as the architect of the BJP's turnaround in the state after the party had been reduced to the fourth major electoral group in the 2012 polls. Soon after taking over as the BJP's president, the party in 2014 had registered a historic win in 71 out of the state's 80 Lok Sabha seats. In his day-long visit to Varanasi, the Home Minister is likely to hold a brief meeting withThe Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. The BJP, under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, is seeking another round of victory in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections slated from 2022, where it had stormed to power five years ago with a decisive mandate. The party had, in the 2017 polls, won 312 seats with a vote share of 39.67 per cent. This was followed by a strong electoral performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when the BJP won 62 of the state's 80 parliamentary constituencies. The next legislative Assembly elections will be held in Uttar Pradesh in the month of February to March 2022 to elect 403 members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. The term of the current assembly elected in 2017 will expire on May 14, 2022. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The US has partnered with the UK and India-led Green Grids Initiative of a global energy grid launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. At a meeting of the Steering Committee of the Green Grids Initiative One Sun One World One Grid' (GGI-OSOWOG) earlier this week, US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said that the US is excited to be back in the climate conversation and to partner with the new initiative. All the energy humanity uses in a year is equal to the energy that reaches the earth from the sun in a single hour, said Granholm. The GGI-OSOWOG is focusing on the two most important pieces of the puzzle. We at the US Department of Energy are happy to be a partner with GGI-OSOWOG, she said. The International Solar Alliance (ISA) under India's presidency and the UK's COP26 Presidency had launched GGI-OSOWOG during the World Leaders' Summit of COP26 on Tuesday. The Steering Committee of GGI-OSOWOG comprises five members besides India and the UK the US, Australia and France and has been set up to deliver the vision of One Sun One World One Grid under which 80 countries have resolved to combine their efforts to create more interconnected grids, endorsing the One Sun Declaration'. Energy Secretary Granholm told the meeting this week that the US is focusing on next-generation technologies to ensure solar panels and grids are consistently efficient across markets and geographies. The US is interested in helping countries that do not have access to electricity by leveraging the power of the sun, she said. Following the leader-level events of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on Monday and Tuesday, each country's delegates and officials have been participating in a series of meetings to finalise the way forward to tackle climate change by the end of the summit on November 12. The Indian team includes Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupendra Yadav and chief negotiator Richa Sharma. We must return to the sun to save the earth. As the world progresses to achieve new heights economically and socially, solar energy will power the transition, said Yadav. The GGI-OSOWOG initiative has sustainable development and climate change mitigation at its core with focus on underserved areas. It will stimulate green investment and create millions of green jobs, he said. The One Sun Declaration for GGI-OSOWOG will be focused on building new transmission lines crossing frontiers and connecting different time zones, creating a global ecosystem of interconnected renewables that are shared for mutual benefit and global sustainability. This will be combined with expanded and modernised and regional grids and complemented with the rapid scale-up of mini-grids and off-grid solar solutions. Dr Ajay Mathur, Director General of International Solar Alliance, said: The success of the massive GGI-OSOWOG initiative depends on a country's own grid expansion plans, which would require investments. The grid interconnections at intra and inter regional levels play a significant role to decarbonise our energy systems by using solar and other renewable energy sources placed in different time zones and amplifying that impact at large scale. We look forward to a highly interconnected geo-economic future that assimilates large scale international networks and arrangements for a better and more resilient interconnected world that will keep more decisions locally empowered but at a global level, Mathur said. The World Bank has also expressed its support as it expects this initiative to help leverage the benefits of complementarity between renewable generators and non-centres across continents by getting them interconnected. The OSOWOG initiative has the potential to integrate the global electricity system into one that is geared towards a higher share of variable renewable energy while reducing consumption of fossil fuel. This will usher in a new era of harnessing a much higher share of renewable energy capitalising the energy transition that is taking place globally and helping build an ecosystem based on mutual trust and shared benefit, said Riccardo Puliti, Vice President for Infrastructure at the World Bank. The ISA, launched at COP21 in Paris and recently expanded to include all UN member states, aims to help mobilise USD 1 trillion of funding by 2030 to assist developing countries in expanding their solar power grids. The initiative is widely seen as a big and bold move in ISA's ongoing efforts to realise a global solar transition. The global grid concept was first announced by Prime Minister Modi in October 2018 during the first assembly of the ISA. In May 2021, the UK pledged technical, financial and research support for the OSOWOG project. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Rs 8,000-crore laminate industry has approached the and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) for its inclusion in the the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. In a representation to the government think tank and the DPIIT, laminate manufacturers said they are one sector where India is at the forefront, but pressures from countries such as China present the need to maintain aggressive export pricing without compromising much on margins. The representation made by the Indian Laminate Manufacturers' Association (ILMA) said the has announced practical but attractive benefits for the manufacturing sector with a clear intention to boost industrial development. Providing benefits to the laminate sector will not only cement its position in the world market, but also expand its horizon to newer shores, said Rashmi Deshpande (partner at Khaitan & Co), who assisted ILMA in its representation. "Besides, this additional incentive is likely to give impetus to further R&D in the sector," Deshpande said. Until recently, the sector benefited from general export promotion schemes such as the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS). However, upon withdrawal of MEIS with effect from January 1, 2021, the sector no longer enjoys any benefit. The recently announced Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) scheme does not sufficiently incentivise investment-led incremental production and capacity building, the association said in its representation. India is one of the top five laminate exporters in the world. In fact, laminate manufacturing is one of the few sectors where Indian players have the potential to move ahead of their Chinese counterparts. A PLI boost will go a long way in ensuring its continuous rise, it said. The combined sector revenue stood at Rs 8,000 crore, 25 per cent of which accrued from exports to over 100 countries, during 2020-21. The global furniture market, for which laminate is a major raw material, is valued in the range of $580-620 billion, 35-40 per cent of which is catered to by global retail trade. China, Vietnam, and Malaysia are the three major Asian exporters of furniture products. As leading multinationals explore options to shift their operations outside China, India is aiming to achieve a sizable share of global furniture manufacturing and export over the next 4-5 years. Given its current strength, if backed by the PLI Scheme, the laminate industry is confident to become the world's manufacturing hub and gain market share globally said Saurabh Mittal, managing director & CEO of Greenlam Industries Limited and founding member of ILMA. According to industry analysts, the laminate sector faces stiff competition from emerging countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam. China, which is already an established competitor, has easy access to new and emerging Asian markets owing to the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement, which has the effect of making available Chinese goods into these markets duty-free. This acts as a major hindrance for Indian-manufactured products, which attract import duties in the range of 10-25% in these markets. India faces a similar problem owing to Chinas favorable trade terms with countries in Latin America. This, coupled with removal of Indias status by the USA from its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) programme has put further pressure on the countrys exporters. Moreover, Indian imports attract a higher duty rate in North America vis-a-vis imports from the European Union which is yet another region having a sizable laminate manufacturing industry, the association said. The government has already announced a for 13 sectors, including electronic products, medical devices, pharmaceuticals drugs, telecom and networking products, food products, ACs, LED, automobiles & auto components, textile products and speciality steel. Early in Call My Agent Bollywood, Jignesh (Rohan Joshi), a junior agent at the agency ART, takes newcomer Nia (Radhika Seth) to the scripts and contracts room. Everything depends on the script, he tells her. Without the scripts, there are neither movies, money, actors, their agents, their assistants and nor you. Unfortunately for the show, which dropped on late last month, its makers seem to completely ignore this truth of the business. For an adaptation of a successful French original, the narrative of the Hindi version is offensive at best and boring at worst. And every aspect of the series acting, direction, cinematography, music seems to be infected by an acute indifference. Take for instance the ending of the second episode where Nia and Treasa Matthews (Soni Razdan) are sharing a cigarette on the roof. Treasa advises Nia, evidently depressed for some reason, to not worry too much. Har ek fikr ko, dhunye me uda de (Let every worry turn into smoke.). Before she says smoke in this line and the next, she pauses to take a drag and exhales a little smoke. Could it be more amateurish? One wonder where director Shaad Ali, who had helmed the delightful Bunty Aur Babli (2005), was when this scene was shot. And, whats with gratuitous drone photography of the citys skyline? There seems to be a pandemic of it in the original content of streaming platforms. But more than technical issues, Call My Agent is deeply disappointing because despite being focussed on it provides us no insights into its inner working. Bollywood, or the Hindi film industry based out of Mumbai, can be thought of as a closely-knit society with almost a tribal code of conduct. As Professor Rosie Thomas, a pioneer in the study of popular Hindi cinema has shown in her book Bombay Before Bollywood, the film industry can be a rich field of anthropological study. This world is one of endless fascination for outsiders those trying to get a break, journalists, scholars, and regular fans. has time and again parted its curtains to let the eager audience have a glimpse of how the magic is created in its studios and sets. One of the most successful narrative strategies for this is getting a character who is an outsider to enter this world. In Bombay Talkie (dir: James Ivory; 1970), this outsider is British novelist Lucia Lane (Jennifer Kendal). Having written a book on Hollywood, she is in Bombay (Mumbai) to write another book. But she gets embroiled in this world when she falls in love with matinee idol Vikram (Shashi Kapoor). This is the only film in which Jennifer and Shashi were cast opposite each other. With a script by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Ivory, it is a typical Merchant-Ivory film nostalgic for a dying world even before it is dead. Made in English, the film does not really take us to the heart of the film industrys darkness. But, two things about the movie still stand out, at least for me. First is the legendary song Typewriter, tip tip tip tip karta hain (music: Shankar-Jaikishan) with Helen and Shashi Kapoor dancing on an enormous typewriter in a dream sequence. The other is the opening sequence of title cards. The film opens with a shot of Bombay and then the camera picks out four labourers carrying a billboard, typically used to promote films, in the traffic. A montage of billboards and shots of the city follow, with an evocative musical score in the background. Such a title sequence is probably inspired by similar sequences used by Satyajit Ray, who was a mentor for Merchant-Ivory and had composed music for their earlier film Shakespeare Wallah (1965). A similar montage marks the entry of another outsider to Bombay in Hrishikesh Mukherjee-directed Guddi (1971). It is not a title sequence, but a montage of large billboards, with all the leading male stars of the early 1970s Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Shammi Kapoor, Manoj Kumar, and others, who would also appear in cameos later in the film. The background score is not only music but songs, dialogues, even action sequences in the loud register that one expects from a masala film. But Guddi is not a masala film in fact, it is a well-considered critique of the film industry and the effect it has on Indians. In this film, the outsider is Guddi (Jaya Bhaduri) a high school student infatuated with superstar Dharmendra, played by the actor himself. When Guddi rejects suitable boy Navin (Samit Bhanja), her uncle Professor Gupta (Utpal Dutt) hatches a plan to let her get a glimpse of the blood and sweat literally that goes into making a film. He convinces Dharmendra to help him with this plan. In a plot device possibly borrowed from Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew and A Midsummer Nights Dream, Professor Gupta and Dharmendra stage a drama, so that Navin emerges as a hero for Guddi. This includes Navin defeating Dharmendra in a badminton match and beating up robbers (Dutt and Dharmendra disguised in burkhas) to save her. Rachel Dwyer describes to be the mythology of modern India, but filmmakers knew that already. Film actors are no less than gods and goddesses for their fans like Guddi. In her love for Dharmendra, Guddi decides to emulate 16th-century Indian mystic Mirabai and never get married. The script, written by Gulzar, falters when it gets didactic but sparkles with humour. While playing is a part of Professor Guptas script to exorcise Guddi from her infatuation, the characters play other games too, such as statue. This is also crucial to the plot because in the climax, Guddi stops Navin from leaving by calling out: Statue. The blinding glamour of the Hindi film industry inspired several wonderful depictions over the years, such as Chala Murari Hero Banne (1977), Rangeela (1995), Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon (2003), Om Shanti Om (2007). But perhaps the most clear-eyed depiction of the price for ambition was Zoya Akhtars directorial debut Luck By Chance (2009). By now, the film-on-the-film-industry genres characteristics had become well-defined outsiders wanting to make it in, cameos by actors, some reference to film gossip, a few nuggets of wisdom about how all of it is make-believe. But Luck By Chance eschews all didacticism for a realistic depiction of the Faustian bargain its leading man Vikram Jaisingh (Farhan Akhtar) must strike to scale the pinnacle of popularity. A quintessential outsider, Vikram comes to Mumbai from Delhi to become an actor but struggles to find a break. He is provided moral support by Sona Mishra (Konkona Sen Sharma), another struggling actor who does bit parts in films. When an opportunity presents itself, Vikram must betray his friends, his new colleagues, and even Sona to make it in the dog-eat-dog world of Bollywood. In a telling scene, he goes to a party at Kareena Kapoors house and meets Zafar Khan (Hrithik Roshan) the superstar who had dropped out of the film where Vikram gets his big break. After they exchange hellos, Zafar looks at him from a distance and evaluates him with director Karan Johar: KARAN: So, Romi uncles [producers] hero meets Romi uncles discovery. ZAFAR (looking at Vikram): What do you think? KARAN: Not bad. Potential. Did he thank you? ZAFAR: What for? KARAN: He is only at this party because you left that film. ZAFAR: Come on! KARAN: Its a fact. This is how outsiders enter the industry. Someone writes an unconventional role, a major star refuses the part and a newcomer gets a break. ZAFAR: Give me an example. KARAN: Darr, Baazigar. A lot of stars turned down these films. Finally, one man did it. Shah Rukh Khan. Of course, Zanjeer. Seven stars turned it down. Finally, the role went to a struggling actor, whose name is ZAFAR: Amitabh Bachchan. KARAN: Correct answer. ZAFAR: Why didnt you tell me this before? KARAN: Well, you never asked. They share a wry smile, the camera cuts to Vikram, acknowledging that an outsider is becoming an insider here. For a cinephile, this moment is even more pleasurable because they already know the nuggets of wisdom that Johar has just imparted. For the fan in the darkened cinema, at this moment, they are no more an outsider to the magic world of Bollywood. Their insider knowledge has transformed them into an insider. -------------------------------------- The writers novel, Ritual, was published in 2020. He teaches journalism at O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat As Australia's New South Wales (NSW) state has begun to see a tapering of its vaccination rates, authorities announced on Sunday that the state would transition to the booster program phase of its vaccination rollout. As the state inches towards its 95 per cent inoculation target as of midnight Friday, 93.9 per cent of the NSW's above 16 years population have had at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine, and 89.7 per cent have been fully vaccinated, Xinhua news agency reported. NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, during Sunday's press conference, said the state would transit to its booster program phase, focusing first on the state's most vulnerable population. "It is very clear that this booster program here in our state is going to be critical in order to keep people safe, and ensure we can keep NSW open," Perrottet added. NSW's Health Minister Brad Hazzard shot down supply concerns for the booster rollout. "The federal government has stepped up and made sure NSW, and other states and territories, have more than ample supplies of vaccine," said Hazzard. "It is there waiting to keep you safe." NSW recorded 244 new locally acquired cases of Covid-19 and one related death in the 24 hours to 8 p.m. Saturday. Meanwhile, the Australian state of Victoria saw a drop in daily cases, recording 1,173 new locally acquired cases in the 24 hours to midnight Saturday down from 1,268 cases. The state recorded another nine deaths. About 83 per cent of Victoria's above 12 years' population have been fully vaccinated. --IANS int/khz/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) China's remained strong in October, a positive sign for an trying to weather power shortages and COVID-19 outbreaks. The country's customs agency said Sunday that totaled $300.2 billion, up 27.1% from a year ago. That was down from a 28.1% increase in September but still healthy. Imports came in at $215.7 billion, a 20.6% rise. and imports are much higher than a year ago, when much of the world was in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, but there is widespread concern that economic headwinds are slowing growth. The world's second-largest grew 4.9% in the three months ending in September, down from 7.9% in the previous quarter. China's trade surplus in October was $84.5 billion, up from $66.8 billion the previous month, the customs agency said. The surplus with the U.S. was down slightly to $40.7 billion, compared to $42 billion in September. With the EU, it was $25.9 billion. and the U.S. are mired in a trade war that dates from the administration of former President Donald Trump. The U.S. imposed tariffs on Chinese products, and retaliated with tariffs on American ones. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said last month that she planned frank talks with her Chinese counterparts over their differences. China's has been buffeted by the government's tough COVID-19-related restrictions, which have depressed domestic travel and consumer demand, and power shortages that have pushed down factory production. Regulators are also cracking down on debt-laden real estate developers, slowing the housing market. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A federal appeals panel temporarily blocked a new vaccine mandate for large businesses, in a sign that the Biden administration may face an uphill battle in its biggest effort yet to combat the virus among the American workforce. The stay, issued by a three-judge panel from the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Louisiana, doesnt have an immediate impact. The first major deadline in the new rule is December 5, when companies with at least 100 employees must require unvaccinated employees to wear masks indoors. Businesses have until January 4 to mandate Covid vaccinations or start weekly testing of their workers. But Saturdays move provided momentum for a wide coalition of opponents of the rule, who have argued that it is unconstitutional. A group of businesses, religious groups, advocacy organisations and several states, including Louisiana and Texas, had filed a petition on Friday with the court, arguing that the administration had overstepped its authority. It was unclear whether the stay would be a procedural blip for the Biden administration or the first step in the unwinding of the mandate. At the core of the legal challenge is the question of whether Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) exceeded its authority in issuing the rule and whether such a mandate would need to be passed by Congress. A similar issue was in play when a Texas court in late 2016 halted an Obama-era Labor Department rule that would have made millions more Americans eligible for overtime pay. The Trump administration, which took office the next year, said it would not defend the overtime rule. The suit against the mandate stated that President Biden set the legislative policy of substantially increasing the number of Americans covered by vaccination requirements, and then set binding rules enforced with the threat of large fines. That is a quintessential legislative act and one wholly unrelated to the purpose of OSHA itself, which is protecting workplace safety, the suit said. Nowhere in OSHAs enabling legislation does Congress confer upon it the power to end pandemics. A separate lawsuit against the new rule was also filed on Friday in the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis by 11 Republican-led states, among them Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah. The Fifth Circuit panel said in a brief order, signed by a deputy clerk, that the judges were blocking the regulation because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate. It said the rule was suspended pending further action by this court. The two-page order directed the Biden administration to respond by 5 p.m. on Monday to the groups request for a permanent injunction. 2021 The New York Times News Service Strong inflows in new fund offers (NFOs) and a stable book helped equity attract a net investment of nearly Rs 40,000 crore in the three months ended September 2021, a two-fold growth from the preceding quarter. The inflow pushed the asset base of equity (MFs) to Rs 12.8 trillion by September-end, from Rs 11.1 trillion at the end of June, data with the Association of in India (Amfi) showed. As per the data, the equity category witnessed flows to the tune of Rs 39,927 crore in September quarter, as compared to an inflow of Rs 19,508 crore in the June quarter. Equity mutual funds have been witnessing continuous inflows since March. Prior to this, equity schemes had consistently witnessed outflows for eight months from July 2020 to February 2021. "Consistent equity inflows indicate positive sentiment among investors on the Indian equity market as the economy gains momentum, businesses rebound from pandemic disruption, abundant liquidity in the financial system and government's supportive stance aiming at speedy economic recovery," Mohit Nigam, Head - PMS, Hem Securities, said. During recent months, India's benchmark has gained the most among its Asian peers, making India one of the most favorable investment corners, he said. According to him, overall, data looks positive for the industry as equity and numbers look supportive of more investor participation in mutual funds. Barring equity-linked saving schemes (ELSS) and value funds, all the categories have seen inflow during the September quarter. The slew of heavyweight New Fund Offers and stable systematic investment plan (SIP) books have played a critical role in mobilising fresh inflows in equities. Mutual fund experts said that nearly 50 per cent of net inflow in equity is attributable to as asset management companies (AMCs) try to complete their range as per regulator Sebi scheme categorization norms and some more through thematic launches. Within the categories of equity funds, flexi-cap segment saw highest net infusion of Rs 18,258 crore, followed by sectoral fundz that witnessed a net investment of Rs 10,232 crore and focused funds that attracted Rs 4,197 crore. Further, multi-cap and mid-cap funds witnessed net inflow to the tune of Rs 3,716 crore and Rs 3,000 crore respectively. Moreover, investment through the route surged to Rs 29,883 crore in the September quarter from Rs 26,571 crore in the June quarter. Besides, monthly contributions to SIPs rose to an all-time-high of Rs 10,351 crore in September from Rs 8,596 crore in April. "Good news on the SIP front continues with monthly input value finally crossing Rs 10,000 crore in September. This is heartening as this is a significant jump from Rs 8,000 crore the SIP book had shrunk to a year back. "This clearly highlights the improving appetite from retail as well as HNIs," Aashwin Dugal, Co-Chief Business Officer, Nippon India Mutual Fund said. With lower yields in debt instruments including banks FDs and flat returns in gold, equity is a preferred asset class, he added. SIP is an investment vehicle that allows investors to invest small amounts periodically instead of lump-sum payment. The frequency of investment is usually weekly, monthly or quarterly. It is similar to a recurring deposit where investors deposit a small or fixed amount every month. Overall, mutual funds have seen a net inflow of Rs 99,974 crore in three months ended September, from Rs 69,625 crore in the previous quarter. (This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The (AQI) of Delhi continues to remain in the 'severe' category, informed the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) on Sunday. As per SAFAR's analysis at 6:15 am today, Delhi's overall air quality was found to be in 'severe' category with the AQI standing at 436. However, Delhi's AQI was 437 on Saturday night wherein the concentration of PM 2.5 was 318, while that of PM 10 was reported to be 448. As per the Centre-run SAFAR, Delhi's AQI is likely to improve to the upper end of the 'very poor' category as the "surface winds are becoming stronger", dispersing air pollutants from the evening of November 7. An AQI between 0-50 is considered good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 moderate, 201-300 poor, 301-400 very poor and 401-500 are marked as severe/hazardous. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) In a significant step, the government has decided to lift the ban on dealings with Italian firm Leonardo (earlier name Finmeccanica) that was banned in connection with the Rs 3600 crore VVIP chopper scam. Government sources told ANI on Sunday that the ban has been lifted in dealings with the company with conditions. As per the decision, the investigation against the company by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate would continue. "The company would also not be allowed to make any financial claims from the based on any agreements signed earlier and it will have to start afresh after the ban is lifted," the sources said. India had put on hold the dealings with the company in 2013-14 during the tenure of the UPA government when European agencies arrested individuals for their role in the Rs 3600 crore deal to supply 12 AW-101 helicopters to India for ferrying VVIPs. Sources said that the decision was made by the defence ministry based on the request made by the Italian firm and consulting the Law Ministry and other agencies. Even though the corruption case was related only to Agusta Westland, dealings with the entire group Finmeccanica were put on hold. This included deals for black shark torpedoes also which were cleared to be acquired by the Indian Navy at that time. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) With the administration of 28,40,174 vaccine doses in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 vaccination coverage has exceeded 108.21 crore (1,08,21,66,365) as per provisional reports till 7 am on Sunday, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Sustained and collaborative efforts by the Centre and the States, UTs continue the trend of less than 50,000 Daily New Cases that are being reported for 133consecutive days now. Meanwhile, India reported 10,853 new cases in the last 24 hours. With new cases, the active caseload is presently at 1,44,845 which is the lowest in 260 days. Active cases presently constitute 0.42% of the country's total Positive Cases, which is the lowest since March 2020 according to the data released by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare early Sunday. The testing capacity across the country continues to be expanded. The last 24 hours saw a total of 9,19,996 tests being conducted. India has so far conducted over61.48 Cr (61,48,85,747) cumulative tests. While testing capacity has been enhanced across the country, the weekly positivity rate at 1.28 per cent remains less than 2 per cent for the last 44 days now. The daily positivity rate was reported to be 1.18 per cent. The daily positivity rate has remained below 2 per cent for the last 34 days and below 3 per cent for 69 consecutive days now. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Dear Reader, Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. 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Digital Editor To discuss the forthcoming Assembly elections in five states and other current issues, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s National Executive meeting will be held on Sunday in the national capital, during which Prime Minister Modi will deliver a valedictory address. This will be the first meeting of the BJP's key decision-making body, the National Executive Committee (NEC) after the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as well as the first during the party chief J.P Nadda's tenure. The meeting will begin with Nadda's inaugural speech and will end with Modi's address. It will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The meeting will be attended by former Presidents and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah and Nitin Gadkari. Rajya Sabha member and Union Minister Piyush Goyal, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, besides all Union Ministers who are part of the NEC will also be in attendance. "Keeping in mind the Covid-19 protocols, all National Executive members have not been invited to Delhi to attend the meeting. A total of 124 senior BJP leaders will be present at the NDMC Convention Centre in New Delhi, while all Chief Ministers and Deputy Chief Ministers of the BJP-ruled states, the BJP State unit Presidents and other senior leaders from various states who are part of the NEC will virtually attend," BJP National General Secretary Arun Singh had said. According to Arun Singh, various issues will be discussed in the meeting which include a special brainstorming session on the forthcoming Assembly elections in five states. In early 2022, Assembly polls will be held in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Manipur and Goa. A condolence resolution will also be adopted in the memory of all those who lost their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic. The meeting will discuss programmes and policies to make the BJP more broad-based in order to incorporate greater sections of the society. An exhibition will be organised at the venue of the meeting to showcase all policies and programmes of the Modi government. --IANS ssb/khz/ksk/ (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Praising the Narendra Modi governments handling of the Covid-19 pandemic by achieving more than a billion vaccinations in an orderly and organised way, the executive passed a resolution announcing it would achieve victory in all the forthcoming assembly elections. Responding to this, Modi asked workers to become a bridge of faith between ordinary Indians and said activists must draw on the traditions of service (seva) of the party to highlight the good work done by the state as well as the central governments. This is a party of workers, not of a family, he told workers. He also said whether it was vaccinations, or Indias net zero and climate commitments, the world had taken note of the countrys achievements. The wording of the resolution and the subsequent briefings by Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Nirmala Sitharaman and Bhupender Yadav made it clear that the party would project Covid management by the Centre as its biggest achievement in election campaigns. Chiefs ministers and party chiefs of five poll-bound states made presentations before the executive. Finance minister Sitharaman said, Within 48 hours of announcing the lockdown, we came up with giving people food for free for eight full months for 80 crore people. She said affordable medicines were being made available to the poor and the middle class. Also, over 75,000 health and wellness centres have been set up across the country. She criticised opposition parties for questioning the Centres programme. The finance minister said, While remembering the commendable work of done in India and all over the world, we are also remembering how the opposition parties had raised many questions on from the very beginning. The party also referred to its recent setbacks in a host of elections the panchayat elections in Uttar Pradesh earlier in the year and losses in several state by-elections, including Himachal Pradesh, where the could not get a single seat. Responding to a questioner, Sitharaman referred briefly to the partys by-election performance and said it was discussed. However, Sitharaman said every delegate who spoke, referred to West Bengal where the party failed to defeat the Trinamool Congress (TMC). It had seen defections to the TMC on a large scale. The had committed to countering violence and atrocities against its workers in Bengal. Before her, Pradhan said, We will fight back democratically. In a departure from the past, the party presented and passed only one resolution the political resolution. It covered everything from hike in allocations for the health and social security sector in the Union Budget 2021-22 to programmes like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. The resolution said it was ready to hold a dialogue with farmers on the three laws passed recently over which an alliance partner, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) walked out. However, there was no reference to revisiting the laws already passed. In an earlier briefing, Pradhan said the party will set up committees in all 1.04 million polling booths by December 25 and deploy panna pramukhs (voter list in-charges) by April 6 next year. It would also institutionalise Prime Minister Narendra Modis Mann Ki Baat in every booth in the next six months. At the inaugural speech, party chief J P Nadda quoted his predecessor Amit Shah, who had said that the BJPs peak had not yet come and that it has to expand its footprint in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Telangana. Pradhan added that the recent bypoll results, in which BJP defeated TRS, indicated that the party is emerging as an alternative to the ruling party. With the BJP facing a tough fight in Punjab, which is going to polls early next year, Nadda highlighted a host of government initiatives for the Sikh community. These include Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) clearance for funds meant for gurudwaras, exemption of langars from goods and services tax (GST) and opening the historic Kartarpur corridor for Sikh pilgrims. At the meeting, PM Modi was felicitated by Shah, Nadda, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, along with Piyush Goyal, for leading the party efficiently during the pandemic and the country achieving the one billion vaccination milestone. The meeting, which is being held in hybrid mode where state leaders are attending virtually has already begun discussing the political resolution. The party had said that the discourse will focus on the upcoming by-elections in five states. Veteran party leaders LK Advani and MM Joshi joined the meeting virtually from their respective homes in the capital. Pradhan said of the 346 members in the executive, the apex policy-making body of the BJP, 342 are attending the meeting and all of them had registered their names digitally. In the aftermath of police acting against 102 people including Supreme Court lawyers and rights activists based on their social media posts on alleged violence against minority places of worship in Tripura, the opposition and CPI(M) as well as human rights bodies lambasted the state government. The opposition on Sunday demanded withdrawal of cases filed against those who have been booked including several Supreme Court lawyers for allegedly trying to "spread communal disharmony". Pradesh chief Birajit Sinha told PTI the mosque at Panisagar was attacked by activists of VHP and houses of minority communities were vandalised by them... they should be arrested first. I do not think the lawyers, who visited the state, came with any bad intentions and did not spread any communal hatred. Government should immediately withdraw charges against them". The police on Saturday had booked social media account holders under the stringent Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), criminal conspiracy and forgery charges. Inspector General of Police (IG), Law and Order, Arindam Nath however said, altogether complaints were lodged against 102 people and notices were served on four Supreme Court advocates and three others, that the police would like to clarify that filing FIR does not mean "they are guilty." "If those people have not said anything false or had no intention of spreading communal hatred or hatching any conspiracy, they should appear before police and clarify their position, Nath told PTI. He at the same time added that it had to come to the police force's notice that many netizens even used fake identities and tried to spread communal hatred and police had rightly taken initiative to identify and book them under law. We have served notices to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to freeze their accounts and inform us of all particulars of those persons to it, Nath said. Notices were served on Estesham Hashmi, Supreme Court lawyer, advocate Amit Srivastav, coodinator of Lawyers for Democracy, NCHRO secretary Ansar Indori and PUCL member Mukesh Kumar who had visited Tripura as part of a fact finding team. In the notice to the lawyers, the police had asked them to delete the social media posts and appear before investigators by November 10. A mosque was vandalised and two shops were set ablaze at Chamtilla during the October 26 Vishva Hindu Parishad rally, which was called to protest against the communal violence in neighbouring Bangladesh. Three houses and a few shops, reportedly owned by Muslims, were also ransacked in nearby Rowa Bazar, the police said. Tripura Minister for Information and Culture, Sushanta Chowdhury on Saturday said, A group from outside with vested interests had hatched a conspiracy against the administration to create unrest in Tripura and malign its image by uploading fake photographs of a burning mosque on social media after the October 26 incident at Panisagar. Legal actions must be initiated against them BJP spokesperson, Nabendu Bhattacharya added, In the aftermath of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh during Durga puja, a vested interest group was active to create communal disturbances in Tripura and in such a situation police cannot remain idle and so they started investigation. I am sure right to freedom of speech and expression was not infringed anyway The Tripura Human Rights Organisation (THRO) however criticized the state government for serving notices to the Supreme Court advocates and stated that it was a move to silence the voice of democratic rights. The state government's action is highly condemnable. Those who perpetrated the violence are roaming freely, while the lawyers, who are also members of rights bodies who were trying to restore normalcy by bringing facts to light, were booked under stringent acts. It is not acceptable, THRO said. The opposition CPI(M) in a statement said, after the attack on minorities in Bangladesh a group of people tried to foment communal tensions in different parts of the state. When some lawyers visited the state as fact finders, cases were registered against them, this is an act of intolerance. If they had done any illegal activity then normal law was enough to take actions against them, but applying such stringent acts (as the UAPA) against them is an instance of intolerance, the statement said. The notice served on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube said, some persons/organization are publishing/posting distorted and objectionable news items/statements in Twitter regarding the recent clash and alleged attack upon mosques of Muslilm communities in the state." ...The posts have potential to flare up communal tension in Tripura state between people of different religious communities, which may result into communal riots. The cases against the social media account holders were registered at West Agartala police station under IPC sections 153A (promoting disharmony or feelings of enemity), 153 B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to integration), 469 (forgery), 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using as genuine a forged document), 503 (threatening), 504 (intentional insult) and section 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 13 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA). The case against the four SC lawyers was registered at West Agartala police station on November 3 under various sections of IPC including 153 (a) and (b) related to promoting disharmony, enmity or feelings of hatred between different groups on the grounds of religion, race etc, 469, 504, 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), besides section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. If convicted under the tough UAPA, an offender may face imprisonment up to seven years. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The will soon start the process for the appointment of managing director (MD) and deputy managing directors (DMDs) of the newly set up Rs 20,000 crore development finance institution NaBFID, to catalyse investment in the fund-starved Last month, the government appointed veteran banker K V Kamath as the chairperson of the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) for three years. According to sources, the will soon intimate the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) about the appointment of MD and DMDs of NaBFID. The Bureau will issue advertisements and undertake a selection process, sources said. The BBB is the headhunter for state-owned banks and financial institutions. The MD, DMDs and whole-time directors would not hold office after attaining the age of 65 years and 62 years respectively. As per the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Act 2021, the institution would have one MD and not more than three DMDs. The government has committed Rs 5,000 crore grant over and above Rs 20,000 crore equity capital. The central government will provide grants by the end of the first financial year. The government will also provide guarantee at a concessional rate of up to 0.1 per cent for borrowing from multilateral institutions, sovereign wealth funds, and other foreign funds. The development finance institution (DFI) has been established as a statutory body to address market failures that stem from long-term, low margin and risky nature of infrastructure financing. The DFI, therefore, has both developmental and financial objectives. To begin with, the institution will be 100 per cent government owned. It will help fund about 7,000 infra projects under the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) which envisages an investment of Rs 111 lakh crore by 2024-25. The DFI will remain outside the purview of CAG, CVC and CBI, a move aimed at enabling faster decision-making. The government expects the DFI to leverage this fund to raise up to Rs 3 lakh crore in the next few years. During the pre-liberalised era, India had DFIs which were primarily engaged in the development of industry. ICICI and IDBI, in their previous avatars, were DFIs. Even the country's oldest financial institution IFCI Ltd functioned as a DFI. In India, the first DFI was operationalised in 1948, with the setting up of the Industrial Finance Corporation of India (IFCI). Subsequently, the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) was set up with the backing of the World Bank in 1955. The Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI) came into existence in 1964, to promote long-term financing for infrastructure projects and industry. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) Air France-KLM's current Indian services are limited under the air bubble restrictions but the airline is hopeful that the Indian government will allow it to increase its flights to meet the rising demand, a senior executive of the carrier said. Since July 2020, India has allowed limited special international flights with passenger restrictions under air bubbles formed with approximately 28 countries, including France and The Netherlands. Scheduled international flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 last year. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline operated 38 weekly flights from three Indian cities -- Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai -- to Paris and Amsterdam, Jean-Noel Rault, General Manager (Indian Sub-continent), Air France-KLM, told PTI in an interview. Currently, Air France- is operating 17 weekly flights from four Indian cities -- Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai -- to Paris and Amsterdam as per the air bubbles formed between India and France in July 2020 and India and The Netherlands in November 2020. When asked if he sees the demand rising on India flights, Rault stated, "India has a very strong VFR (visiting friends and relatives) market. This in my opinion is one of the key factors to drive demand." "We have also seen the student segment develop favourably thanks to the convenient connections we offer and have received positive response to the ChennaiParis direct operations launched in June by Air France," he added. The airline's expectation was business and corporate travel will progressively grow in second half of 2022, Rault noted. However, the carrier's scope was still limited in terms of frequency and destinations under the air bubble restrictions, he added. "We are hopeful with the progressive opening of borders we will be allowed to increase our frequency to meet the evolving demand," he mentioned. Rault said Air France- in the current specific circumstances in India has been operating services with the aim to cover the variable costs of each individual flight operation. "In trends, the variation has been high in load factors in the past 12 months...On a positive note, for the first time since the pandemic we see load factors moving up for flights to India", he added. Air France- believes that increase in flights' frequencies should be considered with the progressive opening of international borders and growing demand, he said. "We continue to interact with relevant authorities along with the French embassy and The Netherlands embassy in India. Together with our embassies, we continue to explore opportunities with the Indian authorities to expand the number of flights from India," Rault noted. When asked if he thinks India should open scheduled international flights now, he replied it could be prudent for India to consider moving towards "a normal world with progressive reopening of international commercial operations" as the country is doing very well with the vaccination drive and the COVID-19 situation improving globally. "This would be instrumental in facilitating travel to and from India, boost incoming tourism to India, which is much needed to help the economy and local operators who have been impacted severely due to the pandemic," Rault added. Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had in September said that the Centre has to look to put in place certain systems to boost long-haul international flights of Indian carriers to places such as Europe and South America. Lufthansa group CEO Carsten Spohr had last month said that restricting air traffic between India and Germany is hurting both the economies and the airline group was eagerly waiting for the Indian government to allow more flights between the two countries. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) A day after a major fire at the ICU of a civil hospital in Maharashtra's Ahmednagar district killed 11 people, it has emerged that some of the victims died due to smoke which engulfed the ward following the blaze, according to a police official. The blaze erupted around 11 am on Saturday in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) ward where 17 COVID-19 patients, many of them senior citizens and some on ventilator or oxygen, were undergoing treatment at the hospital in Ahmednagar, located 120 km from Pune and 253 km from Mumbai. The ward had been added to the hospital after the pandemic began, officials earlier said. "Some patients died of burns, while some died due to the smoke. We are waiting for a detailed postmortem report. Further investigation in the case is on," Topkhana police station's assistant police inspector Juber Mujawar said on Sunday. One of the deceased is yet to be identified, he said. Late Saturday evening, a case was registered against unidentified persons under Indian Penal Code Section 304 (A) (causing death by negligence), Ahmednagar district Superintendent of Police Manoj Patil. A short circuit was suspected to be the cause of the blaze, though it was yet to be confirmed, chief fire officer of the city civic body Shankar Misal said. According to the patients' relatives who normally waited in the corridor outside the ICU, they had been asked to step out as cleaning was going on. Many of them rushed back when they saw thick black smoke billowing from the ward and tried to rescue the patients. As per district Collector Rajendra Bhosale, a fire audit had been carried out at the hospital. But according to Misal, after the audit, the work of installing necessary safety systems was incomplete due to "want of funds". Most of those who died were aged between 65 and 83, according to hospital officials. A probe committee headed by Misal will look into what led to the tragedy, the collector earlier said. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday said an in-depth probe will be conducted by the district collector, according to a statement issued by the Chief Minister's Office. Maharashtra Energy Minister Nitin Raut ordered a detailed inquiry into the fire. The electricity department's inspection team had reached the hospital and will conduct a probe, he said. In April this year, 15 COVID-19 patients had died in a blaze at the ICU of a private hospital in the state's Palghar district. Another fire in March at Dreams Mall in Mumbai's Bhandup area, which housed a Covid-designated hospital, had claimed the lives of nine such patients. (Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.) The Facebook Papers project represents a unique collaboration among 17 American news organizations, including The Associated Press. Journalists from a variety of newsrooms, large and small, worked together to gain access to thousands of pages of internal company documents obtained by Frances Become A Subscriber A subscription opens up access to all our online content, including: our interactive E-Edition, a full archive of modern stories, exclusive and expanded online offerings, photo galleries from Caledonian-Record journalists, video reports from our media partners, extensive international, national and regional reporting by the Associated Press, and a wide variety of feature content. Videos Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos. EMERALD ISLE State fisheries managers are scheduled to choose preferred management options for shrimp at their next meeting, and the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries recommends closing more coastal waters to shrimp trawls. The division issued an announcement Monday the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission, the rulemaking body which creates regulations for commercial and recreational fisheries on the coast and in state waters, will meet Wednesday, Nov. 17 through Friday, Nov. 19 at the Islander Hotel & Resort in Emerald Isle. The commission will discuss Shrimp Fishery Management Plan Amendment 2 the afternoon of Nov. 17, after which the commission may vote on its preferred management options and to send the draft plan to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. The divisions recommendations include a suite of area closures to shrimp trawling in state coastal waters, almost 69,000 acres, according to the divisions documentation. It claims this region produced 476,296 pounds of shrimp on average per year from 2010-19, valued at $696,000 per year with 119 shrimpers participating. Proposed closure areas According to the documentation provided on draft Shrimp Fishery Management Plan Amendment 2 According to one local shrimper, these closures could put a lot of local fishermen out of business. Part-time shrimper Zack Davis of Marshallberg said in a Friday interview with the News-Times the proposed closures are detrimental to the industry as a whole. It puts the little man out of business, the people with boats in the 40- to 50-foot range, Mr. Davis said. He went on to say that with so many close-shore areas closed, shrimpers would have to go further out into open waters, where weather and waves can make conditions life-threatening for smaller vessels. I have a 65-foot boat, Mr. Davis said. I can shrimp in most weather conditions, but Ive shrimped in many boats that cant go out in hazardous weather. When you stick those boats in the middle of Pamlico Sound, theres a chance for loss of life. In addition to shrimping, Mr. Davis also teaches marine trades and welding at East Carteret High School. He said shrimping can provide good income, but theres no guarantee the industry will be there next year due to proposals for closures and similar restrictions. Im 37 and Ive been shrimping for 25 years, Mr. Davis said. I paid for college with shrimping. I built a trawler about 5 years ago. Im just a small-time fisherman, you have people who have a lot more invested. In Morehead City, Blue Ocean Market general manager Jeremiah Tryon said in a Friday interview hed not previous heard of the proposal. Mr. Tryon went on to say his information on proposed regulations and management measures comes from several different sources, including contacts with the DMF. Its a confusing system, he said. On the subject of the recommended closures, Mr. Tryon said hed need to look at the specific areas under consideration and hed support the closures if they were good for the fishery but didnt support bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy. Shrimp contributes to our business greatly, Mr. Tryon said. Its a huge portion of our business. When it came to learning of the divisions recommendations, Mr. Davis said he first heard about them from Mondays announcement. However, this may be because Mr. Davis follows DMF activity closely. Hes applied for membership on the Shrimp FMP Advisory Committee and attends the committees meetings. One former MFC member, marine biologist and self-professed recreational fisherman Jess Hawkins, isnt pleased with either the DMFs recommendations or the amount of time the public has to respond to them. Owner of Crystal Coast Ecotours, Mr. Hawkins said Thursdayhe finds how these recommendations were made and announced deeply disturbing. The division is the scientific arm of the commission, Mr. Hawkins said. The way they did this doesnt reflect what our state leaders expect to come out of the (N.C.) Fisheries Reform Act. They didnt inform the public about these options until Monday (Nov. 1); that only gives the public two weeks to comment. The stated purpose of the amendment is to reduce finfish bycatch in the shrimp fishery. Mr. Hawkins said this issue, like many, merits debate, but in this case he thinks the DMF has disregarded all the (industry) collaboration to reduce bycatch. North Carolina was the first state to include excluder devices in shrimp trawls, he said. The measures theyre pursuing now, I dont know how theyd quantify success. He also voiced concern about commercial fishermen being driven to go further out to sea to fish and shrimp, resulting in fishermen in small craft having to go out into dangerous waters. Seventy percent of our shrimp trawl fleet is composed of boats less than 50 feet, he said. Mr. Hawkins also questioned the areas being considered for closures. He said the proposed closure areas arent where finfish tend to spawn, but are connecting areas between nurseries. From a scientific standpoint, (the DMF) say there needs to be connectivity between these habitats, Mr. Hawkins said. Thats a strong theory in terrestrial habitat, but in marine habitat, its unknown. A local seafood advocacy organization is also opposed to the proposed management measures. N.C. Carteret Catch president Barbara Garrity-Blake said she and her organization, which is dedicated to educating consumers on the benefits of eating locally harvested seafood, think the proposed measures are going in the wrong direction. These measures are disadvantaging the fishermen with the lowest carbon footprint, with the shortest distance to go (to harvest shrimp), Ms. Garrity-Blake said. We think the managers need to consider these factors. Theyre operating on an outdated concept of conservation. Its not only the environmental effects these closures could have that concern Ms. Garrity-Blake, but also the affect on the local shrimpers themselves. Were concerned these measures will wipe our our small boat fisheries, she said. These fishermen arent equipped to go out on open waters. I live in Gloucester; when I look across the street, I see shrimpers and I can recognize their boats. There will be public comment periods during the MFC meeting at 6 p.m., Nov. 17 and at 9:30 a.m. Nov. 19. Anyone who wishes to sign up to speak during the public comment periods or submit written comments online, may do so at the website deq.nc.gov/about/divisions/marine-fisheries/marine-fisheries-commission/marine-fisheries-commission-meetings#quarterly-business-meeting---november-17-19. The commission will review recommendations from its advisory committees and the DMF, which enforces fishing regulations and performs field work, studies and data gathering for the MFC. In response to the concerns voiced, DMF public information officer Patricia Smith said the DMF first released the draft management plan in June. During the 30-day public comment period, the five MFC Advisory Committees also met to review the draft and provide input and recommendations, she said. We encourage any public interested in this issue to review the draft Amendment 2along with its companion decision document, which includes the rationale for the divisions recommendations. Contact Mike Shutak at 252-723-7353, email mike@thenewstimes.com; or follow on Twitter at @mikesccnt. The Carteret County Board of Education approved a clean audit report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2021, during its meeting Wednesday in the school systems central office in Beaufort. (Cheryl Burke photo) Photo: Pixabay UPDATED: 7:22 p.m. Environment Canada has rescinded their tornado watch warning for Vancouver, but a special weather statement remains for the area. The alert was issued around 5:30 p.m. upon spotting a waterspout west of Vancouver International Airport. The special weather statement remains in effect for most of the South Coast, including: Metro Vancouver - central including the City of Vancouver Burnaby and New Westminster Metro Vancouver - North Shore including West Vancouver and North Vancouver Metro Vancouver - northeast including Coquitlam and Maple Ridge Metro Vancouver - southeast including Surrey and Langley Metro Vancouver - southwest including Richmond and Delta There is potential for strong winds Monday overnight into Tuesday morning, which could reach between 50 and 70 km/h, and between 70 and 90 km/h in exposed coastal sections of Vancouver Island. ORIGINAL: 5:55 p.m. Environment Canada has issued a tornado warning for Metro Vancouver, North Shore including West Vancouver and North Vancouver on Saturday evening. According to Environment Canada, conditions are favourable for the development of funnel clouds and possibly brief, weak tornadoes. A waterspout, which is a small column of rapidly swirling air in contact with a water surface, was spotted west of Vancouver International Airport. It was reported to be moving north towards West Vancouver and the mouth of Howe Sound including Bowen Island. "Current indications are that it is weakening but the atmospheric conditions are favourable for the development of waterspouts or weak funnel clouds over the next few hours," their statement reads. "This is a dangerous and potentially life-threatening situation." Environment Canada is asking residents to be prepared for severe weather and to take cover immediately, if threatening weather approaches. Tornado watches are issued when atmospheric conditions are favourable for the development of thunderstorms that could produce tornadoes. Continue to monitor alerts and forecasts issued by Environment Canada online here. To report severe weather, send an email to [email protected] or tweet reports using #BCStorm. Read all the news online FREE, for 30 days at no charge. After the trial period well bill your credit card just $6 per month. The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement. A Note from the DHDD Director: Dear DHDD Partners, I hope you are all doing well and staying healthy. Cooler weather has arrived in many parts of our country, along with the changing color of leaves and the emergence of pumpkins! As noted in Septembers newsletter, Dr. Georgina Peacock is serving on a detail as Acting Director for the Immunization Services Division (ISD) at CDCs National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. I will be acting Division Director during her detail and appreciate your continued support and collaboration! The FDAs Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) met this week to discuss vaccines for children ages 5 to 12. We are expecting more information about vaccine approvals and dissemination for children within the next few days. Please continue to visit the main CDC page (cdc.gov) for more information on pediatric COVID-19 vaccines. Sincerely, Blythe Police were called to St. Elmo Avenue where a man was sitting inside a car howling. Police found him, and spoke with the complainant, who said he and his wife were awakened by the man howling inside their vehicle. The man said the car may have been left unlocked. The man and woman declined to prosecute for trespassing and disorderly conduct. Police transported the howling man to his residence without incident. * * * A man on Aspen Lane called police and said sometime over the weekend the catalytic converter was stolen from his 1999 Jeep Cherokee. There is no suspect information at this time. * * * The manager of Chattanooga Floor Care at 2500 East 18th St. said sometime over the weekend the catalytic converter was stolen from a 2004 Ford E250 work van. There is no suspect information at this time. * * * A woman on North Concord Road reported that her 2008 Subaru had been burglarized. She believes that she left her doors unlocked and there was no damage to the vehicle. The woman said her wallet and $415 cash were stolen from the vehicle. No suspect information could be obtained at this time. * * * The manager at All Out Moving at 1900 Daisy St. told police the license plate on a Mitsubishi truck was lost around mid-August of this year. He said he needed to file a report in order to obtain a new plate. * * * A woman on East 5th Street said her debit card had been stolen from her vehicle the night prior. She had moved her vehicle in front of her house the day before as she was having yard work done and forgot to lock it. In the morning she was looking for her wallet and, assuming she had forgotten it in her vehicle, began searching inside. After she could not locate her wallet she began receiving messages from her bank saying there had been some abnormal transactions. When she checked her account she noticed two charges for $1,104, one charge for $23.43, a withdrawal of $250, and about four $1 charges. The woman immediately canceled her Mastercard and told Bank of America those were not charges made by her. She realized her debit card had been stolen and called the police. The woman told the officer she had been warned of two individuals who would frequently look into other vehicles for items to steal. There was no description of the individuals to give. Other than the debit card, the only other items stolen were loose change and her credit card which wasn't used. The officer told the woman a report would be filed and transferred over to the Fraud Division. * * * The property manager at Boardwalk Storage at 6808 Middle Valley Road said a woman had been renting several storage units at this location and had recently been evicted from the premises. The manager said she had given the woman several opportunities to remove her items from the storage units. The eviction notice has ended and the woman will be permitted to remove items until 5 p.m. on this date, however, they are no longer wanted on the property. The officer spoke with the woman who was with a white male at the time of the officer's arrival. However, when the officer went inside to speak with the manager, the white male left the premise. The man was later identified. When the officer spoke with the woman she was told she would need to have all of her items out by 5 p.m. when the storage company closed. The officer also informed the woman that if she showed up on the property again after 5 p.m. she would be charged with criminal trespass. * * * The manager of the hotel at 901 Carter St. said she found a handgun (Glock 22, .40), a magazine with 12 hollow points, and a black holster in room 317. Police retrieved the items and ran the handgun, which came back not on file. Police transported the handgun to CPD property. * * * Police spoke with a woman on Jeffery Lane in an attempt to track down a weapon that police believed was inside the residence. The woman gave police verbal consent to search the home. Police did not uncover any weapons but did find four rounds of FC .380 ammunition in her closet. The woman said her brother had given that to her but there was no weapon to go with it. Police collected the ammunition to turn it into Property. * * * An officer responded to a vehicle recovered stolen outside of Chattanooga at 5502 Post Ave. Police were initially dispatched to an improperly parked auto in the alleyway behind the homes on Post Avenue off of West 55th Street. Police located the improperly parked auto, a silver Acura MDX, and found it to be extremely suspicious. Registration was conducted on the car via the license plate, but it was found the tag displayed did not match the vehicle. Upon further investigation it was found the Acura had been burnt from the inside, as a small gas can was still sitting in the driver's seat. The vehicle suffered smoke damage and a burnt driver seat. The car was verified stolen via the VIN number out of Lookout Mountain, Tn. The Lookout Mountain Police Department was notified and cleared the vehicle as stolen from NCIC. An arson investigator was attempted to be reached, but were not successful. The vehicle was towed by Shackleford Towing to their lot at 2917 Calhoun Ave. * * * A woman on Shady Lane said that $40 and some mail addressed to her had been taken from her vehicle last night at some point. There is no suspect information at this time. * * * A man called police and said as he was going across the Walking Bridge about 2:15 p.m., a man he did not know performed a "round house" kick towards his legs. The suspect did not make contact. The man said no further interaction with this individual took place. He said due to having medical issues with his knees, he felt as though the suspect's actions could have caused him to fall, posing a threat to his safety. He did not know the suspect but requested a report be made. * * * The manager of Hennen's at 193 Chestnut St. said a woman tried to leave the restaurant without paying her full bill. He said when he requested her to pay her bill she then paid the full balance for services in cash. He said she was disorderly and shouting racial slurs towards employees. The officer spoke with the woman who said she paid the full balance however refused to pay gratuity. The officer noticed while speaking with her that she was upset, however she was not acting in a disorderly manner. * * * A man on Manor Road said he was having issues with his roommates and asked to be escorted outside. Upon arrival, his mother was not able to pick him up and officers transported him to Rubio Street. He was transported without issue. * * * Police were called to Circle K at 8935 Lee Hwy. on a call of a man acting suspicious. The officer spoke with the man who said he needed a ride. Police transported the man to Wheeler Avenue. * * * A man on 13th Avenue called police and said there was a man walking through his driveway. The unknown man had already left the area before police arrived. * * * A man on St. Elmo Avenue said sometime during the night someone broke into his 2020 Chevrolet Silverado and stole his Walther firearm. He said his truck was locked and he is not sure as to how someone gained entry. The gun was entered into NCIC. * * * The manager of EZPawn at 5712 Lee Hwy. told police a bicycle was stolen around 3 a.m. from outside of the store. The manager was unsure of the make of the bicycle but valued it at $75. The man showed police video footage that did not give a clear image of the suspect. * * * An employee for Collier Construction said an uninstalled A/C unit was left in the garage at a construction site for a new residence on Chamber Hill. When the employees returned the next morning they discovered that the unit was gone. He said they have no way to close the garage door yet and there have been other workers in and out, so it's unknown when or how the unit was taken. It is estimated at $4,600. The employee called back to add the serial numbers for the A/C unit which is split into two halves - Inside/Outside. * * * A man was sitting at the light on Shallowford Road and Airport Road when a limb from a tree hit his windshield, causing it to crack. He said there was a crew out there cutting limbs but does not know who it was. He had to go get his son from school so he left the scene. The officer drove through Shallowford Road and through Airport Road and did not find anyone cutting limbs from trees. Break out the toast and popcorn. Turkey day is nearly here, which means its time to rewatch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. This year, the 1973 animated holiday classic will air for free on PBS. Youll also be able to stream it on AppleTV+. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving airs Nov. 21 on PBS A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving | ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images RELATED: A Charlie Brown Christmas: The Young Actor Who Played Charlie Brown Found the Role a Challenge Peanuts fans were horrified last year when tech giant Apple snapped up the streaming rights to all three Peanuts holiday specials: Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. As a result, the Halloween special didnt air for free on broadcast TV for the first time in decades. And for a while, it looked like the same might be true for the Thanksgiving and Christmas specials as well. But after an outcry, Apple relented, and public broadcaster PBS stepped in to air the remaining two specials. That tradition will continue this year. A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving will air ad-free on Sunday, Nov. 21 at 7:30 p.m. ET on PBS stations. (Check local listings.) A Charlie Brown Christmas will air Sunday, Dec. 19 at the same time. We are delighted to bring the joy of these holiday classics to families across the country, in partnership with our member stations, Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, said in a statement. During these challenging times, public television continues to be a free and easily accessible source of comfort, inspiration, and education for millions of Americans. You can also stream A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving on AppleTV+ If you miss out on the free TV broadcast of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, dont panic. The special is still available to stream on AppleTV+. Its the only place you can stream the Peanuts holiday specials, which also include Happy New Year, Charlie Brown and Its the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. AppleTV+ subscribers can also watch two new animated shows featuring Snoopy, The Snoopy Show and Snoopy in Space, along with the 2021 documentary about the life of Peanuts creator Charles Schulz, Who Are You, Charlie Brown? Producer Lee Mendelson says A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving was a favorite of Charles Schulz A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving | ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images RELATED: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Features the Weirdest Thanksgiving Meal Ever In A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, the beleaguered Charlie Brown gets stuck pulling together a last-minute Thanksgiving meal (with the help of chef Snoopy) when Peppermint Patty invites herself over for dinner. The premise came straight from the mind of Schulz, who considered the special one of his favorites, according to producer Lee Mendelson. Charles Schulz drew over 18,000 comic strips (unassisted!) over a half century. He wrote all the television shows as well, and one of his favorites was our Thanksgiving show, Mendelson recalled in a 2014 article for The Huffington Post. He thought it would be very entertaining to see how kids would create a Thanksgiving dinner with no clue what to do. Along with a dog for good measure. However, Mendelson had one concern about the story. He objected to a scene that showed the bird Woodstock eating turkey. We had a rare, minor dispute during the creation of the show, Mendelson wrote. Mr.Schulz insisted that Woodstock join Snoopy in carving and eating a turkey. For some reason I was bothered that Woodstock would eat a turkey. But the producers objections fell on deaf ears. I voiced my concern, which was immediately overruled, he said. Though the scene was edited out of the special when it aired on CBS, it returned once the show moved to ABC in 2001. Check out Showbiz Cheat Sheet on Facebook! 50 Cent has a bone to pick with Starz, the network home several of his shows. The rapper and actor, whose real name is Curtis Jackson, called out the network on Instagram on Sunday, Nov. 7, accusing it of mishandling the latest episode of the crime drama series BMF, which he executive produces. It all has him not wanting to work with those behind the network anymore. Curtis 50 Cent Jackson attends the Haute Living Celebration with Watches Of Switzerland | Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Haute Living What is BMF? Created by Randy Huggins, BMF chronicles a criminal organization in Detroit, Michigan, created by brothers Demetrius Big Meech Flenory and Terry Southwest T Flenory. The show premiered on Starz in September and has a cast including Demetrius Flenory Jr., DaVinchi, Eric Kofi-Abrefa, Wood Harris, and Lil Zane, among others. Since its premiere, BMF has acquired a solid fanbase despite average reviews, recently helping it get renewed for another season. But theres one thing 50 Cent is unhappy with. Its time to see how legends are made. The #BMF series premiere starts NOW on the @STARZ app pic.twitter.com/MPHTz52rmd BMF (@bmfstarz) September 26, 2021 RELATED: BMF: How Much of the Show Happened in Real Life? What 50 Cent said about Starz BMF, which airs on Sunday nights, is taking a week off at the time of this writing. However, 50 Cent claimed in a new Instagram post that Starz had posted BMF Episode 7 anyway before removing it. Starz is a sh** show, they better sell it fast, he wrote in the post, which comes days after reports that Lionsgate is considering selling the network or spinning off from it. They put the f****** BMF show on, then took it down. what network does sh** like that? They just ruined the anticipation of The episode i directed, I WORKED HARD ON THIS. I cant work with these people anymore. The rapper continued to vent in a follow-up post, which included stills of Eminem in character as White Boy Rick. He wrote: Episode 7 of BMF is the best work I have done directing to date. Im disappointed that STARZ handled this so poorly. I used my personal relationships to make things happened [that] they couldnt have made happen. @eminem thank you for doing this for me. I love you bro, you know Im rolling wit youu till the wheels fall off. Starz has not publicly responded to his claims, but fans reacted in the comment section. Still going crazy tho , wrote artist Kayykilo, while another person wrote it was the best episode so far. Skip week got us feelin' like Lamar. Don't worry y'all, we'll be back next week for a new episode of #BMF on @STARZ. pic.twitter.com/NOaY7jWOtv BMF (@bmfstarz) November 7, 2021 RELATED: BMF: How Much Did 50 Cent Make On His New Starz Series? Its not his first time calling out the network This latest situation is one of many times that 50 Cent has called out Starz. He last criticized the network in June after noticing an editing mistake in the show Run The World. In one scene, as HotNewHipHop notes, Andrea Bordeauxs character Ella McFair walked down the street wearing a pair of earrings. But in the next, they were reportedly missing. STARZ needs me! It dont come out right when Im not involved, 50 Cent wrote in his post at the time. EARRINGs, No Earrings EARRINGs, No Earrings, No Earrings EARRINGS. LMAO, he added. Marvel fans wondering how their favorite characters would fare in fights against each other finally found out when Captain America: Civil War opened in theaters in 2016. Before then, the Avengers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe fought together against alien and human villains. In this film, political and personal disagreements cause a serious rift in the team, leading them to fight each other. The conflict in this action-packed spectacle begins as a difference of opinion between Chris Evans as Captain Americas Steve Rogers, and Robert Downy Jr. as Tony Starks Iron Man. Tensions escalate into a breakdown of loyalty and trust. Interestingly enough, the controversial fight scene that makes the film explosive nearly didnt make it to the screen. An epic conflict behind the scenes nearly drove the films directors, Joe and Anthony Russo, to quit. In Captain America: Civil War, the Avengers face a new threat Directors Joe Russo (L) and Anthony Russo receive Directors of the Year at the 2019 CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement Awards | Gabe Ginsberg/WireImage The film, which is available to stream on Disney Plus, addresses the issue of vigilante justice and the collateral damage caused by the Avengers during their missions. After all, when Hulk goes smashing, and energy beams fly, there will be a costly mess left for someone to clean up. When the Avengers latest mission in Lagos, Nigeria results in civilian deaths, world leaders step in. The Sokovia Accords are drawn up, calling for the superheroes to register and be regulated by the United Nations. Stark favors the oversight, but Rogers does not, causing the rest of the team to choose sides. Then, the king of Wakanda is among those killed in Vienna in a bombing attributed to Rogers best friend, Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes. The Black Panther wants Barnes dead. By the end of the film, Stark does too, after learning that Barnes murdered his parents and that Rogers knew. Thus, the war at the airport when Rogers and his supporters go rogue and team Stark arrives to arrest them is followed by a brutal and deeply personal battle between Rogers and Stark. Why the Captain America: Civil War directors almost quit As revealed in The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Russo Brothers were ready to quit making Captain America: Civil War due to studio politics. https://t.co/r37Pj0ffYF pic.twitter.com/iz96fXCgk9 Screen Rant (@screenrant) October 30, 2021 According to Insider, Marvels Creative Committee objected to the Russo brothers vision of Rogers and Stark fighting each other. They wanted to see the Avengers come together to fight Hydras Super Soldiers instead. The disagreement was detailed in The Story of Marvel Studios: The Making of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The two-volume, detailed history by Tara Bennett and Paul Terry went on sale in October 2021 and contains over 200 interviews with people involved in the creation of the MCU. Joe Russo said in the book: We kept saying, Theres nothing interesting about that film. Were not here to make that movie. Were not interested in telling another superhero story. We wanted to flip this on its head. We reached a point where we said, out loud in a room, Were not interested in continuing as directors of this movie if it is going to be about managing politics and a third act.' Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige sided with the Russo brothers. Maybe it gave [Feige] some leverage in the situation because we were so clear about our point of view, Anthony Russo added. The dispute went all the way to Disneys Chief Creative Officer Alan Horn, who also sided with the Russo brothers. The resulting film earned more than $1 billion, as did the Russo brothers next two films: Avengers: Infinity Wars and Avengers: Endgame. The Russo brothers discuss their creative choices for Captain America: Civil War The Russo brothers know what comic fans want because they are comic fans themselves. Ive been collecting comic books since I was 10 years old. I was at conventions every weekend. I have a huge collection that is still in my closet, Joe Russo told CBR. After making Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the brothers wanted to move Caps story forward with a bigger threat. They sought to surprise the audience and let them decide who is right and who is wrong. They did this by creating a personal conflict for him between what they saw as his old family, Barnes, and his new family, the Avengers. After the fight breaks them apart, things can never be the same. We dont just want to see another bad guy come at Cap, Anthony said on Marvels Youtube channel. We want to see another good guy come at Cap and see what happens. Somebody like Tony Stark, you know, thats threatening. That scared us for Cap you know, that made us think, Oh, this is gonna be a challenge.' In fact, all the characters have personal motivations that conflict with each other, and eventually, the law. There are complicated issues and there isnt a clear right answer to any of this. It reflects reality when you put the characters in an irreconcilable situation, Joe said to CBR. When asked who they would choose to be on their teams, Joe chose Panther. His brother chose Cap. Who would you choose? RELATED: The Eerie Captain America: Civil War Shot Taken Straight Out of a Comic Book The Hulu drama, Dopesick, was created by Danny Strong based on the nonfiction book by author Beth Macy. Typically when authors sell the screen rights to their book, they do not have much more involvement. However, the author of Dopesick went on to become an executive producer of the series. Plus, she made a cameo in one of the episodes, and you probably didnt even notice. Dopesick star Rosario Dawson and author Beth Macy | Shannon Finney/Getty Images Dopesick: Beth Macy played a significant role in the creation of the Hulu series Macy did not simply sell the screen rights to her book to creator Danny Strong. He valued her input and even allowed the Dopesick author to discuss casting on the Hulu series. Although Macy and Strong joke about whether they liked each other before working on the series, the pair are very close now. Macy became an integral part of the dramatization of her book. RELATED: Dopesick: Is Michael Keatons Dr. Samuel Finnix Character Based on a Real Person? Beth Macy was a wonderful member of the Dopesick team, Strong told TheWrap. She was in the writers room as our resident expert and a passionate advocate for shooting the show in her home state of Virginia. I absolutely adore Beth and am so thrilled she joined us on this journey to tell this important story. The Dopesick author had a cameo in episode 3 In Dopesick Episode 3, the creators show how Purdue Pharma thoroughly infiltrated the medical community. The Appalachian Pain Society insists that OxyContin isnt addictive. However, little do the doctors prescribing the opioid know that Purdue fully funds the society. Then, in seminars, medical experts from the Journal of Pain explain that pain is now the 5th vital sign. Dopesick Michael Keaton | Gene Page/Hulu RELATED: Dopesick Episode 4 Pseudo-Addiction Recap Dr. Samuel Finnix Sinks Deeper Author Beth Macy appears in Dopesick Episode 3 as Barbara Mullins. She portrays one of the medical experts on the Journal of Pain editorial board. She sits on a small stage with three others and speaks to the local community about addictive drugs. Thank yall for having me here tonight, she begins. Opioid abuse is certainly growing, but its important to distinguish between abusers and legitimate pain patients who need these medicines. Is Dopesick a true story? The 8-part Hulu series, Dopesick, is based on author Beth Macys nonfiction book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America. As an executive producer on the series, Macy ensured that the portrayal of the opioid epidemic in America was accurate. The series creator Danny Strong also felt strongly about keeping the storys roots as accurate as possible. Thats part of the reason why the Dopesick cast filmed in rural Virginia. Clifton Forge became the fictional town of Finch Creek, Virginia. Dopesick: Peter Sarsgaard and John Hoogenakker | Gene Page/Hulu RELATED: Dopesick Episode 6 Hammer the Abusers Recap Bridget Finally Gets a Win According to the CDC, prescription opioid-related overdose deaths did increase drastically from 1999 to 2010 in the United States. That increase parallels the increase in prescribing opioids in the country, according to the findings. In Dopesick, the creators portray how Purdue Pharma ensured doctors like Samuel Finnix (portrayed by Michael Keaton) prescribed the drug. In August 2021, The New York Times reported Richard Sackler (portrayed by Michael Stuhlbarg) claimed no responsibility for the opioid epidemic in America. However, by that time, Purdue pleaded guilty twice to federal criminal charges regarding the sales and marketing of OxyContin. The story of the opioid epidemic in the United States is devastatingly accurate in Dopesick. HBOs Lovecraft Country is a series that blends elements of horror and sci-fi. The storyline features mythology from the famous horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft. Aside from the supernatural aspect, certain storylines drew inspiration from actual events in American history. Heres a list of real-life events featured in Lovecraft Country. Courtney B. Vance, Jonathan Majors, and Jurnee Smollett | Eli Joshua Ade/HBO The true story behind the Trumball Park reference Naomi Mack, Jurnee Smollett, Wunmi Mosaku, Keon Mitchell, and Jonathan Majors | Eli Joshua Ade/HBO RELATED: HBO Addresses Lovecraft Country Cancellation After One Season In episode 3, Letitia (Jurnee Smollett) purchases an abandoned house in a predominantly white neighborhood. She wants to fix the house and create a refuge for Black residents in the town. While this is an exciting project for Leti, her sister Ruby (Wunmi Mosaku) worries about the house purchase. As the white neighbors look in horror, Ruby refers to Trumball Park. There is an actual housing project called the Trumball Park Homes in Chicago, Illinois. In 1953, the Chicago District Housing Authority moved a Black woman named Betty Howard and her family into the housing project. For weeks, a race riot erupted. White residents attacked the family with rocks, fireworks, etc. Soon after, the CHA decided to move more Black families into the housing unit, inciting more violence. Aside from the supernatural forces in the house, Leti and the Black residents were terrorized by their white neighbors. So, there were undeniable parallels between the actual events and the show. Also, the Trumball Park riots happened in 1953, just before the time frame of Lovecraft Country. The story behind Ji-Ah and the Kumiho in Lovecraft Country Jamie Chung, and Jonathan Majors | Eli Joshua Ade/HBO RELATED: Lovecraft Country Cast and Crew Pay Tribute to Michael K. Williams A major plotline in the series was Atticus life in the Korean War. While serving in South Korea, he meets a woman named Ji-Ah (Jamie Chung). On the surface, shes a nursing student that helps fallen soldiers on the battlefield. But underneath, she is hiding a sinister secret. Ji-Ah is secretly a Kumiho, which is a creature that is present in Korean folklore. According to the legend, the supernatural creature can turn into a beautiful woman, seduce men and eat their hearts. In the series, Atticus forms a romantic relationship with Ji-Ah. But, he runs away after seeing her natural form. Lovecraft Country features the notorious Denmark Vesey Saloon Bar In the series, Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) searches for his missing father, Montrose (Michael K. Williams). He visits a bar in Chicago called the Denmark Vesey Saloon. Although this may seem like a fictional bar, the location has a sinister backstory. The bar name originated from a former slave named Denmark Vesey, who organized a slave rebellion among numerous plantations in America. Ultimately, he was found guilty and hanged for the crime. Other men, including his son, were found guilty as well. The terrifying backstory of Sundown Towns In episode 1, Atticus, George, and Leti find themselves trapped in a Sundown Town. The term refers to predominantly white neighborhoods that didnt allow Black people in the area. If a Black person found themselves in a Sundown Town after dark, the white residents used unlawful practices that ranged from threats to death. Additionally, the rule went beyond southern states. Any state or city in the United States could classify as a Sundown Town. Based on Matt Ruffs novel of the same name, HBOs Lovecraft Country follows Freeman (Jonathan Majors), Letitia (Jurnee Smollett), and his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance) trying to find his missing father Montrose (Michael K. Williams). As they travel through 950s Jim Crow America, they encounter monsters and magical creatures. If you are looking for a show like the supernatural series, here is a list of shows similar to Lovecraft Country. Courtney B. Vance, Jonathan Majors, and Jurnee Smollett | Eli Joshua Ade/HBO HBOs Watchmen is a gripping watch from start to finish RELATED: HBO Addresses Lovecraft Country Being Canceled After One Season Based on the 1986 DC Comics series of the same name, the limited series takes place 34 years after the events in the original comic. The action series primarily focuses on the racial violence in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2019. A white supremacist group called the Seventh Kavalry has seized control over the Tulsa Police Department. To protect themselves, the police officers must conceal their identities to prevent the radical group from targeting their homes after White Night. A detective named Angela Abar (Regina King), also known as Sister Night, goes undercover to investigate the murder of her close friend and the chief of the police, Judd Crawford (Don Johnson). While the action series doesnt have the supernatural element like Lovecraft Country, both shows tackle racial injustices prevalent in the Black community. Watchmen ran for nine episodes and concluded on Dec. 15, 2019. Lastly, the series is available to watch on HBO Max. The fantasy series American Gods has a compelling storyline RELATED: Lovecraft Country Cast and Crew Pay Tribute to Michael K. Williams The Starz drama series follows Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle), an ex-convict who meets a charismatic con man named Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane). He offers Shadow a job as a bodyguard. Soon after, Shadow discovers a mystical world filled with powerful forces called the Old Gods and the New Gods. To stop the dangerous threat, Mr. Wednesday joins forces with the Old Gods to rebuild the civilization theyve lost. In the meantime, Shadow struggles with the realization that such a world exists in America. The series was praised by critics and audiences alike. American Gods received two Emmy nominations at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Main Title Design and Outstanding Special Visual Effects. Also, the fantasy series aired for three seasons on Starz before ending in March 2021. The series is available to watch on the Starz app and official website. Evil has an undeniable parallel to Lovecraft Country The CBS series Evil follows a female psychologist named Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers). She accompanies David Acosta (Mike Colter), who is training to be a Catholic priest. They investigate the unexplained phenomena in the church, such as mysterious miracles, demonic possessions, and more. Ultimately, the duo embarks on a mission to find the source of the mystical events. Evil tackles the parallel between science and religion, so this might be a good watch for Lovecraft Country fans. In July 2021, CBS renewed the series for a third season. At the moment, there is no official release date for the next installment. However, both seasons are available to watch on Paramount+. The Outsider has supernatural elements like HBOs Lovecraft Country Based on the novel by Stephen King, HBOs The Outsider follows a horrifying investigation into a young boys murder. When supernatural elements are suspected to be involved in the case, a private investigator named Holly Gibney (Cynthia Erivo) and her partner Ralph Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) begins to question everything in the world. Moreover, HBO didnt renew the series for a second season. But, the first season is available to stream on HBO Max. In every episode of The Blacklist, the FBI hunts down various high-profile criminals with the help of Raymond Red Reddington. Almost every episode is named after the criminal that the episode focuses on. With the exception of the pilot episode, heres every episode not named after a blacklister. James Spader as Raymond Red Reddington and Hisham Tawfiq as Dembe Zuma in The Blacklist | Will Hart/NBC The Blacklist Season 3 Episode 19 Cape May In the aftermath of Lizs (fake) death in The Blacklist Season 3, Red travels to Cape May, New Jersey. There he saves a mysterious woman from drowning and helps defend her from attackers that are after her. In the end, the woman and her attackers were all in Reds head. This episode is unique in that it focuses only on Red and his psyche. It is the first time Megan Boone, Diego Klattenhoff, and Harry Lennix are absent from an episode. Season 4 Episode 17 Requiem This episodes story is mostly told in flashbacks and centers around Mr. Kaplan collecting bodies she had previously cleaned up for Red. The episode reveals that Mr. Kaplan, then Kathryn Nemec, was hired as a caretaker for Liz by her mother. After a fire, Kate is instructed to give Liz to Sam Milhoan. Later, Kate meets a woman named Annie Kaplan, and the two fall in love. The origin of Kates blacklister name is revealed when a man kills Annie and calls Kate Mr. Kaplan before shooting her. The Blacklist Season 5 Episode 9 Ruin Like Cape May ruin follows the aftermath of an important characters death. Liz is living in a remote cabin after Tom is killed. There she finds an injured man in the woods. Four other men soon follow, and Liz learns that they are hunting the man, who is a federally protected witness. Liz manages to kill the four men, before returning home to begin her quest to avenge Toms death. Season 6 Episode 19 Rassvet Rassvet is another story told mostly through a series of flashbacks. Liz pays a visit to her grandfather Dominic, who tells her the truth (or so she thinks) about Katarina Rostova. In a flashback, Katarina narrowly avoids drowning and enlists the help of her friend Ilya Koslov. Dom tells Liz that Ilya assumed Reds identity to get to a large sum of cash in Reds bank account. Dom is later revealed to have been lying about certain aspects of the story. Rassvet is also the Russan word for dawn. Season 7 Episodes 4 and 17 Kuwait and Brothers Kuwait begins with a flashback to 1989. A younger Harold Cooper serving in the Navy in Kuwait witnesses his fellow officer Daniel Hutton taken hostage. Back in the present, Cooper learns that Hutton survived. He travels to Kuwait to retrieve his fellow officer, only to find that Hutton turned on his country. In The Blacklist episode Brothers, its Donald Resslers turn for a backstory. The episode flashes back to a teenage Ressler, whose police officer father is murdered by his corrupt partner Tommy Markin. Ressler shoots Markin and his brother Robby cleans up the crime scene. In the present, the brothers must dig up Markins body. Robby reveals that Markin survived the gunshot wound and Robby finished him off with a shovel. The Blacklist Season 8 Episode 3 16 Ounces This is another episode that follows the theme of grief over a lost loved one. In 16 Ounces Liz resigns from the FBI and begins to plan her revenge on Red for killing her mother. The FBI begins to hunt down Liz while she attempts to kill a hospitalized Red. Liz also gets into contact with Ressler. Season 8 13-15 Anne, Misere, and The Russian Knot In Anne, Red reunites with his newfound love but ends up putting her in danger of Townsends men. Later, Red finds an armed figure who he believes to be Liz pointing a gun at Anne. Misere, named after the French word for misery, serves as a recap for the previous 10 episodes. In The Russian Knot, Liz tries to get ahold of a cipher machine that Red uses to communicate with the Russians. Season 8 Episodes 21 and 22 Nachalo and Konets The final episodes in season 8, Nachalo and Konets appropriately translate from Russian to the beginning and the end, according to Deadline. In Nachalo, Liz learns the truth about the creation of the imposter Raymond Reddington. However, she is interrupted by Townsend before she can learn Reds true identity. Red kills Townsend and his men. In Konets, Red shares his plan for Liz to kill him and take over his criminal empire. Liz agrees and meets Red to kill him, but in the end, she cant do it. She is shot in the back by one of Townsends men and dies in Reds arms. Red flees with Dembe and the task force find Lizs body. RELATED: The Blacklist: All 8 Season Finales Ranked Worst to Best A University of Delaware professor and United Nations International Resource Panel member is writing a book focusing on Alaskas response to climate change, and Haines will be featured in one of his chapters. Department of Geography and Spatial Sciences professor Saleem Ali was in Haines during May going through historical records, and learning how residents are now confronting minings current and future impact on the Chilkat Valley. The book, which will use Alaska as a parable for climate change, will explore how regions that will see the most dramatic changes adapt in the face of physical and economic changes. Ali said he wants the book to be hopeful by showing a path forward for transitioning off fossil fuels. Mining, he says, is an alternative livelihood as oil and gas resources become depleted. He said he also plans to write about indigenous communities, and the disagreements among indigenous people about such a trajectory. He plans to focus on how Haines residents navigate such a path. Haines is particularly compelling because its got different pathways, Ali said. I am thinking of opening the chapter by saying: Heres a community that has all these different choices in terms of its economic development. Its got the cruise industry that could be developed. It has a fishing industry. There is also now the service sector economy with the internet and people working from home. And then there is mining and forestry. Ill lay it out in that way and try to weave in those narratives about how people are thinking about those choices. Ali combed through the Sheldon Museums archives to understand how the mining industry has ebbed and flowed in the Chilkat Valley. Ali describes himself as an environmental pragmatist who believes residents would be best served by letting Constantine Metal Resources complete its exploration phase and develop its feasibility study before deciding whether a potential mine is worth the risk. He cited the Pebble Mine permit in Bristol Bay, which was ultimately rejected after its total impact and footprint was understood. We should at least allow those studies to continue and then people can vet the science and make those decisions accordingly, but it shouldnt be a presumption up front that we should oppose it come hell or high water, Ali said. Its possible that the science comes out and the environmentalists in Haines may well be right that this is just too difficult and the mitigation measures and models show the risk is too high. Lets at least give it a chance. Ali is critical of mining opponents who consume metals that he says are often produced in areas with fewer regulations and cause greater environmental impact than in developed countries with more stringent regulations. The reality is we need a lot of metals for the green energy transition. Purely on an environmental ground, if youre concerned about planetary indicators then it makes sense to share the burden of environmental harm also, Ali said. We shouldnt just be exporting pollution and having those mines be in Brazil or other countries because we dont want to deal with it. As an environmental scientist, my goal should be whats good for the planet as a system. The planet is a system. We cant just get parochial about just my little patch. Ali has authored many books on the subject of mining and its impact across the world including Mining, the Environment, and Indigenous Development Conflicts, Africas Mineral Fortune: The Science and Politics of Mining and Sustainable Development, Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating More Effective Global Agreements, and Treasures of the Earth: Need, Greed and a Sustainable Future. The latter book asks if the world would be a better place if human societies were able to curb their desires for material goods. It explores the history of consumption and materialism and argues that disavowing consumption is unlikely to help in planning for a resource-scarce future, given global inequality, developmental imperatives, and our goals for a democratic global society. Ali proposes a new environmental paradigm that accepts humans innate need to consume for cultural and developmental reasons, but warns of the naturally coexisting need to conserve resources. Ali earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Masters of Science from Yale University and a bachelors in chemistry and environmental studies from Tufts University. He is a Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Energy and the Environment and holds an appointment in the University of Delawares Biden School of Public Policy and Administration and Center for Energy and Environmental Policy. Churches worldwide unite in prayer for 340 million Christians persecuted for their faith in Christ Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment To observe the annual International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted on Sunday, churches around the world are praying for more than 340 million Christians who are persecuted or oppressed because of their faith. Marking the IDOP 2021, the U.S.-based persecution watchdog group International Christian Concern said, the number one thing persecuted Christians ask for is prayer. The IDOP is a time set apart to remember all those who share our faith, but not our freedom, Godfrey Yogarajah, ambassador for Religious Freedom of the World Evangelical Alliance, said. The WEA Religious Liberty Commission launched the first IDOP in 1996, encouraging churches worldwide to dedicate a Sunday in November to pray for persecuted Christians. For over two decades, every November, the global Church has united in prayer for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world. Today, more than 300 million Christians live in places where they face persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ. Staggeringly, this is one in eight Christians, globally, said WEA Secretary General Thomas Schirrmacher. Speaking to CBN News, David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, put the number of Christians who are persecuted or oppressed because of their faith in Jesus at more than 340 million. Some of those places like North Korea are exceptionally difficult if youre caught with the Bible, you may spend the rest of your life in prison or even lose your life, he explained. Then there are other places around the world where the Gospel is opposed. You may be harassed and bothered, so there are any number of ways people can be persecuted for their faith. Behind each number and statistic, there is a human story, notes the World Watch List, which seeks to identify countries where Christian persecution is most rampant. During the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, Christians in India, Myanmar, Nepal, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Central Asia, Malaysia, North Africa, Yemen and Sudan, were denied aid, the World Watch List says. Christians who abandon a majority faith to follow Christ know they risk losing all support from spouses, families, tribes and communities, as well as local and national authorities. If they lose income due to COVID-19, they cant fall back on customary networks for survival, it continues, adding that the kidnapping, forcible conversion and forced marriage of women and girls also increased during the pandemic because of increased vulnerability. Mark Riedemann, director of Public Affairs and Religious Freedom for Aid to the Church In Need, said the most important factors impacting religious freedom today include authoritarian governments, Islamist extremism and ethnic-religious nationalism. Several countries in Mainland Asia continue to be governed by Marxist one-party dictatorships, The Tablet quoted him as saying. These include North Korea where the policy toward faith groups can be understood as exterminationist and China where mass surveillance, including artificial intelligence-refined technology, a social credit system that rewards and punishes individual behavior, and brutal crackdowns on religious and ethnic groups, enforce the state supremacy. Riedemann then explained that Africa is witnessing an extraordinarily rapid growth of transnational jihadist groups, who systematically persecute all those Muslim and Christian who do not accept their extreme Islamist ideology. Quoting the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, he added that Sub-Saharan Africa has become a haven for over two dozen extremist groups actively operating and increasingly cooperating in 14 countries. He further explained that Asia confronts a growing phenomenon of ethno-religious nationalism, which promotes ethnic and religious supremacy in some Hindu and Buddhist majority countries in Asia, leading to even greater oppression of minorities. India is the most extreme example, he continued. With a population of nearly 1.4 billion, India is both the worlds largest democracy and the country with the worlds largest and most virulent movement of religious nationalism. However, the rampant persecution is not affecting the growth of the Church or the faith of the believers. When our sisters and brothers are persecuted for their faith, and they still choose Jesus, the Living Water this is a miracle in front of our eyes, the World Watch List notes. Ministers call for end to street violence after murder of beloved California pastor outside church Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Pastors and church leaders from Californias Compton community gathered to demand an end to street violence and for the person who shot and killed Pastor Reginald Moore outside of his church to go to authorities and turn himself in. Moore, the 65-year-old pastor of the Upper Room Christian Church in Compton, was shot to death as he was walking to his vehicle in between Bible study and church on Oct. 24. Were not going to hide, Dr. Michael J. Fisher, a pastor at Greater Zion Church Family, said at a press conference that clergy and community members held last week, ABC7 reported. Were not going to live in fear and we as ministers, were not going to sit back and allow others to take care of our community. The slain pastors daughter, Daney Raqueal Moore, said her father was a good man. And his teaching and preaching will not go in vain. Ill continue to live through his legacy by ensuring that there will be peace, there will be love, there will be joy, she was quoted as saying. The pastors wife, Sharon Moore, said, I cant even think right now because I'm hurting so bad. But he was a good man and he loved God and Im telling you, whoever did this, turn yourself in. Pastor Michael J. Fisher called for an end to cycles of street violence Compton has witnessed for decades. He added that this time, its different. The act was evil. The act was evil, NBC Los Angeles quoted him as saying. LA County Sheriffs office said 10 investigators have been investigating the case, but no arrest has been made. Members of the Moore family told the press earlier that the pastor would have been the first to forgive those responsible. One thing my daddy did preach and teach on was forgiveness. He always lived by the motto, What would Jesus do? the pastors daughter told the Edifi With Billy Hallowell podcast. He said, Jesus forgave His enemies and we have to forgive ours. We have to forgive people to be free. Daney Moore also spoke about other facets of her fathers personality, describing him as a character who always loved to laugh. But beyond those jovial memories, she said he was a man of God on a mission to bring people to faith. My daddy was a loving and funny man. He was just a non-confrontational soul who wanted to make sure that everybody was saved, everybody accepted the Lord, she said. Any way he could find to tell you about God, he would. When asked if she had a message she wanted to share, Moore delivered an emotional and stirring appeal to everyone listening: Stop the killing. Stop the violence be at peace with people and just get saved if youre not. We must dare to start holy confrontation Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Throughout my life, I have often found myself in positions that required me to confront people who have so much more more power, more intelligence, more money, more authority than I do. At various times I have been led by God to confront elected officials in the community, business owners with considerable clout, angry members of my congregation, international ministry leaders, and even presidents from both major political parties in the White House! My desire each time I am called to engage in holy confrontation is to advance Gods Kingdom and to uphold His truth. I never confront another person in anger or, to the best of my human ability, to advance my own agenda. When I have confronted political leaders and presidents of both parties, I have maintained my devotion to only one cause not the donkeys or the elephants cause but the Lambs. I cannot say that I enjoyed any of those sometimes tense, often emotionally charged, conversations. But each one forced me to rely on God and the power of the Holy Spirit just a little more as I submit to His authority. During those challenging seasons of confrontation, I prayed without ceasing for Gods guidance, wisdom, and understanding. I sought to emulate the only perfect person who has ever walked this earth my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And I relied on the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to work through me and others in order to accomplish what He had called me to do. Perhaps you have been in a similar situation: If you did not speak up about an injustice, no one else was going to. Perhaps you have been challenged in your employment, where the voices of those who are being wronged are also being ignored. Or maybe your church family has missed the mark and slid into a stance that is clearly immoral. Maybe even in your family a biblical truth is being ignored and poisoning the sanctity of your home. Whether we are intimidated by a cultural climate of cancellations and criticism or fear the fallout from standing firm in our faith, we must muster the courage of Elijah, who confronted King Ahab. Gods prophet had declared that rain would not fall, a way of commanding everyones attention by suffering the consequences of a life-threatening famine, a season Elijah and others survived only through the provision and protection of God. As the famine stretched into its third year, God told Elijah that it was time for a more direct confrontation: Go and present yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain on the land (1 Kings 18:1). Elijah set off immediately to see the king, but before reaching him, the prophet encountered Ahabs palace administrator, Obadiah, identified as a devout believer in the Lord (verse 3) who had worshiped the Lord since his youth (see verse 12). As evidence of his faithfulness, Obadiah had hidden a hundred prophets in two caves, providing them with food and water, and protecting the murderous intent of King Ahabs wife, Jezebel. Elijah instructed Obadiah to go tell the king that the prophet would meet him face to face. The faithful Obadiah, however, was fearful of his masters wrath concerning the prophet. No problem, Elijah basically replied. Ill tell him myself! Ahab, upon seeing his least favorite person approaching, greeted Elijah with these words: Is that you, you troubler of Israel? (verse 17). Elijah deflected the accusation into a true reflection of the situation: I have not made trouble for Israel ... But you and your fathers family have. You have abandoned the Lords commands and have followed the Baals (verse 18). In other words, Im not the problem youre the problem! The political, social, and cultural divisiveness in our nations and our world requires us to stand apart from the majority, to go against the powerful, and to confront the privileged. Now perhaps more than ever, we are called to act on behalf of the poor, the weak, the defenseless, the disenfranchised, the orphans, and the widows. To stand up for what we believe, for what we know is right, for the truth found in the living Word of God. But standing up for the truth is rarely comfortable, convenient, or convivial. It is so much easier to go with the flow, to back away from the battle, to look the other way. Even when immorality, greed, perversion, murder, and idolatry assault our lives on a daily basis, we may be reluctant to voice opposition because there will be a price to pay, consequences to contend with, and changes to make. We risk being unfriended and unliked on social media, being criticized and chastised by opponents who do not even know for what and whom we stand. In our divisive world of political animosity and civil unrest, we often allow the mantle of holy confrontation to fall from our shoulders. Rather than speak up for what is right in the eyes of God, we hold our tongues in order to conform to the consensus. Instead of calling out injustice, unrighteousness, immorality, and idolatry, we avoid rocking the boat. When we exercise the mantle of holy confrontation, we may, like Elijah, be viewed as a troublemaker and instigator. Our opponents may call us names or try to influence others so that they may join forces against us. Our adversaries will silence us by any means necessary. That is when we must dare to start holy trouble. Chosen Books, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Persevere with Power by Samuel Rodriguez, 2021, Used by permission. 'Jesus Christ Money Master' author gets 3 life sentences for bilking millions from Christians Email Print Img No-img Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment William Neil Doc Gallagher, an 80-year-old Christian radio personality from Texas and author of the Jesus Christ, Money Master Leader Guide, was sentenced to three life sentences plus an additional 30 years in prison Monday for defrauding more than 190 people, many of whom were older adult Christians, of at least $23 million. Doc Gallagher is one of the worst offenders I have seen, Lori Varnell, chief of the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Elder Financial Fraud team, said in a press statement. He ruthlessly stole from his clients who trusted him for almost a decade. He amassed $32 million in loss to all of his clients and exploited many elder individuals. He worked his way around churches preying on people who believed he was a Christian. Gallagher, who was once president and CEO of the Gallagher Financial Group, described himself on the company website as an experienced financial advisor, financial journalist and author who also served as an instructor at Texas Christian University. His companys mission was to be a vehicle of Gods peace and comfort to as many people as possible, helping first with their financial peace of mind, then also with their spiritual, emotional and family well-being. He also advertised on Christian radio with the tagline: See you in church on Sunday. Despite the claims of his company to Christian virtues, the prosecutors say Gallagher was busy bilking seniors out of millions through a Ponzi scheme, which he pleaded guilty to running on Aug.31. A release from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed that from December 2014 through January 2019, Gallagher raised at least $19.6 million from approximately 60 senior citizens by falsely claiming to be a licensed investment adviser. He offered an investment that he called a Diversified Growth and Income Strategy Account, in which he promised to acquire income-generating assets for his clients in five specified categories. He promised investors that they would receive guaranteed, risk-free returns in their accounts ranging from 5% to 8% per year. In reality, except for one $75,000 annuity purchase, Gallagher purchased no assets in any of the five categories and no other assets to back the promised returns, the release said. Instead, he exhausted virtually all investor funds on spending unrelated to the accounts, including misappropriating significant portions for personal and company expenses and to make Ponzi payments to investors. In addition to visiting churches and promoting his business on Christian radio stations owned by Salem Media, Gallagher promoted his investment business in books, like Jesus Christ, Money Master, which has a one-star review on Amazon. More than a dozen of his older adult victims testified against Gallagher on Monday in a three-hour court hearing where they shared how they lost between $50,000 and $600,000, then asked Judge Elizabeth Beach to sentence him to life in prison for his crimes. Some have had to sell their homes, borrow money from their children or take part-time jobs to supplement their social security payments. They spoke of losing trust in people and of the depression many now suffer because of losing their money through Gallagher's company, the Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney's Office said. "I'm afraid my money is going to run out," Judy Dewitt, one of the victims, said. "It's a very scary thing." Another victim, Susan Pippi, said: "I don't trust anybody anymore, except for God and my family." Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment Glenn Youngkins victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race is an indisputable vindication of the values-based case for school choice and parental empowerment. Voters had two clear and diametrically opposed paths from which to choose. One path labeled parents who were concerned about critical race theory being taught in the classroom as racists. It forced them to accept radical transgender policies that they did not agree with. This path dismissed parents and students questions and concerns about COVID-19 mandates and school closures. It told parents they were not partners with schools in determining the values and content that teachers taught, but were instead subservient recipients of whatever education the experts thought their children needed. Parents, in the eyes of the teachers unions, were simply there to open their wallets and fund government schools. On Election Day, parents rejected going down that path further. Instead, they chose a path in which parent involvement and input is welcome. This path recognizes that there are legitimate concerns with indoctrinating children with critical race theory which in recent years has involved separating children by race into affinity groups or teaching them that their future is predetermined based on immutable characteristics such as their skin color. This path stands for a school where students are kept safe not exposed to danger and where school administrators who cover up sexual assaults for political reasons are held responsible. It believes that students should be kept safe and undergirded by the rule of law. This is the path that parents voted for on Tuesday. The election was also a victory for proponents of school choice. It also included an important lesson for proponents: that they should not be afraid to make the values-based case for choice. As my colleague at The Heritage Foundation, Jay Greene, along with the University of Arkansas James Paul recently found, only three school choice programs in the entire country needed any Democratic votes to pass and become law in recent decades. Yet, the appeal to policymakers is usually made in economic or even social justice terms. As a result, school choice programs are often saddled with restraints (such as limits on eligibility instead of being universally available to all students, and being handcuffed with regulations). The values-based case that education choice is a necessary tool in fighting everything from critical race theory to radical gender ideology has taken second fiddle, if made at all. Fundamentally, the election outcome demonstrates that there is power in making the case that school choice is, at its core, about enabling parents to choose learning environments that align with their values. Gov. elect Glenn Youngkins victory was not only a repudiation of the tenets of critical race theory in K-12 education. It was also a recognition that public schooling has fallen down on its custodial care responsibility. And it validated parents very real concerns about the safety of their children while in school. Last night, parents made their voices heard at a time when school boards in Virginia with the backing of the National School Boards Association, the threat of being labeled domestic terrorists, and the sanction of the Biden administrations Department of Justice have continually tried to silence them. Now, Youngkins charge is to address the concerns he heard from parents through policy change. He has a mandate to do so. First, he should reject critical race theorys discrimination from being applied in Virginias public schools. Schools that sort children by race into affinity groups and privilege walks, for example, are in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those that compel student speech by requiring them to affirm the tenets of critical race theory are in violation of the First Amendment. Parents should be armed with a private right of action to sue schools that violate these constitutional protections. Schools should also be maximally transparent about the curriculum and trainings being used within their four walls. Curriculum should be posted online, and parents should be able to find the materials being taught in their childrens schools within a few clicks of visiting the schools websites. Second, Youngkin should take the opportunity to work with the Virginia Legislature to eliminate teacher certification requirements which have no relationship with student academic outcomes. Allowing individuals who have subject-matter expertise to enter the classroom without having to spend years in a university-based college of education would do wonders in limiting the power of academia to spread the dangerous ideology of critical race theory from colleges to the K-12 classroom. Third, Virginia should stop the administrative staffing surge in K-12 schools, which has enabled growth in chief diversity officers the K-12 brethren of diversity, equity, and inclusion staff in higher education. These diversicrats are able to enforce adherence to critical race theory orthodoxy, and are actually counterproductive to narrowing achievement gaps between students. Finally and of utmost importance Virginia must embrace school choice. The Old Dominion has had a modest tax credit scholarship program since 2013, but student eligibility is limited to those from lower-income households or with special needs. Now is the time for Virginia to follow in the steps of its neighbor to the West and establish universal education savings accounts, as West Virginia did earlier this year. Every single child in Virginia, from the moment they begin kindergarten, should be able to choose the school or education provider that works for them and aligns with their values. Virginia now has a real opportunity to become a state that honors the wishes of families, enables students to thrive in learning environments that work for them, and rejects the discrimination inherent in critical race theory. Virginia is likely a bellwether for other states, and as such, policymakers and state leaders should heed an important lesson from last nights election. They should remember that parents are their childrens first and foremost educators, and that schools are partners subordinate and accountable to parents in that reality. Originally published at The Daily Signal. The following editorial was published in the Dallas Morning News: (TNS) Children have been mostly spared from the pandemics ravages, but theyre not immune. Pediatric intensive care units filled up this summer with delta variant cases, and across the country, nearly 800 children have died from COVID-19. Thats a minuscule percentage of the total underage population, but every death is a tragedy for a family. This week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention approved a smaller dose of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, essentially covering the remainder of the school-age population that was still waiting on access to the shots. We expect that millions of families and teachers are sighing with relief after almost two tumultuous years of remote learning, special campus protocols and, in some cases, social exile. The CDC approval means that the series of two shots, at lower doses, will be rolling out in the next few days. The question now is whether enough parents will get their kids vaccinated and move their communities closer to herd immunity. We urge them to do so. While we understand parents instinct to be extra cautious when making decisions about their childrens health care, the science overwhelmingly shows that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective at protecting kids. And as advertising around town from Childrens Medical Center reminds us, the vaccine technology is older than the kids who will receive it. The clinical trial showed that the Pfizer vaccine was 91% effective in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 among more than 2,000 children ages 5-11. Vaccine experts say the benefits of getting the shots outweigh the risks for kids in this age group. Moreover, millions of children ages 12-17 have been safely vaccinated against COVID-19 since May. Families also have to contend with the risk that a child with COVID-19 might spread the illness to a vulnerable relative, even if the child is asymptomatic or ailing from a mild version of the disease. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of vaccine skepticism among families. A recent Gallup poll showed that only 55% of parents in the U.S. with kids under age 12 say they would get their children vaccinated if the shots became available. Pediatricians will do a lot of the heavy lifting in informing and convincing parents, but our public health authorities should once again turn to other trusted community voices to amplify the importance of vaccinating children. As in previous campaigns, civic leaders will have to think creatively. For example, Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa told us that a $50 incentive to families whose children got the shots proved successful in driving parents to school vaccine clinics. The more kids who get vaccinated, the closer we are to normalcy and the closer we are to leaving those bitter battles about mask mandates behind. What a comfort that would be. BRADFORD, Pa. - Dustin Snyder was tired of the low wages, the 60-hour workweeks and the impossible-to-please customers, and so in early September the assistant general manager at a McDonald's here drafted a petition that laid bare months of building anger and frustration. "We are all leaving," his petition threatened, "and hope you find employees that want to work for $9.25 an hour." Nearly all of his two dozen employees had signed it. A few added their own flourishes. "We need a RAISE," one scribbled next to her signature. "Piss off," wrote another. Dustin, 21, could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he fed the petition into the fax machine in the McDonald's office, punched in the number for his bosses 80 miles away in Buffalo and hit send. Another low-wage worker rebellion in a season full of them. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a debilitating recession and trillions in government aid had caused something to shift in the world's largest economy. Hourly wages for fast food workers rose nearly 14% last year, the fastest growth on record. All over America people were quitting jobs at record rates. Even in a place such as Bradford, with its shrinking population and 30% poverty rate, low-wage service workers sensed that they finally had a little power. Soon after Dustin sent the petition, the phone was ringing, and the regional supervisor in Buffalo was demanding to know who was behind it. Dustin's first instinct was to panic and plead ignorance. An hour later he called and confessed. "I was trying to get better pay for my people," Dustin said. "There are better ways to go about this," the regional supervisor replied. She had been thinking about boosting pay at the Bradford McDonald's, she said, but she was not going to give into threats or give up control. Because of the petition, no one was getting a raise. If the workers did not like it, they could quit. Days earlier Dustin had accepted a job at a lumber mill that paid $11.50-an-hour, or 60 cents more than he made as assistant general manager. But he did not really want to quit McDonald's. He liked his co-workers, who had become some of his closest friends, and he liked being a leader. He just wanted some affirmation and a little more money, both for himself and his team. Dustin asked his employees to gather around him in the kitchen. Egg McMuffins sat half made on the counter. A clock on the cash register that tracked the restaurant's drive-through times and transmitted the data back to corporate ticked away the seconds since their last completed order. "Why would you want to work for a company that doesn't value you?" Dustin asked. He turned to one of the restaurant's longest serving employees. "You've been here for five years," he said. "What have you got for it? Nothing." The workers, clad in their uniforms, ball caps and nonslip shoes, stared at him, unsure what they were supposed to do next. Dustin explained that he was leaving and locking up the restaurant. If they followed, he promised he would help them all find better jobs. "How many of you want to go with me?" Dustin asked. Initially, there was silence. Then seven of the nine raised their hands. Two who decided not to join took seats at a table in the empty restaurant. The rest tossed aside their headsets and abandoned their posts at the drive-through and registers. Instead of racing to serve customers, they began making food for themselves: a Quarter Pounder, a large fries, an iced caramel coffee with whipped cream and extra pumps of caramel. Dustin's anxiety, which had been building since he sent the fax, began to ebb. His co-workers were ebullient. "It's a walkout," one yelled as they headed out into an economy where low-wage workers, long-accustomed to feeling scorned, ignored and invisible, were realizing they suddenly had some agency. - - - In the restaurant's windowless back office, Dustin was calling Stephanie Kelley, the Bradford McDonald's general manager, to tell her what was happening. "What if no one goes with you?" she asked. "Everyone already said they were," Dustin replied. Stephanie, 36, had recently accepted a job at a bank in town and, like Dustin, was finishing out her final two weeks. She'd spent nearly a decade at the Bradford McDonald's, working her way up from the bottom to the restaurant's top job. To join the protest was to throw away a reputation for hard work she had fought to build. To stay home was to abandon her employees. "It won't look good to get fired from McDonald's," she told Dustin on the phone. "I've already made up my mind," Dustin replied. The discontent driving the Bradford workers and so many others had been there for years, an ever-present aspect of an economy that could be especially cruel to anyone without an education. The pandemic - the fights with customers over masks and the fears of falling sick - added to the strain. But it was the labor shortages, which extended to just about every part of the country, that caused workers' long-suppressed anger to burst into the open. Unlike the strikes of an earlier era, most of the walkouts included no picket lines. Rarely did the workers even make demands. "WE ALL QUIT SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE," read the message last June on a Burger King marquee in Lincoln, Neb., where, according to the workers, the air conditioner had been broken for weeks and the temperatures in the kitchen soared past 90 degrees. Sometimes, workers left behind notes for bosses and customers that resembled parting primal screams: "We will not work for a company that DOES NOT care!!!" employees at a Del Taco in Circleville, Ohio, wrote. "The staff at this location has walked out because we were being treated poorly, overworked and underpaid," read a message from the employees of a Biggby Coffee in Toledo. Often the dashed-off notes became hits on social media, passed along by equally fed-up workers. Sometimes they would show up in a short segment on the local television news, before fading away. Definitive numbers on these small-scale walkouts do not exist. The Bureau of Labor Statistics only tracks major stoppages that involve more than 1,000 workers. But Mike Elk, a labor reporter and founder of paydayreport.com, has compiled a database of 1,600 walkouts since March 2020 that included as many as 100,000 workers. Stephanie was now deciding whether she wanted to be one of them. Like her staff, she had come to feel "degraded" and "belittled" by her bosses and some of the customers. The franchise owner had set the Bradford McDonald's starting wage at $9.25 an hour, while new workers at his McDonald's less than 20 miles away in Olean, N.Y., where the minimum wage was higher, were earning $15 an hour. The low pay had made it almost impossible for Stephanie and Dustin to retain workers and keep the restaurant running. Stephanie's call with Dustin lasted only about a minute. She decided she could not let Dustin and their day-shift crew "do it alone." She hung up and texted the night shift staff. "I want you all to know that everyone on the day shift just walked out and quit," she wrote. She said she was joining the walkout - "Effective 10:51 a.m. I no longer work at McDonald's" - and encouraged the rest of the staff to quit too. "I believe that you all are worth more than anything they're giving you," she continued. "I am proud of all of you. Every single one of you. Whether you quit or not, I am proud of you." Then she drove to the McDonald's where she saw cars backing up in the drive-through. Most of the workers were gathered in the parking lot, laughing and smiling. The worker who had been with the restaurant for five years was sobbing. She had been swept up in the initial excitement of the walkout but was now worried about finding a new job and paying her rent. She was terrified of losing her subsidized apartment. "We will help you get a job that pays better," Dustin reassured her. He and Stephanie were going to drive everyone to the Burger King, two miles away, where Stephanie knew the general manager and the pay started at $10 an hour. Before Dustin locked the doors, he realized there was one last thing he wanted to do for his McDonald's customers. He could not find a pen so he snatched a blue highlighter from the back office. "Due to lack of pay we all quit," he scribbled. In the parking lot, a half-dozen employees were waiting on him for rides to Burger King. The line of cars full of hungry and angry customers now wrapped around the building. "Hey! We just want a Quarter Pounder and fries," a man called out to Dustin from his car. "Well we just want to be paid more and treated better," Dustin replied. - - - Dustin and his co-workers had come to feel that no one understood what their jobs and lives were really like. The biggest frustration was the pay, which had been $8.25 an hour until the franchise owner boosted it by $1 a few months into the pandemic. "We understand these are tough times," Enrico Francani, the owner wrote in a letter to the staff, explaining the increase. "How can you say you understand tough times when you're only playing people $9.25 an hour?" Dustin recalled thinking. The restaurant continued to lose long-serving shift managers throughout 2021 to entry-level jobs at Walmart ($13.75 an hour) and Tim Hortons ($12 an hour). The departures hit the restaurant especially hard at the beginning of the month, when disability checks arrived and customers had money to burn on burgers and fries. "Can anyone go into work right now? They're down 6 shifts and drowning," Stephanie wrote on the employee group chat on Sept. 1, four days before the walkout. A few minutes passed with no response. "Anyone??" she asked again. The only thing that seemed to matter to the corporate office were the numbers: revenue, drive-through times and the weekly tally of complaints. Once, Dustin worked 30 hours straight to prepare the restaurant for a health inspection. It passed, but the criticism from the bosses about the restaurant's cleanliness and his inability to retain employees continued unabated. Heavy turnover led to more mistakes and longer wait times for customers, who took their frustration out on workers who already felt stigmatized by their fast-food jobs. "The hate is towards the wrong people," said Caitlin Cox, a shift manager, newly pregnant with her second child. "It's ridiculous." She was certain that customers, who regularly belittled the staff for enforcing mask mandates or botching orders, would judge her harshly for having a baby while "flipping burgers." And she had come to dread the thought of working at McDonald's while she was visibly pregnant. The owner, ferried by his driver, typically visited the Bradford location just once a year, employees said, and not even that often once the pandemic hit. Dustin believed that Francani was relying on his Pennsylvania restaurants - with their low salaries - to offset higher costs in New York where he had to pay his McDonald's workers $15 an hour. Francani did not respond to a list of detailed questions regarding his Bradford location. In a statement he said that he had initiated a series of "listening sessions" with workers and was adding paid sick leave and raising starting wages in Bradford. "We're very grateful for the outstanding efforts of the McDonald's Bradford team," he wrote. McDonald's USA issued a statement in which it said it was "disappointed" by the poor treatment that employees endured at the Bradford restaurant: "The allegations shared in this reporting are deeply troubling and have no place in a McDonald's-branded restaurant. Quite simply, they are unacceptable." Dustin understood that Francani was entitled to pay his Bradford workers more than 60% less than his nearby New York employees. "It's a good idea, but you're hurting people," he said. "At what price is it enough? At what point is it just not worth it? What's the cost of another human being to you?" - - - These were some of the questions that people in Bradford were fighting about in the immediate aftermath of the walkout. Less than an hour had passed before someone snapped a picture of Dustin's sign on the drive-through speaker and posted it in a Facebook group called "B----ing Bout Bradford." Most of those weighing in on the McDonald's walkout were service workers: certified nursing assistants, waitresses, security guards and store cashiers who were barely scraping by themselves. Theirs were the voices of a place whose best days seem behind it. On Bradford's mostly empty Main Street, Art Deco, Italianate and Neo-Classical buildings loom as a reminder of an earlier era when the city was home to wealthy oil barons and hungry entrepreneurs. The Zippo factory, opened in 1932, still ships its iconic windproof lighters all over the world. But the region has been bleeding manufacturing jobs and people for years. "Do you have the next great idea?" asked signs from the Bradford Area Alliance offering a $20,000 prize to help seed a local start-up. Set amid abandoned storefronts, the question came off as a plea. Some speaking out on "B----ing Bout Bradford" blasted the work stoppage as an act of entitlement - another sign of America's moral decay and waning work ethic. "You got what you deserve when your paycheck came in," wrote a 41-year-old father of two young boys. "Probably didn't deserve that because it sounds like you were just there putting in time with bad attitudes instead of working to make your situation better." Other commenters on the post called fast food "a high school job," whose long hours and low pay were supposed to spur young workers to strive for more. Dustin and his crew, they said, should "go back to school," "quit making excuses," get a second job or move to a city with higher wages and more opportunity. Or they complained about the service at the McDonald's ("I've never one f---ing time got my order right! Not once!") and derided the penmanship on Dustin's hastily scribbled sign. ("Maybe they should be home practicing their handwriting skills.") The McDonald's workers' demands to be seen and heard had broken some unspoken rule; their anger seemed to threaten Bradford's social order. Others countered that big companies, such as McDonald's, had a moral obligation to pay their employees enough to survive. "We have families and bills and can't even get through with the pay we get," wrote a cashier at the Bradford Dollar Tree. And they called for a higher minimum wage to match the $15 an hour that workers were making in New York. Just like the critics, the walkout's defenders cast the protest as a symptom of a much larger societal disease, made worse by the labor shortage and the long pandemic. "People in the service industry are done with the disrespect," wrote a local physician. "I don't think it's just about the money. . . . Whether it's about flipping burgers or saving lives they crave gratitude and validation. Society has become so intolerant. So disrespectful. So judgmental. So cruel. Let's change it." Soon some of the McDonald's workers were weighing in to explain themselves and defend their colleagues. "You have NO RIGHT to talk down on those workers when they take a stand and have had enough," wrote John Lockwood, who had worked at the restaurant for 20 years and had quit earlier that morning. "If you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, keep your f---ing mouth shut." - - - Of the Bradford McDonald's workers who remained after the waves of spring and summer attrition, five had intellectual or physical disabilities that made it hard for them to find work at a better pay, Dustin said. Two were 17-year-old girls who had quit school and were homeless. In the immediate aftermath of the walkout, one of those teenage girls, Shakira Griffin, was waiting in the McDonald's parking lot for Dustin to give her a ride to Burger King, where she planned to fill out an application. She phoned her boyfriend and her mother. Neither answered. A few hours later, she texted both to let them know about the walkout. "Steph and Dustin is helping us get jobs," she wrote. Shakira had started at McDonald's in March after her mother lost custody of her and her father and his new girlfriend had kicked her out of their house. Before she dropped out of high school in the spring, her teachers had tried to look out for her as best they could. Her favorite, a special-education teacher, had slipped her $25 to buy some bras and on her birthday, gave her a dark, green American Eagle hoodie that hung loosely on her skinny frame. "I could tell you that it wasn't cheap!" said Shakira of the sweatshirt that she wore everywhere. Like so many of her colleagues, Shakira had grown accustomed to being told she was not good enough: by teachers, fellow students and even her parents. Now she was jubilant. "I was doing stuff with people besides arguing," she said of the walkout. "I was standing up for myself and what I deserve. I've never done that before." By nightfall a crew of $15-an-hour McDonald's workers had arrived from New York and reopened the drive-through, though the rest of the restaurant remained closed. The Bradford workers were still buzzing with excitement. "Let's all stand outside the mcdonalds and riot. Hahaha," one crew member wrote on their chat. "I love all you guys. You are amazing," another added. "We'll be friends forever," wrote Matthew Arndt, who was developmentally delayed and autistic. "Remember my door. My heart is open." Six years earlier, Matt had taken a Greyhound bus to Bradford from Tacoma, Wash., to visit a woman he met while playing a video game called "Second Life." The woman turned out to be married. Now, Matt, 32, lived with her, her husband and another developmentally delayed woman in a rotting brown and yellow two-story rental, which had no working furnace, black mold and bedbugs. Matt was the only one in the house with a job, and they had all come to depend on his salary to survive. He had not been back to see his father or siblings since arriving in Bradford. His job at McDonald's was his refuge. His co-workers had become his family. Sometimes he and the rest of the night shift crew would finish work around 2 a.m. and walk two miles to the Sheetz coffee shop, where they would talk and eat mozzarella sticks, boneless chicken bites and burritos until dawn. Matt texted his colleagues that the regional supervisor had called him and was trying to entice him to stay, but that he was not going to betray his friends. "She's desperate now," he wrote. "Yeah," agreed Shakira, who also had received a call. "She really is desperate." The workers continued texting for several more hours. They complained about the people in town who were deriding them for walking out. "People think fast food workers are lazy," one former crew member wrote. "All they want is their muffins and nuggets." "Yeah, we ain't people," another replied. They traded gossip about which workers might be staying. Several noted hopefully that the drive-through line at Burger King seemed longer than usual and that maybe the shutdown had scared some McDonald's customers away. Someone suggested they rename their McDonald's group chat. Matt came up with the idea that they immediately and unanimously decided to adopt: "The McRejects." - - - Dustin rose at 4 a.m. and headed out the door to his car, still clad in his camouflage pajama pants and a hoodie. A month had passed since the walkout. It was his day off, but he had promised two of his former McDonald's crew members, who he had helped land jobs with him at the lumber mill, that he would drive them to work every day. Neither had cars. "Jesus it's cold out this morning," Dustin's first pickup of the morning said as he slid into the passenger seat. "I left my window open last night and just about froze my balls off." "Yesterday was colder," Dustin replied as he steered through Bradford's empty streets. The "check engine" light on his dashboard glowed. Most of the McRejects found new jobs for higher pay at Burger King, Dunkin' and the Save-A-Lot grocery store. Shakira landed a $10 an hour position stocking shelves at a Crosby's convenience store and was living with her boyfriend's family. Matt and his best friend from McDonald's, David Putnam, were making $12 an hour at Tim Hortons doughnut shop. The extra money meant David, who was raising his 2-year-old son on his own, no longer needed donated food from the "Blessing Box" near his house. He had recently even been able to treat his mother and stepfather to dinner at the Hunan Buffet across the parking lot from his new job. Matt's finances were still tight. One of his housemates had recently been kicked off disability, and he was using his extra pay to help cover her portion of the rent. After just three weeks at the lumber mill, Dustin got a $1 raise to $12.50-an-hour, part of a companywide pay hike. He hoped the money would help him finally afford his own place. For the moment, he was paying his mom, who was on disability, and his stepdad, who did not work, about $850 a month to live in his childhood bedroom. The money helped to cover their rent and the food stamps they lost due to Dustin's income. By this point in his life, Dustin had hoped to have moved out of his childhood bedroom. Shortly after high school he left Bradford in search of a better life in Maine, where he had helped a family from his church start a new congregation. He had considered going to college to become a pastor. "I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and it felt meaningful," he said. But he did not have the money for school and fell out with his church. Lately, he said he felt as if he was "just kind of floating." On this day, floating meant grabbing a few hours of sleep, playing video games and then heading back to the mill around 4 p.m. to take his friends home. They tossed their helmets and lunch pails in his car's trunk. The smell of sawdust clung to their clothes and filled Dustin's car. One of his friends was complaining about the job, which required them to stand in one spot for 10 hours a day lifting and stacking wooden boards. "Ugh, the repetition," he said. "It just repeats and repeats and repeats." "You gotta look at it a different way," Dustin countered. "It stinks because it is the same thing every day. Yeah, it's boring. But it's a good paycheck, and they treat you with respect and like a human being." Most of the workers in Dustin's section had been at the mill for only a couple of months, and Dustin attributed the heavy turnover to the tedious nature of the job. He tried to fight off the boredom, as best he could, by asking questions about the different kinds of wood they processed and how the different machines worked. He chatted up the fork lift driver who had been at the mill for almost three decades and was making $30 an hour. If he could just make it to three months, Dustin knew he would qualify for a $300 bonus, a 401(k) and health insurance - something he had been without for more than three years. "It's super easy," he said of the lifting and stacking. "You barely move." The downside was the monotony, which was numbing in a way that McDonald's had never been. Weeks passed and Dustin found it hard to stop thinking about his old job. He missed the friendships he'd built at the restaurant. He missed the challenge and satisfaction that came with helping his intellectually disabled workers master a task. He missed being a leader. When Dustin ran into one of the McDonald's Sunday regulars, who gathered at a back table to gossip and complain about their shrinking pensions, he quizzed him about service at the restaurant. The man grumbled about the rising price of coffee and the "haughty" new staff at the restaurant. "We didn't get paid enough," Dustin replied, "but we tried to treat you well." Whenever Dustin passed the McDonald's, he would take note of the number of cars lined up at the drive-through. "I think they're losing customers," he would often say. About six weeks after the walkout, Dustin noticed that the owner had changed the sign on the restaurant's marquee. "Hiring starting at $10," it now read. The 75-cent raise was all that he and his staff had really wanted and all that they had been fighting for. But, to Dustin, it still felt like a "slap in the face." His former bosses seemed to be sending him a message that their fight was never really about pay. It was about status and power and proving to Dustin and the others that, despite their modest gains and whatever changes might be taking place in the U.S. economy, they were still replaceable. Dustin did not regret the walkout. He had "refused to bow down to the big scary corporation," he said. He had rallied his friends and helped them find similar work at higher pay. Dustin's lumber mill job would do for now. Maybe the meaning he had been searching for would come later. Carlos Correa, A.J. Hinch spotted eating together in Houston The Tigers and A.J. Hinch have started their sales pitch on Carlos Correa right here in Houston. 2 Houston spots make Esquire's list of best new restaurants A pair of Bayou City tasting menu spots made the grade on the magazine's annual list of top new... More than a year and a half after COVID-19 concerns prompted the U.S. to close its borders to international travelers from countries including Brazil, China, India, South Africa, the United Kingdom and much of Europe, restrictions are shifting to focus on vaccine status. Beginning Monday, bans on travel from specific countries are over. The U.S. will allow in international travelers, but they must be vaccinated with a few exceptions. The U.S. is also reopening the land borders with Canada and Mexico for vaccinated people. Most trips from Canada and Mexico to the U.S. are by land rather than air. Here are some questions and answers about the changes: WHY ARE THESE CHANGES HAPPENING? The goal is to restore more normal travel while limiting the spread of COVID-19, the government says. The travel industry and European allies have pushed for an end to country-specific bans. Americans have been allowed to fly to Europe for months, and Europeans have been pushing the U.S. to change its policies. In 2019, before the pandemic, about one-fifth of the roughly 79 million visitors to the U.S. came from Europe. WHAT ARE THE MAIN REQUIREMENTS? All adult foreign nationals traveling to the U.S. must be fully vaccinated before boarding their flight. Like before, travelers will still have to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test taken within 72 hours of departure to the U.S. EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE VACCINATED? Yes, with some exceptions. Children under 18 don't need to be vaccinated but they do need to take a COVID test. Kids 2 and younger are exempt from testing requirements. WHAT ABOUT ADULTS WHO AREN'T VACCINATED? Since half the world remains unvaccinated, and vaccine distribution has been so skewed to rich countries, the Biden administration is leaving a loophole for people who live in countries where vaccines are scarce. That list includes about 50 countries where fewer than 10% of people have been vaccinated. Travelers from those countries will need permission from the U.S. government to come, and it can't be just for tourism or business travel. The U.S. government says it will permit unvaccinated international visitors to enter the country if there is a humanitarian or emergency reason, such as an emergency medical evacuation. Those exceptions will be applied extremely narrowly and require approval from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There could also be a medical exception, with documentation from a doctor. WHAT WILL AMERICANS HAVE TO DO? Americans who are unvaccinated have to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within one day of international travel. If you're vaccinated, you need to take a test within three days of your departure, for both Americans and citizens of other countries. This does not apply to flights within the U.S. WHO IS GOING TO ENFORCE THE VACCINE RULES? That's up to airlines. They will have to verify vaccine records and match them against ID, and if they don't, they could face fines of up to nearly $35,000 per violation. Airlines will also collect information about passengers for contact tracing efforts. There will be CDC workers spot-checking travelers for compliance in the U.S. WHICH VACCINES WILL LET YOU IN? Most but not all of them. Any COVID-19 vaccine approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization, which include the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines used in the U.S. as well as most used overseas, such as AstraZeneca and China's Sinovac. Not currently allowed is Russias Sputnik V vaccine, which is authorized in 70 countries. The WHO is reviewing Sputnik but hasn't approved it. WHAT IF YOU DRIVE IN FROM MEXICO OR CANADA, OR TAKE A FERRY? The land borders have only been open for essential travel. Now, anyone can come, if they're vaccinated against COVID. Be prepared to show proof of the shot to Customs and Border Protection agents. Children are exempt from the requirement. HOW WILL THIS AFFECT TRAVEL? While the administration is characterizing this as a reopening, some people who were technically allowed to fly to the U.S. earlier in the pandemic are now blocked because of their vaccination status. Other roadblocks to normal travel resuming are big delays in issuing U.S. visas, which people in most countries need to visit the U.S. for business and tourism, and restrictions in other countries that make travel difficult. Even though people coming from China will now be allowed into the U.S., for example, not many are expected to travel because of restrictions at home. Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists were a lucrative market for the U.S. travel industry. Industry experts do expect a big influx in people flying from Europe, and hope that a broader recovery in travel follows as more people globally get vaccinated, U.S. visa processing speeds up, other countries lift their own restrictions and people feel less scared about getting COVID because of travel. LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) With increasing activity in commercial space flight and new startups entering the industry, Las Cruces is eyeing opportunities to draw more aerospace investment to the area including the role its municipal airport might play in the effort. Las Cruces International Airport, originally built as a military air base during World War II and transferred to the city in 1955, is working on an updated master plan, a requirement of its certification with the Federal Aviation Administration and a guide for city planning as the facility looks to short- and long-term needs, including economic development opportunities. As airport administrator Andy Hume puts it, the plan makes sure that the pieces you need for growth are either in place or, if theyre not, how we get them in place. A new focus for the airports master plan will be aerospace and what improvements might be made at the airport to make Las Cruces more attractive to the industry as commercial activity is anticipated to ramp up next year at Spaceport America 50 miles north of the city. While the spaceport is best known for its anchor tenant, spaceflight company Virgin Galactic, other tenants and customers are also active at the remote facility outside Truth or Consequences, such as UP Aerospace, SpinLaunch, and HAPSMobile/Aerovironment. Hume tells the Las Cruces Sun-News that the most recent master plan, adopted in 2018, did not assess the proximity of the spaceport or aerospace growth, even though Virgin Galactic is a pretty steady presence at the airport, flying engineers between Las Cruces and its manufacturing base of operations in Mojave, California. A consultant to the master plan update said in an interview that Las Cruces is already on the map for U.S. aerospace and well positioned to attract more businesses involved in manufacturing and supply chains for the growing satellite and reusable rocket industries. James Bennett, chief regulatory officer for aerospace technology company Immortal Data, said Las Cruces established itself in the minds of space entrepreneurs in 2006, when it hosted the X Prize Cup rocketry and lunar landing expo and competition. By then, early construction had already begun on the spaceport in Sierra County. Immortal Data, which is developing a data system payload to be launched by UP Aerospace, has maintained an office at the Las Cruces airport since 2019, when it relocated from Mojave. The company is now serving as a subcontractor for the master plan update being prepared by the engineering and consulting firm Dubois and King. We think theres an opportunity, Bennett said. There is, however, some catching up to do for public capital investment. Private sector money moves much faster, and developments are accelerating. Virgin Galactic flew its first two crewed flights to the edge of space over New Mexico this year, and rival Blue Origin has also flown passengers to space twice from its facility near Van Horn, Texas. SpaceX is flying human crews to the International Space Station for the space agency NASA and may test a new prototype for orbital flights as soon as November. Interest in satellite and rocket technology are also high. Bennett remarked, I think I see a new startup announced every week nowadays, adding that an estimated 120 companies worldwide are developing or building launch vehicles. While most of these startups can be expected to disappear, he said the industry is here to stay. That means commercial space firms are actively seeking optimal locations to root themselves, and Bennett said Las Cruces has a valuable foothold. Its got the economics, because you have a low cost of operation, he said. Its got a good university locally and three or four good universities with aerospace talent within a couple of hours range. You have an incubator (at New Mexico State University) which is very commercial-space-savvy. These are all good ingredients. The question for this master plan update, he said, is whether Las Cruces airport could become the new Mojave airport, providing a similarly convenient access point for moving new technologies to rapid turnaround tests or commercial operations at the spaceport. The airport is adjacent to an industrial park and completed crucial pavement upgrades a year ago. There are three runways that can accommodate arrivals and departures in six directions. One of them, however, is in need of maintenance, and Hume said the city hopes to extend the length of the other two to 8,600 feet and 10,500 feet, respectively. That would accommodate heavier aircraft, including commercial passenger jet launches from the airport. Hume explained that at present, jets loaded with passengers can land at the airport, but can only take off empty under FAA regulations. Both men said the planning update will present city officials with an assessment of potential investments conducive to the industrys needs, financial risks and strategic priorities for attracting private sector investment. Bennett said the planning document will present policymakers with a phased plan for immediate needs plus 5- and 10-year plans to position itself for regional aerospace activity. Its going to be looked at by some hard-minded people asking the hard questions and we want to make sure that we have a well-studied set of options, Bennett said. While completing her medical residency in Manhattan, Dr. Manisha Juthani kept circling back to a topic that stoked her passion for science and tapped into her inquisitive nature: infectious diseases. She still recalls the case of a young woman who came to New York-Presbyterian Hospital with what ultimately was diagnosed as typhoid fever and learning about the intricate process of tracing that transmission to a nearby fast food restaurant. I figured out, through what I had heard from the public health department, that there were three different cases in the city. And they were all traced back to one fast food restaurant in Queens, Juthani said. They traced it back to one specific worker in that establishment. There are people who can be chronically colonized with salmonella typhi, and they just shed it all the time. And if it contaminates food, it can infect somebody else. It infected three other people that way. The detective work it takes to diagnose and treat patients fascinated Juthani, and she found her niche in infectious diseases. Whether its HIV patients, whether its flesh-eating bacteria I think what it really came down to is the investigation. Its like being a detective, she said. As an infectious disease doctor, youre sort of the Matlock or Sherlock Holmes of medicine. Peoples stories are actually what help determine the diagnosis of the patient. And so listening to stories was something I always appreciated. Juthani hopes her keen listening skills and discerning nature will be strengths as she dives into her new role as commissioner of the states Department of Public Health, a 682-employee agency that has been consumed by COVID-19 for more than a year. The states last health commissioner, Renee Coleman-Mitchell, was fired just two months into the pandemic, and the head of Connecticuts social services department took over the role on an interim basis for 16 months until Juthanis arrival in September. Even prior to that, other state officials, including epidemiologist Matthew Cartter and Chief Operating Officer Josh Geballe, had become the agencys visage in the early months of the coronavirus crisis. Coleman-Mitchell has accused state leaders of discrimination, saying she was shut out of important policy decisions, supplanted by others with no public health experience and ultimately dismissed from her job without cause. Gov. Ned Lamont did not give a reason for her firing. Since she was nominated to her post, Juthani has been visible and vocal on key issues, including her support of a vaccine requirement for nursing home workers who treat some of the states most vulnerable people, and her strategy for distributing the COVID-19 shot to young children. Juthani wades into her position at a time when state and local health departments nationwide have become a target of public ire over vaccine and mask mandates and other restrictions. The agencies are grappling with burnout, terminations and a legacy of underfunding that began years before COVID-19 swept the world but that left many departments ill-prepared for the pandemic. Connecticuts own agency was criticized for its handling of the crisis in nursing homes, where a majority of the states coronavirus deaths occurred in 2020. Still, health advocates say fresh energy and enthusiasm are needed in public health now more than ever. I know it has been difficult for everyone. The work load has been absolutely tremendous over the last two years, not only dealing with all the aggression and politicization of public health issues but also dealing with a workforce that was experiencing the pandemic, said Raul Pino, who served as the states health commissioner from 2016 to 2019. But this is not the time to quit. The crisis is just wasted if we dont learn from it, and what we have to do is learn to advocate for public health. Despite the turmoil, Juthani is approaching the job with a mix of optimism and mettle. Some of her top priorities are addressing health equity and the effects of climate change on Connecticuts people, along with boosting participation in the COVID-19 vaccination program. Connecticut has one of the highest immunization rates in the country, but Juthani will still need to coordinate a new wave of vaccinations for young children and oversee the continued rollout of booster shots. Watching scores of angry protestors trail Lamont and other state officials in public recently gave Juthani pause about taking over the role of commissioner. I did think about it, she said. But ultimately, I decided that being in service for others and in service at a time where maybe my expertise would benefit the people of our state - this was a time that I could step up to the challenge. Winning trust For the last five weeks, Juthani has walked the halls of the health departments brown brick building on Capitol Avenue in Hartford, weaving through cubicles and pausing to introduce herself to the staff. When she meets someone new, shell sometimes ask them to play tour guide so she can explore new corners of the office. One-on-one conversations are important. Juthani is trying to win back trust and boost morale among employees who have been without a permanent leader for more than a year, who have put in long hours for months on end and whose confidence in management had wavered even before the pandemic. A survey of workers early last year highlighted widespread discontent and plunging morale, with some critical of Coleman-Mitchells leadership. A volley of retirements and resignations preceded the first cases of COVID-19. Juthani is trying to restore some of that trust and rebuild her department, though she warned those efforts wont happen overnight. My goal is to create a positive environment, where people feel valued for their contributions on a day-to-day basis, she said. I want to create a leadership team and an organization where its clear who to go to for what, but thats going to take a little time. I have heard from multiple people that we need to have more staff. And I agree. Part of that will involve building out a talent pipeline with public health colleges across the state, expanding upon programs already in place and devising new ones. Diversifying the workforce is an issue Juthani wants to tackle. I can see recruitment with partnerships and being able to create feeder programs from our public health schools, particularly among members of our Black and brown communities who go to those schools, she said. I want our workforce to reflect our community, to reflect the people we are going to be helping and to make a dent in some of those disparities. While at the helm of the department, Coleman-Mitchell was criticized for her reluctance to offer a professional opinion on certain public health topics, including a controversial proposal to remove the states religious exemption from mandatory school vaccinations, a measure that ultimately won passage in the legislature this year. Coleman-Mitchell was the first health commissioner to publish school-by-school data on vaccination rates. But after igniting controversy with the release, she refused to disclose subsequent school-level data. Her decision was overruled by the governor. Prior commissioners have embraced their role as experts in offering information and guidance to the General Assembly, which is one of the things we expect of the public health commissioner, Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney told The CT Mirror in a 2019 interview. I certainly think the unwillingness to offer her professional expertise on these issues is of concern. Juthani said she is comfortable offering her opinion. During a press conference in July announcing her appointment, she expressed support for a requirement that nursing home workers be vaccinated against COVID-19. In an October interview with the CT Mirror, she said she would favor a coronavirus vaccine mandate for school-aged children once the shot receives full approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Her opinions made headlines even before she was named health commissioner. Last December, Juthani and several other physicians wrote a letter to Lamont urging him to close restaurants and gyms as COVID-19 cases crept back up. Juthani relayed that she was familiar with three cases of the virus that had spread by people who had dined together. What I know is that certainly meal times are a major, high-risk event where transmission of this virus can occur, she said during a COVID-19 briefing with Lamont. Firm but sensitive Juthani, 48, is the daughter of two doctors who moved to the United States from Mumbai, India in 1970. She was raised in Greenville, N.Y., commonly known as Edgemont. She earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania, attended Cornell University Medical College and finished her residency training at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Campus. Juthani started at the Yale School of Medicine in 2002 in an infectious disease fellowship and joined the faculty full-time in 2006. Six years later, she was named director of the infectious disease fellowship program. At Yale, she focused on managing and preventing infections in older adults. She also studied the intersection of palliative care and infectious diseases. When she was named commissioner on July 26 - the first Indian American person to take up such as a position in Connecticut state government - her parents, Dr. Virendra Juthani and Dr. Nalini Juthani, attended the ceremony, as did many other family members and friends. I have lived a very blessed life, I would say. My parents came here with $8, but they had education in the bank. And in America, education gets you a long way, Juthani said. I started out with very little, but my parents worked hard and were able to provide for me and my siblings, and [for] my education. That was something that was always prioritized as a family. I grew up with that value. The mother of two, who lives with her husband in Fairfield, was chosen from more than 100 candidates nationally. She will be paid $210,000 annually. Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious-disease physician at the Yale schools of Public Health and Medicine, described Juthani as a kind, attentive doctor. As director of the fellowship program, she served as a mentor and guide for new physicians. Actually coming from the patients, they tell me what a wonderful physician she is in terms of being caring, but also sensitive, said Ko, who served as an adviser to Lamont during the pandemic. I also know about Manisha from the infectious disease fellows, the ones who we are training. Manisha really knows the right thing to say - how to give the right advice at the right time. Shes firm, but sensitive. She has that very special skill. Along with managing the ongoing pandemic, Juthani wants to use her current role to focus on health equity, including disparities in access to health care, and the effects of climate change. Part of that approach is bringing an equity lens to all efforts underway at the health department, she said. Every single one of these topics that we do needs to be looked at with an equity lens. If you go in with that mindset, you can start to generate data and you can potentially identify where those areas of additional work need to be done, she said. Juthani has already begun to take a deeper look at how COVID-19 has affected the states communities of color, especially in case rates and vaccination initiatives. Were looking at what gaps still exist. I know offhand that a lot of the younger groups are still the groups we need to target, particularly among our African American communities, and use that to inform how we move forward, she said. Weve actually done so well as a state. If you look across the age spectrum, there are many older people in Black and brown communities whove gotten vaccinated. But I think we have work to do still in younger communities. As the pandemic put a spotlight on health disparities that existed long before coronavirus arrived, the legislature responded this year by passing a sweeping bill declaring racism a public health crisis, mandating better data collection on race and ethnicity in health care and requiring hospitals to conduct implicit bias training for employees who provide direct care to pregnant and postpartum women. The bill includes several other provisions, such as establishing a commission on racial equality in public health. But when health disparities are no longer in the spotlight, advocates say public health leaders like Juthani must continue to tackle them. Prevention and clinical work and addressing what we call social determinants of health have critical outcomes, said Pino, who is now the health officer for Orange County in Florida. These disparities that we saw in vaccination rates and in infections and death rates - who was getting sick and who was getting treated - were also an expression of the health disparities that weve had for years existing in our communities. We need to respond to that. The health department recently received a $1.5 million, five-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the effects of climate change in Connecticut and create strategies to deal with them. Juthani has plans to establish a new unit within her department dedicated to the health impacts of climate change. Part of the effort will involve a partnership with the Yale Center on Climate Change and Health. Juthani will hire additional people to work on the state side of the project. Climate is going to dictate our future, she said. We see it every day in our lives, in the way it has impacted things. Losing heat or air conditioning, food insecurity - all of these things are often related to extreme weather. And it comes back to equity. Through the worst? While substantial problems lie ahead, Juthani said she believes the most challenging parts of the pandemic are behind us. I do think were through the worst, she said. We have a very vaccinated state, but we still have work to do. People who are eligible for boosters should get them. It will help prevent breakthrough cases. But I think were in a much better place than we were. The focus now will shift to a wider distribution of booster shots and the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine for 5- to 11-year-old children. In Connecticut, 277,630 children recently became eligible for the immunization, and the first shots were administered less than an hour after federal authorization. Juthani tapped a network of pediatricians and pharmacies to prepare, and the state so far has ordered 96,900 doses of the childrens vaccine. For now, she does not think Connecticut will go back to the tight restrictions it imposed at the height of the pandemic, when masks were mandatory indoors and swaths of the economy were shuttered. But residents should remain vigilant to avoid another cold weather swell in cases, she said. Weve seen in some of our more northern states, which are colder than us, that their rates did go up. That makes me worried that as it gets colder here, we could have more circulation of virus, she said. But I do think hospitalizations should be manageable, which at the end of the day is what dictates how things go. I just I hope we can pull a few more people into the vaccination pool. TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) Authorities in Ohio say two women were killed in shooting in Toledo over the weekend. Police responding to a Shotspotter alert of possible gunfire at about 7 a.m. Sunday found the women on a street in central Toledo. Police said one woman was found in the driver's seat of a sedan and the other was lying in the street next to the open passenger-side door. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. Alessandra Tarantino/AP VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Francis on Sunday decried the deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia and pressed for dialogue to prevail over the protracted war. The pontiff in his traditional appearance to the public in St. Peters Square said he was following the news with worry from the Horn of Africa, particularly from Ethiopia, shaken by a conflict that has dragged on for more than a year and has caused numerous victims and a grave humanitarian crisis. WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) A man faces driving under the influence and vehicular manslaughter charges in a head-on collision near Williston that killed a woman and a child. The North Dakota Highway Patrol said the 52-year-old Williston man was driving the wrong way in the westbound lanes of U.S. Highway 2 when his pickup collided with the womans vehicle at about 8 p.m. Saturday. SUFFOLK, Va. (AP) Two people are dead one of them shot by a state trooper when a fatal crash on an interstate unfolded into an physical altercation between a fleeing driver and the officer, Virginia State Police said Sunday. An investigation was ongoing. The fatal accident and shooting occurred in Suffolk on Saturday, when Newport News police told Virginia State Police just before 5 p.m. that its officers were trying to pull over a southbound sedan, according to a State Police news release. A state trooper took the lead in the pursuit of the car, which never exceeded the speed limit, as it entered Suffolk. Florida, FL (34429) Today Considerable clouds this morning. Some decrease in clouds later in the day. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 77F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight Overcast with showers at times. Low 62F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%. Wilkes-Barre, PA (18701) Today Partly cloudy early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain this afternoon. High 53F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of light rain. Low 41F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Wilkes-Barre, PA (18701) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will give way to cloudy skies and rain during the afternoon. High 52F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of light rain. Low 41F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%. You will receive 5-day a week delivery of the Citizen Tribune newspaper to your home or business, plus full, ad-free access to CitizenTribune.com as well as full access to the Electronic Edition of the newspaper. ONLY $13.99 per month for the first 3 months! Only $16.00 per month after promotional period. Or ONLY $169.99 for a full year Only $192.00 per year after promotional period. Corinth, Maine Submit your own pictures of this town and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 2,878. Population change since 2000: +14.6% 2,878.+14.6% Males: 1,406 (48.9%) Females: 1,472 (51.1%) Median resident age: 40.4 years Maine median age: 43.0 years Zip codes: 04427. Estimated median household income in 2019: $54,930 (it was $37,318 in 2000) Corinth: $54,930 ME: $58,924 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $27,967 (it was $16,460 in 2000) Corinth town income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $151,310 (it was $75,900 in 2000) Corinth: $151,310 ME: $200,500 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $170,506; detached houses: $186,641; townhouses or other attached units: $165,470; in 2-unit structures: $188,869; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $447,223; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $287,906; mobile homes: $67,592; occupied boats, rvs, vans, etc.: $26,279 $54,930 ($37,318$27,967 ($16,460$151,310 ($75,900$170,506;$186,641;$165,470;$188,869;$447,223;$287,906;$67,592;$26,279 March 2019 cost of living index in Corinth: 90.6 (less than average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 2,791 97.0% White alone 37 1.3% Two or more races 20 0.7% Hispanic 14 0.5% American Indian alone 10 0.3% Asian alone 6 0.2% Black alone Races in Corinth detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Maine and other state lists, there were 6 registered sex offenders living in Corinth, Maine as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Corinth is 480 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is near the state average. Ancestries: United States (18.1%), English (16.7%), Irish (14.5%), French (12.5%), German (6.6%), French Canadian (6.1%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Land area: 40.2 square miles. Population density: 72 people per square mile (very low). 27 residents are foreign born This town: 1.1% Maine: 2.9% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Corinth town: 0.9% ($702) Maine: 1.5% ($1,417) Latitude: 44.99 N, Longitude: 69.00 W Area code: 207 Single-family new house construction building permits: 1997: 13 buildings , average cost: $69,800 13 $69,800 1998: 1 building , cost: $80,000 1 $80,000 1999: 11 buildings , average cost: $74,400 11 $74,400 2000: 16 buildings , average cost: $67,000 16 $67,000 2001: 16 buildings , average cost: $81,700 16 $81,700 2002: 15 buildings , average cost: $75,300 15 $75,300 2003: 8 buildings , average cost: $86,000 8 $86,000 2004: 17 buildings , average cost: $72,400 17 $72,400 2005: 17 buildings , average cost: $72,400 17 $72,400 2006: 27 buildings , average cost: $104,900 27 $104,900 2007: 18 buildings , average cost: $159,400 18 $159,400 2008: 7 buildings , average cost: $100,000 7 $100,000 2009: 6 buildings , average cost: $87,300 6 $87,300 2010: 2 buildings , average cost: $112,500 2 $112,500 2011: 6 buildings , average cost: $124,200 6 $124,200 2012: 5 buildings , average cost: $144,000 5 $144,000 2013: 3 buildings , average cost: $163,700 3 $163,700 2014: 3 buildings , average cost: $136,700 3 $136,700 2015: 3 buildings , average cost: $136,700 3 $136,700 2016: 3 buildings , average cost: $136,700 3 $136,700 2017: 3 buildings , average cost: $136,700 3 $136,700 2018: 3 buildings , average cost: $136,700 3 $136,700 2019: 13 buildings, average cost: $282,200 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 5.7% Maine: 4.7% Most common industries in Corinth, ME (%) Both Males Females Health care (10.3%) Educational services (9.9%) Construction (8.3%) Accommodation & food services (5.7%) Public administration (4.9%) Motor vehicle & parts dealers (4.4%) Finance & insurance (4.3%) Construction (13.1%) Motor vehicle & parts dealers (7.1%) Truck transportation (6.4%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (6.2%) Health care (5.8%) Public administration (4.9%) Accommodation & food services (3.9%) Educational services (17.0%) Health care (15.5%) Accommodation & food services (7.8%) Finance & insurance (7.1%) Public administration (4.9%) Religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, similar organizations (4.4%) Personal & laundry services (4.4%) Most common occupations in Corinth, ME (%) Both Males Females Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (6.2%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (5.1%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (4.6%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (4.1%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (3.8%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (3.4%) Cashiers (3.3%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (9.4%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (8.5%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (7.0%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (5.9%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (4.6%) Metal workers and plastic workers (3.9%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (3.9%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (7.8%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (6.5%) Cashiers (5.8%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (5.3%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (4.8%) Personal appearance workers (3.7%) Cooks and food preparation workers (3.5%) Average climate in Corinth, Maine Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI Ozone PM 2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 59.4. This is better than average. City: 59.4 U.S.: 74.2 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 32.7. This is about average. Closest monitor was 16.2 miles away from the city center. City: 32.7 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 5.27. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 16.1 miles away from the city center. City: 5.27 U.S.: 8.46 Earthquake activity: Corinth-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Maine state average. It is 81% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 233.1 miles away from Corinth center On 10/16/2012 at 23:12:25, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 ML, Depth: 10.0 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 126.3 miles away from the city center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 234.4 miles away from Corinth center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 273.2 miles away from Corinth center On 1/19/1982 at 00:14:42, a magnitude 4.7 (4.5 MB, 4.7 MD, 4.5 LG) earthquake occurred 164.8 miles away from Corinth center On 2/26/1999 at 03:38:43, a magnitude 3.8 (3.8 LG, Depth: 2.0 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 43.4 miles away from Corinth center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), duration magnitude (MD), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Penobscot County (19) is greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 11 Emergencies Declared: 7 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 9, Storms: 8, Snows: 5, Heavy Rains: 2, Blizzard: 1, Hurricane: 1, Ice Storm: 1, Snowfall: 1, Wind: 1, Winter Storm: 1, Other: 2 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Corinth: DEXTER HEALTH CARE (Nursing Home, about 15 miles away; DEXTER, ME) BANGOR AREA VISITING NURSES (Home Health Center, about 15 miles away; BANGOR, ME) HOSPICE OF EASTERN MAINE (Hospital, about 15 miles away; BANGOR, ME) KINDRED NURSING AND REHABILITATION-WESTGATE (Nursing Home, about 16 miles away; BANGOR, ME) BANGOR NURSING AND REHABILITATION (Nursing Home, about 16 miles away; BANGOR, ME) ROSS MANOR (Nursing Home, about 16 miles away; BANGOR, ME) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Corinth: Husson University ( about 15 miles; Bangor, ME ; Full-time enrollment: 2,421) 15 ; 2,421) University of Maine ( about 18 miles; Orono, ME ; FT enrollment: 8,931) 18 ; 8,931) University of Maine at Augusta ( about 60 miles; Augusta, ME ; FT enrollment: 3,204) 60 ; 3,204) University of Maine at Farmington ( about 61 miles; Farmington, ME ; FT enrollment: 2,036) 61 ; 2,036) Saint Joseph's College of Maine ( about 109 miles; Standish, ME ; FT enrollment: 2,010) 109 ; 2,010) Southern Maine Community College ( about 111 miles; South Portland, ME ; FT enrollment: 4,666) 111 ; 4,666) University of Southern Maine (about 112 miles; Portland, ME; FT enrollment: 6,647) Public elementary/middle school in Corinth: MORISON MEMORIAL SCHOOL (Location: 386 MAIN ST 7, Grades: 3-5) See full list of schools located in Corinth Library in Corinth: ATKINS MEMORIAL LIBRARY (Operating income: $8,679; Location: 360 MAIN STREET; 13,500 books; 35 audio materials; 60 video materials; 52 other licensed databases; 3 print serial subscriptions) Birthplace of: Arthur R. Gould - Politician. Penobscot County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Highest Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Corinth and their reported violations in the past: A E ROBINSON MOBILE MART (Population served: 75, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In MAR-2008 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (MAR-06-2008) , St Formal NOV issued (MAR-06-2008) , St Public Notif received (MAR-13-2008) , St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) MAR-2008 Coliform St Public Notif requested (MAR-06-2008) St Formal NOV issued (MAR-06-2008) St Public Notif received (MAR-13-2008) St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between JAN-2008 and MAR-2008 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (JAN-22-2008) , St Formal NOV issued (JAN-22-2008) , St Public Notif received (FEB-12-2008) , St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) JAN-2008 MAR-2008 Coliform St Public Notif requested (JAN-22-2008) St Formal NOV issued (JAN-22-2008) St Public Notif received (FEB-12-2008) St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In DEC-2007 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (DEC-06-2007) , St Formal NOV issued (DEC-06-2007) , St Public Notif received (DEC-19-2007) , St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) DEC-2007 Coliform St Public Notif requested (DEC-06-2007) St Formal NOV issued (DEC-06-2007) St Public Notif received (DEC-19-2007) St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between OCT-2007 and DEC-2007 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (NOV-19-2007) , St Formal NOV issued (NOV-19-2007) , St Public Notif received (NOV-29-2007) , St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) OCT-2007 DEC-2007 Coliform St Public Notif requested (NOV-19-2007) St Formal NOV issued (NOV-19-2007) St Public Notif received (NOV-29-2007) St Compliance achieved (SEP-07-2011) MCL, Single Sample - In MAY-2005, Contaminant: Benzene. Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (MAY-13-2005), St Violation/Reminder Notice (MAY-13-2005), St Public Notif received (2 times from JUN-02-2005 to JUN-02-2005), St Compliance achieved (SEP-06-2011) POLYOTS MOBILE HOME PARK (Population served: 73, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In APR-2006 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Violation/Reminder Notice (APR-10-2006) , St Public Notif requested (APR-10-2006) , St Public Notif received (MAY-09-2006) , St Compliance achieved (JUL-26-2012) APR-2006 Coliform St Violation/Reminder Notice (APR-10-2006) St Public Notif requested (APR-10-2006) St Public Notif received (MAY-09-2006) St Compliance achieved (JUL-26-2012) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In DEC-2005 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Violation/Reminder Notice (DEC-09-2005) , St Public Notif requested (DEC-09-2005) , St Public Notif received (2 times from JAN-12-2006 to JAN-12-2006) , St Compliance achieved (JUL-26-2012) DEC-2005 Coliform St Violation/Reminder Notice (DEC-09-2005) St Public Notif requested (DEC-09-2005) St Public Notif received (2 JAN-12-2006 to JAN-12-2006) St Compliance achieved (JUL-26-2012) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In NOV-2005, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (NOV-18-2005), St Violation/Reminder Notice (NOV-18-2005), St Public Notif received (2 times from DEC-08-2005 to DEC-08-2005), St Compliance achieved (JUL-26-2012) Past monitoring violations: One routine major monitoring violation WHITNEYS FAMILY SUPERMARKET (Population served: 32, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: One routine major monitoring violation A E ROBINSON MOBILE MART (75Groundwater):POLYOTS MOBILE HOME PARK (73Groundwater):WHITNEYS FAMILY SUPERMARKET (32Groundwater): Average household size: This town: 2.6 people Maine: 2.3 people Percentage of family households: This town: 70.9% Whole state: 62.9% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This town: 10.9% Whole state: 9.4% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.3% of all households 0.3% Gay men: 0.7% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This town: 8.0% Whole state: 10.9% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This town: 2.4% Whole state: 4.1% 9 people in other noninstitutional group quarters in 2000 4 people in homes for the mentally retarded in 2000 For population 15 years and over in Corinth: Never married: 19.9% 19.9% Now married: 61.3% 61.3% Separated: 0.5% 0.5% Widowed: 6.2% 6.2% Divorced: 12.1% For population 25 years and over in Corinth: High school or higher: 86.2% 86.2% Bachelor's degree or higher: 11.4% 11.4% Graduate or professional degree: 1.9% 1.9% Unemployed: 5.7% 5.7% Mean travel time to work (commute): 29.5 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 9.0 Maine average: 11.2 Religion statistics for Corinth, ME (based on Penobscot County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 16,581 15 Mainline Protestant 9,715 59 Evangelical Protestant 7,523 80 Other 2,936 22 Orthodox 300 1 None 116,868 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 34 Here : 2.29 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.80 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 2 This county : 0.13 / 10,000 pop. State : 0.14 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 38 Here : 2.56 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.20 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 85 Here : 5.72 / 10,000 pop. State : 5.75 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 110 Penobscot County : 7.41 / 10,000 pop. State : 11.02 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Penobscot County : 9.0% State : 8.2% Adult obesity rate: This county : 28.0% Maine : 25.0% 4.70% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($42,368 average adjusted gross income) Here: 4.70% Maine average: 5.91% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Hancock County, ME 0.46% ($39,233 average AGI) from Somerset County, ME 0.31% ($32,551) from Waldo County, ME 0.30% ($35,315) 5.36% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($47,844 average adjusted gross income) Here: 5.36% Maine average: 5.73% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Cumberland County, ME 0.52% ($78,156 average AGI) to Hancock County, ME 0.43% ($64,636) to Waldo County, ME 0.35% ($39,428) Businesses in Corinth, ME Dunkin Donuts: 1 Strongest AM radio stations in Corinth: WZON (620 AM; 5 kW; BANGOR, ME; Owner: THE ZONE CORPORATION) THE ZONE CORPORATION) WABI (910 AM; 5 kW; BANGOR, ME; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WSKW (1160 AM; 10 kW; SKOWHEGAN, ME; Owner: MOUNTAIN WIRELESS, INCORPORATED) MOUNTAIN WIRELESS, INCORPORATED) WNZS (1340 AM; 1 kW; VEAZIE, ME; Owner: WATERFRONT COMMUNICATIONS INC.) WATERFRONT COMMUNICATIONS INC.) WDEA (1370 AM; 5 kW; ELLSWORTH, ME; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WTME (780 AM; 10 kW; RUMFORD, ME; Owner: MOUNTAIN VALLEY BROADCASTING, INC.) MOUNTAIN VALLEY BROADCASTING, INC.) WRKO (680 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WEEI (850 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WBZ (1030 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WCRN (830 AM; 50 kW; WORCESTER, MA; Owner: CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WNNZ (640 AM; 50 kW; WESTFIELD, MA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WCHP (760 AM; 35 kW; CHAMPLAIN, NY; Owner: CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) WFAU (1280 AM; 5 kW; GARDINER, ME; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) Strongest FM radio stations in Corinth: WQCB (106.5 FM; BREWER, ME; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WWBX (97.1 FM; BANGOR, ME; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WVOM (103.9 FM; HOWLAND, ME; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WGUY (102.1 FM; DEXTER, ME; Owner: CONCORD MEDIA GROUP, INC.) CONCORD MEDIA GROUP, INC.) WBZN (107.3 FM; OLD TOWN, ME; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WHCF (88.5 FM; BANGOR, ME; Owner: BANGOR BAPTIST CHURCH) BANGOR BAPTIST CHURCH) WBFB (104.7 FM; BELFAST, ME; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WKIT-FM (100.3 FM; BREWER, ME; Owner: THE ZONE CORPORATION) THE ZONE CORPORATION) WWMJ (95.7 FM; ELLSWORTH, ME; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WMEH (90.9 FM; BANGOR, ME; Owner: MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WEZQ (92.9 FM; BANGOR, ME; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WTOS-FM (105.1 FM; SKOWHEGAN, ME; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WFZX (101.7 FM; SEARSPORT, ME; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WJCX (99.5 FM; PITTSFIELD, ME; Owner: CSN INTERNATIONAL) CSN INTERNATIONAL) WDME-FM (103.1 FM; DOVER-FOXCROFT, ME; Owner: THE ZONE CORPORATION) THE ZONE CORPORATION) WMEB-FM (91.9 FM; ORONO, ME; Owner: UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM) TV broadcast stations around Corinth: WABI-TV ( Channel 5; BANGOR, ME; Owner: COMMUNITY BROADCASTING SERVICE) 5; BANGOR, ME; COMMUNITY BROADCASTING SERVICE) W36CK ( Channel 36; BANGOR, ME; Owner: TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK) 36; BANGOR, ME; TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK) WMEB-TV ( Channel 12; ORONO, ME; Owner: MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) 12; ORONO, ME; MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WBGR-LP ( Channel 33; BANGOR/DEDHAM, ME; Owner: MAINE FAMILY BROADCASTING, INC.) 33; BANGOR/DEDHAM, ME; MAINE FAMILY BROADCASTING, INC.) WCKD-LP (Channel 30; BANGOR/DEDHAM, ME; Owner: J. MCLEOD, ME FAMILY B/CING., INC.) Corinth fatal accident statistics for 1975 - 2019 See more detailed statistics of Corinth fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 12 Number of bridges Number of bridges 85ft / 26.2m Total length Total length 14,320 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 709 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 21,077 Total future (year 2036) average daily traffic New bridges - historical statistics 1 Before 1900 3 1940-1949 2 1950-1959 3 1960-1969 1 1970-1979 1 2000-2009 1 2010-2018 See full National Bridge Inventory statistics for Corinth, ME FCC Registered Antenna Towers: 2 Mark L Gartley, 534 Main St ( Lat: 44.991278 Lon: -69.014306), Type: 59.4, Overall height: 57.9 m, Registrant: Holland & Knight LLP, Pconnolly@hklaw.Com, , Washi-ngton, Phone: (202) 862-5989 44.991278 -69.014306), 59.4, 57.9 m, Holland & Knight LLP, Pconnolly@hklaw.Com, , Washi-ngton, (202) 862-5989 Mark L Gartley, 534 Main St (Lat: 44.991278 Lon: -69.014306), Type: 59.4, Overall height: 57.9 m, Registrant: Holland & Knight LLP, Pconnolly@hklaw.Com, , Washi-ngton, Phone: (202) 862-5989 FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 3 Fire Station Main St ( Lat: 45.001722 Lon: -69.023917), Call Sign: WQJ553, Licensee ID: L00040006, Assigned Frequencies: 154.310 MHz, Grant Date: 05/24/2000, Expiration Date: 08/03/2005, Cancellation Date: 01/07/2006, Registrant: Corinth, Town Of, 31 Exeter Rd, Corinth, ME 04427, Phone: (207) 285-3271 45.001722 -69.023917), WQJ553, L00040006, 154.310 MHz, 05/24/2000, 08/03/2005, 01/07/2006, Corinth, Town Of, 31 Exeter Rd, Corinth, ME 04427, (207) 285-3271 Fire Station Main St ( Lat: 45.001722 Lon: -69.023917), Call Sign: KNCN217, Licensee ID: L00040006, Assigned Frequencies: 154.085 MHz, Grant Date: 10/22/1996, Expiration Date: 01/07/2002, Cancellation Date: 05/05/2002, Registrant: Corinth, Town Of, Box 10 Exeter Rd, East Corinth, ME 04427, Phone: (207) 285-3271 45.001722 -69.023917), KNCN217, L00040006, 154.085 MHz, 10/22/1996, 01/07/2002, 05/05/2002, Corinth, Town Of, Box 10 Exeter Rd, East Corinth, ME 04427, (207) 285-3271 Lat: 44.992639 Lon: -69.009167, Call Sign: WQJQ312, Assigned Frequencies: 452.025 MHz, 452.225 MHz, 453.000 MHz, Grant Date: 10/20/2018, Expiration Date: 11/24/2028, Certifier: Mark Parent, Registrant: Federal Licensnig Inc, 1588 Fairfield Road, Gettysburg, PA 17325, Phone: (717) 334-9262, Fax: (717) 334-6440 FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 1 East Corinth, 530 Main St (Lat: 44.991361 Lon: -69.013917), Type: Ltower, Structure height: 58.2 m, Overall height: 58.8 m, Call Sign: WQTN866, Assigned Frequencies: 10935.0 MHz, 10775.0 MHz, 10815.0 MHz, 10935.0 MHz, 10775.0 MHz, 10815.0 MHz, 10935.0 MHz, 10775.0 MHz, 10815.0 MHz, 10935.0 MHz... (+35 more), Grant Date: 03/14/2014, Expiration Date: 03/14/2024, Cancellation Date: 07/24/2020, Certifier: Jessica B Lyons, Registrant: At&t Services, Inc., 208 S Akard St, Rm 2100, Dallas, TX 75202, Phone: (855) 699-7073, Fax: (214) 746-6410, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 7 Call Sign: KB1PT, Licensee ID: L00804739, Grant Date: 11/06/2017, Expiration Date: 01/06/2028, Certifier: Merland E Clark Jr, Registrant: Merland E Clark Jr, 105 Exeter Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 KB1PT, L00804739, 11/06/2017, 01/06/2028, Merland E Clark Jr, Merland E Clark Jr, 105 Exeter Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 Call Sign: KE7CM, Licensee ID: L00926023, Grant Date: 08/12/2014, Expiration Date: 10/26/2024, Certifier: Jeanne L Slasor, Registrant: Jeanne L Slasor, Corinth, ME 04427 KE7CM, L00926023, 08/12/2014, 10/26/2024, Jeanne L Slasor, Jeanne L Slasor, Corinth, ME 04427 Call Sign: N1JRM, Licensee ID: L00347962, Grant Date: 01/26/2012, Expiration Date: 07/16/2021, Certifier: Robert G Kelliher, Registrant: Robert G Kelliher, 85 Covered Bridge Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 N1JRM, L00347962, 01/26/2012, 07/16/2021, Robert G Kelliher, Robert G Kelliher, 85 Covered Bridge Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 Call Sign: N1TXW, Licensee ID: L00244834, Grant Date: 10/14/2014, Expiration Date: 12/29/2024, Certifier: Dale M Moore, Registrant: Dale M Moore, Corinth, ME 04427-0166 N1TXW, L00244834, 10/14/2014, 12/29/2024, Dale M Moore, Dale M Moore, Corinth, ME 04427-0166 Call Sign: WA1RKA, Licensee ID: L00398696, Grant Date: 10/27/1998, Expiration Date: 09/06/2006, Cancellation Date: 11/04/2008, Certifier: John M Manter, Registrant: John M Manter, Corinth, ME 04427 WA1RKA, L00398696, 10/27/1998, 09/06/2006, 11/04/2008, John M Manter, John M Manter, Corinth, ME 04427 Call Sign: KB1PXS, Licensee ID: L01368376, Grant Date: 12/21/2017, Expiration Date: 02/11/2028, Certifier: Randolph R Tomasik, Registrant: Randolph R Tomasik, 37 Ridge Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 KB1PXS, L01368376, 12/21/2017, 02/11/2028, Randolph R Tomasik, Randolph R Tomasik, 37 Ridge Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 Call Sign: KC1BTI, Licensee ID: L01861746, Grant Date: 04/29/2014, Expiration Date: 04/29/2024, Certifier: Jo-Anne Conway, Registrant: Jo-Anne Conway, 520 Grant Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 FAA Registered Aircraft: 3 Aircraft: CESSNA 172L ( Category: Land, Seats: 4, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds, Speed: 105 mph), Engine: LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 HP) (Reciprocating) N-Number: 19792, N19792, N-19792, Serial Number: 17260756, Year manufactured: 1972, Airworthiness Date: 06/29/1972, Certificate Issue Date: 07/19/2002 Registrant (Co-Owned): Dalton M Trustee Dunfee, 588 Main St, Corinth, ME 04427, Other Owners: Lois E Trustee Dunfee CESSNA 172L ( Land, 4, Up to 12,499 Pounds, 105 mph), LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 HP) (Reciprocating) 19792, N19792, N-19792, 17260756, 1972, 06/29/1972, 07/19/2002 Dalton M Trustee Dunfee, 588 Main St, Corinth, ME 04427, Lois E Trustee Dunfee Aircraft: BEECH 23 ( Category: Land, Seats: 4, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds, Speed: 113 mph), Engine: LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 HP) (Reciprocating) N-Number: 2318Z, N2318Z, N-2318Z, Serial Number: M-45, Year manufactured: 1962, Airworthiness Date: 10/15/1962, Certificate Issue Date: 10/24/2014 Registrant (Individual): Ronda L Crosson, 265 Black Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 BEECH 23 ( Land, 4, Up to 12,499 Pounds, 113 mph), LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 HP) (Reciprocating) 2318Z, N2318Z, N-2318Z, M-45, 1962, 10/15/1962, 10/24/2014 Ronda L Crosson, 265 Black Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 Aircraft: CESSNA 182P (Category: Land, Seats: 4, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds, Speed: 120 mph), Engine: CONT MOTOR O-470 SERIES (230 HP) (Reciprocating) N-Number: 52595, N52595, N-52595, Serial Number: 18262696, Year manufactured: 1973, Airworthiness Date: 12/28/1973, Certificate Issue Date: 12/20/2018 Registrant (Individual): Michael G Mchugh, 356 White Schoolhouse Rd, Corinth, ME 04427 2003 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents Based on the data from the years 2003 - 2018 the average number of fires per year is 20. The highest number of fire incidents - 37 took place in 2018, and the least - 3 in 2010. The data has an increasing trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Corinth, ME 192 61.3% Structure Fires 81 25.9% Outside Fires 33 10.5% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 7 2.2% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Structure Fires (61.3%), and Outside Fires (25.9%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Corinth, ME Houses and condos Apartments 84.9% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 8.8% Wood 2.6% Electricity 2.5% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 1.2% Coal or coke 85.5% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 6.6% No fuel used 2.6% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 2.6% Electricity 2.6% Wood Corinth compared to Maine state average: Unemployed percentage below state average. below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage below state average. below Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Renting percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. significantly below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher below state average. East Montpelier, Vermont Submit your own pictures of this town and show them to the world OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 2,576. Population change since 2000: -0.1% 2,576.-0.1% Males: 1,285 (49.9%) Females: 1,291 (50.1%) Median resident age: 46.2 years Vermont median age: 45.8 years Zip codes: 05651. Estimated median household income in 2019: $72,397 (it was $46,469 in 2000) East Montpelier: $72,397 VT: $63,001 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $38,643 (it was $22,425 in 2000) East Montpelier town income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $269,049 (it was $121,800 in 2000) East Montpelier: $269,049 VT: $233,200 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $273,829; detached houses: $292,109; townhouses or other attached units: $258,500; in 2-unit structures: $257,965; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $245,286; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $222,916; mobile homes: $72,270 $72,397 ($46,469$38,643 ($22,425$269,049 ($121,800$273,829;$292,109;$258,500;$257,965;$245,286;$222,916;$72,270 March 2019 cost of living index in East Montpelier: 100.3 (near average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 2,454 95.3% White alone 42 1.6% Two or more races 41 1.6% Hispanic 18 0.7% Black alone 13 0.5% Asian alone 8 0.3% American Indian alone Races in East Montpelier detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Vermont and other state lists, there was 1 registered sex offender living in East Montpelier, Vermont as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in East Montpelier is 2,576 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is much lower than the state average. Latest news from East Montpelier, VT collected exclusively by city-data.com from local newspapers, TV, and radio stations Ancestries: English (28.0%), Irish (16.0%), French (15.5%), German (10.2%), Scottish (9.6%), French Canadian (7.0%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 728 feet Land area: 32.0 square miles. Population density: 81 people per square mile (very low). 57 residents are foreign born (1.2% Europe, 0.8% Asia). This town: 2.2% Vermont: 3.8% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: East Montpelier town: 2.1% ($2,575) Vermont: 2.0% ($2,196) Latitude: 44.29 N, Longitude: 72.50 W Area code commonly used in this area: 802 Single-family new house construction building permits: 1997: 11 buildings , average cost: $109,500 11 $109,500 1998: 18 buildings , average cost: $123,600 18 $123,600 1999: 14 buildings , average cost: $133,600 14 $133,600 2000: 16 buildings , average cost: $150,000 16 $150,000 2001: 11 buildings , average cost: $121,400 11 $121,400 2002: 12 buildings , average cost: $130,700 12 $130,700 2003: 12 buildings , average cost: $132,600 12 $132,600 2004: 20 buildings , average cost: $138,200 20 $138,200 2005: 13 buildings , average cost: $150,200 13 $150,200 2006: 19 buildings , average cost: $171,000 19 $171,000 2007: 14 buildings , average cost: $181,200 14 $181,200 2008: 7 buildings , average cost: $182,400 7 $182,400 2009: 6 buildings , average cost: $182,400 6 $182,400 2010: 12 buildings , average cost: $165,900 12 $165,900 2011: 8 buildings , average cost: $165,900 8 $165,900 2012: 7 buildings , average cost: $236,600 7 $236,600 2013: 4 buildings , average cost: $233,900 4 $233,900 2014: 2 buildings , average cost: $241,400 2 $241,400 2015: 2 buildings , average cost: $257,200 2 $257,200 2016: 2 buildings , average cost: $261,800 2 $261,800 2017: 6 buildings , average cost: $267,800 6 $267,800 2018: 5 buildings , average cost: $249,800 5 $249,800 2019: 6 buildings, average cost: $282,200 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 1.6% Vermont: 2.8% Population change in the 1990s: +310 (+13.7%). Most common industries in East Montpelier, VT (%) Both Males Females Educational services (13.5%) Public administration (12.2%) Finance & insurance (8.6%) Professional, scientific, technical services (7.0%) Construction (6.2%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (4.4%) Health care (4.0%) Construction (11.5%) Professional, scientific, technical services (10.9%) Public administration (8.9%) Educational services (7.2%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (6.1%) Finance & insurance (5.7%) Repair & maintenance (4.6%) Educational services (20.0%) Public administration (15.7%) Finance & insurance (11.6%) Health care (5.9%) Social assistance (4.5%) Religious, grantmaking, civic, professional, similar organizations (4.2%) Administrative & support & waste management services (3.5%) Most common occupations in East Montpelier, VT (%) Both Males Females Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (6.6%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (5.9%) Preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school teachers (5.6%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (4.8%) Information and record clerks, except customer service representatives (3.2%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (3.1%) Farmers and farm managers (2.6%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (7.2%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (6.4%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (5.1%) Carpenters (4.1%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (4.0%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (3.6%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (3.3%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (8.5%) Preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school teachers (8.3%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (6.3%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (6.0%) Information and record clerks, except customer service representatives (5.3%) Sales representatives, services, wholesale and manufacturing (3.5%) Retail sales workers, except cashiers (3.4%) Average climate in East Montpelier, Vermont Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI CO SO 2 Ozone PM 2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 53.2. This is better than average. City: 53.2 U.S.: 74.2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) [ppm] level in 2018 was 0.100. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 6.4 miles away from the city center. City: 0.100 U.S.: 0.267 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 0.180. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 6.0 miles away from the city center. City: 0.180 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 34.3. This is about average. Closest monitor was 24.6 miles away from the city center. City: 34.3 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 4.82. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 6.2 miles away from the city center. City: 4.82 U.S.: 8.46 Earthquake activity: East Montpelier-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Vermont state average. It is 72% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 61.0 miles away from East Montpelier center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 61.6 miles away from East Montpelier center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 94.2 miles away from East Montpelier center On 1/19/1982 at 00:14:42, a magnitude 4.7 (4.5 MB, 4.7 MD, 4.5 LG, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 70.6 miles away from East Montpelier center On 10/16/2012 at 23:12:25, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 ML, Depth: 10.0 mi) earthquake occurred 103.6 miles away from East Montpelier center On 6/16/1995 at 12:13:11, a magnitude 3.8 (3.8 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 29.1 miles away from the city center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), duration magnitude (MD), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Washington County (26) is a lot greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 20 Emergencies Declared: 1 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 21, Storms: 18, Heavy Rains: 2, Tropical Storms: 2, Winds: 2, Hurricane: 1, Landslide: 1, Winter Storm: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near East Montpelier: BERLIN HEALTH AND REHAB CTR (Nursing Home, about 6 miles away; BARRE, VT) CENTRAL VERMONT HOME HEALTH AND HOSPICE (Home Health Center, about 6 miles away; BARRE, VT) ROWAN COURT HEALTH AND REHAB (Nursing Home, about 7 miles away; BARRE, VT) HILL ICF/MR (Hospital, about 7 miles away; BARRE, VT) MAYO HEALTHCARE INC. (Nursing Home, about 13 miles away; NORTHFIELD, VT) VERMONT STATE HOSP (Hospital, about 13 miles away; WATERBURY, VT) VERMONT STATE HOSP DISTINCT PART UNIT (Hospital, about 13 miles away; WATERBURY, VT) Amtrak stations near East Montpelier: 6 miles: MONTPELIER-BARRE (MONTPELIER, MONTPELIER JCT. RD.) . Services: enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for car rental service, call for taxi service. MONTPELIER-BARRE (MONTPELIER, MONTPELIER JCT. RD.) . enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for car rental service, call for taxi service. 13 miles: WATERBURY-STOWE (WATERBURY, PARK ROW) . Services: enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for car rental service, call for taxi service, intercity bus service. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to East Montpelier: Norwich University ( about 13 miles; Northfield, VT ; Full-time enrollment: 4,221) 13 ; 4,221) Saint Michael's College ( about 36 miles; Colchester, VT ; FT enrollment: 2,336) 36 ; 2,336) Community College of Vermont ( about 37 miles; Winooski, VT ; FT enrollment: 3,394) 37 ; 3,394) University of Vermont ( about 37 miles; Burlington, VT ; FT enrollment: 11,566) 37 ; 11,566) Champlain College ( about 37 miles; Burlington, VT ; FT enrollment: 2,623) 37 ; 2,623) Middlebury College ( about 39 miles; Middlebury, VT ; FT enrollment: 3,077) 39 ; 3,077) Dartmouth College (about 42 miles; Hanover, NH; FT enrollment: 6,030) Public elementary/middle school in East Montpelier: EAST MONTPELIER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (Students: 223, Location: 665 VINCENT FLATS ROAD, Grades: PK-6) Private elementary/middle school in East Montpelier: ORCHARD VALLEY WALDORF SCHOOL (Students: 184, Location: 2290 VT ROUTE 14 N, Grades: PK-8) See full list of schools located in East Montpelier Washington County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in East Montpelier and their reported violations in the past: HUNTINGTON HOMES INC (Population served: 80, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: 22 regular monitoring violations Drinking water stations with addresses in East Montpelier that have no violations reported: EAST MONTPELIER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL NEW (Address: 665 VINCENT FLATS RD , Population served: 260, Primary Water Source Type: Groundwater) HUNTINGTON HOMES INC (80Groundwater): Average household size: This town: 2.4 people Vermont: 2.3 people Percentage of family households: This town: 69.9% Whole state: 62.5% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This town: 8.8% Whole state: 9.2% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.8% of all households 0.8% Gay men: 0.7% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This town: 3.6% Whole state: 9.4% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This town: 2.3% Whole state: 3.6% For population 15 years and over in East Montpelier: Never married: 20.9% 20.9% Now married: 63.4% 63.4% Separated: 0.4% 0.4% Widowed: 5.3% 5.3% Divorced: 9.9% For population 25 years and over in East Montpelier: High school or higher: 92.4% 92.4% Bachelor's degree or higher: 41.6% 41.6% Graduate or professional degree: 15.9% 15.9% Unemployed: 2.3% 2.3% Mean travel time to work (commute): 18.6 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 10.9 Vermont average: 11.7 Religion statistics for East Montpelier, VT (based on Washington County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 12,800 9 Mainline Protestant 4,711 38 Evangelical Protestant 2,262 28 Other 1,125 12 Orthodox 50 1 Black Protestant 36 1 None 38,550 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 25 This county : 4.25 / 10,000 pop. State : 3.84 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 18 Washington County : 3.06 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 1.95 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 35 Here : 5.95 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 6.40 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 65 This county : 11.04 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 11.52 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: This county : 7.8% State : 6.8% Adult obesity rate: This county : 21.5% Vermont : 22.3% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Washington County : 14.7% State : 13.3% 6.08% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($55,553 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.08% Vermont average: 5.96% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Chittenden County, VT 1.09% ($56,160 average AGI) from Orange County, VT 0.74% ($36,490) from Lamoille County, VT 0.37% ($43,806) 6.22% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($56,304 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.22% Vermont average: 6.30% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Chittenden County, VT 0.98% ($56,216 average AGI) to Orange County, VT 0.85% ($37,698) to Lamoille County, VT 0.36% ($84,642) Businesses in East Montpelier, VT U-Haul: 1 Strongest AM radio stations in East Montpelier: WSKI (1240 AM; 1 kW; MONTPELIER, VT; Owner: GALLOWAY COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) GALLOWAY COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WDEV (550 AM; 5 kW; WATERBURY, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, INC.) RADIO VERMONT, INC.) WSNO (1450 AM; 1 kW; BARRE, VT; Owner: VOX VERMONT, L.L.C) VOX VERMONT, L.L.C) WCHP (760 AM; 35 kW; CHAMPLAIN, NY; Owner: CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) WTWN (1100 AM; daytime; 5 kW; WELLS RIVER, VT; Owner: PUFFER BROADCASTING, INC.) PUFFER BROADCASTING, INC.) WVMT (620 AM; 5 kW; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: SISON BROADCASTING, INC.) SISON BROADCASTING, INC.) WICY (1490 AM; 50 kW; MALONE, NY; Owner: CARTIER COMMUNICATIONS INC.) CARTIER COMMUNICATIONS INC.) WGY (810 AM; 50 kW; SCHENECTADY, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WRKO (680 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WNNZ (640 AM; 50 kW; WESTFIELD, MA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WCRN (830 AM; 50 kW; WORCESTER, MA; Owner: CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WVAA (1390 AM; 5 kW; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, KDR, LLC) RADIO VERMONT, KDR, LLC) WEEI (850 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) Strongest FM radio stations in East Montpelier: WCVT (101.7 FM; STOWE, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT CLASSICS, L.L.C.) RADIO VERMONT CLASSICS, L.L.C.) WLKC (103.3 FM; WATERBURY, VT; Owner: RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICES, INC.) RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICES, INC.) WNCS (104.7 FM; MONTPELIER, VT; Owner: MONTPELIER BROADCASTING, INC.) MONTPELIER BROADCASTING, INC.) WVPS (107.9 FM; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) WEZF (92.9 FM; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WDEV-FM (96.1 FM; WARREN, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, INC.) RADIO VERMONT, INC.) W262AA (100.3 FM; MONTPELIER, VT; Owner: MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) WDOT (95.7 FM; DANVILLE, VT; Owner: MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) WCMD (89.9 FM; BARRE, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC) WORK (107.1 FM; BARRE, VT; Owner: VOX VERMONT, L.L.C) VOX VERMONT, L.L.C) WGMT (97.7 FM; LYNDON, VT; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WPKQ (103.7 FM; NORTH CONWAY, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WHOM (94.9 FM; MT. WASHINGTON, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WGLY-FM (91.5 FM; BOLTON, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) WEBK (105.3 FM; KILLINGTON, VT; Owner: 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) WJJR (98.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) WZRT (97.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WGLV (91.7 FM; WOODSTOCK, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES INC) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES INC) WHDQ-FM1 (106.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) WVFM (105.7 FM; CAMPTON, NH; Owner: DEVON BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) TV broadcast stations around East Montpelier: WBVT-LP ( Channel 39; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: NYN, LLC) 39; BURLINGTON, VT; NYN, LLC) WVNY (Channel 22; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: C-22 FCC LICENSEE SUBSIDIARY, LLC) East Montpelier fatal accident statistics for 1975 - 2019 See more detailed statistics of East Montpelier fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 8 Number of bridges Number of bridges 66ft / 19.8m Total length Total length $3,166,000 Total costs Total costs 36,580 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 3,103 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 49,670 Total future (year 2018) average daily traffic FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 1 Portables, Lat: 44.315917 Lon: -72.521139, Call Sign: KXZ765, Assigned Frequencies: 158.880 MHz, Grant Date: 05/18/2012, Expiration Date: 02/24/2022, Registrant: Town Of East Montpelier, Vt, 40 Kelton Road, East Montpelier, VT 05651, Phone: (802) 223-3313, Fax: (802) 223-4467, Email: FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 1 Bair Silo, Lat: 44.317306 Lon: -72.508056, Type: Silo, Structure height: 19.8 m, Overall height: 25.9 m, Call Sign: WQLE338, Assigned Frequencies: 3650.00 MHz, Grant Date: 11/20/2019, Expiration Date: 10/17/2020, Cancellation Date: 12/19/2020, Certifier: Michael Birnbaum, Registrant: Cloud Alliance LLC, 311 Woodcock Rd, Plainfield, VT 05667, Phone: (802) 272-1027, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 9 ( FAA Registered Aircraft: 1 Aircraft: CARVER DENNIS RAF 2000 GTX SE (Category: Land, Seats: 2, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: AMA/EXPR UNKNOWN ENG (Reciprocating) N-Number: 90407, N90407, N-90407, Serial Number: H2-95-6-193, Year manufactured: 2001, Airworthiness Date: 10/03/2002, Certificate Issue Date: 07/13/2001 Registrant (Individual): Dennis P Carver, 1000 Sibley Rd, East Montpelier, VT 05651 Deregistered: Cancel Date: 06/15/2017 9 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses in East Montpelier 2002 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents Based on the data from the years 2002 - 2018 the average number of fire incidents per year is 12. The highest number of fires - 25 took place in 2012, and the least - 1 in 2002. The data has an increasing trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in East Montpelier, VT 132 64.7% Structure Fires 48 23.5% Outside Fires 15 7.4% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 9 4.4% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Structure Fires (64.7%), and Outside Fires (23.5%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for East Montpelier, VT Houses and condos Apartments 69.2% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 16.4% Wood 11.8% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 1.0% Electricity 0.6% Utility gas 0.5% Solar energy 0.5% Other fuel 78.8% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 12.3% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 3.9% Electricity 3.4% Wood 1.5% Utility gas East Montpelier compared to Vermont state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage below state average. below Foreign-born population percentage below state average. below Renting percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. significantly below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher above state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Elko, Georgia Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in July 2007: 4,857. Males: 2,396 (49.3%) Females: 2,461 (50.7%) Median resident age: 36.1 years Georgia median age: 33.4 years Zip code: 31036 Estimated median household income in 2019: $58,027 (it was $37,941 in 2000) Elko: $58,027 GA: $61,980 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $24,478 (it was $16,379 in 2000) Elko CCD income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $129,870 (it was $70,800 in 2000) Elko: $129,870 GA: $202,500 $58,027 ($37,941$24,478 ($16,379$129,870 ($70,800 March 2019 cost of living index in Elko: 83.0 (low, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 2,758 67.0% White alone 1,258 30.6% Black alone 55 1.3% Hispanic 16 0.4% American Indian alone 16 0.4% Two or more races 12 0.3% Asian alone 1 0.02% Other race alone Races in Elko detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Georgia and other state lists, there were 5 registered sex offenders living in Elko, Georgia as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Elko is 971 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is lower than the state average. Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 416 feet Land area: 194.5 square miles. Population density: 25 people per square mile (very low). Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Elko CCD: 0.7% ($488) Georgia: 0.9% ($919) Latitude: 32.37 N, Longitude: 83.66 W Area code commonly used in this area: 478 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 4.5% Georgia: 5.4% Most common industries in Elko, GA (%) Both Males Females Public administration (13.8%) Educational services (8.9%) Construction (6.6%) Transportation equipment (5.6%) Health care (5.1%) Accommodation & food services (4.9%) Administrative & support & waste management services (4.2%) Public administration (15.3%) Construction (11.2%) Transportation equipment (7.1%) Administrative & support & waste management services (6.4%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (5.3%) Educational services (5.1%) Wood products (3.3%) Educational services (13.3%) Public administration (12.0%) Accommodation & food services (9.2%) Health care (8.8%) Department & other general merchandise stores (4.8%) Personal & laundry services (4.5%) Professional, scientific, technical services (4.2%) Most common occupations in Elko, GA (%) Both Males Females Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (5.6%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (4.9%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (4.5%) Construction traders workers except carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, and construction laborers (3.5%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (3.5%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (3.5%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (3.4%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (8.4%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (7.7%) Construction traders workers except carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, and construction laborers (6.6%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (6.2%) Metal workers and plastic workers (5.2%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (4.7%) Laborers and material movers, hand (4.5%) Information and record clerks, except customer service representatives (6.2%) Cashiers (5.3%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (5.2%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (5.0%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (4.3%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (4.2%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (3.5%) Average climate in Elko, Georgia Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI PM 2.5 Pb Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 68.9. This is about average. City: 68.9 U.S.: 74.2 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 9.44. This is about average. Closest monitor was 17.1 miles away from the city center. City: 9.44 U.S.: 8.46 Lead (Pb) [g/m3] level in 2008 was 0.00234. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 17.1 miles away from the city center. City: 0.00234 U.S.: 0.00984 Tornado activity: Elko-area historical tornado activity is near Georgia state average. It is 32% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 4/30/1953, a category F4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 16.6 miles away from the Elko place center killed 18 people and injured 300 people and caused between $5,000,000 and $50,000,000 in damages. On 3/31/1961, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 8.9 miles away from the place center killed one person and injured 14 people and caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Elko-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Georgia state average. It is 1% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 8/2/1974 at 08:52:09, a magnitude 4.9 (4.3 MB, 4.9 LG, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 124.5 miles away from Elko center On 4/29/2003 at 08:59:39, a magnitude 4.9 (4.4 MB, 4.6 MW, 4.9 LG) earthquake occurred 185.8 miles away from Elko center On 10/24/1997 at 08:35:17, a magnitude 4.9 (4.8 MB, 4.2 MS, 4.9 LG, Depth: 6.2 mi) earthquake occurred 228.9 miles away from the city center On 1/18/1999 at 07:00:53, a magnitude 4.8 (4.8 MB, 4.0 LG, Depth: 0.6 mi) earthquake occurred 220.6 miles away from Elko center On 4/29/2003 at 08:59:39, a magnitude 4.6 (4.6 MW, Depth: 12.3 mi) earthquake occurred 185.8 miles away from the city center On 11/22/1974 at 05:25:55, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 MB) earthquake occurred 208.3 miles away from Elko center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Houston County (11) is smaller than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 6 Emergencies Declared: 4 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 4, Hurricanes: 2, Storms: 2, Tornadoes: 2, Tropical Storms: 2, Winter Storms: 2, Drought: 1, Heavy Rain: 1, Snowfall: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Elko: PERRY HOSPITAL Acute Care Hospitals (about 8 miles away; PERRY, GA) Acute Care Hospitals NEW PERRY NH (Nursing Home, about 8 miles away; PERRY, GA) SUMMERHILL (Nursing Home, about 8 miles away; PERRY, GA) PINEWOOD MANOR (Nursing Home, about 13 miles away; HAWKINSVILLE, GA) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Elko: Central Georgia Technical College ( about 13 miles; Warner Robins, GA ; Full-time enrollment: 6,829) 13 ; 6,829) Fort Valley State University ( about 19 miles; Fort Valley, GA ; FT enrollment: 3,200) 19 ; 3,200) Middle Georgia State College ( about 32 miles; Macon, GA ; FT enrollment: 7,091) 32 ; 7,091) Mercer University ( about 33 miles; Macon, GA ; FT enrollment: 6,297) 33 ; 6,297) Georgia Southwestern State University ( about 39 miles; Americus, GA ; FT enrollment: 2,689) 39 ; 2,689) Gordon State College ( about 55 miles; Barnesville, GA ; FT enrollment: 3,336) 55 ; 3,336) Georgia Military College-Distance Learning Campuses (about 56 miles; Milledgeville, GA; FT enrollment: 6,438) Houston County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level less than 2 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Low Potential Average household size: This place: 2.7 people Georgia: 2.6 people Percentage of family households: This place: 76.5% Whole state: 68.5% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 4.8% Whole state: 5.9% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.3% of all households 0.3% Gay men: 0.3% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This place: 10.6% Whole state: 13.0% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This place: 3.6% Whole state: 6.1% For population 15 years and over in Elko: Never married: 22.5% 22.5% Now married: 64.6% 64.6% Separated: 4.3% 4.3% Widowed: 5.2% 5.2% Divorced: 7.6% For population 25 years and over in Elko: High school or higher: 71.7% 71.7% Bachelor's degree or higher: 9.3% 9.3% Graduate or professional degree: 3.1% 3.1% Unemployed: 4.3% 4.3% Mean travel time to work (commute): 24.5 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 11.9 Georgia average: 13.3 Religion statistics for Elko, GA (based on Houston County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Evangelical Protestant 45,802 103 Mainline Protestant 15,046 17 Catholic 6,124 2 Other 4,592 10 Black Protestant 2,267 11 None 66,069 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 21 Houston County : 1.60 / 10,000 pop. Georgia : 1.91 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 2 Here : 0.15 / 10,000 pop. Georgia : 0.15 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 14 Houston County : 1.07 / 10,000 pop. State : 0.86 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 63 Houston County : 4.81 / 10,000 pop. Georgia : 5.12 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 79 Houston County : 6.03 / 10,000 pop. Georgia : 7.41 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Houston County : 12.4% Georgia : 10.4% Adult obesity rate: Houston County : 30.8% State : 27.8% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Here : 12.1% Georgia : 14.6% 8.23% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($43,747 average adjusted gross income) Here: 8.23% Georgia average: 9.49% 0.27% of residents moved from foreign countries ($1,689 average AGI) Houston County: 0.27% Georgia average: 0.08% Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Bibb County, GA 1.03% ($38,206 average AGI) from Peach County, GA 0.71% ($36,774) from Crawford County, GA 0.13% ($27,685) 7.57% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($50,578 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.57% Georgia average: 9.04% 0.22% of residents moved to foreign countries ($1,584 average AGI) Houston County: 0.22% Georgia average: 0.08% Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Bibb County, GA 0.80% ($35,841 average AGI) to Peach County, GA 0.63% ($38,473) to Fulton County, GA 0.17% ($31,290) Strongest AM radio stations in Elko: WMAC (940 AM; 50 kW; MACON, GA; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WNNG (1350 AM; 15 kW; WARNER ROBINS, GA; Owner: CHASE BROADCASTING, INC.) CHASE BROADCASTING, INC.) WPGA (980 AM; 5 kW; PERRY, GA; Owner: RADIO PERRY, INC.) RADIO PERRY, INC.) WKTF (1550 AM; 10 kW; VIENNA, GA; Owner: SANTILLANA BROADCASTING, INC.) SANTILLANA BROADCASTING, INC.) WXJO (1120 AM; daytime; 10 kW; GORDON, GA; Owner: ROBERTS COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) ROBERTS COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WGST (640 AM; 50 kW; ATLANTA, GA; Owner: CITICASTERS LICENSES, L.P.) CITICASTERS LICENSES, L.P.) WSB (750 AM; 50 kW; ATLANTA, GA; Owner: CXR HOLDINGS, INC.) CXR HOLDINGS, INC.) WCNN (680 AM; 50 kW; NORTH ATLANTA, GA; Owner: DICKEY BROADCASTING COMPANY) DICKEY BROADCASTING COMPANY) WGUN (1010 AM; 50 kW; ATLANTA, GA; Owner: WGUN, INC.) WGUN, INC.) WUFF (710 AM; daytime; 3 kW; EASTMAN, GA; Owner: FARNELL O'QUINN) FARNELL O'QUINN) WLCG (1280 AM; 5 kW; MACON, GA) WCEH (610 AM; 1 kW; HAWKINSVILLE, GA; Owner: TRI-COUNTY BROADCASTING CO., INC.) TRI-COUNTY BROADCASTING CO., INC.) WMLB (1160 AM; 50 kW; EAST POINT, GA; Owner: ATLANTA AREA BROADCASTING, INC.) Strongest FM radio stations in Elko: WCOP-FM (99.9 FM; UNADILLA, GA; Owner: TOCCOA FALLS COLLEGE) TOCCOA FALLS COLLEGE) WQSY (103.9 FM; HAWKINSVILLE, GA; Owner: TRI-COUNTY BROADCASTING, INC.) TRI-COUNTY BROADCASTING, INC.) WDCO-FM (89.7 FM; COCHRAN, GA; Owner: GEORGIA PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION) GEORGIA PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION) WPGA-FM (100.9 FM; PERRY, GA; Owner: RADIO PERRY, INC.) RADIO PERRY, INC.) WIBB-FM (97.9 FM; FORT VALLEY, GA; Owner: CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) WMGB (95.1 FM; MONTEZUMA, GA; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) W202BA (88.3 FM; WARNER ROBINS, GA; Owner: CALVARY CHAPEL OF TWIN FALLS, INC.) CALVARY CHAPEL OF TWIN FALLS, INC.) WELV-FM (102.5 FM; WARNER ROBINS, GA; Owner: CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) WDEN-FM (99.1 FM; MACON, GA; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WPEZ (93.7 FM; JEFFERSONVILLE, GA; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WAYS (105.5 FM; MACON, GA; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WRBV (101.7 FM; WARNER ROBINS, GA; Owner: CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) WVMG-FM (96.7 FM; COCHRAN, GA; Owner: CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) WJTG (91.3 FM; FORT VALLEY, GA; Owner: JOY PUBLIC B/CNG CORP) JOY PUBLIC B/CNG CORP) WMCG (104.9 FM; MILAN, GA; Owner: TEL-DODGE BROADCASTING CO.) TEL-DODGE BROADCASTING CO.) WQBZ (106.3 FM; FORT VALLEY, GA; Owner: CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) WQIL (101.3 FM; CHAUNCEY, GA; Owner: GSW, INC.) GSW, INC.) WBKG (88.9 FM; MACON, GA; Owner: AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION) AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION) WPWB (90.5 FM; BYRON, GA; Owner: AUGUSTA RADIO FELLOWSHIP INST., INC.) TV broadcast stations around Elko: WDCO-TV ( Channel 29; COCHRAN, GA; Owner: GEORGIA PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION) 29; COCHRAN, GA; GEORGIA PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION) WPGA-TV ( Channel 58; PERRY, GA; Owner: RADIO PERRY, INC.) 58; PERRY, GA; RADIO PERRY, INC.) WMGT-TV ( Channel 41; MACON, GA; Owner: MORRIS NETWORK, INC.) 41; MACON, GA; MORRIS NETWORK, INC.) WMAZ-TV ( Channel 13; MACON, GA; Owner: GANNETT GEORGIA, L.P.) 13; MACON, GA; GANNETT GEORGIA, L.P.) WGXA ( Channel 24; MACON, GA; Owner: PIEDMONT TELEVISION OF MACON LICENSE LLC) 24; MACON, GA; PIEDMONT TELEVISION OF MACON LICENSE LLC) WGNM ( Channel 64; MACON, GA; Owner: GOOD NEWS TELEVISION) 64; MACON, GA; GOOD NEWS TELEVISION) WDMA-LP (Channel 32; MACON, GA; Owner: WORD OF GOD FELLOWSHIP, INC.) FCC Registered Cell Phone Towers: 1 ( FCC Registered Antenna Towers: 28 ( FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 1 AT03GI047, 251 Hwy 26 East (Lat: 32.342639 Lon: -83.769972), Type: Gtower, Structure height: 91.4 m, Overall height: 96 m, Call Sign: WRCP459, Assigned Frequencies: 11055.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11055.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11055.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11055.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11055.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz... (+12 more), Grant Date: 11/27/2018, Expiration Date: 11/27/2028, Certifier: Kyle Entz, Registrant: T-Mobile Usa, Inc., 12920 Se 38th Street, Bellevue, WA 98006, Phone: (425) 383-8401, Fax: (425) 383-4840, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 6 Call Sign: KF4KHT, Licensee ID: L01131216, Grant Date: 04/12/2016, Expiration Date: 06/11/2026, Registrant: James R Drummond, 145 Flournoy Rd, Elko, GA 31025 KF4KHT, L01131216, 04/12/2016, 06/11/2026, James R Drummond, 145 Flournoy Rd, Elko, GA 31025 Call Sign: KG4VLN, Licensee ID: L00581513, Grant Date: 08/07/2012, Expiration Date: 10/15/2022, Certifier: Frederick H Watkins Iv, Registrant: Frederick H Watkins Iv, 2442 Elko Road, Elko, GA 31025 KG4VLN, L00581513, 08/07/2012, 10/15/2022, Frederick H Watkins Iv, Frederick H Watkins Iv, 2442 Elko Road, Elko, GA 31025 Call Sign: KI4CHI, Licensee ID: L00745408, Grant Date: 07/09/2013, Expiration Date: 09/22/2023, Certifier: Angelina M Watkins, Registrant: Angelina M Watkins, 2442 Elko Rd, Elko, GA 31025 KI4CHI, L00745408, 07/09/2013, 09/22/2023, Angelina M Watkins, Angelina M Watkins, 2442 Elko Rd, Elko, GA 31025 Call Sign: KK4SAJ, Licensee ID: L01796641, Grant Date: 06/19/2013, Expiration Date: 06/19/2023, Certifier: Rebekah A Hartley, Registrant: Rebekah A Hartley, 250 Kersey Rd, Elko, GA 31025 KK4SAJ, L01796641, 06/19/2013, 06/19/2023, Rebekah A Hartley, Rebekah A Hartley, 250 Kersey Rd, Elko, GA 31025 Call Sign: KM4VQW, Licensee ID: L01996024, Grant Date: 07/28/2016, Expiration Date: 07/28/2026, Cancellation Date: 02/03/2018, Certifier: Jeffrey A Kujawa, Registrant: Jeffrey A Kujawa, 416 Scott Rd Ext, Elko, GA 31025 KM4VQW, L01996024, 07/28/2016, 07/28/2026, 02/03/2018, Jeffrey A Kujawa, Jeffrey A Kujawa, 416 Scott Rd Ext, Elko, GA 31025 Call Sign: W3JAK, Previous Call Sign: KM4VQW, Licensee ID: L01996024, Grant Date: 02/03/2018, Expiration Date: 02/03/2028, Certifier: Jeffrey A Kujawa, Registrant: Jeffrey A Kujawa, 416 Scott Rd Ext, Elko, GA 31025 1 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Cell Phone Towers in Elko 28 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Antenna Towers 2003 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents According to the data from the years 2003 - 2018 the average number of fires per year is 11. The highest number of fires - 33 took place in 2014, and the least - 2 in 2006. The data has an increasing trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Elko, GA 87 50.3% Outside Fires 53 30.6% Structure Fires 32 18.5% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 1 0.6% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Outside Fires (50.3%), and Structure Fires (30.6%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Elko, GA Houses and condos Apartments 60.9% Electricity 33.0% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 3.0% Utility gas 2.1% Wood 0.6% No fuel used 0.4% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 49.5% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 41.3% Electricity 6.7% Utility gas 2.4% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. Elko compared to Georgia state average: Median house value below state average. below Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Renting percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. significantly below Number of college students below state average. below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher significantly below state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Fosters, Alabama Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in July 2007: 2,706. Males: 1,319 (48.8%) Females: 1,387 (51.2%) Median resident age: 37.9 years Alabama median age: 35.8 years Zip code: 35463 Estimated median household income in 2019: $50,168 (it was $33,068 in 2000) Fosters: $50,168 AL: $51,734 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $22,350 (it was $15,348 in 2000) Fosters CCD income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $124,578 (it was $66,100 in 2000) Fosters: $124,578 AL: $154,000 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $214,192; detached houses: $235,535; townhouses or other attached units: $165,465; in 2-unit structures: $99,634; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $83,166; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $145,236; mobile homes: $56,931; occupied boats, rvs, vans, etc.: $19,555 $50,168 ($33,068$22,350 ($15,348$124,578 ($66,100$214,192;$235,535;$165,465;$99,634;$83,166;$145,236;$56,931;$19,555 March 2019 cost of living index in Fosters: 83.5 (less than average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 1,639 65.6% White alone 836 33.5% Black alone 13 0.5% Hispanic 6 0.2% American Indian alone 4 0.2% Two or more races Races in Fosters detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Alabama and other state lists, there were 9 registered sex offenders living in Fosters, Alabama as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Fosters is 301 to 1. Current Local Time: CST time zone Elevation: 150 feet Land area: 105.2 square miles. Population density: 26 people per square mile (very low). Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Fosters CCD: 0.4% ($266) Alabama: 0.4% ($289) Latitude: 33.08 N, Longitude: 87.72 W Area code commonly used in this area: 205 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 4.2% Alabama: 4.0% Most common industries in Fosters, AL (%) Both Males Females Health care (19.0%) Construction (11.1%) Department & other general merchandise stores (6.8%) Educational services (6.8%) Plastics & rubber products (5.9%) Accommodation & food services (5.3%) Public administration (4.3%) Construction (21.8%) Health care (10.3%) Plastics & rubber products (10.2%) Public administration (7.0%) Furniture & home furnishings, household appliance stores (5.0%) Food & beverage stores (4.2%) Utilities (4.2%) Health care (28.0%) Department & other general merchandise stores (12.5%) Educational services (10.6%) Accommodation & food services (8.7%) Used merchandise, gift, novelty, souvenir, other miscellaneous stores (4.8%) Professional, scientific, technical services (3.8%) Metal & metal products (3.3%) Most common occupations in Fosters, AL (%) Both Males Females Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (9.5%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (9.0%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (5.1%) Construction traders workers except carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, and construction laborers (4.8%) Registered nurses (4.4%) Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides (3.9%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (3.9%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (11.5%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (10.0%) Construction traders workers except carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, and construction laborers (9.5%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (9.0%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (7.7%) Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides (6.2%) Food processing workers (4.2%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (10.0%) Registered nurses (9.0%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (6.4%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (6.1%) Information and record clerks, except customer service representatives (5.5%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (5.2%) Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (4.3%) Average climate in Fosters, Alabama Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI SO 2 Ozone PM 2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 65.2. This is about average. City: 65.2 U.S.: 74.2 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2013 was 0.310. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 14.2 miles away from the city center. City: 0.310 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 24.2. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 15.3 miles away from the city center. City: 24.2 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2017 was 13.2. This is significantly worse than average. Closest monitor was 15.8 miles away from the city center. City: 13.2 U.S.: 8.5 Tornado activity: Fosters-area historical tornado activity is near Alabama state average. It is 93% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 12/16/2000, a category F4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 2.5 miles away from the Fosters place center killed 11 people and injured 144 people and caused $13 million in damages. On 3/3/1966, a category F5 (max. wind speeds 261-318 mph) tornado 26.6 miles away from the place center killed 58 people and injured 518 people and caused between $5,000,000 and $50,000,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Fosters-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Alabama state average. It is 147% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 1/18/1999 at 07:00:53, a magnitude 4.8 (4.8 MB, 4.0 LG, Depth: 0.6 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 35.2 miles away from Fosters center On 6/24/1975 at 11:11:36, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 MB) earthquake occurred 44.7 miles away from the city center On 10/24/1997 at 08:35:17, a magnitude 4.9 (4.8 MB, 4.2 MS, 4.9 LG, Depth: 6.2 mi) earthquake occurred 138.0 miles away from Fosters center On 4/29/2003 at 08:59:39, a magnitude 4.9 (4.4 MB, 4.6 MW, 4.9 LG) earthquake occurred 155.1 miles away from the city center On 11/7/2004 at 11:20:21, a magnitude 4.3 (4.3 MW, Depth: 3.1 mi) earthquake occurred 32.2 miles away from Fosters center On 3/25/1976 at 00:41:20, a magnitude 5.0 (4.9 MB, 5.0 LG, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 231.0 miles away from the city center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Tuscaloosa County (23) is greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 16 Emergencies Declared: 5 Causes of natural disasters: Storms: 12, Floods: 10, Tornadoes: 10, Hurricanes: 5, Winds: 4, Drought: 1, Snowfall: 1, Winter Storm: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Fosters: TUSCALOOSA DIALYSIS (Dialysis Facility, about 13 miles away; TUSCALOOSA, AL) HUNTER CREEK HEALTH AND REHABILITATION, LLC (Nursing Home, about 13 miles away; NORTHPORT, AL) DCH HOME HEALTH CARE AGENCY (Home Health Center, about 13 miles away; TUSCALOOSA, AL) NORTHPORT DIALYSIS (Dialysis Facility, about 14 miles away; NORTHPORT, AL) TUSCALOOSA UNIVERSITY DIALYSIS (Dialysis Facility, about 14 miles away; TUSCALOOSA, AL) FOREST MANOR INC (Nursing Home, about 14 miles away; NORTHPORT, AL) GLEN HAVEN HEALTH AND REHABILITATION, LLC (Nursing Home, about 14 miles away; NORTHPORT, AL) Amtrak station near Fosters: 13 miles: TUSCALOOSA (2105 GREENSBORO AVE.) . Services: ticket office, partially wheelchair accessible, enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, vending machines, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for taxi service. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Fosters: Shelton State Community College ( about 10 miles; Tuscaloosa, AL ; Full-time enrollment: 4,106) 10 ; 4,106) The University of Alabama ( about 14 miles; Tuscaloosa, AL ; FT enrollment: 30,931) 14 ; 30,931) University of West Alabama ( about 44 miles; Livingston, AL ; FT enrollment: 3,394) 44 ; 3,394) East Mississippi Community College ( about 48 miles; Scooba, MS ; FT enrollment: 5,180) 48 ; 5,180) Mississippi University for Women ( about 50 miles; Columbus, MS ; FT enrollment: 2,565) 50 ; 2,565) University of Montevallo ( about 50 miles; Montevallo, AL ; FT enrollment: 2,826) 50 ; 2,826) Lawson State Community College-Birmingham Campus (about 55 miles; Birmingham, AL; FT enrollment: 2,695) Public elementary/middle school in Fosters: MYRTLEWOOD ELEM SCH (Students: 269, Location: 14701 GAINSVILLE RD, Grades: KG-5) See full list of schools located in Fosters Tuscaloosa County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential Average household size: This place: 2.5 people Alabama: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 74.9% Whole state: 67.8% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 4.2% Whole state: 4.7% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.9% of all households 0.9% Gay men: 0.3% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This place: 14.3% Whole state: 16.1% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This place: 6.7% Whole state: 7.3% 11 people in residential treatment centers for adults in 2010 For population 15 years and over in Fosters: Never married: 23.0% 23.0% Now married: 56.9% 56.9% Separated: 1.2% 1.2% Widowed: 7.4% 7.4% Divorced: 12.7% For population 25 years and over in Fosters: High school or higher: 76.1% 76.1% Bachelor's degree or higher: 9.1% 9.1% Graduate or professional degree: 3.9% 3.9% Unemployed: 7.5% 7.5% Mean travel time to work (commute): 28.4 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 11.6 Alabama average: 13.2 Religion statistics for Fosters, AL (based on Tuscaloosa County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Evangelical Protestant 71,803 208 Black Protestant 14,428 45 Mainline Protestant 12,415 47 Catholic 3,729 2 Other 1,940 9 None 90,341 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 36 Tuscaloosa County : 2.03 / 10,000 pop. Alabama : 1.89 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 4 This county : 0.23 / 10,000 pop. State : 0.20 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 10 Tuscaloosa County : 0.56 / 10,000 pop. Alabama : 0.65 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 101 This county : 5.70 / 10,000 pop. Alabama : 6.32 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 97 Tuscaloosa County : 5.47 / 10,000 pop. Alabama : 5.75 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Tuscaloosa County : 10.7% Alabama : 11.8% Adult obesity rate: Here : 32.2% State : 31.7% Low-income preschool obesity rate: This county : 10.8% Alabama : 13.5% 5.55% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($43,701 average adjusted gross income) Here: 5.55% Alabama average: 5.95% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Jefferson County, AL 0.69% ($41,890 average AGI) from Hale County, AL 0.29% ($36,466) from Pickens County, AL 0.22% ($33,550) 5.91% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($43,358 average adjusted gross income) Here: 5.91% Alabama average: 5.97% 0.03% of residents moved to foreign countries ($257 average AGI) Tuscaloosa County: 0.03% Alabama average: 0.05% Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Jefferson County, AL 0.97% ($47,158 average AGI) to Hale County, AL 0.20% ($41,294) to Shelby County, AL 0.20% ($48,917) Businesses in Fosters, AL Subway: 1 Strongest AM radio stations in Fosters: WTSK (790 AM; 5 kW; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: APEX BROADCASTING INC.) APEX BROADCASTING INC.) WACT (1420 AM; 5 kW; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WJOX (690 AM; 50 kW; BIRMINGHAM, AL; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WSPZ (1150 AM; 5 kW; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: RADIO SOUTH, INC) RADIO SOUTH, INC) WWPG (1280 AM; 5 kW; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: LAWSON OF TUSCALOOSA, INC.) LAWSON OF TUSCALOOSA, INC.) WAPI (1070 AM; 50 kW; BIRMINGHAM, AL; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WDJC (850 AM; 50 kW; BIRMINGHAM, AL; Owner: KIMTRON, INC.) KIMTRON, INC.) WCPC (940 AM; 50 kW; HOUSTON, MS; Owner: WCPC BROADCASTING CO., INC.) WCPC BROADCASTING CO., INC.) WNSI (810 AM; 50 kW; JACKSONVILLE, AL; Owner: UNITED BROADCASTING NETWORK, INC.) UNITED BROADCASTING NETWORK, INC.) WTBC (1230 AM; 1 kW; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: JOHN SISTY ENTERPRISES, INC.) JOHN SISTY ENTERPRISES, INC.) WSJC (810 AM; 50 kW; MAGEE, MS; Owner: FAMILY TALK RADIO) FAMILY TALK RADIO) WRAG (590 AM; 1 kW; CARROLLTON, AL; Owner: BIRMINGHAM CHRISTIAN RADIO) BIRMINGHAM CHRISTIAN RADIO) WYLS (670 AM; daytime; 5 kW; YORK, AL; Owner: GRANTELL BROADCASTING COMPANY) Strongest FM radio stations in Fosters: WTUG-FM (92.9 FM; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: APEX BROADCASTING INC.) APEX BROADCASTING INC.) WQZZ (104.3 FM; EUTAW, AL; Owner: JIM LAWSON COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) JIM LAWSON COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WBHJ (95.7 FM; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: CXR HOLDINGS, INC.) CXR HOLDINGS, INC.) WTXT (98.1 FM; FAYETTE, AL; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WDXB (102.5 FM; JASPER, AL; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WDGM (99.1 FM; GREENSBORO, AL; Owner: WARRIOR BROADCASTING INC.) WARRIOR BROADCASTING INC.) WZBQ (94.1 FM; CARROLLTON, AL; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WBEI (101.7 FM; REFORM, AL; Owner: APEX BROADCASTING INC.) APEX BROADCASTING INC.) WANZ (100.7 FM; NORTHPORT, AL; Owner: APEX BRAODCASTING INC.) APEX BRAODCASTING INC.) WUAL-FM (91.5 FM; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA) UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA) WALN (89.3 FM; CARROLLTON, AL; Owner: AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION) AMERICAN FAMILY ASSOCIATION) W247AN (97.3 FM; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: WILLIAM PAXTON ROGERS) WILLIAM PAXTON ROGERS) WRTR (105.5 FM; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WVUA-FM (90.7 FM; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: BD OF TRUSTEES, THE UNIVERSITY OF AL) BD OF TRUSTEES, THE UNIVERSITY OF AL) W213AS (90.5 FM; CARROLLTON, AL; Owner: WEST ALABAMA CHRISTIAN COMMS., INC.) TV broadcast stations around Fosters: WLDM ( Channel 23; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: CHANNEL 23, LLC) 23; TUSCALOOSA, AL; CHANNEL 23, LLC) W46BU ( Channel 46; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK) 46; TUSCALOOSA, AL; TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK) WCFT-TV ( Channel 33; TUSCALOOSA, AL; Owner: TV ALABAMA, INCORPORATED) 33; TUSCALOOSA, AL; TV ALABAMA, INCORPORATED) WVUA-CA ( Channel 7; TUSCALOOSA/NORTHPORT, AL; Owner: THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA) 7; TUSCALOOSA/NORTHPORT, AL; THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA) WDBB ( Channel 17; BESSEMER, AL; Owner: WDBB-TV, INC.) 17; BESSEMER, AL; WDBB-TV, INC.) WDVZ-CA ( Channel 3; GREENSBORO, AL; Owner: TTI, INC.) 3; GREENSBORO, AL; TTI, INC.) WJMY-CA (Channel 28; DEMOPOLIS, AL; Owner: TTI, INC.) FCC Registered Cell Phone Towers: 2 ( FCC Registered Antenna Towers: 30 ( FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 2 HWY 11 TANKS, 14397 Water Tower Road ( Lat: 33.066000 Lon: -87.728667), Type: Pipe, Structure height: 6 m, Call Sign: WQAC695, Assigned Frequencies: 465.187 MHz, Grant Date: 03/07/2014, Expiration Date: 05/05/2024, Certifier: Bobby Beck, Registrant: Duke Instrument Service, Saraland, AL 36571-0189, Phone: (251) 675-6067, Fax: (251) 675-5938, Email: 33.066000 -87.728667), Pipe, 6 m, WQAC695, 465.187 MHz, 03/07/2014, 05/05/2024, Bobby Beck, Duke Instrument Service, Saraland, AL 36571-0189, (251) 675-6067, (251) 675-5938, HWY 11 TANKS, 14397 Water Tower Road (Lat: 33.066000 Lon: -87.728667), Type: Pipe, Structure height: 6 m, Call Sign: WQFN482, Assigned Frequencies: 460.187 MHz, Grant Date: 06/03/2016, Expiration Date: 08/23/2026, Certifier: Bobby Beck, Registrant: Allcomm Wireless, 4116 First Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35222, Phone: (205) 271-4006, Fax: (205) 595-7642 FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 4 SYLVAN CHURC, 15398 Sylvan Loop Road ( Lat: 33.065833 Lon: -87.699389), Type: Gtower, Structure height: 76.2 m, Overall height: 80.8 m, Call Sign: WQOY762, Assigned Frequencies: 6197.24 MHz, 6226.89 MHz, 6256.54 MHz, 6286.19 MHz, Grant Date: 03/07/2012, Expiration Date: 03/07/2022, Certifier: John E Monday, Registrant: At&t Mobility LLC, 208 S Akard St., Rm 1015, Dallas, TX 75202, Phone: (855) 699-7073, Fax: (214) 746-6410, Email: 33.065833 -87.699389), Gtower, 76.2 m, 80.8 m, WQOY762, 6197.24 MHz, 6226.89 MHz, 6256.54 MHz, 6286.19 MHz, 03/07/2012, 03/07/2022, John E Monday, At&t Mobility LLC, 208 S Akard St., Rm 1015, Dallas, TX 75202, (855) 699-7073, (214) 746-6410, FOSTERS, Off Sand Road ( Lat: 33.108000 Lon: -87.700528), Type: Gtower, Structure height: 121.9 m, Overall height: 129.5 m, Call Sign: WQWM760, Assigned Frequencies: 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz... (+6 more), Grant Date: 10/06/2015, Expiration Date: 10/06/2025, Certifier: Larry F Butts, Registrant: Southern Company Services, 600 North 18th St/Bin 5n-8409, Birmingham, AL 35203, Phone: (205) 257-3223, Email: 33.108000 -87.700528), Gtower, 121.9 m, 129.5 m, WQWM760, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz, 11095.0 MHz, 11135.0 MHz... (+6 more), 10/06/2015, 10/06/2025, Larry F Butts, Southern Company Services, 600 North 18th St/Bin 5n-8409, Birmingham, AL 35203, (205) 257-3223, FOSTERS MASTER, Off Sand Road ( Lat: 33.108000 Lon: -87.700528), Type: Gtower, Structure height: 121.9 m, Overall height: 129.5 m, Call Sign: WQWZ709, Assigned Frequencies: 928.143 MHz, 952.143 MHz, Grant Date: 01/08/2016, Expiration Date: 01/08/2026, Cancellation Date: 02/27/2019, Certifier: Larry Butts, Registrant: Southern Company, 600 N. 18th Street/5n-8409, Birmingham, AL 35203, Phone: (205) 257-3223, Fax: (205) 257-2134, Email: 33.108000 -87.700528), Gtower, 121.9 m, 129.5 m, WQWZ709, 928.143 MHz, 952.143 MHz, 01/08/2016, 01/08/2026, 02/27/2019, Larry Butts, Southern Company, 600 N. 18th Street/5n-8409, Birmingham, AL 35203, (205) 257-3223, (205) 257-2134, TUSCALOOSA S, .25 Mi W Of Us 11/45, 1 Mi N Of Fosters (Lat: 33.108444 Lon: -87.682778), Overall height: 90.8 m, Call Sign: WLS497, Assigned Frequencies: 2168.40 MHz, Grant Date: 12/19/2000, Expiration Date: 02/01/2011, Cancellation Date: 01/17/2007, Registrant: Verizon Wireless, 1120 Sanctuary Pkwy, #150, Gasa5reg, Alpharetta, GA 30004, Phone: (770) 797-1070, Fax: (770) 797-1036, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 3 Call Sign: KC4IZS, Grant Date: 10/16/1998, Expiration Date: 10/16/2008, Cancellation Date: 10/19/2010, Registrant: Ken W Lewis, 15282 Sylvan Loop Rd, Fosters, AL 35463-9619 KC4IZS, 10/16/1998, 10/16/2008, 10/19/2010, Ken W Lewis, 15282 Sylvan Loop Rd, Fosters, AL 35463-9619 Call Sign: KG4BQL, Grant Date: 01/21/1999, Expiration Date: 01/21/2009, Cancellation Date: 01/22/2011, Registrant: Christine T Gladney, 13207 Fosters Loop Rd, Fosters, AL 35463 KG4BQL, 01/21/1999, 01/21/2009, 01/22/2011, Christine T Gladney, 13207 Fosters Loop Rd, Fosters, AL 35463 Call Sign: KK4FMF, Licensee ID: L01675141, Grant Date: 11/29/2011, Expiration Date: 11/29/2021, Certifier: Matt Harless, Registrant: Matt Harless, 14783 Harless Hill Dr, Fosters, AL 35463-9693 2 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Cell Phone Towers in Fosters 30 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Antenna Towers Houses and condos Apartments 64.5% Electricity 27.3% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 5.9% Utility gas 1.5% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 0.8% Wood 47.7% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 37.2% Electricity 15.1% Wood Fosters compared to Alabama state average: Unemployed percentage below state average. below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Median age below state average. below Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Renting percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. significantly below Number of college students below state average. below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher below state average. Hager City, Wisconsin Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 338. Males: 150 (44.4%) Females: 188 (55.6%) Median resident age: 45.9 years Wisconsin median age: 39.9 years Estimated median household income in 2019: $75,159 Hager City: $75,159 WI: $64,168 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $34,243 Hager City CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $227,883 Hager City: $227,883 WI: $197,200 $75,159$34,243$227,883 Median gross rent in 2019: $747. March 2019 cost of living index in Hager City: 95.9 (near average, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 3.5% Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 282 97.9% White alone 4 1.4% Asian alone Races in Hager City detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Wisconsin and other state lists, there was 1 registered sex offender living in Hager City, Wisconsin as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Hager City is 259 to 1. Ancestries: German (37.2%), Norwegian (7.3%), Irish (5.8%), English (5.1%), American (3.6%), Swedish (3.6%). Current Local Time: CST time zone Elevation: 718 feet 4 residents are foreign born This place: 1.4% Wisconsin: 5.0% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2019: $2,801 (1.5%) Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2019: $2,811 (1.9%) Latitude: 44.60 N, Longitude: 92.54 W Area code: 715 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 4.0% Wisconsin: 4.5% Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI Ozone Pb Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2001 was 73.8. This is about average. City: 73.8 U.S.: 74.2 Ozone [ppb] level in 2001 was 30.5. This is about average. Closest monitor was 18.5 miles away from the city center. City: 30.5 U.S.: 33.3 Lead (Pb) [g/m3] level in 2009 was 0.00337. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 2.2 miles away from the city center. City: 0.00337 U.S.: 0.00984 Tornado activity: Hager City-area historical tornado activity is slightly above Wisconsin state average. It is 30% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 6/4/1958, a category F5 (max. wind speeds 261-318 mph) tornado 23.0 miles away from the Hager City place center killed 21 people and injured 74 people and caused between $5,000,000 and $50,000,000 in damages. On 7/27/1987, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 9.2 miles away from the place center caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Hager City-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Wisconsin state average. It is 47% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 7/9/1975 at 14:54:15, a magnitude 4.6 (4.6 MB, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 186.2 miles away from Hager City center On 6/5/1993 at 01:24:53, a magnitude 4.1 (4.1 LG, Depth: 6.2 mi) earthquake occurred 197.6 miles away from the city center On 3/4/1983 at 06:32:18, a magnitude 4.6 (4.4 MB, 4.6 LG, 4.4 ML) earthquake occurred 340.5 miles away from the city center On 6/28/2004 at 06:10:52, a magnitude 4.2 (4.2 MW, Depth: 6.2 mi) earthquake occurred 284.6 miles away from the city center On 4/18/2008 at 09:36:59, a magnitude 5.4 (5.1 MB, 4.8 MS, 5.4 MW, 5.2 MW, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 488.6 miles away from Hager City center On 10/20/1995 at 15:57:18, a magnitude 3.7 (3.7 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 226.2 miles away from Hager City center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Pierce County (12) is smaller than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 10 Emergencies Declared: 2 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 8, Storms: 6, Tornadoes: 5, Heavy Rains: 2, Drought: 1, Flash Flood: 1, Hurricane: 1, Wind: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Hager City: ACCRA HOME HEALTH INC (Home Health Center, about 3 miles away; RED WING, MN) RED WING NURS HOME (Nursing Home, about 3 miles away; RED WING, MN) SEMINARY HOME (Nursing Home, about 3 miles away; RED WING, MN) RED WING DIALYSIS OF DAVITA (Dialysis Facility, about 4 miles away; RED WING, MN) HAVEN HOMES OF RED WING (Nursing Home, about 5 miles away; RED WING, MN) ST BRIGID'S AT HI-PARK (Nursing Home, about 5 miles away; RED WING, MN) REM RIVER BLUFFS (PARK HEIGHTS) (Hospital, about 5 miles away; RED WING, MN) Amtrak station near Hager City: 3 miles: RED WING (LEVEE RD.) . Services: partially wheelchair accessible, enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for taxi service, intercity bus service. Operable nuclear power plants near Hager City: 3 miles: Prairie Island 1 and 2 in Red Wing, MN. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Hager City: University of Wisconsin-River Falls ( about 18 miles; River Falls, WI ; Full-time enrollment: 5,868) 18 ; 5,868) Dakota County Technical College ( about 29 miles; Rosemount, MN ; FT enrollment: 2,478) 29 ; 2,478) Inver Hills Community College ( about 30 miles; Inver Grove Heights, MN ; FT enrollment: 4,049) 30 ; 4,049) St Olaf College ( about 34 miles; Northfield, MN ; FT enrollment: 3,141) 34 ; 3,141) University of Wisconsin-Stout ( about 36 miles; Menomonie, WI ; FT enrollment: 8,120) 36 ; 8,120) Metropolitan State University ( about 37 miles; Saint Paul, MN ; FT enrollment: 6,159) 37 ; 6,159) Saint Paul College (about 37 miles; Saint Paul, MN; FT enrollment: 4,778) Public elementary/middle school in Hager City: PRAIRIE VIEW ELEMENTARY (Students: 382, Location: W7375 170TH AVE, Grades: KG-4) See full list of schools located in Hager City Pierce County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Highest Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Hager City and their reported violations in the past: SIXTY THREE EXPRESS INC (Population served: 25, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In APR-2010, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Other (APR-13-2010), St Boil Water Order (APR-13-2010), St Violation/Reminder Notice (APR-15-2010), St Public Notif requested (APR-15-2010), St Public Notif received (APR-16-2010), St Other (2 times from MAY-14-2010 to SEP-13-2010), St Compliance achieved (DEC-07-2010) VIETHS BAR (Population served: 25, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In SEP-2008 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (OCT-01-2008) , St Other (OCT-01-2008) , St Boil Water Order (OCT-01-2008) , St Violation/Reminder Notice (OCT-01-2008) , St Other (OCT-01-2008) , St Public Notif received (OCT-02-2008) , St Other (OCT-29-2008) , St Compliance achieved (NOV-06-2008) SEP-2008 Coliform St Public Notif requested (OCT-01-2008) St Other (OCT-01-2008) St Boil Water Order (OCT-01-2008) St Violation/Reminder Notice (OCT-01-2008) St Other (OCT-01-2008) St Public Notif received (OCT-02-2008) St Other (OCT-29-2008) St Compliance achieved (NOV-06-2008) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In JUL-2008, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (AUG-07-2008), St Violation/Reminder Notice (AUG-07-2008), St Public Notif received (AUG-09-2008), St Compliance achieved (AUG-14-2008), St Other (OCT-01-2008) TRENTON ISLAND YACHT CLUB (Population served: 25, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In SEP-2008 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Boil Water Order (OCT-01-2008) , St Other (2 times from OCT-01-2008 to OCT-02-2008) , St Public Notif requested (OCT-03-2008) , St Violation/Reminder Notice (OCT-03-2008) , St Compliance achieved (OCT-09-2008) , St Public Notif received (OCT-10-2008) SEP-2008 Coliform St Boil Water Order (OCT-01-2008) St Other (2 OCT-01-2008 to OCT-02-2008) St Public Notif requested (OCT-03-2008) St Violation/Reminder Notice (OCT-03-2008) St Compliance achieved (OCT-09-2008) St Public Notif received (OCT-10-2008) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In JUL-2008, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (AUG-07-2008), St Violation/Reminder Notice (AUG-07-2008), St Public Notif received (AUG-09-2008), St Compliance achieved (AUG-28-2008) Drinking water stations with addresses in Hager City that have no violations reported: SVEA LUTHERAN CHURCH ( Address: N2610 770TH STREET , Population served: 60 , Primary Water Source Type: Groundwater) N2610 770TH STREET , 60 Groundwater) NAUTI HAWG BAR & GRILL THE ( Population served: 25 , Primary Water Source Type: Groundwater) 25 Groundwater) WOODSHED PIZZA ( Population served: 25 , Primary Water Source Type: Groundwater) 25 Groundwater) MR SIPPIS (Population served: 25, Primary Water Source Type: Groundwater) SIXTY THREE EXPRESS INC (25Groundwater):VIETHS BAR (25Groundwater):TRENTON ISLAND YACHT CLUB (25Groundwater): Average household size: This place: 2.4 people Wisconsin: 2.4 people Percentage of family households: This place: 64.0% Whole state: 64.4% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 6.5% Whole state: 7.3% No gay or lesbian households reported Banks with branches in Hager City (2011 data): Hiawatha National Bank: at N 1555 770th Street, branch established on 1917/01/01. Info updated 2011/09/22: Bank assets: $83.1 mil, Deposits: $67.1 mil, local headquarters, positive income, Commercial Lending Specialization, 3 total offices For population 15 years and over in Hager City: Never married: 29.6% 29.6% Now married: 62.8% 62.8% Separated: 0.0% 0.0% Widowed: 1.6% 1.6% Divorced: 6.0% For population 25 years and over in Hager City: High school or higher: 97.2% 97.2% Bachelor's degree or higher: 16.2% 16.2% Graduate or professional degree: 3.7% Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 6.6 Wisconsin average: 10.3 Religion statistics for Hager City, WI (based on Pierce County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Mainline Protestant 9,316 29 Catholic 6,790 6 Evangelical Protestant 3,275 20 Other 137 2 None 21,501 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 6 Pierce County : 1.51 / 10,000 pop. Wisconsin : 1.86 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 15 This county : 3.77 / 10,000 pop. Wisconsin : 4.12 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 29 Pierce County : 7.29 / 10,000 pop. Wisconsin : 8.64 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: This county : 6.4% Wisconsin : 7.6% Adult obesity rate: Pierce County : 26.7% Wisconsin : 27.5% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Pierce County : 10.4% Wisconsin : 13.0% 7.71% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($52,371 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.71% Wisconsin average: 5.63% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from St. Croix County, WI 2.07% ($46,730 average AGI) from Dakota County, MN 0.62% ($72,714) from Washington County, MN 0.60% ($67,777) 7.54% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($48,502 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.54% Wisconsin average: 5.85% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to St. Croix County, WI 2.27% ($52,925 average AGI) to Dakota County, MN 0.50% ($45,076) to Washington County, MN 0.47% ($54,730) Businesses in Hager City, WI MasterBrand Cabinets: 2 Strongest AM radio stations in Hager City: WCTS (1030 AM; 50 kW; MAPLEWOOD, MN; Owner: CNTL. BAPT. THEO/AL SEMI MINNEAPOLIS) CNTL. BAPT. THEO/AL SEMI MINNEAPOLIS) KCUE (1250 AM; 1 kW; RED WING, MN; Owner: SORENSON BROADCASTING CORP.) SORENSON BROADCASTING CORP.) KFAN (1130 AM; 50 kW; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) KSTP (1500 AM; 50 kW; ST. PAUL, MN; Owner: KSTP-AM, LLC (DELAWARE)) KSTP-AM, LLC (DELAWARE)) KTIS (900 AM; 25 kW; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE) NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE) WCCO (830 AM; 50 kW; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: INFINITY MEDIA CORPORATION) INFINITY MEDIA CORPORATION) WDGY (630 AM; 8 kW; HUDSON, WI; Owner: 630 RADIO, INCORPORATED) 630 RADIO, INCORPORATED) WMEQ (880 AM; 10 kW; MENOMONIE, WI; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WMNN (1330 AM; 10 kW; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO.) MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO.) WEBC (560 AM; 50 kW; DULUTH, MN) KKMS (980 AM; 5 kW; RICHFIELD, MN) KOLM (1520 AM; 10 kW; ROCHESTER, MN; Owner: OLMSTED COUNTY BROADCASTING COMPANY) OLMSTED COUNTY BROADCASTING COMPANY) KUOM (770 AM; daytime; 5 kW; MINNEAPOLIS, MN) Strongest FM radio stations in Hager City: K297AF (107.3 FM; RED WING, MN; Owner: KRCH OF MINNESOTA, INC.) KRCH OF MINNESOTA, INC.) KWNG (105.9 FM; RED WING, MN; Owner: SORENSON BROADCASTING CORPORATION) SORENSON BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WCAL (89.3 FM; NORTHFIELD, MN; Owner: ST. OLAF COLLEGE) ST. OLAF COLLEGE) WXPT (104.1 FM; ST. LOUIS PARK, MN; Owner: THE AUDIO HOUSE, INC.) THE AUDIO HOUSE, INC.) KNOW-FM (91.1 FM; MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, MN; Owner: MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) WLTE (102.9 FM; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: INFINITY MEDIA CORPORATION) INFINITY MEDIA CORPORATION) KSTP-FM (94.5 FM; ST. PAUL, MN; Owner: KSTP-FM, LLC, A DELAWARE LLC) KSTP-FM, LLC, A DELAWARE LLC) KNXR (97.5 FM; ROCHESTER, MN; Owner: UNITED AUDIO CORPORATION) UNITED AUDIO CORPORATION) KLCH (94.9 FM; LAKE CITY, MN; Owner: WAITT RADIO, INC.) WAITT RADIO, INC.) KEEY-FM (102.1 FM; ST. PAUL, MN; Owner: AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) KTIS-FM (98.5 FM; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE) NORTHWESTERN COLLEGE) KDWB-FM (101.3 FM; RICHFIELD, MN; Owner: AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) KQRS-FM (92.5 FM; GOLDEN VALLEY, MN; Owner: KQRS, Inc.) KQRS, Inc.) KSJN (99.5 FM; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) KXXR (93.7 FM; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: KQRS, INC.) KQRS, INC.) KLSE-FM (91.7 FM; ROCHESTER, MN; Owner: MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) WHWC (88.3 FM; MENOMONIE, WI; Owner: STATE OF WISCONSIN - EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS BOARD) STATE OF WISCONSIN - EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS BOARD) KZSE (90.7 FM; ROCHESTER, MN; Owner: MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO) KMFX-FM (102.5 FM; LAKE CITY, MN; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WEVR-FM (106.3 FM; RIVER FALLS, WI; Owner: HANTEN BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) TV broadcast stations around Hager City: KMSP-TV ( Channel 9; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: FOX TELEVISION STATIONS, INC.) 9; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; FOX TELEVISION STATIONS, INC.) KARE ( Channel 11; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: MULTIMEDIA HOLDINGS CORPORATION) 11; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; MULTIMEDIA HOLDINGS CORPORATION) KSTP-TV ( Channel 5; ST. PAUL, MN; Owner: HUBBARD BROADCASTING, INC.) 5; ST. PAUL, MN; HUBBARD BROADCASTING, INC.) KTCA-TV ( Channel 2; ST. PAUL, MN; Owner: TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION, INC.) 2; ST. PAUL, MN; TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION, INC.) WCCO-TV ( Channel 4; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: CBS BROADCASTING INC.) 4; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; CBS BROADCASTING INC.) KTCI-TV ( Channel 17; ST. PAUL, MN; Owner: TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION, INC.) 17; ST. PAUL, MN; TWIN CITIES PUBLIC TELEVISION, INC.) KSTC-TV ( Channel 45; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: HUBBARD BROADCASTING, INC.) 45; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; HUBBARD BROADCASTING, INC.) KXLT-TV ( Channel 47; ROCHESTER, MN; Owner: SHOCKLEY BROADCASTING, LLC) 47; ROCHESTER, MN; SHOCKLEY BROADCASTING, LLC) KMWB ( Channel 23; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: KLGT LICENSEE, LLC) 23; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; KLGT LICENSEE, LLC) WFTC ( Channel 29; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; Owner: FOX TELEVISION STATIONS, INC.) 29; MINNEAPOLIS, MN; FOX TELEVISION STATIONS, INC.) WHWC-TV ( Channel 28; MENOMONIE, WI; Owner: STATE OF WISCONSIN - EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS BOARD) 28; MENOMONIE, WI; STATE OF WISCONSIN - EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS BOARD) W55AP (Channel 55; RIVER FALLS, WI; Owner: STATE OF WISCONSIN - EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS BOARD) Hager City fatal accident list: Dec 28, 2017 01:38 PM, Us-63, Lat: 44.592128, Lon: -92.540486, Vehicles: 2, Persons: 2, Fatalities: 1 Apr 15, 2016 08:43 PM, Sr-35, Lat: 44.605367, Lon: -92.542356, Vehicles: 1, Persons: 2, Fatalities: 1, Drunk persons involved: 1 Oct 9, 2010 05:39 PM, Sr-35, Lat: 44.604906, Lon: -92.536061, Vehicles: 1, Persons: 2, Fatalities: 1, Drunk persons involved: 1 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 5 Number of bridges Number of bridges 112ft / 34.4m Total length Total length 27,390 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 1,000 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 33,328 Total future (year 2035) average daily traffic Houses and condos Apartments 83.2% Utility gas 9.3% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 5.6% Electricity 1.9% Wood 61.1% Utility gas 38.9% Electricity Hager City compared to Wisconsin state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Renting percentage below state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Hollis, Maine Submit your own pictures of this town and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 4,281. Population change since 2000: +4.1% 4,281.+4.1% Males: 2,159 (50.4%) Females: 2,122 (49.6%) Median resident age: 40.9 years Maine median age: 43.0 years Zip codes: 04042. Estimated median household income in 2019: $74,616 (it was $48,846 in 2000) Hollis: $74,616 ME: $58,924 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $31,391 (it was $19,065 in 2000) Hollis town income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $250,338 (it was $109,300 in 2000) Hollis: $250,338 ME: $200,500 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $317,665; detached houses: $335,961; townhouses or other attached units: $342,831; in 2-unit structures: $255,132; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $357,327; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $231,825; mobile homes: $73,375 $74,616 ($48,846$31,391 ($19,065$250,338 ($109,300$317,665;$335,961;$342,831;$255,132;$357,327;$231,825;$73,375 March 2019 cost of living index in Hollis: 108.9 (more than average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 4,181 97.7% White alone 41 1.0% Two or more races 16 0.4% American Indian alone 16 0.4% Asian alone 19 0.4% Hispanic 6 0.1% Black alone 2 0.05% Other race alone Races in Hollis detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Maine and other state lists, there were 5 registered sex offenders living in Hollis, Maine as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Hollis is 856 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is lower than the state average. Ancestries: English (20.7%), French (19.4%), Irish (15.2%), United States (7.9%), German (7.3%), Scottish (4.9%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Land area: 32.0 square miles. Population density: 134 people per square mile (very low). 40 residents are foreign born This town: 1.0% Maine: 2.9% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Hollis town: 1.1% ($1,194) Maine: 1.5% ($1,417) Latitude: 43.63 N, Longitude: 70.62 W Area code commonly used in this area: 207 Single-family new house construction building permits: 1997: 13 buildings , average cost: $83,100 13 $83,100 1998: 34 buildings , average cost: $98,100 34 $98,100 1999: 24 buildings , average cost: $99,400 24 $99,400 2000: 15 buildings , average cost: $98,900 15 $98,900 2001: 31 buildings , average cost: $111,600 31 $111,600 2002: 43 buildings , average cost: $111,900 43 $111,900 2003: 45 buildings , average cost: $138,800 45 $138,800 2004: 42 buildings , average cost: $154,800 42 $154,800 2005: 70 buildings , average cost: $148,400 70 $148,400 2006: 24 buildings , average cost: $127,500 24 $127,500 2007: 20 buildings , average cost: $132,700 20 $132,700 2008: 6 buildings , average cost: $154,200 6 $154,200 2009: 5 buildings , average cost: $149,900 5 $149,900 2010: 12 buildings , average cost: $262,400 12 $262,400 2011: 11 buildings , average cost: $242,000 11 $242,000 2012: 17 buildings , average cost: $156,800 17 $156,800 2013: 22 buildings , average cost: $107,400 22 $107,400 2014: 28 buildings , average cost: $100,000 28 $100,000 2015: 25 buildings , average cost: $100,000 25 $100,000 2016: 41 buildings , average cost: $61,300 41 $61,300 2017: 40 buildings , average cost: $61,300 40 $61,300 2018: 25 buildings , average cost: $225,000 25 $225,000 2019: 24 buildings, average cost: $225,000 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 3.8% Maine: 4.7% Most common industries in Hollis, ME (%) Both Males Females Health care (12.1%) Educational services (10.6%) Construction (8.6%) Finance & insurance (7.0%) Accommodation & food services (5.1%) Computer & electronic products (3.3%) Repair & maintenance (3.0%) Construction (15.5%) Educational services (5.5%) Repair & maintenance (5.4%) Finance & insurance (3.9%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (3.7%) Truck transportation (3.7%) Computer & electronic products (3.7%) Health care (21.2%) Educational services (15.8%) Finance & insurance (10.1%) Accommodation & food services (8.3%) Department & other general merchandise stores (3.4%) Personal & laundry services (2.9%) Computer & electronic products (2.9%) Most common occupations in Hollis, ME (%) Both Males Females Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (6.6%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (5.5%) Metal workers and plastic workers (4.1%) Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides (3.8%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (3.6%) Cooks and food preparation workers (3.5%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (3.3%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (7.1%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (6.6%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (6.0%) Metal workers and plastic workers (5.7%) Laborers and material movers, hand (4.8%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (4.7%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (4.2%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (7.7%) Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides (6.2%) Cooks and food preparation workers (6.1%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (6.1%) Registered nurses (5.3%) Preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school teachers (4.4%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (4.4%) Average climate in Hollis, Maine Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI CO NO 2 SO 2 Ozone PM 2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 67.2. This is about average. City: 67.2 U.S.: 74.2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) [ppm] level in 2018 was 0.181. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 17.7 miles away from the city center. City: 0.181 U.S.: 0.267 Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 7.59. This is worse than average. Closest monitor was 17.7 miles away from the city center. City: 7.59 U.S.: 5.56 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 0.944. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 12.9 miles away from the city center. City: 0.944 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 26.1. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 1.6 miles away from the city center. City: 26.1 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 6.95. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 13.0 miles away from the city center. City: 6.95 U.S.: 8.46 Tornado activity: Hollis-area historical tornado activity is significantly above Maine state average. It is 72% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 10/10/1966, a category F2 (max. wind speeds 113-157 mph) tornado 16.2 miles away from the Hollis town center caused between $5000 and $50,000 in damages. On 6/9/1953, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 49.2 miles away from the town center injured 5 people and caused between $5000 and $50,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Hollis-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Maine state average. It is 74% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 10/16/2012 at 23:12:25, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 ML, Depth: 10.0 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 3.1 miles away from the city center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 164.5 miles away from the city center On 1/19/1982 at 00:14:42, a magnitude 4.7 (4.5 MB, 4.7 MD, 4.5 LG) earthquake occurred 49.9 miles away from the city center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 164.8 miles away from the city center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 187.1 miles away from Hollis center On 8/21/1996 at 07:54:14, a magnitude 3.8 (3.8 LG, 3.6 LG, Depth: 6.2 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 52.6 miles away from Hollis center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), duration magnitude (MD), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in York County (31) is a lot greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 23 Emergencies Declared: 8 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 21, Storms: 16, Winter Storms: 6, Snows: 5, Winds: 3, Heavy Rains: 2, Hurricanes: 2, Blizzard: 1, Ice Storm: 1, Mudslide: 1, Snowfall: 1, Snowstorm: 1, Tornado: 1, Tropical Storm: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Hollis: GORHAM HEALTH CENTER (Nursing Home, about 10 miles away; GORHAM, ME) GORHAM HOUSE (Nursing Home, about 10 miles away; GORHAM, ME) EVERGREEN MANOR (Nursing Home, about 12 miles away; SACO, ME) HOME HEALTH-VISITING NURSES OF SOUTHERN MAINE (Home Health Center, about 12 miles away; SACO, ME) SOUTHRIDGE REHAB AND LIVING CTR (Nursing Home, about 13 miles away; BIDDEFORD, ME) TRULL NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 13 miles away; BIDDEFORD, ME) BEANE NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 13 miles away; SACO, ME) Amtrak stations near Hollis: 13 miles: SACO (130 MAIN ST.) . Services: ticket office. SACO (130 MAIN ST.) . ticket office. 15 miles: OLD ORCHARD BEACH (11 FIRST ST.) - Seasonal Station . Services: ticket office, public payphones. OLD ORCHARD BEACH (11 FIRST ST.) - Seasonal Station . ticket office, public payphones. 17 miles: PORTLAND (100 THOMPSON POINT ROAD) . Services: ticket office, enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, ATM. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Hollis: Saint Joseph's College of Maine ( about 15 miles; Standish, ME ; Full-time enrollment: 2,010) 15 ; 2,010) University of New England ( about 17 miles; Biddeford, ME ; FT enrollment: 4,539) 17 ; 4,539) University of Southern Maine ( about 18 miles; Portland, ME ; FT enrollment: 6,647) 18 ; 6,647) Southern Maine Community College ( about 20 miles; South Portland, ME ; FT enrollment: 4,666) 20 ; 4,666) University of New Hampshire-Main Campus ( about 39 miles; Durham, NH ; FT enrollment: 15,243) 39 ; 15,243) NHTI-Concord's Community College ( about 54 miles; Concord, NH ; FT enrollment: 2,865) 54 ; 2,865) Plymouth State University (about 55 miles; Plymouth, NH; FT enrollment: 4,838) Public elementary/middle school in Hollis: HOLLIS SCHOOL (Location: 554 RIVER ROAD, Grades: KG-5) See full list of schools located in Hollis Libraries in Hollis: HOLLIS CENTER PUBLIC LIBRARY ( Operating income: $29,700; Location: 14 LITTLE FALLS ROAD; 13,490 books ; 45 audio materials ; 560 video materials ; 52 other licensed databases ; 11 print serial subscriptions ) ( $29,700; 14 LITTLE FALLS ROAD; 13,490 ; 45 ; 560 ; 52 ; 11 ) SALMON FALLS LIBRARY (Operating income: $22,653; Location: 322 OLD ALFRED ROAD; 10,594 books; 709 audio materials; 43 video materials; 12 state licensed databases; 21 other licensed databases; 56 print serial subscriptions; 1 electronic serial subscriptions) York County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Highest Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Hollis that have no violations reported: DEER POND EDUCARE (Population served: 50, Primary Water Source Type: Groundwater under infl of surface water) Average household size: This town: 2.6 people Maine: 2.3 people Percentage of family households: This town: 72.9% Whole state: 62.9% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This town: 11.2% Whole state: 9.4% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.8% of all households 0.8% Gay men: 0.5% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This town: 6.6% Whole state: 10.9% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This town: 2.3% Whole state: 4.1% 11 people in residential treatment centers for juveniles (non-correctional) in 2010 6 people in homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse in 2000 For population 15 years and over in Hollis: Never married: 23.1% 23.1% Now married: 65.0% 65.0% Separated: 0.7% 0.7% Widowed: 4.0% 4.0% Divorced: 7.3% For population 25 years and over in Hollis: High school or higher: 87.0% 87.0% Bachelor's degree or higher: 19.5% 19.5% Graduate or professional degree: 4.9% 4.9% Unemployed: 2.9% 2.9% Mean travel time to work (commute): 29.2 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 9.0 Maine average: 11.2 Religion statistics for Hollis, ME (based on York County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 40,283 16 Mainline Protestant 11,480 64 Evangelical Protestant 6,086 51 Other 1,847 18 Orthodox 625 3 Black Protestant 119 1 None 136,691 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 45 York County : 2.24 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.80 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 1 York County : 0.05 / 10,000 pop. Maine : 0.14 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 42 This county : 2.09 / 10,000 pop. Maine : 2.20 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 85 Here : 4.23 / 10,000 pop. Maine : 5.75 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 252 This county : 12.53 / 10,000 pop. Maine : 11.02 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: York County : 7.7% Maine : 8.2% Adult obesity rate: Here : 24.0% State : 25.0% 6.41% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($56,229 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.41% Maine average: 5.91% 0.06% of residents moved from foreign countries ($389 average AGI) York County: 0.06% Maine average: 0.04% Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Cumberland County, ME 1.67% ($44,353 average AGI) from Strafford County, NH 0.57% ($49,083) from Rockingham County, NH 0.45% ($67,251) 5.79% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($56,896 average adjusted gross income) Here: 5.79% Maine average: 5.73% 0.07% of residents moved to foreign countries ($393 average AGI) York County: 0.07% Maine average: 0.06% Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Cumberland County, ME 1.45% ($51,464 average AGI) to Strafford County, NH 0.53% ($58,471) to Rockingham County, NH 0.37% ($65,396) Strongest AM radio stations in Hollis: WMTW (870 AM; 10 kW; GORHAM, ME; Owner: RADIO PARTNERS OF MAINE, L.P.) RADIO PARTNERS OF MAINE, L.P.) WGAN (560 AM; 5 kW; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) WJAE (1440 AM; 5 kW; WESTBROOK, ME; Owner: ALTANTIC COAST RADIO, LLC) ALTANTIC COAST RADIO, LLC) WZAN (970 AM; 5 kW; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) WLOB (1310 AM; 5 kW; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: ATLANTIC COAST RADIO, LLC) ATLANTIC COAST RADIO, LLC) WGIN (930 AM; 10 kW; ROCHESTER, NH; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WRKO (680 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WEEI (850 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WBZ (1030 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WIDE (1400 AM; 1 kW; BIDDEFORD, ME; Owner: SACO BAY COMMUNICATIONS GROUP INC) SACO BAY COMMUNICATIONS GROUP INC) WCRN (830 AM; 50 kW; WORCESTER, MA; Owner: CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WWZN (1510 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ROSE CITY RADIO CORPORATION) ROSE CITY RADIO CORPORATION) WKOX (1200 AM; 50 kW; FRAMINGHAM, MA; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) Strongest FM radio stations in Hollis: WMEA (90.1 FM; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WBLM (102.9 FM; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WPKQ (103.7 FM; NORTH CONWAY, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WHOM (94.9 FM; MT. WASHINGTON, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WSCY (106.9 FM; MOULTONBOROUGH, NH; Owner: NORTHEAST COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) NORTHEAST COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) WCYY (94.3 FM; BIDDEFORD, ME; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WRED (95.9 FM; SACO, ME; Owner: ATLANTIC COAST RADIO, LLC) ATLANTIC COAST RADIO, LLC) WJBQ (97.9 FM; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WPHX-FM (92.1 FM; SANFORD, ME; Owner: FNX BROADCASTING LLC) FNX BROADCASTING LLC) WSEW (88.5 FM; SANFORD, ME; Owner: WORD RADIO EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION) WORD RADIO EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION) WPOR (101.9 FM; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) WMPG (90.9 FM; GORHAM, ME; Owner: UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM) UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM) WMSJ (89.3 FM; FREEPORT, ME; Owner: DOWNEAST CHRISTIAN COMMUNICATIONS) DOWNEAST CHRISTIAN COMMUNICATIONS) WTHT (107.5 FM; LEWISTON, ME; Owner: RADIO PARTNERS OF MAINE, L.P.) RADIO PARTNERS OF MAINE, L.P.) WMTW-FM (106.7 FM; NORTH WINDHAM, ME; Owner: RADIO PARTNERS OF MAINE, L.P.) RADIO PARTNERS OF MAINE, L.P.) WVFM (105.7 FM; CAMPTON, NH; Owner: DEVON BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) DEVON BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) WBQW (106.3 FM; SCARBOROUGH, ME; Owner: MARINER BROADCASTING LIMITED PARTNER) MARINER BROADCASTING LIMITED PARTNER) WMGX (93.1 FM; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) SAGA COMMUNICATIONS OF NEW ENGLAND, LLC) WLKZ (104.9 FM; WOLFEBORO, NH; Owner: TELE-MEDIA COMPANY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, L.L.C.) TELE-MEDIA COMPANY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, L.L.C.) WMEK-FM (99.9 FM; AUBURN, ME; Owner: RADIO PARTNERS OF MAINE, L.P.) TV broadcast stations around Hollis: WMTW-TV ( Channel 8; POLAND SPRING, ME; Owner: WMTW BROADCAST GROUP, LLC) 8; POLAND SPRING, ME; WMTW BROADCAST GROUP, LLC) WMEA-TV ( Channel 26; BIDDEFORD, ME; Owner: MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORP.) 26; BIDDEFORD, ME; MAINE PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORP.) WCSH ( Channel 6; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: PACIFIC AND SOUTHERN COMPANY, INC.) 6; PORTLAND, ME; PACIFIC AND SOUTHERN COMPANY, INC.) WGME-TV ( Channel 13; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: WGME LICENSEE, LLC) 13; PORTLAND, ME; WGME LICENSEE, LLC) WPXT ( Channel 51; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: HMW, INC.) 51; PORTLAND, ME; HMW, INC.) WPME ( Channel 35; LEWISTON, ME; Owner: KB PRIME MEDIA LLC) 35; LEWISTON, ME; KB PRIME MEDIA LLC) W32CA ( Channel 32; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: NATIONAL MINORITY T.V., INC.) 32; PORTLAND, ME; NATIONAL MINORITY T.V., INC.) W58CM ( Channel 58; BANGOR, ME; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 58; BANGOR, ME; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) WLLB-LP ( Channel 15; PORTLAND, ME; Owner: CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) 15; PORTLAND, ME; CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) W57AP (Channel 57; FALMOUTH, ME; Owner: SHERWOOD H. CRAIG) Medal of Honor Recipients Medal of Honor Recipient born in Hollis: Charles H. Smith. Hollis fatal accident statistics for 1975 - 2019 See more detailed statistics of Hollis fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 4 Number of bridges Number of bridges 98ft / 29.9m Total length Total length 19,820 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 989 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 27,747 Total future (year 2036) average daily traffic FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 1 N HOLLIS, 451 Chadbourne Ridge Rd (Lat: 43.641694 Lon: -70.706528), Type: Ltower, Structure height: 55.2 m, Call Sign: WQUG401, Assigned Frequencies: 11305.0 MHz, Grant Date: 06/30/2014, Expiration Date: 06/30/2024, Certifier: John E Monday, Registrant: At&t Mobility LLC, 208 S Akard St., Rm 1015, Dallas, TX 75202, Phone: (855) 699-7073, Fax: (214) 746-6410, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 6 Call Sign: KB1BGD, Grant Date: 02/15/1994, Expiration Date: 02/15/2004, Cancellation Date: 02/16/2006, Registrant: Eric D Conway, Box 224a Waterboro Rd, Hollis, ME 04042 KB1BGD, 02/15/1994, 02/15/2004, 02/16/2006, Eric D Conway, Box 224a Waterboro Rd, Hollis, ME 04042 Call Sign: N1ROA, Licensee ID: L00810243, Grant Date: 01/11/2014, Expiration Date: 03/29/2024, Registrant: David R Piche, 1019 Cape Road, Hollis, ME 04042 N1ROA, L00810243, 01/11/2014, 03/29/2024, David R Piche, 1019 Cape Road, Hollis, ME 04042 Call Sign: KB1EJQ, Previous Call Sign: KA5PYJ, Licensee ID: L00141795, Grant Date: 10/22/2019, Expiration Date: 10/31/2029, Certifier: John A Carusone, Registrant: John A Carusone, 38 Shaw Lane, Hollis, ME 04042-3745 KB1EJQ, KA5PYJ, L00141795, 10/22/2019, 10/31/2029, John A Carusone, John A Carusone, 38 Shaw Lane, Hollis, ME 04042-3745 Call Sign: KB1ETY, Licensee ID: L00201185, Grant Date: 11/02/2009, Expiration Date: 01/28/2020, Certifier: Reuben H Howard, Registrant: Reuben H Howard, 517 River Rd, Hollis, ME 04042 KB1ETY, L00201185, 11/02/2009, 01/28/2020, Reuben H Howard, Reuben H Howard, 517 River Rd, Hollis, ME 04042 Call Sign: KB1JYB, Licensee ID: L00681994, Grant Date: 06/12/2013, Expiration Date: 06/12/2023, Certifier: Michael P Flanagan, Registrant: Michael P Flanagan, 26 Dennett Rd, Hollis, ME 04042 KB1JYB, L00681994, 06/12/2013, 06/12/2023, Michael P Flanagan, Michael P Flanagan, 26 Dennett Rd, Hollis, ME 04042 Call Sign: K1FAA, Previous Call Sign: KD5DQJ, Licensee ID: L00983195, Grant Date: 01/27/2015, Expiration Date: 03/19/2025, Certifier: Richard L Eilinger, Registrant: Richard L Eilinger, 1274 Cape Road, Hollis, ME 04042 FAA Registered Aircraft: 2 Aircraft: CESSNA 172I ( Category: Land, Seats: 4, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds, Speed: 105 mph), Engine: LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 HP) (Reciprocating) N-Number: 8433L, N8433L, N-8433L, Serial Number: 17256633, Year manufactured: 1968, Airworthiness Date: 03/19/1968, Certificate Issue Date: 05/07/2014 Registrant (Co-Owned): Jeffrey A Heacock, 44 Swanton Dr, Hollis, ME 04042, Other Owners: Darrell W Ferguson CESSNA 172I ( Land, 4, Up to 12,499 Pounds, 105 mph), LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 HP) (Reciprocating) 8433L, N8433L, N-8433L, 17256633, 1968, 03/19/1968, 05/07/2014 Jeffrey A Heacock, 44 Swanton Dr, Hollis, ME 04042, Darrell W Ferguson Aircraft: PIPER PA-22-135 (Category: Land, Seats: 4, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds, Speed: 94 mph), Engine: LYCOMING 0-290 SERIES (140 HP) (Reciprocating) N-Number: 8500Q, N8500Q, N-8500Q, Serial Number: 22-1213, Year manufactured: 1953, Airworthiness Date: 05/03/1956, Certificate Issue Date: 08/03/1983 Registrant (Corporation): Pinellas Air Inc, C/O Richard L Eilinger / 1274 Cape Rd, Hollis, ME 04042 2003 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents According to the data from the years 2003 - 2018 the average number of fire incidents per year is 13. The highest number of fires - 32 took place in 2010, and the least - 0 in 2011. The data has an increasing trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Hollis, ME 105 49.1% Structure Fires 90 42.1% Outside Fires 16 7.5% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 3 1.4% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Structure Fires (49.1%), and Outside Fires (42.1%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Hollis, ME Houses and condos Apartments 85.0% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 8.9% Wood 3.1% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 1.6% Electricity 1.0% Coal or coke 0.5% Utility gas 88.7% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 4.3% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 4.3% Electricity 2.6% Wood Hollis compared to Maine state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Renting percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Maine, New York Submit your own pictures of this town and show them to the world OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 5,377. Population change since 2000: -1.5% 5,377.-1.5% Males: 2,661 (49.5%) Females: 2,716 (50.5%) Median resident age: 43.3 years New York median age: 40.7 years Zip codes: 13790. Estimated median household income in 2019: $58,350 (it was $39,656 in 2000) Maine: $58,350 NY: $72,108 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $26,601 (it was $17,773 in 2000) Maine town income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $118,478 (it was $74,300 in 2000) Maine: $118,478 NY: $338,700 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $152,453; detached houses: $156,590; townhouses or other attached units: $214,727; in 2-unit structures: $115,295; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $138,487; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $106,957; mobile homes: $63,925 $58,350 ($39,656$26,601 ($17,773$118,478 ($74,300$152,453;$156,590;$214,727;$115,295;$138,487;$106,957;$63,925 March 2019 cost of living index in Maine: 98.4 (near average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 5,225 97.2% White alone 59 1.1% Two or more races 43 0.8% Hispanic 23 0.4% Black alone 20 0.4% Asian alone 5 0.09% American Indian alone 2 0.04% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone Races in Maine detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of New York and other state lists, there were 3 registered sex offenders living in Maine, New York as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Maine is 1,792 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is lower than the state average. Latest news from Maine, NY collected exclusively by city-data.com from local newspapers, TV, and radio stations Ancestries: English (19.0%), Irish (18.0%), German (16.6%), Italian (10.7%), Polish (8.6%), United States (6.2%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 919 feet Land area: 45.7 square miles. Population density: 118 people per square mile (very low). 83 residents are foreign born This town: 1.5% New York: 20.4% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Maine town: 2.6% ($1,937) New York: 1.9% ($2,847) Latitude: 42.21 N, Longitude: 76.03 W Area code: 607 Single-family new house construction building permits: 1997: 6 buildings , average cost: $95,200 6 $95,200 1998: 7 buildings , average cost: $95,200 7 $95,200 1999: 10 buildings , average cost: $158,400 10 $158,400 2000: 9 buildings , average cost: $158,400 9 $158,400 2001: 9 buildings , average cost: $158,400 9 $158,400 2002: 10 buildings , average cost: $158,400 10 $158,400 2003: 5 buildings , average cost: $106,800 5 $106,800 2004: 12 buildings , average cost: $131,200 12 $131,200 2005: 10 buildings , average cost: $153,800 10 $153,800 2006: 13 buildings , average cost: $189,200 13 $189,200 2007: 8 buildings , average cost: $123,600 8 $123,600 2008: 10 buildings , average cost: $179,200 10 $179,200 2009: 6 buildings , average cost: $153,200 6 $153,200 2010: 5 buildings , average cost: $128,500 5 $128,500 2011: 3 buildings , average cost: $101,800 3 $101,800 2012: 2 buildings , average cost: $50,000 2 $50,000 2013: 3 buildings , average cost: $130,000 3 $130,000 2014: 3 buildings , average cost: $224,000 3 $224,000 2015: 2 buildings , average cost: $217,500 2 $217,500 2016: 2 buildings , average cost: $170,000 2 $170,000 2017: 5 buildings , average cost: $205,400 5 $205,400 2018: 4 buildings , average cost: $186,300 4 $186,300 2019: 2 buildings, average cost: $155,000 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 5.6% New York: 8.1% Most common industries in Maine, NY (%) Both Males Females Educational services (11.8%) Construction (10.5%) Health care (10.0%) Computer & electronic products (8.4%) Accommodation & food services (5.2%) Administrative & support & waste management services (3.4%) Food & beverage stores (3.2%) Construction (17.8%) Computer & electronic products (11.5%) Educational services (9.2%) Health care (6.1%) Accommodation & food services (3.5%) Repair & maintenance (2.7%) Food & beverage stores (2.7%) Educational services (14.9%) Health care (14.6%) Accommodation & food services (7.3%) Finance & insurance (6.1%) Administrative & support & waste management services (5.4%) Personal & laundry services (5.2%) Computer & electronic products (4.7%) Most common occupations in Maine, NY (%) Both Males Females Computer specialists (5.4%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (5.0%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (4.3%) Retail sales workers, except cashiers (3.7%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (2.8%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (2.8%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (2.7%) Computer specialists (7.6%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (7.3%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (4.7%) Construction traders workers except carpenters, electricians, painters, plumbers, and construction laborers (4.5%) Other sales and related occupations, including supervisors (4.0%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (3.9%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (3.8%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (5.9%) Waiters and waitresses (4.9%) Retail sales workers, except cashiers (4.5%) Customer service representatives (3.8%) Other teachers, instructors, education, training, and library occupations (3.5%) Sales representatives, services, wholesale and manufacturing (3.5%) Preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school teachers (3.4%) Average climate in Maine, New York Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Tornado activity: Maine-area historical tornado activity is near New York state average. It is 62% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 5/31/1998, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 11.3 miles away from the Maine town center injured 12 people and caused $3 million in damages. On 5/2/1983, a category F3 tornado 21.1 miles away from the town center injured 6 people and caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Maine-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above New York state average. It is 66% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 147.8 miles away from Maine center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi) earthquake occurred 197.9 miles away from the city center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 195.9 miles away from Maine center On 8/23/2011 at 17:51:04, a magnitude 5.8 (5.8 MW, Depth: 3.7 mi) earthquake occurred 313.8 miles away from Maine center On 9/25/1998 at 19:52:52, a magnitude 5.2 (4.8 MB, 4.3 MS, 5.2 LG, 4.5 MW, Depth: 3.1 mi) earthquake occurred 230.5 miles away from Maine center On 1/16/1994 at 01:49:16, a magnitude 4.6 (4.6 MB, 4.6 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 129.7 miles away from Maine center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Broome County (25) is a lot greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 15 Emergencies Declared: 8 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 11, Storms: 11, Snowstorms: 3, Tropical Storms: 3, Heavy Rains: 2, Hurricanes: 2, Tornadoes: 2, Blizzard: 1, Landslide: 1, Power Outage: 1, Tropical Depression: 1, Wind: 1, Winter Storm: 1, Other: 2 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Maine: UNITED HEALTH SERVICES HOSPITALS, INC Acute Care Hospitals (about 3 miles away; JOHNSON CITY, NY) Acute Care Hospitals JAMES G JOHNSTON MEMORIAL NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 6 miles away; JOHNSON CITY, NY) ABSOLUT CTR FOR NURSING AND REHAB ENDICOTT L L C (Nursing Home, about 7 miles away; ENDICOTT, NY) BROOME DEVELOPMENTAL CENTER (Hospital, about 8 miles away; BINGHAMTON, NY) BROOME DDSO (Hospital, about 8 miles away; BINGHAMTON, NY) WILLOW POINT HRF (Nursing Home, about 8 miles away; VESTAL, NY) WILLOW POINT NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 8 miles away; VESTAL, NY) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Maine: SUNY Broome Community College ( about 8 miles; Binghamton, NY ; Full-time enrollment: 4,969) 8 ; 4,969) SUNY at Binghamton ( about 9 miles; Vestal, NY ; FT enrollment: 15,096) 9 ; 15,096) Tompkins Cortland Community College ( about 25 miles; Dryden, NY ; FT enrollment: 3,884) 25 ; 3,884) SUNY College at Cortland ( about 29 miles; Cortland, NY ; FT enrollment: 6,838) 29 ; 6,838) Ithaca College ( about 29 miles; Ithaca, NY ; FT enrollment: 6,781) 29 ; 6,781) Cornell University ( about 29 miles; Ithaca, NY ; FT enrollment: 20,360) 29 ; 20,360) Colgate University (about 50 miles; Hamilton, NY; FT enrollment: 3,094) Public elementary/middle school in Maine: MAINE MEMORIAL SCHOOL (Students: 536, Location: 2693 MAIN ST, Grades: PK-5) See full list of schools located in Maine Broome County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Highest Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Maine and their reported violations in the past: MAINE TOWN PARK (Population served: 50, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between APR-2011 and JUN-2011, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Boil Water Order (MAY-06-2011), St Compliance achieved (MAY-24-2011) Past monitoring violations: 2 routine major monitoring violations 2 regular monitoring violations FRIENDS DINER (Population served: 40, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: One routine major monitoring violation KELLIS TOO (Population served: 40, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: One routine major monitoring violation FRANKS RESTAURANT (Population served: 25, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between OCT-2010 and DEC-2010, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Boil Water Order (DEC-29-2010), St Compliance achieved (MAR-03-2011) Past monitoring violations: One routine major monitoring violation One regular monitoring violation GABRIELLA'S MANOR (Population served: 25, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: 10 routine major monitoring violations MAINE TOWN PARK (50Groundwater):FRIENDS DINER (40Groundwater):KELLIS TOO (40Groundwater):FRANKS RESTAURANT (25Groundwater):GABRIELLA'S MANOR (25Groundwater): Average household size: This town: 2.5 people New York: 2.6 people Percentage of family households: This town: 71.5% Whole state: 63.5% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This town: 7.5% Whole state: 6.8% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.4% of all households 0.4% Gay men: 0.2% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This town: 5.9% Whole state: 14.6% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This town: 1.8% Whole state: 7.4% 9 people in other noninstitutional facilities in 2010 6 people in group homes intended for adults in 2010 6 people in religious group quarters in 2000 Banks with branches in Maine (2011 data): NBT Bank, National Association: Maine Branch at 2647 Main Street, branch established on 1970/10/19. Info updated 2012/02/02: Bank assets: $5,558.5 mil, Deposits: $4,381.4 mil, headquarters in Norwich, NY, positive income, Commercial Lending Specialization, 133 total offices, Holding Company: Nbt Bancorp Inc. For population 15 years and over in Maine: Never married: 21.4% 21.4% Now married: 62.2% 62.2% Separated: 1.1% 1.1% Widowed: 7.2% 7.2% Divorced: 8.1% For population 25 years and over in Maine: High school or higher: 82.3% 82.3% Bachelor's degree or higher: 18.3% 18.3% Graduate or professional degree: 5.9% 5.9% Unemployed: 4.1% 4.1% Mean travel time to work (commute): 20.7 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 10.8 New York average: 14.2 Religion statistics for Maine, NY (based on Broome County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 62,220 34 Mainline Protestant 21,823 82 Evangelical Protestant 13,541 84 Other 4,900 18 Orthodox 2,285 9 Black Protestant 295 2 None 95,536 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 32 Broome County : 1.64 / 10,000 pop. New York : 4.13 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 2 Broome County : 0.10 / 10,000 pop. State : 0.06 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 13 This county : 0.67 / 10,000 pop. New York : 0.92 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 81 This county : 4.14 / 10,000 pop. New York : 1.68 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 159 This county : 8.13 / 10,000 pop. State : 8.82 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Here : 8.6% New York : 8.2% Adult obesity rate: Broome County : 27.0% New York : 23.8% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Broome County : 14.7% State : 15.6% 3.60% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($40,164 average adjusted gross income) Here: 3.60% New York average: 4.90% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Tioga County, NY 0.44% ($35,389 average AGI) from Chenango County, NY 0.23% ($31,382) from Kings County, NY 0.13% ($40,745) 4.75% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($49,496 average adjusted gross income) Here: 4.75% New York average: 5.85% 0.03% of residents moved to foreign countries ($210 average AGI) Broome County: 0.03% New York average: 0.10% Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Tioga County, NY 0.48% ($41,673 average AGI) to Chenango County, NY 0.22% ($36,509) to Onondaga County, NY 0.15% ($41,496) Strongest AM radio stations in Maine: WNBF (1290 AM; 9 kW; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WINR (680 AM; 5 kW; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) CLEVELAND RADIO LICENSES, LLC) WENE (1430 AM; 5 kW; ENDICOTT, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WYOS (1360 AM; 5 kW; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WEBO (1330 AM; 5 kW; OWEGO, NY; Owner: TIOGA MEDIA, INC.) TIOGA MEDIA, INC.) WHCU (870 AM; 5 kW; ITHACA, NY; Owner: EAGLE BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) EAGLE BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) WATS (960 AM; 5 kW; SAYRE, PA; Owner: WATS BROADCASTING, INC.) WATS BROADCASTING, INC.) WTKO (1470 AM; 5 kW; ITHACA, NY; Owner: EAGLE II BROADCASTING CORPORATION) EAGLE II BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WGY (810 AM; 50 kW; SCHENECTADY, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WWJZ (640 AM; 50 kW; MOUNT HOLLY, NJ; Owner: ABC, INC.) ABC, INC.) WMCA (570 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: SALEM MEDIA OF NEW YORK, LLC) SALEM MEDIA OF NEW YORK, LLC) WHAM (1180 AM; 50 kW; ROCHESTER, NY; Owner: CITICASTERS LICENSES, L.P.) CITICASTERS LICENSES, L.P.) WOR (710 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: BUCKLEY BROADCASTING CORPORATION) Strongest FM radio stations in Maine: WMRV-FM (105.7 FM; ENDICOTT, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WBBI (107.5 FM; ENDWELL, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WSQX-FM (91.5 FM; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: WSKG PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS CNCL.) WSKG PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS CNCL.) WHWK (98.1 FM; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WAAL (99.1 FM; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WSKG-FM (89.3 FM; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: WSKG PUB.TELECOMMUNICATIONS COUNCIL) WSKG PUB.TELECOMMUNICATIONS COUNCIL) WMXW (103.3 FM; VESTAL, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WLTB (101.7 FM; JOHNSON CITY, NY; Owner: GM BROADCASTING, INC.) GM BROADCASTING, INC.) WWYL (104.1 FM; CHENANGO BRIDGE, NY; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WKGB-FM (92.5 FM; CONKLIN, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) W273AB (102.5 FM; OWEGO, NY; Owner: WEBO RADIO, INC.) WEBO RADIO, INC.) W221AX (92.1 FM; ENDWELL, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WCDW (100.5 FM; CONKLIN, NY; Owner: EQUINOX BROADCASTING CORPORATION) EQUINOX BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WIFF (90.1 FM; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CSN INTERNATIONAL) CSN INTERNATIONAL) WCII (88.5 FM; SPENCER, NY; Owner: FAMILY LIFE MINISTRIES, INC.) FAMILY LIFE MINISTRIES, INC.) WYXL (97.3 FM; ITHACA, NY; Owner: EAGLE BROADCASTING COMPANY) EAGLE BROADCASTING COMPANY) W293AC (106.5 FM; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: MONTROSE BROADCASTING CORPORATION) MONTROSE BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WIII (99.9 FM; CORTLAND, NY; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WBKT (95.3 FM; NORWICH, NY; Owner: BANJO COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, INC) BANJO COMMUNICATIONS GROUP, INC) WQNY (103.7 FM; ITHACA, NY; Owner: EAGLE II BROADCASTING CORPORATION) TV broadcast stations around Maine: WSKG-TV ( Channel 46; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: WSKG PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS COUNCIL) 46; BINGHAMTON, NY; WSKG PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS COUNCIL) WICZ-TV ( Channel 40; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: STAINLESS BROADCASTING, L.P.) 40; BINGHAMTON, NY; STAINLESS BROADCASTING, L.P.) WBNG-TV ( Channel 12; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: TELEVISION STATION GROUP LICENSE SUBSIDIARY, LLC) 12; BINGHAMTON, NY; TELEVISION STATION GROUP LICENSE SUBSIDIARY, LLC) W26BS ( Channel 14; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK) 14; BINGHAMTON, NY; TRINITY BROADCASTING NETWORK) WIVT ( Channel 34; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CENTRAL NY NEWS, INC.) 34; BINGHAMTON, NY; CENTRAL NY NEWS, INC.) WBPN-LP ( Channel 10; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: STAINLESS BROADCASTING, L.P.) 10; BINGHAMTON, NY; STAINLESS BROADCASTING, L.P.) WBGH-CA (Channel 20; BINGHAMTON, NY; Owner: CENTRAL NY NEWS, INC.) Maine fatal accident statistics for 1975 - 2019 See more detailed statistics of Maine fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 17 Number of bridges Number of bridges 89ft / 26.8m Total length Total length $17,677,000 Total costs Total costs 41,058 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 2,617 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 41,459 Total future (year 2037) average daily traffic New bridges - historical statistics 1 1930-1939 2 1960-1969 2 1970-1979 2 1980-1989 4 1990-1999 3 2000-2009 3 2010-2018 See full National Bridge Inventory statistics for Maine, NY FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 3 Maine Fire Station Mcgregor St ( Lat: 42.199250 Lon: -76.066306), Call Sign: KEH824, Licensee ID: L00559340, Assigned Frequencies: 33.9000 MHz, Grant Date: 07/16/1997, Expiration Date: 09/22/2002, Cancellation Date: 01/12/2003, Registrant: Maine Fire District 1, Mcgregor St, Maine, NY 13802, Phone: (607) 748-0089 42.199250 -76.066306), KEH824, L00559340, 33.9000 MHz, 07/16/1997, 09/22/2002, 01/12/2003, Maine Fire District 1, Mcgregor St, Maine, NY 13802, (607) 748-0089 RS1_Broome, 3 Mi. E From Maine, Ny Via Pollard Hill Rd - Edson Rd On Fredericks Rd ( Lat: 42.189167 Lon: -76.034167), Type: Tower, Structure height: 30.5 m, Call Sign: WPUY710, Assigned Frequencies: 855.487 MHz, 856.487 MHz, 859.462 MHz, 860.212 MHz, 860.237 MHz, 860.437 MHz, 860.462 MHz, 860.487 MHz, 856.462 MHz, 855.462 MHz... (+15 more), Grant Date: 05/29/2002, Expiration Date: 05/29/2012, Cancellation Date: 01/14/2011, Certifier: Thomas J Cowper, Registrant: Nys Dhses Office Of Interoperable And Emergency Communications, State Office Campus Building 22, 1220 Washington Ave, Albany, NY 12226, Phone: (518) 322-4912, Fax: (518) 322-4975, Email: 42.189167 -76.034167), Tower, 30.5 m, WPUY710, 855.487 MHz, 856.487 MHz, 859.462 MHz, 860.212 MHz, 860.237 MHz, 860.437 MHz, 860.462 MHz, 860.487 MHz, 856.462 MHz, 855.462 MHz... (+15 more), 05/29/2002, 05/29/2012, 01/14/2011, Thomas J Cowper, Nys Dhses Office Of Interoperable And Emergency Communications, State Office Campus Building 22, 1220 Washington Ave, Albany, NY 12226, (518) 322-4912, (518) 322-4975, 2693 Main St (Lat: 42.200667 Lon: -76.056972), Type: Bant, Structure height: 15 m, Overall height: 18 m, Call Sign: WQJF272, Assigned Frequencies: 462.750 MHz, Grant Date: 08/10/2018, Expiration Date: 08/18/2028, Certifier: Mike Aubel, Registrant: Maine Endwell Csd, 712 Farm To Market Road, Endwell, NY 13760, Phone: (607) 754-1400, Fax: (607) 754-1650, Email: FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 2 MAINE, Town Rd ( Lat: 42.250556 Lon: -76.058139), Type: Ltower, Structure height: 59.4 m, Call Sign: WRMP988, Licensee ID: L00065740, Assigned Frequencies: 11325.0 MHz, 11405.0 MHz, Grant Date: 05/14/2021, Expiration Date: 05/14/2031, Certifier: Tom Vroman, Registrant: Broome County Emergency Services, 153 Lt Vanwinkle Dr, Binghamton, NY 13905, Phone: (607) 778-1887, Email: 42.250556 -76.058139), Ltower, 59.4 m, WRMP988, L00065740, 11325.0 MHz, 11405.0 MHz, 05/14/2021, 05/14/2031, Tom Vroman, Broome County Emergency Services, 153 Lt Vanwinkle Dr, Binghamton, NY 13905, (607) 778-1887, STATION, Broome County Airport (Lat: 42.207556 Lon: -75.984361), Overall height: 21.6 m, Call Sign: WHJ582, Assigned Frequencies: 2188.00 MHz, 2191.20 MHz, Grant Date: 01/09/1998, Expiration Date: 03/11/2008, Cancellation Date: 02/28/2008, Phone: (607) 778-2110 FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 12 ( FAA Registered Aircraft: 2 Aircraft: PIPER PA-34-220T ( Category: Land, Engines: 2, Seats: 7, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: Reciprocating N-Number: 275JM, N275JM, N-275JM, Serial Number: 34-8133221, Certificate Issue Date: 12/04/2019 Registrant (LLC): Aircraft Holding Company LLC, Po Box 207, Maine, NY 13802 PIPER PA-34-220T ( Land, 2, 7, Up to 12,499 Pounds), Reciprocating 275JM, N275JM, N-275JM, 34-8133221, 12/04/2019 Aircraft Holding Company LLC, Po Box 207, Maine, NY 13802 Aircraft: PIPER PA-34-220T (Category: Land, Engines: 2, Seats: 7, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: Reciprocating N-Number: 497SA, N497SA, N-497SA, Serial Number: 34-8133109, Certificate Issue Date: 03/28/2019 Registrant (LLC): Kilo Sierra LLC, Po Box 207, Maine, NY 13802 12 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses in Maine 2002 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents According to the data from the years 2002 - 2018 the average number of fire incidents per year is 11. The highest number of fire incidents - 33 took place in 2005, and the least - 1 in 2011. The data has a dropping trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Maine, NY 109 58.9% Structure Fires 46 24.9% Outside Fires 20 10.8% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 10 5.4% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most reports belonged to: Structure Fires (58.9%), and Outside Fires (24.9%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Maine, NY Most common first names in Maine, NY among deceased individuals Name Count Lived (average) Robert 9 72.5 years Mary 8 82.4 years Frank 7 79.7 years Charles 7 67.0 years John 7 69.9 years George 6 63.2 years Ruth 6 82.8 years Joseph 5 70.6 years Harold 5 72.4 years James 4 56.2 years Most common last names in Maine, NY among deceased individuals Last name Count Lived (average) Pitcher 7 82.7 years Rozelle 5 75.4 years Ames 4 84.5 years Corson 4 73.8 years Sobaj 4 68.2 years Walter 4 74.5 years Brigham 3 79.0 years Dunning 3 77.3 years Marean 3 83.0 years Lawton 3 81.7 years Houses and condos Apartments 62.0% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 15.9% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 7.4% Electricity 6.5% Wood 6.3% Utility gas 0.9% Other fuel 0.5% Coal or coke 0.5% Solar energy 65.5% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 14.7% Electricity 10.3% Utility gas 6.3% Wood 3.2% Other fuel Maine compared to New York state average: Median house value significantly below state average. significantly below Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Renting percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. Maine on our top lists: #5 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: retail florists (population 5,000+)" #8 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in industries: hardware, plumbing and heating equipment, and supplies merchant wholesalers (population 5,000+)" #9 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in occupations: bus drivers (population 5,000+)" #11 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in industries: personal and laundry services (population 5,000+)" #20 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: music stores (population 5,000+)" #22 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in occupations: personal appearance workers (population 5,000+)" #27 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in occupations: other transportation workers (population 5,000+)" #28 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: computer and electronic products (population 5,000+)" #33 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: jewelry, luggage, and leather goods stores (population 5,000+)" #39 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in occupations: supervisors of transportation and material moving workers (population 5,000+)" #40 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: professional and commercial equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers (population 5,000+)" #41 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: leather and allied products (population 5,000+)" #42 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: vending machine operators (population 5,000+)" #42 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: electrical equipment, appliances, and components (population 5,000+)" #43 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: u. s. postal service (population 5,000+)" #45 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in occupations: air transportation workers (population 5,000+)" #45 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in occupations: other food preparation and serving workers including supervisors (population 5,000+)" #47 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in industries: furniture and home furnishings, and household appliance stores (population 5,000+)" #51 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: air transportation (population 5,000+)" #59 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in industries: air transportation (population 5,000+)" #4 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the largest number of people moving out compared to moving in (pop. 50,000+)" #52 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the lowest percentage of residents relocating from other counties between 2010 and 2011" #68 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the lowest number of births per 1000 residents 2007-2013" #74 on the list of "Top 101 counties with highest percentage of residents voting for 3rd party candidates in the 2012 Presidential Election (pop. 50,000+)" #75 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the most Orthodox congregations (pop. 50,000+)" no other airmen in this city. There are 2 pilots andother airmen in this city. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Midland, Virginia Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 218. Males: 127 (58.6%) Females: 91 (41.4%) Median resident age: 51.4 years Virginia median age: 38.5 years Estimated median household income in 2019: $104,809 Midland: $104,809 VA: $76,456 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $46,149 Midland CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $431,500 Midland: $431,500 VA: $288,800 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $434,693; detached houses: $431,369 $104,809$46,149$431,500$434,693;$431,369 March 2019 cost of living index in Midland: 126.8 (high, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 0.0% Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 67 69.1% Hispanic 31 32.0% White alone Races in Midland detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Virginia and other state lists, there were 5 registered sex offenders living in Midland, Virginia as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Midland is 48 to 1. Ancestries: Irish (13.2%), English (11.8%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 331 feet 37 residents are foreign born (37.4% Latin America). This place: 37.4% Virginia: 12.4% Latitude: 38.60 N, Longitude: 77.72 W Area code commonly used in this area: 540 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 3.3% Virginia: 4.6% Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI CO NO 2 SO 2 Ozone Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 46.9. This is significantly better than average. City: 46.9 U.S.: 74.2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) [ppm] level in 2008 was 0.421. This is significantly worse than average. Closest monitor was 24.7 miles away from the city center. City: 0.421 U.S.: 0.267 Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 3.73. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 11.0 miles away from the city center. City: 3.73 U.S.: 5.56 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2008 was 2.02. This is about average. Closest monitor was 17.1 miles away from the city center. City: 2.02 U.S.: 1.79 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 26.3. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 9.0 miles away from the city center. City: 26.3 U.S.: 33.3 Tornado activity: Midland-area historical tornado activity is above Virginia state average. It is 2% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 9/24/2001, a category F4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 10.1 miles away from the Midland place center injured 2 people and caused $2 million in damages. On 4/28/2002, a category F4 tornado 29.7 miles away from the place center killed 3 people and injured 122 people and caused $124 million in damages. Earthquake activity: Midland-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Virginia state average. It is 52% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 8/23/2011 at 17:51:04, a magnitude 5.8 (5.8 MW, Depth: 3.7 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 49.1 miles away from the city center On 8/25/2011 at 05:07:52, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 ML, Depth: 4.2 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 47.0 miles away from Midland center On 12/9/2003 at 20:59:18, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 ML, Depth: 6.2 mi) earthquake occurred 60.6 miles away from Midland center On 12/9/2003 at 20:59:14, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 MB, 4.5 LG) earthquake occurred 70.7 miles away from the city center On 9/25/1998 at 19:52:52, a magnitude 5.2 (4.8 MB, 4.3 MS, 5.2 LG, 4.5 MW, Depth: 3.1 mi) earthquake occurred 244.9 miles away from Midland center On 8/24/2011 at 00:04:36, a magnitude 4.2 (4.2 ML) earthquake occurred 49.0 miles away from Midland center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Fauquier County (15) is near the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 11 Emergencies Declared: 4 Causes of natural disasters: Winter Storms: 5, Hurricanes: 4, Snowstorms: 2, Storms: 2, Blizzard: 1, Drought: 1, Flood: 1, Ice Storm: 1, Tropical Storm: 1, Wind: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Midland: MID ATLANTIC HOME HEALTH (Home Health Center, about 9 miles away; WARRENTON, VA) DISTRICT NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 9 miles away; WARRENTON, VA) FMC - WARRENTON (Dialysis Facility, about 9 miles away; WARRENTON, VA) THE FAUQUIER HOSPITAL, INC Acute Care Hospitals (about 10 miles away; WARRENTON, VA) Acute Care Hospitals FAUQUIER HEALTH REHABILITATION AND NURSING CENTER (Nursing Home, about 10 miles away; WARRENTON, VA) FAUQUIER HOSP HM HLTH SVCS (Home Health Center, about 10 miles away; WARRENTON, VA) OAK SPRINGS OF WARRENTON (Nursing Home, about 10 miles away; WARRENTON, VA) Amtrak stations near Midland: 7 miles: WARRENTON (RTS. 29/15/17 SOUTH) - Bus Station . Services: public restrooms, public payphones, full-service food facilities, free short-term parking. WARRENTON (RTS. 29/15/17 SOUTH) - Bus Station . public restrooms, public payphones, full-service food facilities, free short-term parking. 17 miles: CULPEPER (CULPEPPER, 109 S. COMMERCE ST.) . Services: public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for taxi service, intercity bus service. CULPEPER (CULPEPPER, 109 S. COMMERCE ST.) . public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for taxi service, intercity bus service. 18 miles: MANASSAS (9500 WEST ST.) . Services: public payphones, paid short-term parking, call for taxi service, public transit connection. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Midland: Germanna Community College ( about 16 miles; Locust Grove, VA ; Full-time enrollment: 4,455) 16 ; 4,455) University of Mary Washington ( about 25 miles; Fredericksburg, VA ; FT enrollment: 4,506) 25 ; 4,506) George Mason University ( about 28 miles; Fairfax, VA ; FT enrollment: 26,002) 28 ; 26,002) Stratford University ( about 30 miles; Fairfax, VA ; FT enrollment: 2,570) 30 ; 2,570) Northern Virginia Community College ( about 31 miles; Annandale, VA ; FT enrollment: 35,721) 31 ; 35,721) Medtech Institute ( about 36 miles; Falls Church, VA ; FT enrollment: 2,900) 36 ; 2,900) Marymount University (about 39 miles; Arlington, VA; FT enrollment: 3,361) Private elementary/middle school in Midland: MIDLAND CHRISTIAN ACADEMY (Students: 59, Location: 10456 OLD CAROLINA RD, Grades: PK-8) See full list of schools located in Midland Fauquier County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential Average household size: This place: 2.6 people Virginia: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 60.0% Whole state: 67.0% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 4.7% Whole state: 5.7% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.0% of all households 0.0% Gay men: 1.2% of all households For population 15 years and over in Midland: Never married: 8.4% 8.4% Now married: 72.6% 72.6% Separated: 0.0% 0.0% Widowed: 0.0% 0.0% Divorced: 19.0% For population 25 years and over in Midland: High school or higher: 75.3% 75.3% Bachelor's degree or higher: 21.0% 21.0% Graduate or professional degree: 6.2% Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 13.0 Virginia average: 12.1 Religion statistics for Midland, VA (based on Fauquier County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Evangelical Protestant 12,017 56 Mainline Protestant 9,021 35 Catholic 6,600 1 Other 1,409 5 Black Protestant 222 1 Orthodox 115 3 None 35,819 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 11 Here : 1.66 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 2.03 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 10 Fauquier County : 1.51 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 1.43 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 28 This county : 4.23 / 10,000 pop. State : 4.03 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 48 Fauquier County : 7.26 / 10,000 pop. State : 7.65 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Here : 8.7% Virginia : 9.3% Adult obesity rate: Here : 26.3% Virginia : 26.7% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Fauquier County : 20.5% Virginia : 18.6% 8.33% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($75,643 average adjusted gross income) Here: 8.33% Virginia average: 9.50% 0.08% of residents moved from foreign countries ($868 average AGI) Fauquier County: 0.08% Virginia average: 0.18% Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Prince William County, VA 2.14% ($77,655 average AGI) from Fairfax County, VA 0.93% ($104,563) from Culpeper County, VA 0.57% ($59,032) 8.08% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($67,478 average adjusted gross income) Here: 8.08% Virginia average: 9.76% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Prince William County, VA 1.14% ($65,911 average AGI) to Culpeper County, VA 0.96% ($53,414) to Fairfax County, VA 0.49% ($68,807) Strongest AM radio stations in Midland: WKCW (1420 AM; 50 kW; WARRENTON, VA; Owner: WAY BROADCASTING, INC.) WAY BROADCASTING, INC.) WPRZ (1250 AM; 5 kW; WARRENTON, VA; Owner: PRAISE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) PRAISE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WTEM (980 AM; 50 kW; WASHINGTON, DC; Owner: AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) WWGB (1030 AM; daytime; 50 kW; INDIAN HEAD, MD; Owner: GOOD BODY MEDIA, LLC) GOOD BODY MEDIA, LLC) WMET (1150 AM; 50 kW; GAITHERSBURG, MD; Owner: BELTWAY ACQUISITION CORPORATION) BELTWAY ACQUISITION CORPORATION) WTOP (1500 AM; 50 kW; WASHINGTON, DC; Owner: BONNEVILLE HOLDING COMPANY) BONNEVILLE HOLDING COMPANY) WKDV (1460 AM; 5 kW; MANASSAS, VA; Owner: WAY BROADCASTING, INC.) WAY BROADCASTING, INC.) WCBM (680 AM; 50 kW; BALTIMORE, MD; Owner: WCBM MARYLAND, INC.) WCBM MARYLAND, INC.) WPGC (1580 AM; 50 kW; MORNINGSIDE, MD; Owner: INFINITY WPGC(AM), INC.) INFINITY WPGC(AM), INC.) WUST (1120 AM; daytime; 20 kW; WASHINGTON, DC) WKDL (730 AM; 8 kW; ALEXANDRIA, VA; Owner: MEGA COMMUNICATIONS OF ALEXANDRIA LICENSEE, LLC) MEGA COMMUNICATIONS OF ALEXANDRIA LICENSEE, LLC) WBIS (1190 AM; 50 kW; ANNAPOLIS, MD; Owner: NATIONS RADIO, LLC) NATIONS RADIO, LLC) WBAL (1090 AM; 50 kW; BALTIMORE, MD; Owner: HEARST RADIO, INC.) Strongest FM radio stations in Midland: WBPS-FM (94.3 FM; WARRENTON, VA; Owner: MEGA COMMUNICATIONS OF WARRENTON LICENSEE, L.L.C.) MEGA COMMUNICATIONS OF WARRENTON LICENSEE, L.L.C.) WPER (89.9 FM; CULPEPER, VA; Owner: POSITIVE ALTERNATIVE RADIO INC.) POSITIVE ALTERNATIVE RADIO INC.) WTOP-FM (107.7 FM; WARRENTON, VA; Owner: BONNEVILLE HOLDING COMPANY) BONNEVILLE HOLDING COMPANY) WINC-FM (92.5 FM; WINCHESTER, VA; Owner: MID ATLANTIC NETWORK, INC.) MID ATLANTIC NETWORK, INC.) WCUL (103.1 FM; CULPEPER, VA; Owner: JOYNER LICENSE, INC.) JOYNER LICENSE, INC.) W243AF (96.5 FM; FLINT HILL, VA; Owner: CSN INTERNATIONAL) CSN INTERNATIONAL) WMXH-FM (105.7 FM; LURAY, VA; Owner: EASY RADIO, INC.) EASY RADIO, INC.) W228BA (93.5 FM; LEESBURG, VA; Owner: CSN INTERNATIONAL) CSN INTERNATIONAL) WGRX (104.5 FM; FALMOUTH, VA; Owner: TELEMEDIA BROADCASTING, INC.) TELEMEDIA BROADCASTING, INC.) WJFK-FM (106.7 FM; MANASSAS, VA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING CORP. OF WASHINGTON, DC) INFINITY BROADCASTING CORP. OF WASHINGTON, DC) WFLS-FM (93.3 FM; FREDERICKSBURG, VA; Owner: THE FREE LANCE-STAR PUBLISHING CO. OF FREDERICKSBURG, VA) THE FREE LANCE-STAR PUBLISHING CO. OF FREDERICKSBURG, VA) WBQB (101.5 FM; FREDERICKSBURG, VA; Owner: MID ATLANTIC NETWORK, INC.) MID ATLANTIC NETWORK, INC.) WJZW (105.9 FM; WOODBRIDGE, VA; Owner: WMAL, INC.) WMAL, INC.) WJYJ (90.5 FM; FREDERICKSBURG, VA; Owner: CSN INTERNATIONAL) CSN INTERNATIONAL) WJMA-FM (98.9 FM; ORANGE, VA; Owner: PIEDMONT COMMUNICATIONS, INC) PIEDMONT COMMUNICATIONS, INC) W249BF (97.7 FM; FREDERICKSBURG, VA; Owner: BIBLE BROADCASTING NETWORK, INC.) TV broadcast stations around Midland: WNVT ( Channel 53; GOLDVEIN, VA; Owner: COMMONWEALTH PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) 53; GOLDVEIN, VA; COMMONWEALTH PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WPXW ( Channel 66; MANASSAS, VA; Owner: PAXSON WASHINGTON LICENSE, INC.) 66; MANASSAS, VA; PAXSON WASHINGTON LICENSE, INC.) WNVC (Channel 56; FAIRFAX, VA; Owner: COMMONWEALTH PUBLIC BROADCASTING CORPORATION) Midland fatal accident list: Oct 31, 2005 04:30 PM, Midland Rd, Lat: 38.591780, Lon: -77.706790, Vehicles: 1, Persons: 2, Pedestrians: 1, Fatalities: 1 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 7 Number of bridges Number of bridges 26ft / 8.1m Total length Total length $20,000 Total costs Total costs 21,806 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 643 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 26,095 Total future (year 2035) average daily traffic 2002 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents Based on the data from the years 2002 - 2018 the average number of fire incidents per year is 13. The highest number of fire incidents - 22 took place in 2006, and the least - 3 in 2002. The data has a growing trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Midland, VA 102 46.2% Structure Fires 80 36.2% Outside Fires 22 10.0% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 17 7.7% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Structure Fires (46.2%), and Outside Fires (36.2%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Midland, VA Houses and condos Apartments 59.5% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 27.0% Electricity 13.5% Other fuel 100.0% Bottled, tank, or LP gas Midland compared to Virginia state average: Median house value above state average. above Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly above state average. significantly above Median age above state average. above Length of stay since moving in significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly above state average. significantly above Number of college students significantly below state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Mount Sidney, Virginia Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 663. Males: 322 (48.6%) Females: 341 (51.4%) Median resident age: 34.9 years Virginia median age: 38.5 years Zip codes: 24467. Estimated median household income in 2019: $62,668 Mount Sidney: $62,668 VA: $76,456 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $30,228 Mount Sidney CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $208,100 Mount Sidney: $208,100 VA: $288,800 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $224,038; detached houses: $222,325 $62,668$30,228$208,100$224,038;$222,325 Median gross rent in 2019: $534. March 2019 cost of living index in Mount Sidney: 78.5 (low, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 0.0% Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 366 82.1% White alone 38 8.5% Hispanic 36 8.1% Two or more races Races in Mount Sidney detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Virginia and other state lists, there were 3 registered sex offenders living in Mount Sidney, Virginia as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Mount Sidney is 160 to 1. Ancestries: American (16.9%), German (16.0%), European (13.2%), English (10.0%), Scotch-Irish (6.4%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 1290 feet 27 residents are foreign born (6.1% Latin America). This place: 6.1% Virginia: 12.4% Latitude: 38.26 N, Longitude: 78.96 W Area code commonly used in this area: 540 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 3.2% Virginia: 4.6% Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI NO 2 SO 2 Ozone Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 45.2. This is significantly better than average. City: 45.2 U.S.: 74.2 Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 8.16. This is significantly worse than average. Closest monitor was 9.5 miles away from the city center. City: 8.16 U.S.: 5.56 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 0.303. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 9.5 miles away from the city center. City: 0.303 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 24.9. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 12.6 miles away from the city center. City: 24.9 U.S.: 33.3 Tornado activity: Mount Sidney-area historical tornado activity is below Virginia state average. It is 57% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 9/30/1959, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 23.4 miles away from the Mount Sidney place center killed 11 people and injured 4 people and caused between $50,000 and $500,000 in damages. On 9/30/1959, a category F3 tornado 28.9 miles away from the place center killed one person and injured 9 people and caused between $5000 and $50,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Mount Sidney-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Virginia state average. It is 44% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 8/23/2011 at 17:51:04, a magnitude 5.8 (5.8 MW, Depth: 3.7 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 60.7 miles away from Mount Sidney center On 8/9/2020 at 12:07:37, a magnitude 5.1 (5.1 MW, Depth: 4.7 mi) earthquake occurred 170.1 miles away from the city center On 12/9/2003 at 20:59:18, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 ML, Depth: 6.2 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 57.5 miles away from the city center On 8/25/2011 at 05:07:52, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 ML, Depth: 4.2 mi) earthquake occurred 58.1 miles away from Mount Sidney center On 12/9/2003 at 20:59:14, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 MB, 4.5 LG) earthquake occurred 74.0 miles away from the city center On 9/25/1998 at 19:52:52, a magnitude 5.2 (4.8 MB, 4.3 MS, 5.2 LG, 4.5 MW, Depth: 3.1 mi) earthquake occurred 236.3 miles away from the city center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Augusta County (21) is greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 16 Emergencies Declared: 5 Causes of natural disasters: Storms: 7, Floods: 6, Winter Storms: 5, Hurricanes: 4, Droughts: 2, Snowstorms: 2, Blizzard: 1, Ice Storm: 1, Tropical Storm: 1, Wind: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Mount Sidney: SOUTHERNCARE, STAUNTON (Hospital, about 8 miles away; STAUNTON, VA) ENVOY OF STAUNTON, LLC (Nursing Home, about 9 miles away; STAUNTON, VA) OAK HILL NURS HOME (Nursing Home, about 9 miles away; STAUNTON, VA) KINGS DAUGHTERS HOSP (Hospital, about 9 miles away; STAUNTON, VA) KINGS DAUGHTERS COMMUNITY HEALTH AND REHAB (Nursing Home, about 9 miles away; STAUNTON, VA) WESTERN STATE HOSPITAL (Hospital, about 10 miles away; STAUNTON, VA) DAVITA - STAUNTON (Dialysis Facility, about 11 miles away; STAUNTON, VA) Amtrak station near Mount Sidney: 10 miles: STAUNTON (1 MIDDLEBROOK AVE.) . Services: enclosed waiting area, public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for taxi service, intercity bus service, public transit connection. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Mount Sidney: Blue Ridge Community College ( about 2 miles; Weyers Cave, VA ; Full-time enrollment: 2,891) 2 ; 2,891) James Madison University ( about 14 miles; Harrisonburg, VA ; FT enrollment: 19,727) 14 ; 19,727) University of Virginia-Main Campus ( about 30 miles; Charlottesville, VA ; FT enrollment: 22,274) 30 ; 22,274) Piedmont Virginia Community College ( about 32 miles; Charlottesville, VA ; FT enrollment: 3,029) 32 ; 3,029) Lynchburg College ( about 61 miles; Lynchburg, VA ; FT enrollment: 2,456) 61 ; 2,456) Central Virginia Community College ( about 64 miles; Lynchburg, VA ; FT enrollment: 2,759) 64 ; 2,759) Liberty University (about 64 miles; Lynchburg, VA; FT enrollment: 61,625) Augusta County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Highest Potential Average household size: This place: 2.5 people Virginia: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 71.7% Whole state: 67.0% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 6.3% Whole state: 5.7% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.0% of all households 0.0% Gay men: 0.4% of all households For population 15 years and over in Mount Sidney: Never married: 7.8% 7.8% Now married: 87.8% 87.8% Separated: 4.4% 4.4% Widowed: 0.0% 0.0% Divorced: 0.0% For population 25 years and over in Mount Sidney: High school or higher: 97.1% 97.1% Bachelor's degree or higher: 54.0% 54.0% Graduate or professional degree: 19.2% Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 9.1 Virginia average: 12.1 Religion statistics for Mount Sidney, VA (based on Augusta County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Evangelical Protestant 14,908 67 Mainline Protestant 13,026 60 Black Protestant 72 1 Orthodox 60 1 Other 21 - None 45,663 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 14 Here : 1.98 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.03 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 6 Augusta County : 0.85 / 10,000 pop. State : 1.43 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 31 Augusta County : 4.38 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 4.03 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 26 Augusta County : 3.67 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 7.65 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Augusta County : 8.4% State : 9.3% Adult obesity rate: Augusta County : 25.9% State : 26.7% 6.60% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($45,608 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.60% Virginia average: 9.50% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Staunton city, VA 1.51% ($40,932 average AGI) from Waynesboro city, VA 1.23% ($40,628) from Rockingham County, VA 0.70% ($38,636) 6.10% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($42,472 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.10% Virginia average: 9.76% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Staunton city, VA 1.35% ($36,845 average AGI) to Waynesboro city, VA 1.08% ($41,323) to Rockingham County, VA 0.63% ($43,535) Strongest AM radio stations in Mount Sidney: WSVA (550 AM; 10 kW; HARRISONBURG, VA; Owner: M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) WKDW (900 AM; 3 kW; STAUNTON, VA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WKCI (970 AM; 5 kW; WAYNESBORO, VA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WHBG (1360 AM; 5 kW; HARRISONBURG, VA; Owner: M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) WNLR (1150 AM; 3 kW; CHURCHVILLE, VA; Owner: NEW LIFE MINISTRIES, INC.) NEW LIFE MINISTRIES, INC.) WKCY (1300 AM; 5 kW; HARRISONBURG, VA; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WKTR (840 AM; daytime; 8 kW; EARLYSVILLE, VA; Owner: WKTR, INC.) WKTR, INC.) WTON (1240 AM; 1 kW; STAUNTON, VA; Owner: HIGH IMPACT COMMUNICATIONS INC) HIGH IMPACT COMMUNICATIONS INC) WKCW (1420 AM; 50 kW; WARRENTON, VA; Owner: WAY BROADCASTING, INC.) WAY BROADCASTING, INC.) WINA (1070 AM; 5 kW; CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA; Owner: EURE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) EURE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WBTX (1470 AM; 5 kW; BROADWAY-TIMBERVILLE, VA; Owner: MASSANUTTEN BROADCASTING CO., INC.) MASSANUTTEN BROADCASTING CO., INC.) WCHV (1260 AM; 5 kW; CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WRVA (1140 AM; 50 kW; RICHMOND, VA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) Strongest FM radio stations in Mount Sidney: WACL (98.5 FM; ELKTON, VA; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WQPO (100.7 FM; HARRISONBURG, VA; Owner: M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) WVTU (89.3 FM; CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA; Owner: VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC) VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC) WCYK-FM (99.7 FM; STAUNTON, VA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WTON-FM (94.3 FM; STAUNTON, VA; Owner: HIGH IMPACT COMMUNICATIONS INC) HIGH IMPACT COMMUNICATIONS INC) WPVA (90.1 FM; WAYNESBORO, VA; Owner: CSN INTERNATIONAL) CSN INTERNATIONAL) WMXH-FM (105.7 FM; LURAY, VA; Owner: EASY RADIO, INC.) EASY RADIO, INC.) WBOP (106.3 FM; CHURCHVILLE, VA; Owner: SHENANDOAH VALLEY TELEVISION, LLC) SHENANDOAH VALLEY TELEVISION, LLC) WMRY (103.5 FM; CROZET, VA; Owner: JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY BOARD OF VISITORS) JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY BOARD OF VISITORS) WSVO (93.1 FM; STAUNTON, VA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WMRA (90.7 FM; HARRISONBURG, VA; Owner: JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY BOARD OF VISITORS) JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY BOARD OF VISITORS) WBHB-FM (96.1 FM; BROADWAY, VA; Owner: HJV LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) HJV LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WKCY-FM (104.3 FM; HARRISONBURG, VA; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WJDV (105.1 FM; BRIDGEWATER, VA; Owner: M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) M. BELMONT VERSTANDIG, INC.) WVLS (89.7 FM; MONTEREY, VA; Owner: POCAHONTAS COMMUNICATIONS COOPERATIVE CORP.) POCAHONTAS COMMUNICATIONS COOPERATIVE CORP.) WWWV (97.5 FM; CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA; Owner: EURE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) EURE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WUMX (107.5 FM; CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA; Owner: AIR VIRGINIA, INC.) AIR VIRGINIA, INC.) WVTW (88.5 FM; CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA; Owner: VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION, INC) VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION, INC) WNRS-FM (89.9 FM; SWEET BRIAR, VA; Owner: SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE) SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE) WTJU (91.1 FM; CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA; Owner: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA) TV broadcast stations around Mount Sidney: WAZM-CA (Channel 25; STAUNTON-WAYNESBORO, VA; Owner: RUARCH ASSOCIATES LLC) Mount Sidney fatal accident list: May 16, 2019 07:00 PM, Us-11, Lat: 38.259761, Lon: -78.958100, Vehicles: 1, Persons: 1, Pedestrians: 1, Fatalities: 1 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 19 Number of bridges Number of bridges 138ft / 42.1m Total length Total length $1,624,000 Total costs Total costs 263,012 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 24,365 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 186,090 Total future (year 2032) average daily traffic New bridges - historical statistics 2 1920-1929 3 1930-1939 1 1950-1959 5 1960-1969 2 1970-1979 4 1980-1989 2 1990-1999 See full National Bridge Inventory statistics for Mount Sidney, VA FCC Registered Antenna Towers: 1 765 Dice's Spring Rd (Lat: 38.289167 Lon: -78.933333), Type: 51.8, Overall height: 51.8 m, Registrant: Cfw Wireless, Inc. Dba , Sgarber@cfw.Com, , Wayne-sboro, Phone: (540) 946-3516 FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 11 ( FAA Registered Aircraft Manufacturers and Dealers: 1 NICE AIRCRAFT INC, 105 Overlook Ave, Mount Sidney, VA 24467 Certificate: 01-2026 (Corporation), Certificate Issue Date: 11/20/2001, Expiration Date: 11/19/2002 11 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses in Mount Sidney 2002 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents Based on the data from the years 2002 - 2018 the average number of fires per year is 12. The highest number of fire incidents - 23 took place in 2014, and the least - 0 in 2005. The data has a rising trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Mount Sidney, VA 99 48.8% Structure Fires 56 27.6% Outside Fires 43 21.2% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 5 2.5% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Structure Fires (48.8%), and Outside Fires (27.6%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Mount Sidney, VA Houses and condos Apartments 56.5% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 43.5% Electricity 100.0% Electricity Mount Sidney compared to Virginia state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Median age significantly above state average. significantly above Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Number of college students below state average. below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher above state average. Mount Sidney on our top lists: #53 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the most people leaving home to go to work at strange times (12 PM - 5 AM) (population 500+)" #95 on the list of "Top 101 counties with highest percentage of residents voting for Romney (Republican) in the 2012 Presidential Election (pop. 50,000+)" Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Newark, Vermont Submit your own pictures of this town and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 581. Population change since 2000: +23.6% Males: 285 (49.1%) Females: 296 (50.9%) Median resident age: 48.5 years Vermont median age: 45.8 years Zip codes: 05871. Estimated median household income in 2019: $49,646 (it was $33,611 in 2000) Newark: $49,646 VT: $63,001 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $32,655 (it was $18,035 in 2000) Newark town income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $158,438 (it was $78,400 in 2000) Newark: $158,438 VT: $233,200 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $215,419; detached houses: $232,932; townhouses or other attached units: $302,880; in 2-unit structures: $211,084; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $141,952; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $176,978; mobile homes: $78,475; occupied boats, rvs, vans, etc.: $18,870 $49,646 ($33,611$32,655 ($18,035$158,438 ($78,400$215,419;$232,932;$302,880;$211,084;$141,952;$176,978;$78,475;$18,870 March 2019 cost of living index in Newark: 96.1 (near average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 570 98.1% White alone 9 1.5% Two or more races 2 0.3% American Indian alone Races in Newark detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Vermont and other state lists, there were 2 registered sex offenders living in Newark, Vermont as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Newark is 291 to 1. Ancestries: English (22.8%), Irish (17.0%), French (11.7%), United States (9.4%), Swedish (5.1%), Scottish (4.9%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Land area: 36.8 square miles. Population density: 16 people per square mile (very low). 10 residents are foreign born (2.1% Europe). This town: 2.1% Vermont: 3.8% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Newark town: 1.5% ($1,188) Vermont: 2.0% ($2,196) Latitude: 44.70 N, Longitude: 71.94 W Area code commonly used in this area: 802 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 2.6% Vermont: 2.8% Population change in the 1990s: +112 (+31.3%). Most common industries in Newark, VT (%) Both Males Females Educational services (19.3%) Construction (10.7%) Accommodation & food services (8.6%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (8.2%) Health care (6.4%) Metal & metal products (5.6%) Public administration (5.2%) Construction (14.2%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (13.3%) Metal & metal products (10.8%) Educational services (8.3%) Accommodation & food services (8.3%) Public administration (5.8%) Repair & maintenance (5.8%) Educational services (31.0%) Health care (12.4%) Accommodation & food services (8.8%) Construction (7.1%) Public administration (4.4%) Furniture & home furnishing merchant wholesalers (3.5%) Repair & maintenance (3.5%) Most common occupations in Newark, VT (%) Both Males Females Other production occupations, including supervisors (6.4%) Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides (5.6%) Teachers, secondary school (5.6%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (5.2%) Metal workers and plastic workers (5.2%) Art and design workers (3.9%) Counselors, social workers, and other community and social service specialists (3.9%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (10.8%) Metal workers and plastic workers (10.0%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (10.0%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (6.7%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (5.8%) Carpenters (5.0%) Construction laborers (5.0%) Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides (10.6%) Teachers, secondary school (8.0%) Counselors, social workers, and other community and social service specialists (8.0%) Art and design workers (6.2%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (6.2%) Woodworkers (5.3%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (4.4%) Average climate in Newark, Vermont Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI SO 2 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2002 was 4.67. This is significantly better than average. City: 4.67 U.S.: 74.20 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2002 was 1.47. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 22.2 miles away from the city center. City: 1.47 U.S.: 1.79 Earthquake activity: Newark-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Vermont state average. It is 74% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 87.4 miles away from the city center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 88.7 miles away from Newark center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 129.5 miles away from the city center On 1/19/1982 at 00:14:42, a magnitude 4.7 (4.5 MB, 4.7 MD, 4.5 LG, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 84.9 miles away from Newark center On 10/16/2012 at 23:12:25, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 ML, Depth: 10.0 mi) earthquake occurred 99.6 miles away from the city center On 6/16/1995 at 12:13:11, a magnitude 3.8 (3.8 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 28.8 miles away from the city center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), duration magnitude (MD), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Caledonia County (24) is greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 21 Emergencies Declared: 1 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 19, Storms: 16, Heavy Rains: 2, Tropical Storms: 2, Winds: 2, Hurricane: 1, Landslide: 1, Tornado: 1, Winter Storm: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Newark: PINES REHAB AND HEALTH CTR (Nursing Home, about 14 miles away; LYNDONVILLE, VT) UNION HOUSE NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 14 miles away; GLOVER, VT) MAPLE LANE NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 15 miles away; BARTON, VT) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Newark: Norwich University ( about 53 miles; Northfield, VT ; Full-time enrollment: 4,221) 53 ; 4,221) Saint Michael's College ( about 62 miles; Colchester, VT ; FT enrollment: 2,336) 62 ; 2,336) Community College of Vermont ( about 63 miles; Winooski, VT ; FT enrollment: 3,394) 63 ; 3,394) University of Vermont ( about 64 miles; Burlington, VT ; FT enrollment: 11,566) 64 ; 11,566) Champlain College ( about 65 miles; Burlington, VT ; FT enrollment: 2,623) 65 ; 2,623) Plymouth State University ( about 67 miles; Plymouth, NH ; FT enrollment: 4,838) 67 ; 4,838) Dartmouth College (about 72 miles; Hanover, NH; FT enrollment: 6,030) Public elementary/middle school in Newark: NEWARK SCHOOL (Students: 44, Location: 1448 NEWARK STREET, Grades: PK-8) See full list of schools located in Newark Caledonia County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Newark and their reported violations in the past: NEWARK SCHOOL (Address: 1448 NEWARK ST Population served: 75, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In OCT-2013, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Tech Assistance Visit (OCT-11-2013), St Formal NOV issued (OCT-11-2013), St Public Notif requested (OCT-11-2013), St Boil Water Order (OCT-11-2013), St Compliance achieved (OCT-28-2013) Past monitoring violations: Follow-up Or Routine LCR Tap M/R - In OCT-01-2006 , Contaminant: Lead and Copper Rule . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (DEC-04-2006), St Formal NOV issued (DEC-04-2006), St Public Notif received (DEC-13-2006), St Compliance achieved (MAR-17-2011) OCT-01-2006 Lead and Copper Rule St Public Notif requested (DEC-04-2006), St Formal NOV issued (DEC-04-2006), St Public Notif received (DEC-13-2006), St Compliance achieved (MAR-17-2011) One routine major monitoring violation NEWARK SCHOOL (1448 NEWARK ST 75Groundwater): Average household size: This town: 2.2 people Vermont: 2.3 people Percentage of family households: This town: 57.9% Whole state: 62.5% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This town: 11.3% Whole state: 9.2% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 1.5% of all households 1.5% Gay men: 0.0% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This town: 17.6% Whole state: 9.4% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This town: 8.8% Whole state: 3.6% For population 15 years and over in Newark: Never married: 22.3% 22.3% Now married: 54.2% 54.2% Separated: 0.0% 0.0% Widowed: 6.1% 6.1% Divorced: 17.3% For population 25 years and over in Newark: High school or higher: 79.2% 79.2% Bachelor's degree or higher: 25.9% 25.9% Graduate or professional degree: 8.2% 8.2% Unemployed: 9.7% 9.7% Mean travel time to work (commute): 32.3 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 11.6 Vermont average: 11.7 Religion statistics for Newark, VT (based on Caledonia County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 4,355 6 Mainline Protestant 3,810 32 Evangelical Protestant 1,488 15 Other 780 9 None 20,794 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 15 Caledonia County : 4.91 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 3.84 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 7 This county : 2.29 / 10,000 pop. State : 1.95 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 23 Here : 7.53 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 6.40 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 31 Here : 10.14 / 10,000 pop. State : 11.52 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Caledonia County : 7.9% Vermont : 6.8% Adult obesity rate: Caledonia County : 24.6% State : 22.3% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Caledonia County : 11.5% Vermont : 13.3% 5.04% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($48,878 average adjusted gross income) Here: 5.04% Vermont average: 5.96% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Orleans County, VT 0.61% ($22,579 average AGI) from Washington County, VT 0.48% ($39,169) from Grafton County, NH 0.34% ($40,286) 6.31% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($39,726 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.31% Vermont average: 6.30% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Washington County, VT 0.61% ($41,382 average AGI) to Orleans County, VT 0.50% ($39,476) to Grafton County, NH 0.47% ($34,525) Strongest AM radio stations in Newark: WCHP (760 AM; 35 kW; CHAMPLAIN, NY; Owner: CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) WDEV (550 AM; 5 kW; WATERBURY, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, INC.) RADIO VERMONT, INC.) WTWN (1100 AM; daytime; 5 kW; WELLS RIVER, VT; Owner: PUFFER BROADCASTING, INC.) PUFFER BROADCASTING, INC.) WRKO (680 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WICY (1490 AM; 50 kW; MALONE, NY; Owner: CARTIER COMMUNICATIONS INC.) CARTIER COMMUNICATIONS INC.) WTME (780 AM; 10 kW; RUMFORD, ME; Owner: MOUNTAIN VALLEY BROADCASTING, INC.) MOUNTAIN VALLEY BROADCASTING, INC.) WNNZ (640 AM; 50 kW; WESTFIELD, MA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WGY (810 AM; 50 kW; SCHENECTADY, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WCRN (830 AM; 50 kW; WORCESTER, MA; Owner: CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WEEI (850 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WSTJ (1340 AM; 1 kW; ST. JOHNSBURY, VT; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WVMT (620 AM; 5 kW; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: SISON BROADCASTING, INC.) SISON BROADCASTING, INC.) WBZ (1030 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) Strongest FM radio stations in Newark: WGMT (97.7 FM; LYNDON, VT; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WPKQ (103.7 FM; NORTH CONWAY, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WHOM (94.9 FM; MT. WASHINGTON, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) W243AE (96.5 FM; ORLEANS, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) WLKC (103.3 FM; WATERBURY, VT; Owner: RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICES, INC.) RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICES, INC.) WVPS (107.9 FM; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) WEZF (92.9 FM; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WMTK (106.3 FM; LITTLETON, NH; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WCVT (101.7 FM; STOWE, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT CLASSICS, L.L.C.) RADIO VERMONT CLASSICS, L.L.C.) WDOT (95.7 FM; DANVILLE, VT; Owner: MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) WCKJ (90.5 FM; ST. JOHNSBURY, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) WKXH (105.5 FM; ST. JOHNSBURY, VT; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WXXS (102.3 FM; LANCASTER, NH; Owner: BARRY P. LUNDERVILLE) BARRY P. LUNDERVILLE) WNCS (104.7 FM; MONTPELIER, VT; Owner: MONTPELIER BROADCASTING, INC.) MONTPELIER BROADCASTING, INC.) WMOO (92.1 FM; DERBY CENTER, VT; Owner: NORTHSTAR MEDIA, INC.) NORTHSTAR MEDIA, INC.) WVFM (105.7 FM; CAMPTON, NH; Owner: DEVON BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) DEVON BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) WDEV-FM (96.1 FM; WARREN, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, INC.) RADIO VERMONT, INC.) WLTN-FM (96.7 FM; LISBON, NH; Owner: PROFILE BROADCASTING CO., INC.) TV broadcast stations around Newark: WLED-TV ( Channel 49; LITTLETON, NH; Owner: UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE) 49; LITTLETON, NH; UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE) WVTB ( Channel 20; ST. JOHNSBURY, VT; Owner: VERMONT ETV, INC.) 20; ST. JOHNSBURY, VT; VERMONT ETV, INC.) W36CP (Channel 36; NEWPORT, VT; Owner: NYN, LLC) National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 2 Number of bridges Number of bridges 23ft / 7.1m Total length Total length $534,000 Total costs Total costs 5,100 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 446 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 7,140 Total future (year 2018) average daily traffic FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 2 Lat: 44.690056 Lon: -71.950639, Call Sign: WQPX241, Assigned Frequencies: 159.555 MHz, 159.780 MHz, Grant Date: 09/06/2012, Expiration Date: 09/06/2022, Certifier: Mary Ann Riggle, Registrant: Newark Street School, 1448 Newark Street, Newark, VT 05871, Phone: (802) 467-3401, Email: 44.690056 -71.950639, WQPX241, 159.555 MHz, 159.780 MHz, 09/06/2012, 09/06/2022, Mary Ann Riggle, Newark Street School, 1448 Newark Street, Newark, VT 05871, (802) 467-3401, Lat: 44.690056 Lon: -71.950639, Call Sign: WRCY251, Assigned Frequencies: 160.080 MHz, 160.050 MHz, 159.660 MHz, 159.555 MHz, 159.780 MHz, 159.720 MHz, 159.540 MHz, 160.020 MHz, 159.585 MHz, 160.125 MHz, Grant Date: 02/25/2019, Expiration Date: 02/25/2029, Certifier: Marc Brown, Registrant: Cara Enterprises Inc, Las Vegas, NV 89140-0124, Phone: (702) 838-9728, Fax: (702) 363-4607, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 2 Call Sign: KB1DDH, Licensee ID: L00928320, Grant Date: 06/08/2018, Expiration Date: 08/13/2028, Certifier: David Edwards Jr, Registrant: David Edwards Jr, 238 Marylyn Lane, Newark, VT 05871 KB1DDH, L00928320, 06/08/2018, 08/13/2028, David Edwards Jr, David Edwards Jr, 238 Marylyn Lane, Newark, VT 05871 Call Sign: KC1ITB, Licensee ID: L02116140, Grant Date: 12/15/2017, Expiration Date: 12/15/2027, Certifier: Benjamin S Fuller, Registrant: Benjamin S Fuller, 2577 Center Pond Rd, Newark, VT 05871 Houses and condos Apartments 36.5% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 32.9% Wood 25.3% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 4.1% Coal or coke 1.2% Electricity 69.6% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 21.7% Wood 8.7% Bottled, tank, or LP gas Newark compared to Vermont state average: Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Foreign-born population percentage below state average. below Renting percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. Omena, Michigan Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 267. Males: 118 (44.4%) Females: 149 (55.6%) Median resident age: 55.8 years Michigan median age: 39.8 years Zip codes: 49674. Estimated median household income in 2019: $68,035 Omena: $68,035 MI: $59,584 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $40,526 Omena CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $293,871 Omena: $293,871 MI: $169,600 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $408,444; detached houses: $407,841 $68,035$40,526$293,871$408,444;$407,841 March 2019 cost of living index in Omena: 80.2 (low, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 4.2% Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 140 97.2% White alone 3 2.1% Two or more races Races in Omena detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Michigan and other state lists, there was 1 registered sex offender living in Omena, Michigan as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Omena is 236 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is near the state average. Ancestries: Irish (25.6%), Hungarian (23.3%), Italian (20.9%), Welsh (11.6%), English (9.3%), French Canadian (9.3%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 642 feet 3 residents are foreign born (2.1% Europe). This place: 2.1% Michigan: 6.9% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2019: $3,020 (0.7%) Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2019: $3,376 (0.7%) Latitude: 45.06 N, Longitude: 85.59 W Area code commonly used in this area: 231 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 3.5% Michigan: 6.3% Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI Ozone Tornado activity: Omena-area historical tornado activity is significantly below Michigan state average. It is 74% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 4/3/1956, a category F4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 12.2 miles away from the Omena place center killed 2 people and injured 24 people and caused between $50,000 and $500,000 in damages. On 6/26/1969, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 16.3 miles away from the place center caused between $50,000 and $500,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Omena-area historical earthquake activity is near Michigan state average. It is 89% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 9/25/1998 at 19:52:52, a magnitude 5.2 (4.8 MB, 4.3 MS, 5.2 LG, 4.5 MW, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 359.3 miles away from Omena center On 1/31/1986 at 16:46:43, a magnitude 5.0 (5.0 MB) earthquake occurred 326.6 miles away from the city center On 5/2/2015 at 16:23:07, a magnitude 4.2 (4.2 MW, Depth: 2.8 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 195.2 miles away from the city center On 7/12/1986 at 08:19:37, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 MB) earthquake occurred 318.6 miles away from Omena center On 9/2/1994 at 21:23:06, a magnitude 3.5 (3.4 LG, 3.5 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 163.7 miles away from Omena center On 6/28/2004 at 06:10:52, a magnitude 4.2 (4.2 MW, Depth: 6.2 mi) earthquake occurred 299.4 miles away from Omena center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Leelanau County (4) is a lot smaller than the US average (15). Emergencies Declared: 3 Causes of natural disasters: Blizzard: 1, Drought: 1, Hurricane: 1, Snowstorm: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Omena: LEELANAU MEMORIAL HEALTH CENTER (Hospital, about 6 miles away; NORTHPORT, MI) TENDERCARE HEALTH CENTER OF LEELANAU (Nursing Home, about 6 miles away; SUTTONS BAY, MI) CHARLEVOIX AREA HOSPITAL Critical Access Hospitals (about 14 miles away; CHARLEVOIX, MI) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Omena: Northwestern Michigan College ( about 20 miles; Traverse City, MI ; Full-time enrollment: 3,276) 20 ; 3,276) Mid Michigan Community College ( about 86 miles; Harrison, MI ; FT enrollment: 3,653) 86 ; 3,653) Ferris State University ( about 95 miles; Big Rapids, MI ; FT enrollment: 11,238) 95 ; 11,238) Central Michigan University ( about 109 miles; Mount Pleasant, MI ; FT enrollment: 22,758) 109 ; 22,758) Lake Superior State University ( about 116 miles; Sault Ste Marie, MI ; FT enrollment: 2,242) 116 ; 2,242) Northwood University-Michigan ( about 119 miles; Midland, MI ; FT enrollment: 2,763) 119 ; 2,763) University of Wisconsin-Green Bay (about 121 miles; Green Bay, WI; FT enrollment: 5,415) Leelanau County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Omena and their reported violations in the past: KNOT JUST A BAR (Population served: 100, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: One routine major monitoring violation KNOT JUST A BAR (100Groundwater): Average household size: This place: 2.1 people Michigan: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 73.4% Whole state: 66.0% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 4.8% Whole state: 6.4% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.0% of all households 0.0% Gay men: 0.8% of all households For population 15 years and over in Omena: Never married: 9.9% 9.9% Now married: 65.7% 65.7% Separated: 0.0% 0.0% Widowed: 13.6% 13.6% Divorced: 10.8% For population 25 years and over in Omena: High school or higher: 100.0% 100.0% Bachelor's degree or higher: 66.1% 66.1% Graduate or professional degree: 28.3% Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 8.6 Michigan average: 10.8 Religion statistics for Omena, MI (based on Leelanau County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 5,861 8 Mainline Protestant 2,355 11 Evangelical Protestant 864 7 Other 7 2 None 12,621 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 13 Leelanau County : 5.96 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.34 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 6 Leelanau County : 2.75 / 10,000 pop. Michigan : 1.52 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 5 This county : 2.29 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.99 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 39 This county : 17.87 / 10,000 pop. Michigan : 6.80 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Leelanau County : 10.5% State : 9.7% Adult obesity rate: Leelanau County : 29.5% Michigan : 29.7% Low-income preschool obesity rate: This county : 21.2% Michigan : 13.4% 7.40% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($67,030 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.40% Michigan average: 5.43% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Grand Traverse County, MI 2.69% ($55,673 average AGI) from Oakland County, MI 0.35% ($104,147) from Kent County, MI 0.28% ($62,963) 7.06% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($52,125 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.06% Michigan average: 5.69% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Grand Traverse County, MI 3.14% ($47,529 average AGI) to Benzie County, MI 0.45% ($23,932) Strongest AM radio stations in Omena: WTCM (580 AM; 35 kW; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: WTCM RADIO, INC.) WTCM RADIO, INC.) WLDR (1210 AM; daytime; 50 kW; KINGSLEY, MI; Owner: FORT BEND BROADCASTING COMPANY) FORT BEND BROADCASTING COMPANY) WCCW (1310 AM; 15 kW; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: WCCW RADIO, INC.) WCCW RADIO, INC.) WMKT (1270 AM; 5 kW; CHARLEVOIX, MI; Owner: MACDONALD GARBER BROADCASTING, INC) MACDONALD GARBER BROADCASTING, INC) WJML (1110 AM; 10 kW; PETOSKEY, MI) WOAP (1080 AM; 50 kW; OWOSSO, MI) WTMJ (620 AM; 50 kW; MILWAUKEE, WI; Owner: JOURNAL BROADCAST CORPORATION) JOURNAL BROADCAST CORPORATION) WDBC (680 AM; 10 kW; ESCANABA, MI; Owner: KMB BROADCASTING, INC.) KMB BROADCASTING, INC.) WNAM (1280 AM; 50 kW; NEENAH-MENASHA, WI; Owner: CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) CUMULUS LICENSING CORP.) WSPT (1010 AM; 50 kW; STEVENS POINT, WI) WLJN (1400 AM; 1 kW; ELMWOOD TOWNSHIP, MI; Owner: GOOD NEWS MEDIA, INC.) GOOD NEWS MEDIA, INC.) WJR (760 AM; 50 kW; DETROIT, MI; Owner: ABC, INC.) ABC, INC.) WSCR (670 AM; 50 kW; CHICAGO, IL; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) Strongest FM radio stations in Omena: WFCX (94.3 FM; LELAND, MI; Owner: NORTHERN MICHIGAN RADIO, INC.) NORTHERN MICHIGAN RADIO, INC.) WKHQ-FM (105.9 FM; CHARLEVOIX, MI; Owner: MACDONALD GARBER BROADCASTING, INC) MACDONALD GARBER BROADCASTING, INC) WICA (91.5 FM; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS) INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS) WBCM (93.5 FM; BOYNE CITY, MI; Owner: WBCM RADIO, INC.) WBCM RADIO, INC.) WLDR-FM (101.9 FM; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: GREAT NORTHERN BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC.) GREAT NORTHERN BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC.) WLJN-FM (89.9 FM; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: GOOD NEWS MEDIA, INC.) GOOD NEWS MEDIA, INC.) WNMC-FM (90.7 FM; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: NORTHWESTERN MICHIGAN COLLEGE) NORTHWESTERN MICHIGAN COLLEGE) WJZJ (95.5 FM; GLEN ARBOR, MI; Owner: NORTHERN STAR BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) NORTHERN STAR BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) WGFN (98.1 FM; GLEN ARBOR, MI; Owner: NORTHERN STAR BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) NORTHERN STAR BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) W201CM (88.1 FM; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: PENSACOLA CHRISTIAN COLLEGE, INC.) PENSACOLA CHRISTIAN COLLEGE, INC.) WCZW (107.9 FM; CHARLEVOIX, MI; Owner: WCCW RADIO, INC.) WCCW RADIO, INC.) WCCW-FM (107.5 FM; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: WCCW RADIO, INC.) WCCW RADIO, INC.) WKPK (106.7 FM; GAYLORD, MI; Owner: NORTHERN RADIO OF GAYLORD, INC.) NORTHERN RADIO OF GAYLORD, INC.) WKLT (97.5 FM; KALKASKA, MI; Owner: NORTHERN RADIO OF MICHIGAN, INC.) NORTHERN RADIO OF MICHIGAN, INC.) WMKC (102.9 FM; ST. IGNACE, MI; Owner: NORTHERN STAR BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) NORTHERN STAR BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) WJZQ (92.9 FM; CADILLAC, MI; Owner: WKJF RADIO, INC.) WKJF RADIO, INC.) WLXT (96.3 FM; PETOSKEY, MI; Owner: MACDONALD GARBER BROADCASTING, INC) MACDONALD GARBER BROADCASTING, INC) WTLI (89.3 FM; BEAR CREEK TOWNSHIP, MI; Owner: SUPERIOR COMMUNICATIONS) SUPERIOR COMMUNICATIONS) WCMW-FM (103.9 FM; HARBOR SPRINGS, MI; Owner: CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY) CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY) WTCM-FM (103.5 FM; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: WTCM RADIO, INC.) TV broadcast stations around Omena: W68DD ( Channel 68; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 68; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W62CQ ( Channel 62; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 62; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) WGTU ( Channel 29; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: SCANLAN COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) 29; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; SCANLAN COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WCMV ( Channel 27; CADILLAC, MI; Owner: CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY) 27; CADILLAC, MI; CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY) W25CU ( Channel 25; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: EDWARD J. HESS AND/OR MADGE E. HESS) 25; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; EDWARD J. HESS AND/OR MADGE E. HESS) W36BZ ( Channel 36; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 36; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W56DF ( Channel 56; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 56; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W15BM ( Channel 15; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 15; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W34CE ( Channel 34; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 34; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W48CC ( Channel 48; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 48; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W52CP ( Channel 52; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 52; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W58CN ( Channel 58; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 58; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W66CX ( Channel 66; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 66; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W55CL ( Channel 55; PETOSKEY, MI; Owner: MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) 55; PETOSKEY, MI; MS COMMUNICATIONS, LLC) W54CR ( Channel 54; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; Owner: ROCKFLEET BROADCASTING II, LLC) 54; TRAVERSE CITY, MI; ROCKFLEET BROADCASTING II, LLC) W69AV (Channel 69; LELAND, ETC., MI; Owner: CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY) FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 1 M 22 (Lat: 45.079167 Lon: -85.622306), Call Sign: WQT727, Assigned Frequencies: 43.3600 MHz, Grant Date: 08/07/2015, Expiration Date: 10/30/2025, Registrant: Grand Traverse Mobile Communications, 1670 Barlow Street Suite 1, Traverse City, MI 49696, Phone: (231) 947-9851, Email: FCC Registered Maritime Coast & Aviation Ground Towers: 1 13343 E Ingalls Bay Rd (Lat: 45.051389 Lon: -85.084778), Type: Building, Overall height: 6 m, Call Sign: WHW625, Licensee ID: L00005709, Assigned Frequencies: 156.425 MHz, 156.450 MHz, 156.800 MHz, Grant Date: 12/04/2003, Expiration Date: 12/21/2013, Cancellation Date: 02/22/2014, Registrant: S Shepherd Tate, 266 Bremington Pl, Memphis, TN 38111 FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 2 Call Sign: KE8SB, Licensee ID: L01346600, Grant Date: 11/30/2007, Expiration Date: 02/24/2018, Cancellation Date: 02/25/2020, Certifier: John H Mulligan, Registrant: John H Mulligan, Omena, MI 49674 KE8SB, L01346600, 11/30/2007, 02/24/2018, 02/25/2020, John H Mulligan, John H Mulligan, Omena, MI 49674 Call Sign: N8STQ, Grant Date: 03/31/1992, Expiration Date: 03/31/2002, Cancellation Date: 04/01/2004, Registrant: Kathleen A Shelton, Omena, MI 49674 FAA Registered Aircraft: 1 Aircraft: PIPER PA-32R-301 (Category: Land, Seats: 7, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: LYCOMING IO-540 SER (300 HP) (Reciprocating) N-Number: 13W, N13W, N-13W, Serial Number: 3246185, Year manufactured: 2001, Airworthiness Date: 03/28/2001, Certificate Issue Date: 09/23/2010 Registrant (Individual): Richard K Shirley, Po Box 277, Omena, MI 49674 50.0% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 20.7% Electricity 19.0% Utility gas 10.3% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. Omena compared to Michigan state average: Median house value significantly above state average. significantly above Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Median age significantly above state average. significantly above Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Renting percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Number of college students significantly below state average. significantly below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher significantly above state average. no other airmen in this city. There is 1 pilot andother airmen in this city. Saluda, Virginia Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 769. Males: 443 (57.7%) Females: 326 (42.3%) Median resident age: 38.4 years Virginia median age: 38.5 years Zip codes: 23149. Estimated median household income in 2019: $59,167 Saluda: $59,167 VA: $76,456 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $32,590 Saluda CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $276,956 Saluda: $276,956 VA: $288,800 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $194,173; detached houses: $191,821 $59,167$32,590$276,956$194,173;$191,821 Median gross rent in 2019: $1,347. March 2019 cost of living index in Saluda: 87.1 (less than average, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 7.1% Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 444 68.8% White alone 145 22.5% Black alone 40 6.2% Hispanic 5 0.8% Two or more races 3 0.5% Asian alone 2 0.3% American Indian alone Races in Saluda detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Virginia and other state lists, there were 14 registered sex offenders living in Saluda, Virginia as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Saluda is 46 to 1. Ancestries: American (32.7%), Irish (12.7%), German (4.9%), African (4.6%), Norwegian (3.4%), Scottish (1.9%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 101 feet 18 residents are foreign born (2.8% Latin America). This place: 2.8% Virginia: 12.4% Latitude: 37.61 N, Longitude: 76.60 W Area code: 804 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 3.5% Virginia: 4.6% Tornado activity: Saluda-area historical tornado activity is slightly above Virginia state average. It is 23% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 8/6/1993, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 2.0 miles away from the Saluda place center caused between $5000 and $50,000 in damages. On 8/6/1993, a category F4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 42.0 miles away from the place center killed 4 people and injured 246 people and caused between $5,000,000 and $50,000,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Saluda-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Virginia state average. It is 60% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 8/23/2011 at 17:51:04, a magnitude 5.8 (5.8 MW, Depth: 3.7 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 76.3 miles away from the city center On 12/9/2003 at 20:59:14, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 MB, 4.5 LG, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 71.7 miles away from Saluda center On 8/25/2011 at 05:07:52, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 ML, Depth: 4.2 mi) earthquake occurred 78.6 miles away from the city center On 12/9/2003 at 20:59:18, a magnitude 4.5 (4.5 ML, Depth: 6.2 mi) earthquake occurred 83.2 miles away from the city center On 8/24/2011 at 00:04:36, a magnitude 4.2 (4.2 ML) earthquake occurred 77.3 miles away from Saluda center On 8/9/2020 at 12:07:37, a magnitude 5.1 (5.1 MW, Depth: 4.7 mi) earthquake occurred 260.3 miles away from Saluda center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Middlesex County (18) is near the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 11 Emergencies Declared: 6 Causes of natural disasters: Hurricanes: 8, Floods: 3, Storms: 3, Tropical Storms: 2, Winter Storms: 2, Blizzard: 1, Drought: 1, Ice Storm: 1, Tropical Depression: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers in Saluda: RIVERSIDE CONVAL CENTER-SALUDA (PO BOX 303 US 17) Other hospitals and medical centers near Saluda: RAPPAHANNOCK WESTMINSTER CANTE (Nursing Home, about 10 miles away; IRVINGTON, VA) RIVERSIDE CONVALESCENT CNTR WE (Nursing Home, about 12 miles away; WEST POINT, VA) RAPPAHANNOCK GENERAL HOSPITAL Acute Care Hospitals (about 14 miles away; KILMARNOCK, VA) Acute Care Hospitals WALTER REED CONVALESCENT AND REHABILITATION CENTER (Nursing Home, about 14 miles away; GLOUCESTER, VA) FRANCIS N SANDERS NURSING HOME, INC (Nursing Home, about 14 miles away; GLOUCESTER, VA) LANCASHIRE CONVALESCENT AND REHABILITATION CENTER (Nursing Home, about 14 miles away; KILMARNOCK, VA) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Saluda: College of William and Mary ( about 24 miles; Williamsburg, VA ; Full-time enrollment: 7,617) 24 ; 7,617) Christopher Newport University ( about 39 miles; Newport News, VA ; FT enrollment: 5,061) 39 ; 5,061) Thomas Nelson Community College ( about 39 miles; Hampton, VA ; FT enrollment: 7,056) 39 ; 7,056) Hampton University ( about 43 miles; Hampton, VA ; FT enrollment: 4,494) 43 ; 4,494) Virginia Union University ( about 47 miles; Richmond, VA ; FT enrollment: 2,028) 47 ; 2,028) Virginia Commonwealth University ( about 48 miles; Richmond, VA ; FT enrollment: 26,647) 48 ; 26,647) John Tyler Community College (about 49 miles; Chester, VA; FT enrollment: 5,864) Public high school in Saluda: MIDDLESEX HIGH (Students: 458, Location: 454 GENERAL PULLER HIGHWAY, Grades: 9-12) See full list of schools located in Saluda Middlesex County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level less than 2 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Low Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Saluda and their reported violations in the past: MIDDLESEX CO HEALTH DEPT (Population served: 50, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between JUL-2007 and SEP-2007, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Formal NOV issued (OCT-05-2007), St Public Notif requested (OCT-05-2007), St Public Notif received (OCT-24-2007), St Compliance achieved (MAY-01-2008) MIDDLESEX CO HEALTH DEPT (50Groundwater): Average household size: This place: 2.3 people Virginia: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 69.9% Whole state: 67.0% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 5.8% Whole state: 5.7% No gay or lesbian households reported 235 people in local jails and other municipal confinement facilities in 2010 57 people in nursing facilities/skilled-nursing facilities in 2010 Banks with branches in Saluda (2011 data): Branch Banking and Trust Company: Saluda Branch at 899 Gloucester Road , branch established on 1911/10/10 . Info updated 2010/03/29: Bank assets: $168,867.6 mil , Deposits: $127,549.5 mil , headquarters in Winston Salem, NC , positive income , Commercial Lending Specialization , 1793 total offices , Holding Company: Bb&T Corporation 899 Gloucester Road 1911/10/10 2010/03/29: $168,867.6 mil $127,549.5 mil Winston Salem, NC , Commercial Lending Specialization 1793 Bb&T Corporation EVB: Glenn's Branch at 14833 George Washington Memorial Highway , branch established on 2005/06/01 . Info updated 2008/08/25: Bank assets: $1,061.5 mil , Deposits: $834.3 mil , headquarters in Tappahannock, VA , positive income , Commercial Lending Specialization , 28 total offices , Holding Company: Eastern Virginia Bankshares, Inc. 14833 George Washington Memorial Highway 2005/06/01 2008/08/25: $1,061.5 mil $834.3 mil Tappahannock, VA , Commercial Lending Specialization 28 Eastern Virginia Bankshares, Inc. Citizens and Farmers Bank: Middlesex Branch at Route 33 And State Route 641, branch established on 1979/05/21. Info updated 2006/11/03: Bank assets: $921.0 mil, Deposits: $647.3 mil, headquarters in West Point, VA, positive income, Consumer Lending Specialization, 18 total offices, Holding Company: C&F Financial Corporation For population 15 years and over in Saluda: Never married: 39.8% 39.8% Now married: 41.7% 41.7% Separated: 4.6% 4.6% Widowed: 10.2% 10.2% Divorced: 3.8% For population 25 years and over in Saluda: High school or higher: 85.7% 85.7% Bachelor's degree or higher: 4.7% 4.7% Graduate or professional degree: 0.0% Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 6.7 Virginia average: 12.1 Religion statistics for Saluda, VA (based on Middlesex County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Evangelical Protestant 1,931 11 Mainline Protestant 1,919 6 Catholic 341 1 Black Protestant 170 1 Other 2 - None 6,596 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 5 Here : 4.73 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 2.03 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 1 Middlesex County : 0.95 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 1.43 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 8 This county : 7.56 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 4.03 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 13 Here : 12.29 / 10,000 pop. Virginia : 7.65 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: This county : 11.1% Virginia : 9.3% Adult obesity rate: This county : 26.4% Virginia : 26.7% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Middlesex County : 19.6% State : 18.6% 6.83% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($64,704 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.83% Virginia average: 9.50% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Gloucester County, VA 1.24% ($34,926 average AGI) from Chesterfield County, VA 0.64% ($109,500) from Henrico County, VA 0.51% ($124,318) 6.07% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($51,950 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.07% Virginia average: 9.76% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Gloucester County, VA 0.79% ($36,882 average AGI) Businesses in Saluda, VA Name Count Name Count 7-Eleven 2 MasterBrand Cabinets 1 Curves 1 U-Haul 1 Hardee's 1 UPS 1 Strongest AM radio stations in Saluda: WTAR (850 AM; 50 kW; NORFOLK, VA; Owner: SINCLAIR COMMUNICATIONS) SINCLAIR COMMUNICATIONS) WRVA (1140 AM; 50 kW; RICHMOND, VA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WRJR (670 AM; 20 kW; CLAREMONT, VA; Owner: CHESAPEAKE-PORTSMOUTH BROADCASTING CORPORATION) CHESAPEAKE-PORTSMOUTH BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WCKO (1110 AM; daytime; 50 kW; NORFOLK, VA; Owner: WORD BROADCASTING NETWORK, INC.) WORD BROADCASTING NETWORK, INC.) WWGB (1030 AM; daytime; 50 kW; INDIAN HEAD, MD; Owner: GOOD BODY MEDIA, LLC) GOOD BODY MEDIA, LLC) WKGM (940 AM; 10 kW; SMITHFIELD, VA; Owner: WKGM, INC.) WKGM, INC.) WDZY (1290 AM; 25 kW; COLONIAL HEIGHTS, VA; Owner: ABC, INC.) ABC, INC.) WGH (1310 AM; 20 kW; NEWPORT NEWS, VA; Owner: CHESAPEAKE BAY BROADCASTING, LLC) CHESAPEAKE BAY BROADCASTING, LLC) WTEM (980 AM; 50 kW; WASHINGTON, DC; Owner: AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) AMFM RADIO LICENSES, L.L.C.) WGGM (820 AM; 10 kW; CHESTER, VA; Owner: HOFFMAN COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) HOFFMAN COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WBIS (1190 AM; 50 kW; ANNAPOLIS, MD; Owner: NATIONS RADIO, LLC) NATIONS RADIO, LLC) WCBM (680 AM; 50 kW; BALTIMORE, MD; Owner: WCBM MARYLAND, INC.) WCBM MARYLAND, INC.) WPGC (1580 AM; 50 kW; MORNINGSIDE, MD; Owner: INFINITY WPGC(AM), INC.) Strongest FM radio stations in Saluda: WXEZ (94.1 FM; YORKTOWN, VA; Owner: CHESAPEAKE BAY BROADCASTING, LLC) CHESAPEAKE BAY BROADCASTING, LLC) WSRV (92.3 FM; DELTAVILLE, VA; Owner: BULLSEYE BROADCASTING, LLC) BULLSEYE BROADCASTING, LLC) WNDJ (104.9 FM; WHITE STONE, VA; Owner: WINDMILL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WINDMILL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WXGM-FM (99.1 FM; GLOUCESTER, VA; Owner: WXGM, INC.) WXGM, INC.) WKWI (101.7 FM; KILMARNOCK, VA; Owner: BUFFALO BROADCASTERS, INC.) BUFFALO BROADCASTERS, INC.) WWBR (107.9 FM; WEST POINT, VA; Owner: WINNER BROADCASTING, LLC) WINNER BROADCASTING, LLC) WKLR (96.5 FM; FORT LEE, VA; Owner: COX RADIO, INC.) COX RADIO, INC.) WNNT-FM (100.9 FM; WARSAW, VA; Owner: NORTHERN NECK & TIDEWATER COMMUNICATIONS, INC) TV broadcast stations around Saluda: WUPV ( Channel 65; ASHLAND, VA; Owner: BELL BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) 65; ASHLAND, VA; BELL BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) WYSJ-CA (Channel 31; YORKTOWN, VA; Owner: JBS, INC.) Saluda fatal accident list: Nov 12, 2008 08:42 AM, Us-17, Gloucester Rd, Lat: 37.596960, Lon: -76.603550, Vehicles: 2, Persons: 2, Fatalities: 1 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 3 Number of bridges Number of bridges 30ft / 8.8m Total length Total length $1,500,000 Total costs Total costs 13,337 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 132 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 49,600 Total future (year 2020) average daily traffic Houses and condos Apartments 77.3% Electricity 12.5% Utility gas 10.2% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 76.0% Electricity 24.0% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. Saluda compared to Virginia state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage below state average. below Median age significantly above state average. significantly above Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Length of stay since moving in below state average. below Institutionalized population percentage significantly above state average. significantly above Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher significantly below state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 1,126. Males: 343 (30.5%) Females: 783 (69.5%) Median resident age: 53.5 years Pennsylvania median age: 40.8 years Estimated median household income in 2019: $62,413 Saylorsburg: $62,413 PA: $63,463 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $31,155 Saylorsburg CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $177,600 Saylorsburg: $177,600 PA: $192,600 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $153,553; detached houses: $151,900 $62,413$31,155$177,600$153,553;$151,900 Median gross rent in 2019: $1,412. March 2019 cost of living index in Saylorsburg: 95.6 (near average, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 16.2% (12.0% for White Non-Hispanic residents, 43.6% for Hispanic or Latino residents) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 659 63.2% White alone 217 20.8% Hispanic 179 17.2% Asian alone Races in Saylorsburg detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Pennsylvania and other state lists, there were 7 registered sex offenders living in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Saylorsburg is 33 to 1. Ancestries: American (18.5%), Italian (8.1%), European (7.5%), Scottish (4.2%), Norwegian (2.9%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 670 feet 101 residents are foreign born This place: 9.6% Pennsylvania: 6.9% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2019: $3,443 (1.6%) Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2019: $2,524 (1.6%) Latitude: 40.90 N, Longitude: 75.32 W Area code: 570 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 7.6% Pennsylvania: 6.1% Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI CO NO 2 SO 2 Ozone PM 10 PM 2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 84.2. This is about average. City: 84.2 U.S.: 74.2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) [ppm] level in 2013 was 0.0642. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 6.1 miles away from the city center. City: 0.0642 U.S.: 0.2667 Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 8.35. This is significantly worse than average. Closest monitor was 13.5 miles away from the city center. City: 8.35 U.S.: 5.56 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 0.368. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 6.1 miles away from the city center. City: 0.368 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 24.9. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 6.1 miles away from the city center. City: 24.9 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 10 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 11.6. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 10.5 miles away from the city center. City: 11.6 U.S.: 19.6 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 8.16. This is about average. Closest monitor was 13.0 miles away from the city center. City: 8.16 U.S.: 8.46 Tornado activity: Saylorsburg-area historical tornado activity is near Pennsylvania state average. It is 13% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 3/21/1976, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 9.5 miles away from the Saylorsburg place center caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages. On 7/26/1981, a category F3 tornado 12.2 miles away from the place center injured 2 people and caused between $50,000 and $500,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Saylorsburg-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Pennsylvania state average. It is 66% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 8/23/2011 at 17:51:04, a magnitude 5.8 (5.8 MW, Depth: 3.7 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 249.3 miles away from Saylorsburg center On 1/16/1994 at 01:49:16, a magnitude 4.6 (4.6 MB, 4.6 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 54.1 miles away from Saylorsburg center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 217.3 miles away from Saylorsburg center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi) earthquake occurred 263.5 miles away from the city center On 1/16/1994 at 00:42:43, a magnitude 4.2 (4.2 MB, 4.0 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi) earthquake occurred 53.2 miles away from the city center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 261.5 miles away from Saylorsburg center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Monroe County (19) is greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 15 Emergencies Declared: 4 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 5, Hurricanes: 5, Storms: 5, Tropical Storms: 3, Winter Storms: 2, Blizzard: 1, Mudslide: 1, Snowfall: 1, Tropical Depression: 1, Water Shortage: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Saylorsburg: FRESENIUS MEDICAL CARE SLATEBELT (Dialysis Facility, about 4 miles away; WIND GAP, PA) PLEASANT VALLEY MANOR, INC (Nursing Home, about 5 miles away; STROUDSBURG, PA) SLATE BELT VISITING NURSES (Home Health Center, about 5 miles away; PEN ARGYL, PA) AFFILIATED HOME HEALTH SERVICES INC (Home Health Center, about 6 miles away; BANGOR, PA) GENTIVA HEALTH SERVICES (Home Health Center, about 9 miles away; STROUDSBURG, PA) LAUREL MANOR (Nursing Home, about 9 miles away; STROUDSBURG, PA) POCONO MEDICAL HOME CARE INC (Home Health Center, about 10 miles away; STROUDSBURG, PA) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Saylorsburg: East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania ( about 11 miles; East Stroudsburg, PA ; Full-time enrollment: 6,195) 11 ; 6,195) Lafayette College ( about 15 miles; Easton, PA ; FT enrollment: 2,562) 15 ; 2,562) Northampton County Area Community College ( about 16 miles; Bethlehem, PA ; FT enrollment: 7,195) 16 ; 7,195) Lehigh University ( about 21 miles; Bethlehem, PA ; FT enrollment: 6,565) 21 ; 6,565) Lehigh Carbon Community College ( about 23 miles; Schnecksville, PA ; FT enrollment: 4,391) 23 ; 4,391) Muhlenberg College ( about 23 miles; Allentown, PA ; FT enrollment: 2,792) 23 ; 2,792) DeSales University (about 25 miles; Center Valley, PA; FT enrollment: 2,862) Monroe County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Highest Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Saylorsburg and their reported violations in the past: SILVER VALLEY CAMPSITES (Population served: 250, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between JUL-2012 and SEP-2012 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (NOV-01-2012) , St Violation/Reminder Notice (NOV-01-2012) , St Compliance achieved (2 times from JUL-23-2013 to AUG-06-2013) JUL-2012 SEP-2012 Coliform St Public Notif requested (NOV-01-2012) St Violation/Reminder Notice (NOV-01-2012) St Compliance achieved (2 JUL-23-2013 to AUG-06-2013) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between APR-2012 and JUN-2012 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (JUN-18-2012) , St Site Visit (enforcement) (JUN-18-2012) , St Public Notif received (JUN-18-2012) , St Compliance achieved (JUL-25-2012) APR-2012 JUN-2012 Coliform St Public Notif requested (JUN-18-2012) St Site Visit (enforcement) (JUN-18-2012) St Public Notif received (JUN-18-2012) St Compliance achieved (JUL-25-2012) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between JUL-2006 and SEP-2006, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (OCT-13-2006), St Public Notif received (OCT-13-2006), St Compliance achieved (OCT-13-2006), St Site Visit (enforcement) (OCT-13-2006) Past monitoring violations: 4 routine major monitoring violations THE HAMILTON (Population served: 150, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between JAN-2006 and MAR-2006, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (MAY-01-2006), St Public Notif received (MAY-01-2006), St Compliance achieved (MAY-01-2006), St Site Visit (enforcement) (MAY-01-2006) SILVER VALLEY CMPSTS POOL WELL (Population served: 100, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: One routine major monitoring violation SUNSET INN (Population served: 90, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: 2 routine major monitoring violations 2 regular monitoring violations SILVER VALLEY CAMPSITES (250Groundwater):THE HAMILTON (150Groundwater):SILVER VALLEY CMPSTS POOL WELL (100Groundwater):SUNSET INN (90Groundwater): Average household size: This place: 2.4 people Pennsylvania: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 60.6% Whole state: 65.0% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 11.3% Whole state: 6.6% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.6% of all households 0.6% Gay men: 0.8% of all households For population 15 years and over in Saylorsburg: Never married: 45.4% 45.4% Now married: 13.3% 13.3% Separated: 5.6% 5.6% Widowed: 17.1% 17.1% Divorced: 18.7% For population 25 years and over in Saylorsburg: High school or higher: 88.8% 88.8% Bachelor's degree or higher: 32.8% 32.8% Graduate or professional degree: 8.0% Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 9.0 Pennsylvania average: 11.3 Religion statistics for Saylorsburg, PA (based on Monroe County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 41,650 10 Evangelical Protestant 15,363 49 Mainline Protestant 15,128 46 Other 3,437 14 Orthodox 580 3 None 93,684 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 29 Monroe County : 1.76 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 2.04 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 3 Monroe County : 0.18 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 0.09 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 14 This county : 0.85 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 0.88 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 47 This county : 2.86 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.52 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 143 This county : 8.69 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 7.12 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Here : 8.0% State : 9.1% Adult obesity rate: This county : 27.5% Pennsylvania : 27.2% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Monroe County : 12.9% State : 11.5% 6.17% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($48,937 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.17% Pennsylvania average: 4.58% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Northampton County, PA 0.55% ($41,322 average AGI) from Kings County, NY 0.38% ($52,729) from Queens County, NY 0.33% ($63,096) 6.52% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($49,466 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.52% Pennsylvania average: 4.96% 0.05% of residents moved to foreign countries ($494 average AGI) Monroe County: 0.05% Pennsylvania average: 0.04% Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Northampton County, PA 0.72% ($45,625 average AGI) to Lehigh County, PA 0.33% ($43,204) to Pike County, PA 0.23% ($35,182) Businesses in Saylorsburg, PA MasterBrand Cabinets: 2 Strongest AM radio stations in Saylorsburg: WWJZ (640 AM; 50 kW; MOUNT HOLLY, NJ; Owner: ABC, INC.) ABC, INC.) WMCA (570 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: SALEM MEDIA OF NEW YORK, LLC) SALEM MEDIA OF NEW YORK, LLC) WZZD (990 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: PENNSYLVANIA MEDIA ASSOCIATES, INC.) PENNSYLVANIA MEDIA ASSOCIATES, INC.) WOR (710 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: BUCKLEY BROADCASTING CORPORATION) BUCKLEY BROADCASTING CORPORATION) KYW (1060 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WABC (770 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: WABC-AM RADIO, INC.) WABC-AM RADIO, INC.) WVCH (740 AM; 50 kW; CHESTER, PA; Owner: WVCH COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WVCH COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WPEN (950 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: GREATER PHILADELPHIA RADIO, INC.) GREATER PHILADELPHIA RADIO, INC.) WAEB (790 AM; 4 kW; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WINS (1010 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WFAN (660 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WSNR (620 AM; 20 kW; JERSEY CITY, NJ) WEPN (1050 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: NEW YORK AM RADIO, LLC) Strongest FM radio stations in Saylorsburg: WWPJ (89.5 FM; PEN ARGYL, PA; Owner: MERCER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE) MERCER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE) WSBG (93.5 FM; STROUDSBURG, PA; Owner: NASSAU BROADCASTING II, L.L.C.) NASSAU BROADCASTING II, L.L.C.) WKRF (107.9 FM; TOBYHANNA, PA; Owner: ENTERCOM WILKES-BARRE SCRANTON, LLC) ENTERCOM WILKES-BARRE SCRANTON, LLC) WWYY (107.1 FM; BELVIDERE, NJ; Owner: NASSAU BROADCASTING HOLDINGS, INC.) NASSAU BROADCASTING HOLDINGS, INC.) WRTY (91.1 FM; JACKSON TOWNSHIP, PA; Owner: TEMPLE UNIV COMMONWEALTH SYS HGR ED.) TEMPLE UNIV COMMONWEALTH SYS HGR ED.) WBYX (88.7 FM; STROUDSBURG, PA; Owner: FOUR RIVERS COMMUNITY BROADCASTING CORP) FOUR RIVERS COMMUNITY BROADCASTING CORP) W290AC (105.9 FM; PALMERTON, PA; Owner: FAMILY STATIONS, INC.) FAMILY STATIONS, INC.) W245AC (96.9 FM; HARMONY TOWNSHIP, NJ; Owner: MERCER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE) MERCER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE) WLEV (100.7 FM; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WHCY (106.3 FM; BLAIRSTOWN, NJ; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WODE-FM (99.9 FM; EASTON, PA; Owner: NASSAU BROADCASTING II, LLC) NASSAU BROADCASTING II, LLC) WDIY (88.1 FM; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: LEHIGH VALLEY COMMUNITY BR/CST ASSOC) LEHIGH VALLEY COMMUNITY BR/CST ASSOC) WZZO (95.1 FM; BETHLEHEM, PA; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WMGS (92.9 FM; WILKES-BARRE, PA; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WJCS (89.3 FM; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: BEACON BROADCASTING CORPORATION) BEACON BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WBSX (97.9 FM; HAZLETON, PA; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) W247AE (97.3 FM; EAST STROUDSBURG, PA; Owner: FAMILY STATIONS, INC.) FAMILY STATIONS, INC.) WVIA-FM (89.9 FM; SCRANTON, PA; Owner: NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA EDUCATIONAL TV ASSN.) NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA EDUCATIONAL TV ASSN.) WKRZ (98.5 FM; WILKES-BARRE, PA; Owner: ENTERCOM WILKES-BARRE SCRANTON, LLC) ENTERCOM WILKES-BARRE SCRANTON, LLC) WNNJ-FM (103.7 FM; NEWTON, NJ; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) TV broadcast stations around Saylorsburg: WFMZ-TV ( Channel 69; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: MARANATHA BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) 69; ALLENTOWN, PA; MARANATHA BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) WLVT-TV ( Channel 39; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: LEHIGH VALLEY PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP.) 39; ALLENTOWN, PA; LEHIGH VALLEY PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP.) W07DC ( Channel 7; ALLENTOWN/BETHLEHEM, PA; Owner: NEW YORK TIMES MANAGEMENT SERVICES) 7; ALLENTOWN/BETHLEHEM, PA; NEW YORK TIMES MANAGEMENT SERVICES) WNEP-TV ( Channel 16; SCRANTON, PA; Owner: NEW YORK TIMES MANAGEMENT SERVICES) 16; SCRANTON, PA; NEW YORK TIMES MANAGEMENT SERVICES) WVIA-TV ( Channel 44; SCRANTON, PA; Owner: NE PA ED TV ASSOCIATION) 44; SCRANTON, PA; NE PA ED TV ASSOCIATION) WOLF-TV ( Channel 56; HAZLETON, PA; Owner: WOLF LICENSE CORP.) 56; HAZLETON, PA; WOLF LICENSE CORP.) WBRE-TV ( Channel 28; WILKES-BARRE, PA; Owner: NEXSTAR BROADCASTING OF NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA, L.L.C.) 28; WILKES-BARRE, PA; NEXSTAR BROADCASTING OF NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA, L.L.C.) WYOU ( Channel 22; SCRANTON, PA; Owner: MISSION BROADCASTING, INC.) 22; SCRANTON, PA; MISSION BROADCASTING, INC.) WBPH-TV ( Channel 60; BETHLEHEM, PA; Owner: SONSHINE FAMILY TELEVISION CORPORATION) 60; BETHLEHEM, PA; SONSHINE FAMILY TELEVISION CORPORATION) W55BS (Channel 55; BELVIDERE, NJ; Owner: NEW JERSEY PUBLIC BROADCASTING AUTHORITY) Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania Fatal accident count 8 Vehicles involved in fatal accidents 15 Fatal accidents involving drunk persons: 2 Fatalities 8 Persons involved in fatal accidents 30 Pedestrians involved in fatal accidents 0 Pennsylvania average Fatal accident count 8955 Vehicles involved in fatal accidents 14014 Fatal accidents involving drunk persons 3082 Fatalities 9759 Persons involved in fatal accidents 21452 Pedestrians involved in fatal accidents 1408 See more detailed statistics of Saylorsburg fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 37 Number of bridges Number of bridges 135ft / 41.5m Total length Total length $6,008,000 Total costs Total costs 319,017 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 33,733 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 187,206 Total future (year 2025) average daily traffic New bridges - historical statistics 2 1910-1919 4 1920-1929 2 1930-1939 1 1940-1949 5 1950-1959 20 1960-1969 1 1980-1989 1 1990-1999 1 2010-2018 See full National Bridge Inventory statistics for Saylorsburg, PA FCC Registered Antenna Towers: 7 Douglas I Brandon, Mt. Eaton Rd. Between Woodhaven & Faulstick Rd. ( Lat: 40.881389 Lon: -75.333611), Type: 54.9, Overall height: 54.9 m, Registrant: At&t Wireless Services, Inc., Esther.Hilliard@attws.Com, , Washi-ngton, Phone: (202) 223-9222 40.881389 -75.333611), 54.9, 54.9 m, At&t Wireless Services, Inc., Esther.Hilliard@attws.Com, , Washi-ngton, (202) 223-9222 Douglas I Brandon, Mt. Eaton Rd. Between Woodhaven & Faulstick Rd. ( Lat: 40.881389 Lon: -75.333611), Type: 54.9, Overall height: 54.9 m, Registrant: At&t Wireless Services, Inc., Esther.Hilliard@attws.Com, , Washi-ngton, Phone: (202) 223-9222 40.881389 -75.333611), 54.9, 54.9 m, At&t Wireless Services, Inc., Esther.Hilliard@attws.Com, , Washi-ngton, (202) 223-9222 JOHN HAZEN, Hamilton Street ( Lat: 40.893250 Lon: -75.319583), Type: 83.8, Overall height: 80.7 m, Registrant: Princeton Tower Development Corporation, Scran-ton, Phone: (570) 969-2240 40.893250 -75.319583), 83.8, 80.7 m, Princeton Tower Development Corporation, Scran-ton, (570) 969-2240 JOHN HAZEN, Hamilton Street ( Lat: 40.893250 Lon: -75.319583), Type: 83.8, Overall height: 80.7 m, Registrant: Princeton Tower Development Corporation, Scran-ton, Phone: (570) 969-2240 40.893250 -75.319583), 83.8, 80.7 m, Princeton Tower Development Corporation, Scran-ton, (570) 969-2240 Lottie L Thompson, Hamilton Street ( Lat: 40.893250 Lon: -75.319583), Type: 83.8, Overall height: 80.7 m, Registrant: American Towers, Inc., Bosto-n, Phone: (617) 585-7600 40.893250 -75.319583), 83.8, 80.7 m, American Towers, Inc., Bosto-n, (617) 585-7600 CARISSA L BICK, Hamilton Street ( Lat: 40.893250 Lon: -75.319583), Type: 83.8, Overall height: 80.7 m, Registrant: American Towers, Inc., Wobur-n, Phone: (617) 585-7614 40.893250 -75.319583), 83.8, 80.7 m, American Towers, Inc., Wobur-n, (617) 585-7614 Bridget Carter, Hamilton Street (Lat: 40.893250 Lon: -75.319583), Type: 83.8, Structure height: 42089 m, Overall height: 80.7 m, Registrant: American Towers, Inc., Wobur-n, Phone: (617) 585-7614 FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 2 500 Yds S Jct Of Rt 12 & 115 ( Lat: 40.893694 Lon: -75.319639), Call Sign: KNET739, Assigned Frequencies: 33.9800 MHz, Grant Date: 03/05/2013, Expiration Date: 03/17/2023, Registrant: Blue Ridge Hook & Ladder Fire Co. No. 1, 2191 Rimrock Drive, Stroudsburg, PA 18360, Phone: (570) 629-3980, Fax: (570) 369-5959, Email: 40.893694 -75.319639), KNET739, 33.9800 MHz, 03/05/2013, 03/17/2023, Blue Ridge Hook & Ladder Fire Co. No. 1, 2191 Rimrock Drive, Stroudsburg, PA 18360, (570) 629-3980, (570) 369-5959, Lat: 40.893972 Lon: -75.319361, Call Sign: WPKN949, Assigned Frequencies: 463.825 MHz, 468.825 MHz, Grant Date: 06/18/2013, Expiration Date: 08/27/2023, Certifier: Leon Clapper, Registrant: Tuway Communications, 2115 City Line Road, Bethlehem, PA 18017-2127, Phone: (610) 865-3811, Fax: (610) 865-3818, Email: FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 3 Saylorsburg, Hamilton Street ( Lat: 40.893250 Lon: -75.319583), Type: Ltower, Structure height: 80.7 m, Overall height: 83.8 m, Call Sign: WQYU484, Assigned Frequencies: 10835.0 MHz, Grant Date: 01/24/2017, Expiration Date: 01/24/2027, Certifier: Gregory M Romano, Registrant: Verizon, 1300 I St Nw - Suite 500 East, Washington, DC 20005, Phone: (202) 515-2453, Email: 40.893250 -75.319583), Ltower, 80.7 m, 83.8 m, WQYU484, 10835.0 MHz, 01/24/2017, 01/24/2027, Gregory M Romano, Verizon, 1300 I St Nw - Suite 500 East, Washington, DC 20005, (202) 515-2453, ROSS COMMON 1, 147 Rt 115 ( Lat: 40.859500 Lon: -75.300778), Type: Mtower, Structure height: 54.9 m, Overall height: 56.1 m, Call Sign: WRDX687, Assigned Frequencies: 11225.0 MHz, 11305.0 MHz, Grant Date: 08/14/2019, Expiration Date: 08/14/2029, Certifier: Robert P Walters, Registrant: At&t Services, Inc., 208 S. Akard St. Rm. 1015, Dallas, TX 75202, Phone: (855) 699-7073, Fax: (214) 746-6410, Email: 40.859500 -75.300778), Mtower, 54.9 m, 56.1 m, WRDX687, 11225.0 MHz, 11305.0 MHz, 08/14/2019, 08/14/2029, Robert P Walters, At&t Services, Inc., 208 S. Akard St. Rm. 1015, Dallas, TX 75202, (855) 699-7073, (214) 746-6410, 2MN9449A, Hamilton Street (Lat: 40.893250 Lon: -75.319583), Type: Ltower, Structure height: 80.7 m, Overall height: 83.8 m, Call Sign: WRJA863, Assigned Frequencies: 10895.0 MHz, 10895.0 MHz, 10895.0 MHz, 10895.0 MHz, 10895.0 MHz, 10895.0 MHz, 10895.0 MHz, 10895.0 MHz, Grant Date: 07/28/2020, Expiration Date: 07/28/2030, Cancellation Date: 03/24/2021, Certifier: David Werblow, Registrant: T-Mobile Usa, Inc., 12920 Se 38th Street, Bellevue, WA 98006, Phone: (425) 383-8401, Fax: (425) 383-4040, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 80 ( FAA Registered Aircraft Manufacturers and Dealers: 1 ( FAA Registered Aircraft: 10 ( 80 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses in Saylorsburg 1 ( See the full list of FAA Registered Manufacturers and Dealers in Saylorsburg 10 ( See the full list of FAA Registered Aircraft Houses and condos Apartments 65.1% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 26.0% Electricity 8.9% Coal or coke 76.3% Electricity 17.3% Utility gas 6.5% Other fuel Saylorsburg compared to Pennsylvania state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage above state average. above Length of stay since moving in above state average. Saylorsburg on our top lists: #81 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the most residents born in Italy (population 500+)" #15 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the lowest number of births per 1000 residents 2007-2013" #75 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the largest decrease in the number of births per 1000 residents 2000-2006 to 2007-2013 (pop 50,000+)" Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Sunapee, New Hampshire Submit your own pictures of this town and show them to the world OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 3,365. Population change since 2000: +10.1% 3,365.+10.1% Males: 1,666 (49.5%) Females: 1,699 (50.5%) Median resident age: 46.2 years New Hampshire median age: 43.9 years Zip codes: 03782. Estimated median household income in 2019: $75,037 (it was $49,353 in 2000) Sunapee: $75,037 NH: $77,933 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $46,632 (it was $29,184 in 2000) Sunapee town income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $285,211 (it was $136,900 in 2000) Sunapee: $285,211 NH: $281,400 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $251,890; detached houses: $276,950; townhouses or other attached units: $351,515; in 2-unit structures: $187,127; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $154,335; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $145,433; mobile homes: $62,971 $75,037 ($49,353$46,632 ($29,184$285,211 ($136,900$251,890;$276,950;$351,515;$187,127;$154,335;$145,433;$62,971 March 2019 cost of living index in Sunapee: 106.9 (more than average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 3,261 96.9% White alone 35 1.0% Two or more races 26 0.8% Hispanic 19 0.6% Asian alone 11 0.3% American Indian alone 6 0.2% Black alone 6 0.2% Other race alone 1 0.03% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone Races in Sunapee detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of New Hampshire and other state lists, there was 1 registered sex offender living in Sunapee, New Hampshire as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Sunapee is 3,365 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is much lower than the state average. Crime rates in Sunapee by year Type 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Murders (per 100,000) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) Rapes (per 100,000) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.7) 1 (29.7) 0 (0.0) 3 (90.1) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) Robberies (per 100,000) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.6) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) Assaults (per 100,000) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.5) 2 (58.9) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.9) 3 (90.1) 4 (119.5) 1 (29.6) 0 (0.0) 2 (58.0) 1 (28.9) 0 (0.0) Burglaries (per 100,000) 3 (88.3) 4 (117.9) 1 (29.4) 1 (29.7) 4 (118.7) 16 (477.8) 3 (90.1) 6 (179.3) 3 (88.9) 4 (117.4) 3 (87.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (28.7) Thefts (per 100,000) 3 (88.3) 5 (147.4) 1 (29.4) 5 (148.6) 11 (326.5) 28 (836.1) 15 (450.5) 15 (448.3) 13 (385.2) 8 (234.7) 15 (434.9) 15 (433.3) 16 (458.6) Auto thefts (per 100,000) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.5) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.7) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.6) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.0) 0 (0.0) 2 (57.3) Arson (per 100,000) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.4) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (29.9) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 0 (0.0) 1 (28.7) City-Data.com crime index 9.7 22.4 15.0 34.2 45.1 72.9 114.4 54.4 38.8 17.6 60.6 23.1 24.9 The City-Data.com crime index weighs serious crimes and violent crimes more heavily. Higher means more crime, U.S. average is 270.6. It adjusts for the number of visitors and daily workers commuting into cities. Click on a table row to update graph Crime rate in Sunapee detailed stats: murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, arson Full-time law enforcement employees in 2019, including police officers: 6 (5 officers). Officers per 1,000 residents here: 1.43 New Hampshire average: 2.05 Latest news from Sunapee, NH collected exclusively by city-data.com from local newspapers, TV, and radio stations Ancestries: English (22.7%), Irish (20.0%), French (10.1%), French Canadian (7.4%), German (7.4%), Italian (7.2%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 1008 feet Land area: 21.1 square miles. Population density: 159 people per square mile (very low). 86 residents are foreign born (1.5% Europe, 0.7% North America, 0.4% Latin America, 0.3% Asia). This town: 2.8% New Hampshire: 4.4% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Sunapee town: 1.7% ($2,361) New Hampshire: 2.3% ($2,946) Latitude: 43.39 N, Longitude: 72.09 W Area code: 603 Single-family new house construction building permits: 1997: 22 buildings , average cost: $91,700 22 $91,700 1998: 21 buildings , average cost: $101,700 21 $101,700 1999: 20 buildings , average cost: $109,200 20 $109,200 2000: 29 buildings , average cost: $118,000 29 $118,000 2001: 20 buildings , average cost: $121,400 20 $121,400 2002: 20 buildings , average cost: $130,700 20 $130,700 2003: 29 buildings , average cost: $132,800 29 $132,800 2004: 34 buildings , average cost: $138,800 34 $138,800 2005: 44 buildings , average cost: $150,200 44 $150,200 2006: 28 buildings , average cost: $171,000 28 $171,000 2007: 21 buildings , average cost: $169,000 21 $169,000 2008: 13 buildings , average cost: $169,300 13 $169,300 2009: 8 buildings , average cost: $625,000 8 $625,000 2010: 15 buildings , average cost: $337,100 15 $337,100 2011: 12 buildings , average cost: $425,100 12 $425,100 2012: 10 buildings , average cost: $970,400 10 $970,400 2013: 18 buildings , average cost: $172,400 18 $172,400 2014: 21 buildings , average cost: $172,400 21 $172,400 2015: 18 buildings , average cost: $172,400 18 $172,400 2016: 19 buildings , average cost: $172,400 19 $172,400 2017: 21 buildings , average cost: $172,400 21 $172,400 2018: 17 buildings , average cost: $172,400 17 $172,400 2019: 13 buildings, average cost: $550,200 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 2.8% New Hampshire: 3.5% Most common industries in Sunapee, NH (%) Both Males Females Health care (12.0%) Educational services (9.3%) Metal & metal products (8.1%) Construction (7.3%) Accommodation & food services (7.3%) Professional, scientific, technical services (5.8%) Finance & insurance (5.6%) Construction (12.8%) Accommodation & food services (10.0%) Metal & metal products (9.5%) Professional, scientific, technical services (6.6%) Health care (6.2%) Food & beverage stores (3.6%) Finance & insurance (3.1%) Health care (18.4%) Educational services (17.0%) Finance & insurance (8.4%) Metal & metal products (6.6%) Administrative & support & waste management services (5.8%) Professional, scientific, technical services (5.0%) Accommodation & food services (4.5%) Most common occupations in Sunapee, NH (%) Both Males Females Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (5.1%) Metal workers and plastic workers (4.1%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (4.1%) Registered nurses (3.8%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (3.7%) Top executives (3.5%) Retail sales workers, except cashiers (3.3%) Metal workers and plastic workers (6.5%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (6.0%) Top executives (5.4%) Material recording, scheduling, dispatching, and distributing workers (4.1%) Electrical equipment mechanics and other installation, maintenance, and repair workers, including supervisors (3.4%) Retail sales workers, except cashiers (3.2%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (3.2%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (7.8%) Registered nurses (7.2%) Other office and administrative support workers, including supervisors (5.4%) Counselors, social workers, and other community and social service specialists (4.6%) Preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school teachers (4.3%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (4.2%) Information and record clerks, except customer service representatives (3.6%) Average climate in Sunapee, New Hampshire Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI SO 2 Ozone PM 2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 57.3. This is better than average. City: 57.3 U.S.: 74.2 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2001 was 4.62. This is significantly worse than average. Closest monitor was 12.6 miles away from the city center. City: 4.62 U.S.: 1.79 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 24.6. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 12.6 miles away from the city center. City: 24.6 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 6.34. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 4.2 miles away from the city center. City: 6.34 U.S.: 8.46 Tornado activity: Sunapee-area historical tornado activity is near New Hampshire state average. It is 51% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 7/9/1962, a category F2 (max. wind speeds 113-157 mph) tornado 12.7 miles away from the Sunapee town center caused between $500 and $5000 in damages. On 8/20/1968, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 40.9 miles away from the town center injured one person and caused between $5000 and $50,000 in damages. Earthquake activity: Sunapee-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above New Hampshire state average. It is 70% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 111.7 miles away from the city center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 119.3 miles away from the city center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 111.2 miles away from the city center On 1/19/1982 at 00:14:42, a magnitude 4.7 (4.5 MB, 4.7 MD, 4.5 LG, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 25.8 miles away from the city center On 10/16/2012 at 23:12:25, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 ML, Depth: 10.0 mi) earthquake occurred 73.4 miles away from the city center On 6/16/1995 at 12:13:11, a magnitude 3.8 (3.8 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 62.8 miles away from Sunapee center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), duration magnitude (MD), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Sullivan County (28) is a lot greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 18 Emergencies Declared: 9 Causes of natural disasters: Storms: 13, Floods: 12, Snows: 4, Winter Storms: 4, Hurricanes: 3, Blizzard: 1, Ice Storm: 1, Landslide: 1, Snowfall: 1, Snowstorm: 1, Tropical Storm: 1, Wind: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Sunapee: NEWPORT HOSPITAL (Hospital, about 5 miles away; NEWPORT, NH) NEW LONDON HOSPITAL Critical Access Hospitals (about 5 miles away; NEW LONDON, NH) Critical Access Hospitals NEW LONDON HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION INC (Hospital, about 5 miles away; NEW LONDON, NH) WILLIAM CLOUGH ECU (Nursing Home, about 5 miles away; NEW LONDON, NH) WOODLAWN CARE CENTER (Nursing Home, about 5 miles away; NEWPORT, NH) LAKE SUNAPEE REGION VNA (Home Health Center, about 6 miles away; NEW LONDON, NH) TRUSTING HANDS (Home Health Center, about 7 miles away; NEWPORT, NH) Amtrak stations near Sunapee: 15 miles: CLAREMONT (PLAINS RD.) . Services: public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking. CLAREMONT (PLAINS RD.) . public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking. 17 miles: WINDSOR-MOUNT ASCUTNEY (WINDSOR, DEPOT AVE.) . Services: public payphones, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for car rental service, intercity bus service. Library in Sunapee: ABBOTT LIBRARY (Operating income: $260,864; Location: 542 ROUTE 11; 27,193 books; 1,091 audio materials; 1,962 video materials; 1 local licensed databases; 22 state licensed databases; 70 print serial subscriptions) Sullivan County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Sunapee and their reported violations in the past: MEADOW BROOK AT SUNAPEE (Population served: 50, Groundwater): Past monitoring violations: 2 routine major monitoring violations 27 regular monitoring violations Drinking water stations with addresses in Sunapee that have no violations reported: GEORGES MILLS WATER WORKS (Population served: 315, Primary Water Source Type: Groundwater) MEADOW BROOK AT SUNAPEE (50Groundwater): Average household size: This town: 2.3 people New Hampshire: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This town: 67.4% Whole state: 66.3% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This town: 8.9% Whole state: 8.3% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.7% of all households 0.7% Gay men: 0.3% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This town: 5.2% Whole state: 6.5% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This town: 2.0% Whole state: 2.8% 25 people in workers' group living quarters and job corps centers in 2010 Banks with branches in Sunapee (2011 data): Sugar River Bank: Sunapee Branch at 541 Route 11 , branch established on 1985/03/20 . Info updated 2011/09/16: Bank assets: $265.3 mil , Deposits: $186.2 mil , headquarters in Newport, NH , positive income , 5 total offices , Holding Company: Sugar River Bancorp Mhc 541 Route 11 1985/03/20 2011/09/16: $265.3 mil $186.2 mil Newport, NH 5 Sugar River Bancorp Mhc Lake Sunapee Bank, FSB: Sunapee Branch at 565 Route 11, branch established on 1965/02/15. Info updated 2011/07/21: Bank assets: $1,040.6 mil, Deposits: $808.6 mil, headquarters in Newport, NH, positive income, Mortgage Lending Specialization, 27 total offices For population 15 years and over in Sunapee: Never married: 20.6% 20.6% Now married: 60.2% 60.2% Separated: 1.9% 1.9% Widowed: 5.9% 5.9% Divorced: 11.4% For population 25 years and over in Sunapee: High school or higher: 92.2% 92.2% Bachelor's degree or higher: 37.1% 37.1% Graduate or professional degree: 14.7% 14.7% Unemployed: 1.2% 1.2% Mean travel time to work (commute): 24.4 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 10.6 New Hampshire average: 10.9 Religion statistics for Sunapee, NH (based on Sullivan County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 6,008 1 Mainline Protestant 3,118 28 Evangelical Protestant 849 14 Orthodox 185 2 Other 29 2 None 33,553 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 6 This county : 1.41 / 10,000 pop. New Hampshire : 2.14 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 1 Sullivan County : 0.23 / 10,000 pop. State : 0.15 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 6 This county : 1.41 / 10,000 pop. State : 1.78 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 27 This county : 6.34 / 10,000 pop. State : 4.02 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 21 Here : 4.93 / 10,000 pop. New Hampshire : 9.70 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: This county : 8.0% State : 7.6% Adult obesity rate: This county : 26.9% New Hampshire : 24.4% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Sullivan County : 18.5% State : 15.9% 6.47% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($65,253 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.47% New Hampshire average: 6.87% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Grafton County, NH 1.16% ($52,584 average AGI) from Windsor County, VT 0.68% ($55,320) from Merrimack County, NH 0.66% ($51,325) 6.16% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($53,220 average adjusted gross income) Here: 6.16% New Hampshire average: 6.70% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Grafton County, NH 0.94% ($51,959 average AGI) to Merrimack County, NH 0.74% ($62,097) to Windsor County, VT 0.53% ($37,895) Businesses in Sunapee, NH Decora Cabinetry: 2 2 MasterBrand Cabinets: 2 Strongest AM radio stations in Sunapee: WNTK (1020 AM; 10 kW; NEWPORT, NH; Owner: KOOR COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) KOOR COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WRKO (680 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WCRN (830 AM; 50 kW; WORCESTER, MA; Owner: CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WNNZ (640 AM; 50 kW; WESTFIELD, MA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WNBX (1480 AM; 5 kW; SPRINGFIELD, VT) WEEI (850 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WKOX (1200 AM; 50 kW; FRAMINGHAM, MA; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WTSV (1230 AM; 1 kW; CLAREMONT, NH; Owner: GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) WBIX (1060 AM; 40 kW; NATICK, MA; Owner: LANGER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) LANGER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WGY (810 AM; 50 kW; SCHENECTADY, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WVNE (760 AM; daytime; 25 kW; LEICESTER, MA; Owner: BLOUNT MASSCOM, INC.) BLOUNT MASSCOM, INC.) WBZ (1030 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WWZN (1510 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ROSE CITY RADIO CORPORATION) Strongest FM radio stations in Sunapee: WHDQ (106.1 FM; CLAREMONT, NH; Owner: GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) WNTK-FM (99.7 FM; NEW LONDON, NH; Owner: SHEILA E. VINIKOOR) SHEILA E. VINIKOOR) WVRR (101.7 FM; NEWPORT, NH; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WVPR (89.5 FM; WINDSOR, VT; Owner: VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) WSCS (90.9 FM; NEW LONDON, NH; Owner: COLBY-SAWYER COLLEGE) COLBY-SAWYER COLLEGE) WEVH (91.3 FM; HANOVER, NH; Owner: NEW HAMPSHIRE PUBLIC RADIO INC) NEW HAMPSHIRE PUBLIC RADIO INC) WJJR (98.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) WZRT (97.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WEBK (105.3 FM; KILLINGTON, VT; Owner: 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) WGLV (91.7 FM; WOODSTOCK, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES INC) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES INC) WHDQ-FM1 (106.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) WPNH-FM (100.1 FM; PLYMOUTH, NH; Owner: NORTHEAST COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) NORTHEAST COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) WNNH (99.1 FM; HENNIKER, NH; Owner: TELE-MEDIA COMPANY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, L.L.C.) TELE-MEDIA COMPANY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE, L.L.C.) WTPL (107.7 FM; HILLSBORO, NH; Owner: CONCORD BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) CONCORD BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) WPKQ (103.7 FM; NORTH CONWAY, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WNHI (93.3 FM; BELMONT, NH; Owner: CONCORD BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) CONCORD BROADCASTING, L.L.C.) WHOM (94.9 FM; MT. WASHINGTON, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WSCY (106.9 FM; MOULTONBOROUGH, NH; Owner: NORTHEAST COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) NORTHEAST COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) WEQX (102.7 FM; MANCHESTER, VT; Owner: NORTHSHIRE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) NORTHSHIRE COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WZSH (107.1 FM; BELLOWS FALLS, VT; Owner: GREAT NORTHERN RADIO, L.L.C.) TV broadcast stations around Sunapee: WVTA ( Channel 41; WINDSOR, VT; Owner: VERMONT ETV, INC.) 41; WINDSOR, VT; VERMONT ETV, INC.) W15BK ( Channel 15; HANOVER, NH; Owner: UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE) 15; HANOVER, NH; UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE) WEKW-TV ( Channel 52; KEENE, NH; Owner: UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE) 52; KEENE, NH; UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE) WNNE ( Channel 31; HARTFORD, VT; Owner: HEARST-ARGYLE STATIONS, INC.) 31; HARTFORD, VT; HEARST-ARGYLE STATIONS, INC.) W17CI (Channel 17; CLAREMONT, NH; Owner: UPPER VALLEY BROADCASTING, LLC) Sunapee fatal accident statistics for 1975 - 2019 See more detailed statistics of Sunapee fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 15 Number of bridges Number of bridges 62ft / 18.8m Total length Total length $40,846,000 Total costs Total costs 51,660 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 3,696 Total average daily truck traffic New bridges - historical statistics 1 1900-1909 1 1910-1919 4 1920-1929 4 1950-1959 4 1960-1969 1 2000-2009 See full National Bridge Inventory statistics for Sunapee, NH FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 3 Summit Mt Sunapee ( Lat: 43.314528 Lon: -72.073972), Call Sign: KNCD880, Assigned Frequencies: 45.2200 MHz, Grant Date: 10/06/2011, Expiration Date: 12/04/2021, Registrant: Nh Dept. Of Safety/Emergency Services And Communications, 33 Hazen Dr (Mailing), Concord, NH 03305, Phone: (603) 528-7541, Fax: (603) 271-6629, Email: 43.314528 -72.073972), KNCD880, 45.2200 MHz, 10/06/2011, 12/04/2021, Nh Dept. Of Safety/Emergency Services And Communications, 33 Hazen Dr (Mailing), Concord, NH 03305, (603) 528-7541, (603) 271-6629, 2000 Off Rands Pond Rd ( Lat: 43.332028 Lon: -72.089250), Call Sign: KVB218, Assigned Frequencies: 151.685 MHz, Grant Date: 05/14/1997, Expiration Date: 05/18/2002, Cancellation Date: 09/22/2002, Registrant: Special Information Services Inc, 31 Pearl St, Newport, NH 03773, Phone: (603) 863-4004 43.332028 -72.089250), KVB218, 151.685 MHz, 05/14/1997, 05/18/2002, 09/22/2002, Special Information Services Inc, 31 Pearl St, Newport, NH 03773, (603) 863-4004 Burkehaven Hill (Lat: 43.381194 Lon: -72.078972), Call Sign: KCC468, Licensee ID: L00007153, Assigned Frequencies: 158.250 MHz, Grant Date: 03/22/2000, Expiration Date: 05/23/2005, Cancellation Date: 04/18/2001, Registrant: Northeast Utilities Service Company, Hrtford, CT 06141-0270, Phone: (603) 669-4000 FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 3 Lat: 43.383389 Lon: -72.082861, Structure height: 1.8 m, Call Sign: WPNJ694, Assigned Frequencies: 956.268 MHz, Grant Date: 02/10/1998, Expiration Date: 02/10/2003, Cancellation Date: 05/18/2003, Registrant: Sunapee, Town Of, Sunapee, NH 03782 43.383389 -72.082861, 1.8 m, WPNJ694, 956.268 MHz, 02/10/1998, 02/10/2003, 05/18/2003, Sunapee, Town Of, Sunapee, NH 03782 SUNAPEE OFC, 604 Sunapee Street ( Lat: 43.375361 Lon: -72.128444), Type: Bant, Structure height: 3.7 m, Overall height: 6 m, Call Sign: WQMI786, Assigned Frequencies: 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, Grant Date: 07/22/2020, Expiration Date: 08/18/2030, Certifier: Dena Delucca, Registrant: New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, 579 Tenney Mountain Highway, Plymouth, NH 03264, Phone: (603) 536-1800, Email: 43.375361 -72.128444), Bant, 3.7 m, 6 m, WQMI786, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 11345.0 MHz, 07/22/2020, 08/18/2030, Dena Delucca, New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, 579 Tenney Mountain Highway, Plymouth, NH 03264, (603) 536-1800, SUNAPEE MTN, Summit Of Mt Sunapee (Lat: 43.314500 Lon: -72.073972), Type: Upole, Structure height: 7.6 m, Overall height: 16.3 m, Call Sign: WHH498, Assigned Frequencies: 953.350 MHz, 6685.62 MHz, 6591.25 MHz, 6093.45 MHz, 6123.10 MHz, Grant Date: 06/16/2020, Expiration Date: 08/30/2030, Registrant: Nh Dept Of Safety/ Emergency Services & Communications, 33 Hazen Dr (Mailing), Concord, NH 03305, Phone: (603) 528-7541, Fax: (603) 271-6629, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 36 ( FAA Registered Aircraft: 2 Aircraft: PIPER PA-28-161 ( Category: Land, Seats: 4, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds, Speed: 108 mph), Engine: Reciprocating N-Number: 284MK, N284MK, N-284MK, Serial Number: 2842135, Certificate Issue Date: 02/12/2020 Registrant (Individual): Natasha Cote, 3 Burma Rd, Sunapee, NH 03782 PIPER PA-28-161 ( Land, 4, Up to 12,499 Pounds, 108 mph), Reciprocating 284MK, N284MK, N-284MK, 2842135, 02/12/2020 Natasha Cote, 3 Burma Rd, Sunapee, NH 03782 Aircraft: MALCZYNSKI FRANCIS M VANS RV6 (Category: Land, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: AMA/EXPR UNKNOWN ENG (Reciprocating) N-Number: 594EF, N594EF, N-594EF, Serial Number: 22317, Year manufactured: 2002, Airworthiness Date: 09/24/2002, Certificate Issue Date: 09/24/2001 Registrant (Individual): Francis M Malczynski, 5 Upper Bay Rd, Sunapee, NH 03782 36 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses in Sunapee 2002 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents According to the data from the years 2002 - 2018 the average number of fires per year is 11. The highest number of fire incidents - 25 took place in 2015, and the least - 1 in 2005. The data has an increasing trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Sunapee, NH 113 59.5% Structure Fires 42 22.1% Outside Fires 23 12.1% Other 12 6.3% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Structure Fires (59.5%), and Outside Fires (22.1%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Sunapee, NH Houses and condos Apartments 63.3% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 24.8% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 6.3% Wood 4.7% Electricity 0.5% Coal or coke 0.4% Utility gas 56.7% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 26.5% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 7.5% Electricity 4.0% Wood 2.8% Utility gas 2.5% No fuel used Sunapee compared to New Hampshire state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Foreign-born population percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. significantly below Number of college students below state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Temple, Pennsylvania Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 1,877. Males: 788 (42.0%) Females: 1,089 (58.0%) Median resident age: 38.1 years Pennsylvania median age: 40.8 years Estimated median household income in 2019: $67,708 Temple: $67,708 PA: $63,463 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $32,252 Temple CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $188,100 Temple: $188,100 PA: $192,600 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $140,994; detached houses: $139,585; townhouses or other attached units: $145,712 $67,708$32,252$188,100$140,994;$139,585;$145,712 Median gross rent in 2019: $955. March 2019 cost of living index in Temple: 97.2 (near average, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 10.6% (5.1% for White Non-Hispanic residents, 22.9% for Hispanic or Latino residents, 61.3% for other race residents, 21.8% for two or more races residents) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 1,222 72.3% White alone 437 25.9% Hispanic 46 2.7% Two or more races Races in Temple detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Pennsylvania and other state lists, there were 13 registered sex offenders living in Temple, Pennsylvania as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Temple is 119 to 1. Ancestries: German (36.3%), Greek (9.1%), Polish (8.6%), Italian (7.3%), Yugoslavian (5.9%), American (4.9%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 386 feet 77 residents are foreign born (2.0% Europe, 1.9% Latin America). This place: 4.5% Pennsylvania: 6.9% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2019: $3,671 (2.6%) Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2019: $2,619 (2.1%) Latitude: 40.41 N, Longitude: 75.92 W Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 5.9% Pennsylvania: 6.1% Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI CO NO 2 SO 2 Ozone PM 10 PM 2.5 Pb Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 79.6. This is about average. City: 79.6 U.S.: 74.2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) [ppm] level in 2013 was 0.0450. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 3.0 miles away from the city center. City: 0.0450 U.S.: 0.2667 Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2015 was 7.80. This is significantly worse than average. Closest monitor was 3.0 miles away from the city center. City: 7.80 U.S.: 5.56 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 0.616. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 3.0 miles away from the city center. City: 0.616 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 25.5. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 1.1 miles away from the city center. City: 25.5 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 10 ) [g/m3] level in 2014 was 13.2. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 0.5 miles away from the city center. City: 13.2 U.S.: 19.6 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 7.62. This is about average. Closest monitor was 1.1 miles away from the city center. City: 7.62 U.S.: 8.46 Lead (Pb) [g/m3] level in 2016 was 0.00391. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 0.5 miles away from the city center. City: 0.00391 U.S.: 0.00984 Tornado activity: Temple-area historical tornado activity is slightly above Pennsylvania state average. It is 13% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 11/4/1950, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 0.7 miles away from the Temple place center injured one person and caused between $50,000 and $500,000 in damages. On 5/31/1998, a category F3 tornado 5.1 miles away from the place center injured 7 people and caused $1 million in damages. Earthquake activity: Temple-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Pennsylvania state average. It is 65% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 8/23/2011 at 17:51:04, a magnitude 5.8 (5.8 MW, Depth: 3.7 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 203.8 miles away from the city center On 1/16/1994 at 01:49:16, a magnitude 4.6 (4.6 MB, 4.6 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 8.1 miles away from Temple center On 1/16/1994 at 00:42:43, a magnitude 4.2 (4.2 MB, 4.0 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi) earthquake occurred 7.2 miles away from the city center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 258.2 miles away from Temple center On 9/25/1998 at 19:52:52, a magnitude 5.2 (4.8 MB, 4.3 MS, 5.2 LG, 4.5 MW, Depth: 3.1 mi) earthquake occurred 245.4 miles away from Temple center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi) earthquake occurred 305.7 miles away from the city center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Berks County (19) is greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 15 Emergencies Declared: 4 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 5, Storms: 5, Tropical Storms: 4, Hurricanes: 3, Winter Storms: 3, Snowstorms: 2, Blizzard: 1, Heavy Rain: 1, Mudslide: 1, Snowfall: 1, Tornado: 1, Water Shortage: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Temple: MANORCARE HEALTH SERVICES-LAURELDALE (Nursing Home, about 2 miles away; LAURELDALE, PA) LEADER NSG/REHAB LAURELDALE (Nursing Home, about 2 miles away; READING, PA) ST JOSEPH MEDICAL CENTER Acute Care Hospitals (about 4 miles away; READING, PA) Acute Care Hospitals PENNSYLVANIA DIALYSIS CLINIC OF READING (Dialysis Facility, about 5 miles away; WYOMISSING, PA) DIAKON HOSPICE SAINT JOHN (Hospital, about 5 miles away; WYOMISSING, PA) HEALTH CALLS (Home Health Center, about 5 miles away; WYOMISSING, PA) ST JOSEPH TRANSITIONAL LOC CTR (Nursing Home, about 5 miles away; READING, PA) Operable nuclear power plants near Temple: 19 miles: Limerick 1 and 2 in Pottstown, PA. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Temple: Albright College ( about 4 miles; Reading, PA ; Full-time enrollment: 2,319) 4 ; 2,319) Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Berks ( about 5 miles; Reading, PA ; FT enrollment: 2,605) 5 ; 2,605) Reading Area Community College ( about 6 miles; Reading, PA ; FT enrollment: 2,941) 6 ; 2,941) Alvernia University ( about 7 miles; Reading, PA ; FT enrollment: 2,461) 7 ; 2,461) Kutztown University of Pennsylvania ( about 11 miles; Kutztown, PA ; FT enrollment: 9,099) 11 ; 9,099) Lehigh Carbon Community College ( about 25 miles; Schnecksville, PA ; FT enrollment: 4,391) 25 ; 4,391) McCann School of Business & Technology (about 25 miles; Pottsville, PA; FT enrollment: 3,412) Private high school in Temple: KIDSPEACE ADVANCES PROGRAM SCHOOL (Students: 72, Location: 8TH AVE AND HAY RD, Grades: 1-12) Berks County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Highest Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Temple and their reported violations in the past: TASTE OF ITALY (Population served: 45, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In SEP-2006 , Contaminant: Coliform . Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (NOV-08-2006) , St Formal NOV issued (NOV-08-2006) , St Compliance achieved (NOV-17-2006) , St Public Notif received (NOV-17-2006) SEP-2006 Coliform St Public Notif requested (NOV-08-2006) St Formal NOV issued (NOV-08-2006) St Compliance achieved (NOV-17-2006) St Public Notif received (NOV-17-2006) MCL, Monthly (TCR) - Between JUL-2006 and SEP-2006, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Public Notif requested (SEP-26-2006), St Formal NOV issued (SEP-26-2006), St Compliance achieved (OCT-13-2006), St Public Notif received (OCT-13-2006) TASTE OF ITALY (45Groundwater): Average household size: This place: 2.4 people Pennsylvania: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 59.1% Whole state: 65.0% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 10.6% Whole state: 6.6% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.5% of all households 0.5% Gay men: 0.5% of all households 3 people in group homes intended for adults in 2010 Banks with branches in Temple (2011 data): Woodforest National Bank: Temple Walmart Branch at 5370 Allentown Pike , branch established on 2007/08/18 . Info updated 2011/05/10: Bank assets: $3,488.9 mil , Deposits: $3,097.6 mil , headquarters in Houston, TX , positive income , Commercial Lending Specialization , 766 total offices , Holding Company: Woodforest Financial Group Employee Stock Ownership Plan (With 401(K) Provisions) 5370 Allentown Pike 2007/08/18 2011/05/10: $3,488.9 mil $3,097.6 mil Houston, TX , Commercial Lending Specialization 766 Woodforest Financial Group Employee Stock Ownership Plan (With 401(K) Provisions) Affinity Bank of Pennsylvania: Muhlenberg Branch at 4200 N. 5th Street Highway , branch established on 2008/10/17 . Info updated 2006/11/03: Bank assets: $177.6 mil , Deposits: $151.8 mil , headquarters in Wyomissing, PA , positive income , Mortgage Lending Specialization , 5 total offices , Holding Company: Affinity Bancorp, Inc. 4200 N. 5th Street Highway 2008/10/17 2006/11/03: $177.6 mil $151.8 mil Wyomissing, PA , Mortgage Lending Specialization 5 Affinity Bancorp, Inc. Fleetwood Bank: Temple Branch at 4445 Kutztown Road , branch established on 2004/08/02 . Info updated 2006/04/14: Bank assets: $229.8 mil , Deposits: $195.7 mil , headquarters in Fleetwood, PA , positive income , 6 total offices , Holding Company: Fleetwood Bank Corporation 4445 Kutztown Road 2004/08/02 2006/04/14: $229.8 mil $195.7 mil Fleetwood, PA 6 Fleetwood Bank Corporation National Penn Bank: Temple Branch at 5220 Kutztown Rd , branch established on 1987/12/15 . Info updated 2008/03/03: Bank assets: $8,395.9 mil , Deposits: $5,879.6 mil , headquarters in Boyertown, PA , positive income , Commercial Lending Specialization , 131 total offices , Holding Company: National Penn Bancshares, Inc. 5220 Kutztown Rd 1987/12/15 2008/03/03: $8,395.9 mil $5,879.6 mil Boyertown, PA , Commercial Lending Specialization 131 National Penn Bancshares, Inc. Citizens Bank of Pennsylvania: Temple Branch at 4950 Kutztown Road, branch established on 1953/12/31. Info updated 2010/09/24: Bank assets: $32,316.9 mil, Deposits: $25,297.1 mil, headquarters in Philadelphia, PA, positive income, 396 total offices, Holding Company: Uk Financial Investments Limited For population 15 years and over in Temple: Never married: 40.7% 40.7% Now married: 37.6% 37.6% Separated: 3.4% 3.4% Widowed: 5.9% 5.9% Divorced: 12.4% For population 25 years and over in Temple: High school or higher: 93.4% 93.4% Bachelor's degree or higher: 7.1% 7.1% Graduate or professional degree: 2.7% 2.7% Mean travel time to work (commute): 15.4 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 7.7 Pennsylvania average: 11.3 Religion statistics for Temple, PA (based on Berks County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Mainline Protestant 80,575 177 Catholic 75,672 22 Evangelical Protestant 33,376 168 Other 3,996 23 Orthodox 2,275 5 Black Protestant 1,062 7 None 214,486 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 75 This county : 1.87 / 10,000 pop. State : 2.04 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 4 This county : 0.10 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 0.09 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 15 Berks County : 0.37 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 0.88 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 115 Berks County : 2.86 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 2.52 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 252 This county : 6.28 / 10,000 pop. Pennsylvania : 7.12 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Berks County : 7.4% Pennsylvania : 9.1% Adult obesity rate: Berks County : 28.0% State : 27.2% Low-income preschool obesity rate: This county : 13.0% Pennsylvania : 11.5% 3.90% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($51,118 average adjusted gross income) Here: 3.90% Pennsylvania average: 4.58% 0.25% of residents moved from foreign countries ($4,769 average AGI) Berks County: 0.25% Pennsylvania average: 0.03% Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Montgomery County, PA 0.53% ($51,596 average AGI) from Lancaster County, PA 0.30% ($49,157) from Lehigh County, PA 0.29% ($50,766) 4.13% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($52,310 average adjusted gross income) Here: 4.13% Pennsylvania average: 4.96% 0.04% of residents moved to foreign countries ($302 average AGI) Berks County: 0.04% Pennsylvania average: 0.04% Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Montgomery County, PA 0.47% ($47,442 average AGI) to Lancaster County, PA 0.36% ($48,724) to Lehigh County, PA 0.29% ($50,058) Businesses in Temple, PA Name Count Name Count Baskin-Robbins 1 McDonald's 1 Dairy Queen 1 PetSmart 1 Dunkin Donuts 1 RadioShack 1 Fashion Bug 1 Rite Aid 1 Ford 1 Starbucks 1 GameStop 1 T-Mobile 2 Giant 1 Target 1 Kroger 1 Walmart 1 MasterBrand Cabinets 1 Strongest AM radio stations in Temple: WEEU (830 AM; 20 kW; READING, PA; Owner: WEEU BROADCASTING COMPANY) WEEU BROADCASTING COMPANY) WWJZ (640 AM; 50 kW; MOUNT HOLLY, NJ; Owner: ABC, INC.) ABC, INC.) WVCH (740 AM; 50 kW; CHESTER, PA; Owner: WVCH COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WVCH COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WZZD (990 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: PENNSYLVANIA MEDIA ASSOCIATES, INC.) PENNSYLVANIA MEDIA ASSOCIATES, INC.) KYW (1060 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WPEN (950 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: GREATER PHILADELPHIA RADIO, INC.) GREATER PHILADELPHIA RADIO, INC.) WIOV (1240 AM; 1 kW; READING, PA; Owner: REGENT BROADCASTING OF LANCASTER, INC.) REGENT BROADCASTING OF LANCASTER, INC.) WRAW (1340 AM; 1 kW; READING, PA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WNWR (1540 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA) WPHT (1210 AM; 50 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) INFINITY BROADCASTING OPERATIONS, INC.) WWDB (860 AM; daytime; 10 kW; PHILADELPHIA, PA) WCBM (680 AM; 50 kW; BALTIMORE, MD; Owner: WCBM MARYLAND, INC.) WCBM MARYLAND, INC.) WMCA (570 AM; 50 kW; NEW YORK, NY; Owner: SALEM MEDIA OF NEW YORK, LLC) Strongest FM radio stations in Temple: WRFY-FM (102.5 FM; READING, PA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WIOV-FM1 (105.1 FM; READING, PA; Owner: REGENT BROADCASTING OF LANCASTER, INC.) REGENT BROADCASTING OF LANCASTER, INC.) WRTL (90.7 FM; EPHRATA, PA; Owner: TEMPLE UNIV OF COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM) TEMPLE UNIV OF COMMONWEALTH SYSTEM) WIOV-FM (105.1 FM; EPHRATA, PA; Owner: REGENT BROADCASTING OF LANCASTER, INC.) REGENT BROADCASTING OF LANCASTER, INC.) WBYN (107.5 FM; BOYERTOWN, PA; Owner: WDAC RADIO COMPANY) WDAC RADIO COMPANY) W253AC (98.5 FM; READING, PA; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WLEV (100.7 FM; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) W290AC (105.9 FM; PALMERTON, PA; Owner: FAMILY STATIONS, INC.) FAMILY STATIONS, INC.) WBMP (88.1 FM; WARWICK, PA; Owner: FOUR RIVERS COMMUNITY BROADCASTING CORP.) FOUR RIVERS COMMUNITY BROADCASTING CORP.) WDIY (88.1 FM; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: LEHIGH VALLEY COMMUNITY BR/CST ASSOC) LEHIGH VALLEY COMMUNITY BR/CST ASSOC) WJCS (89.3 FM; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: BEACON BROADCASTING CORPORATION) BEACON BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WPLY (100.3 FM; MEDIA, PA; Owner: RADIO ONE LICENSES, LLC) RADIO ONE LICENSES, LLC) WARM-FM (103.3 FM; YORK, PA; Owner: WSBA LICO, INC.) WSBA LICO, INC.) WROZ (101.3 FM; LANCASTER, PA; Owner: HALL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) HALL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WXAC (91.3 FM; READING, PA; Owner: ALBRIGHT COLLEGE) ALBRIGHT COLLEGE) WBSX (97.9 FM; HAZLETON, PA; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) W278AI (103.5 FM; CENTER VALLEY, PA; Owner: BUX-MONT EDUCATIONAL RADIO ASSOCIATION) BUX-MONT EDUCATIONAL RADIO ASSOCIATION) WITF-FM (89.5 FM; HARRISBURG, PA; Owner: WITF, INC.) WITF, INC.) WMWX (95.7 FM; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: GREATER PHILADELPHIA RADIO, INC.) GREATER PHILADELPHIA RADIO, INC.) W220BE (91.9 FM; ST. CLAIR, PA; Owner: SALT & LIGHT MEDIA MINISTRIES, INC.) TV broadcast stations around Temple: WTVE ( Channel 51; READING, PA; Owner: READING BROADCASTING, INC.) 51; READING, PA; READING BROADCASTING, INC.) WLYH-TV ( Channel 15; LANCASTER, PA; Owner: TELEVISION STATION GROUP LICENSE SUBSIDIARY, LLC) 15; LANCASTER, PA; TELEVISION STATION GROUP LICENSE SUBSIDIARY, LLC) KYW-TV ( Channel 3; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: CBS BROADCASTING INC.) 3; PHILADELPHIA, PA; CBS BROADCASTING INC.) W24CS ( Channel 24; READING, PA; Owner: WITF, INC.) 24; READING, PA; WITF, INC.) WPHL-TV ( Channel 17; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: TRIBUNE TELEVISION COMPANY) 17; PHILADELPHIA, PA; TRIBUNE TELEVISION COMPANY) WPPX ( Channel 61; WILMINGTON, DE; Owner: PAXSON PHILADELPHIA LICENSE, INC.) 61; WILMINGTON, DE; PAXSON PHILADELPHIA LICENSE, INC.) WPVI-TV ( Channel 6; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: ABC, INC.) 6; PHILADELPHIA, PA; ABC, INC.) WPSG ( Channel 57; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: VIACOM STATIONS GROUP OF PHILADELPHIA INC.) 57; PHILADELPHIA, PA; VIACOM STATIONS GROUP OF PHILADELPHIA INC.) WFMZ-TV ( Channel 69; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: MARANATHA BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) 69; ALLENTOWN, PA; MARANATHA BROADCASTING COMPANY, INC.) WCAU ( Channel 10; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: NBC SUBSIDIARY (WCAU-TV), L.P.) 10; PHILADELPHIA, PA; NBC SUBSIDIARY (WCAU-TV), L.P.) WGTW ( Channel 48; BURLINGTON, NJ; Owner: BRUNSON COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) 48; BURLINGTON, NJ; BRUNSON COMMUNICATIONS, INC.) WYBE ( Channel 35; PHILADELPHIA, PA; Owner: INDEPENDENCE PUBLIC MEDIA OF PHILADELPHIA, INC.) 35; PHILADELPHIA, PA; INDEPENDENCE PUBLIC MEDIA OF PHILADELPHIA, INC.) WLVT-TV ( Channel 39; ALLENTOWN, PA; Owner: LEHIGH VALLEY PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP.) 39; ALLENTOWN, PA; LEHIGH VALLEY PUBLIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS CORP.) WBPH-TV (Channel 60; BETHLEHEM, PA; Owner: SONSHINE FAMILY TELEVISION CORPORATION) Temple fatal accident list: Apr 9, 2015 09:53 PM, Us-222b Allentown Pike, Lat: 40.405794, Lon: -75.927892, Vehicles: 1, Persons: 1, Pedestrians: 1, Fatalities: 1 Dec 13, 2012 03:50 PM, Sr-2005 Allentown Pike, Lat: 40.415453, Lon: -75.919897, Vehicles: 2, Persons: 3, Pedestrians: 1, Fatalities: 1 Jan 3, 1997 10:43 AM, 2011, Vehicles: 1, Persons: 4, Pedestrians: 1, Fatalities: 1 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 24 Number of bridges Number of bridges 184ft / 56.3m Total length Total length $3,739,000 Total costs Total costs 181,861 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 22,435 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 137,550 Total future (year 2009) average daily traffic New bridges - historical statistics 2 1920-1929 3 1930-1939 2 1950-1959 6 1960-1969 10 1970-1979 1 1990-1999 See full National Bridge Inventory statistics for Temple, PA 2003 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents According to the data from the years 2003 - 2018 the average number of fire incidents per year is 15. The highest number of fire incidents - 48 took place in 2009, and the least - 1 in 2016. The data has a declining trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Temple, PA 130 53.1% Structure Fires 49 20.0% Outside Fires 40 16.3% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 26 10.6% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Structure Fires (53.1%), and Outside Fires (20.0%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Temple, PA Houses and condos Apartments 52.8% Utility gas 34.0% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 12.1% Electricity 1.1% No fuel used 46.0% Utility gas 32.1% Electricity 21.8% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. Temple compared to Pennsylvania state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly above state average. significantly above Foreign-born population percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in below state average. below House age above state average. above Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher significantly below state average. Temple on our top lists: #68 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the most residents born in Dominican Republic (population 500+)" #26 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the largest increase in the number of infant deaths per 1000 residents 2000-2006 to 2007-2013 (pop. 50,000+)" #28 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the lowest percentage of residents relocating from other counties between 2010 and 2011 (pop. 50,000+)" #28 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the most Mainline Protestant adherents" #35 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the most Mainline Protestant congregations" #40 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the lowest percentage of residents relocating to other counties in 2011 (pop. 50,000+)" Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Wedgefield, South Carolina Submit your own pictures of this place and show them to the world OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 1,615. Males: 879 (54.4%) Females: 736 (45.6%) Median resident age: 43.1 years South Carolina median age: 39.9 years Zip codes: 29168. Estimated median household income in 2019: $51,025 Wedgefield: $51,025 SC: $56,227 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $24,747 Wedgefield CDP income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $127,800 Wedgefield: $127,800 SC: $179,800 Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $120,672; detached houses: $160,854; mobile homes: $111,248 $51,025$24,747$127,800$120,672;$160,854;$111,248 Median gross rent in 2019: $839. March 2019 cost of living index in Wedgefield: 81.9 (low, U.S. average is 100) Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 20.1% (10.5% for White Non-Hispanic residents, 34.4% for Black residents, 100.0% for two or more races residents) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: Most recent value % change since 2k Data: Median household income ($) Median household income (% change since 2000) Household income diversity Ratio of average income to average house value (%) Ratio of average income to average rent Median household income ($) - White Median household income ($) - Black or African American Median household income ($) - Asian Median household income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median household income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median household income ($) - Multirace Median household income ($) - Other Race Median household income for houses/condos with a mortgage ($) Median household income for apartments without a mortgage ($) Races - White alone (%) Races - White alone (% change since 2000) Races - Black alone (%) Races - Black alone (% change since 2000) Races - American Indian alone (%) Races - American Indian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Asian alone (%) Races - Asian alone (% change since 2000) Races - Hispanic (%) Races - Hispanic (% change since 2000) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (%) Races - Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone (% change since 2000) Races - Two or more races (%) Races - Two or more races (% change since 2000) Races - Other race alone (%) Races - Other race alone (% change since 2000) Racial diversity Unemployment (%) Unemployment (% change since 2000) Unemployment (%) - White Unemployment (%) - Black or African American Unemployment (%) - Asian Unemployment (%) - Hispanic or Latino Unemployment (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Unemployment (%) - Multirace Unemployment (%) - Other Race Population density (people per square mile) Population - Males (%) Population - Females (%) Population - Males (%) - White Population - Males (%) - Black or African American Population - Males (%) - Asian Population - Males (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Males (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Males (%) - Multirace Population - Males (%) - Other Race Population - Females (%) - White Population - Females (%) - Black or African American Population - Females (%) - Asian Population - Females (%) - Hispanic or Latino Population - Females (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Population - Females (%) - Multirace Population - Females (%) - Other Race Coronavirus confirmed cases (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (Nov 21, 2021) Coronavirus confirmed cases (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Deaths caused by coronavirus (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) Daily increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Weekly increase in number of cases (Nov 21, 2021) Cases doubled (in days) (Nov 21, 2021) Hospitalized patients (Nov 21, 2021) Negative test results (Nov 21, 2021) Total test results (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (per 100k population) (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses distributed (Nov 21, 2021) COVID Vaccine doses administered (Nov 21, 2021) Likely homosexual households (%) Likely homosexual households (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (%) Likely homosexual households - Lesbian couples (% change since 2000) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (%) Likely homosexual households - Gay men (% change since 2000) Cost of living index Median gross rent ($) Median contract rent ($) Median monthly housing costs ($) Median house or condo value ($) Median house or condo value ($ change since 2000) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, detached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 1, attached ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 2 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure by units in structure - 3 or 4 ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - 5 or more ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Boat, RV, van, etc. ($) Mean house or condo value by units in structure - Mobile home ($) Median house or condo value ($) - White Median house or condo value ($) - Black or African American Median house or condo value ($) - Asian Median house or condo value ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median house or condo value ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median house or condo value ($) - Multirace Median house or condo value ($) - Other Race Median resident age Resident age diversity Median resident age - Males Median resident age - Females Median resident age - White Median resident age - Black or African American Median resident age - Asian Median resident age - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Multirace Median resident age - Other Race Median resident age - Males - White Median resident age - Males - Black or African American Median resident age - Males - Asian Median resident age - Males - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Males - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Males - Multirace Median resident age - Males - Other Race Median resident age - Females - White Median resident age - Females - Black or African American Median resident age - Females - Asian Median resident age - Females - Hispanic or Latino Median resident age - Females - American Indian and Alaska Native Median resident age - Females - Multirace Median resident age - Females - Other Race Commute - mean travel time to work (minutes) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (%) Travel time to work - Less than 5 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 5 to 9 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 10 to 19 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 20 to 29 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 30 to 39 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 40 to 59 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (%) Travel time to work - 60 to 89 minutes (% change since 2000) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (%) Travel time to work - 90 or more minutes (% change since 2000) Marital status - Never married (%) Marital status - Now married (%) Marital status - Separated (%) Marital status - Widowed (%) Marital status - Divorced (%) Median family income ($) Median family income (% change since 2000) Median non-family income ($) Median non-family income (% change since 2000) Median per capita income ($) Median per capita income (% change since 2000) Median family income ($) - White Median family income ($) - Black or African American Median family income ($) - Asian Median family income ($) - Hispanic or Latino Median family income ($) - American Indian and Alaska Native Median family income ($) - Multirace Median family income ($) - Other Race Median year house/condo built Median year apartment built Year house built - Built 2005 or later (%) Year house built - Built 2000 to 2004 (%) Year house built - Built 1990 to 1999 (%) Year house built - Built 1980 to 1989 (%) Year house built - Built 1970 to 1979 (%) Year house built - Built 1960 to 1969 (%) Year house built - Built 1950 to 1959 (%) Year house built - Built 1940 to 1949 (%) Year house built - Built 1939 or earlier (%) Average household size Household density (households per square mile) Average household size - White Average household size - Black or African American Average household size - Asian Average household size - Hispanic or Latino Average household size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average household size - Multirace Average household size - Other Race Occupied housing units (%) Vacant housing units (%) Owner occupied housing units (%) Renter occupied housing units (%) Vacancy status - For rent (%) Vacancy status - For sale only (%) Vacancy status - Rented or sold, not occupied (%) Vacancy status - For seasonal, recreational, or occasional use (%) Vacancy status - For migrant workers (%) Vacancy status - Other vacant (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level (%) Children below poverty level (%) Poor families by family type - Married-couple family (%) Poor families by family type - Male, no wife present (%) Poor families by family type - Female, no husband present (%) Poverty status for native-born residents (%) Poverty status for foreign-born residents (%) Poverty among high school graduates not in families (%) Poverty among people who did not graduate high school not in families (%) Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - White Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Black or African American Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Asian Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Hispanic or Latino Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - American Indian and Alaska Native Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Multirace Residents with income below the poverty level (%) - Other Race Air pollution - Air Quality Index (AQI) Air pollution - CO Air pollution - NO2 Air pollution - SO2 Air pollution - Ozone Air pollution - PM10 Air pollution - PM25 Air pollution - Pb Crime - Murders per 100,000 population Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population Crime - Arson per 100,000 population Crime - City-data.com crime index Crime - Violent crime index Crime - Property crime index Crime - Murders per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Rapes per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Robberies per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Assaults per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Burglaries per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Auto thefts per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - Arson per 100,000 population (5 year average) Crime - City-data.com crime index (5 year average) Crime - Violent crime index (5 year average) Crime - Property crime index (5 year average) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Dole) 1996 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Gore) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2000 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Kerry) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Bush) 2004 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (McCain) 2008 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Obama) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Romney) 2012 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Clinton) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2016 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Democratic Party (Biden) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Republican Party (Trump) 2020 Presidential Elections Results (%) - Other Ancestries Reported - Arab (%) Ancestries Reported - Czech (%) Ancestries Reported - Danish (%) Ancestries Reported - Dutch (%) Ancestries Reported - English (%) Ancestries Reported - French (%) Ancestries Reported - French Canadian (%) Ancestries Reported - German (%) Ancestries Reported - Greek (%) Ancestries Reported - Hungarian (%) Ancestries Reported - Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Italian (%) Ancestries Reported - Lithuanian (%) Ancestries Reported - Norwegian (%) Ancestries Reported - Polish (%) Ancestries Reported - Portuguese (%) Ancestries Reported - Russian (%) Ancestries Reported - Scotch-Irish (%) Ancestries Reported - Scottish (%) Ancestries Reported - Slovak (%) Ancestries Reported - Subsaharan African (%) Ancestries Reported - Swedish (%) Ancestries Reported - Swiss (%) Ancestries Reported - Ukrainian (%) Ancestries Reported - United States (%) Ancestries Reported - Welsh (%) Ancestries Reported - West Indian (%) Ancestries Reported - Other (%) Educational Attainment - No schooling completed (%) Educational Attainment - Less than high school (%) Educational Attainment - High school or equivalent (%) Educational Attainment - Less than 1 year of college (%) Educational Attainment - 1 or more years of college (%) Educational Attainment - Associate degree (%) Educational Attainment - Bachelor's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Master's degree (%) Educational Attainment - Professional school degree (%) Educational Attainment - Doctorate degree (%) School Enrollment - Nursery, preschool (%) School Enrollment - Kindergarten (%) School Enrollment - Grade 1 to 4 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 5 to 8 (%) School Enrollment - Grade 9 to 12 (%) School Enrollment - College undergrad (%) School Enrollment - Graduate or professional (%) School Enrollment - Not enrolled in school (%) School enrollment - Public schools (%) School enrollment - Private schools (%) School enrollment - Not enrolled (%) Median number of rooms in houses and condos Median number of rooms in apartments Housing units lacking complete plumbing facilities (%) Housing units lacking complete kitchen facilities (%) Density of houses Urban houses (%) Rural houses (%) Households with people 60 years and over (%) Households with people 65 years and over (%) Households with people 75 years and over (%) Households with one or more nonrelatives (%) Households with no nonrelatives (%) Population in households (%) Family households (%) Nonfamily households (%) Population in families (%) Family households with own children (%) Median number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in owner occupied houses Median number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Mean number of bedrooms in renter occupied houses Median number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in owner occupied houses Median number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mean number of vehichles in renter occupied houses Mortgage status - with mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with second mortgage (%) Mortgage status - with home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - with both second mortgage and home equity loan (%) Mortgage status - without a mortgage (%) Average family size Average family size - White Average family size - Black or African American Average family size - Asian Average family size - Hispanic or Latino Average family size - American Indian and Alaska Native Average family size - Multirace Average family size - Other Race Geographical mobility - Same house 1 year ago (%) Geographical mobility - Moved within same county (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different county within same state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from different state (%) Geographical mobility - Moved from abroad (%) Place of birth - Born in state of residence (%) Place of birth - Born in other state (%) Place of birth - Native, outside of US (%) Place of birth - Foreign born (%) Housing units in structures - 1, detached (%) Housing units in structures - 1, attached (%) Housing units in structures - 2 (%) Housing units in structures - 3 or 4 (%) Housing units in structures - 5 to 9 (%) Housing units in structures - 10 to 19 (%) Housing units in structures - 20 to 49 (%) Housing units in structures - 50 or more (%) Housing units in structures - Mobile home (%) Housing units in structures - Boat, RV, van, etc. (%) House/condo owner moved in on average (years ago) Renter moved in on average (years ago) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1999 to March 2000 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1995 to 1998 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1990 to 1994 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1980 to 1989 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1970 to 1979 (%) Year householder moved into unit - Moved in 1969 or earlier (%) Means of transportation to work - Drove car alone (%) Means of transportation to work - Carpooled (%) Means of transportation to work - Public transportation (%) Means of transportation to work - Bus or trolley bus (%) Means of transportation to work - Streetcar or trolley car (%) Means of transportation to work - Subway or elevated (%) Means of transportation to work - Railroad (%) Means of transportation to work - Ferryboat (%) Means of transportation to work - Taxicab (%) Means of transportation to work - Motorcycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Bicycle (%) Means of transportation to work - Walked (%) Means of transportation to work - Other means (%) Working at home (%) Industry diversity Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining (%) Most Common Industries - Agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting (%) Most Common Industries - Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction (%) Most Common Industries - Construction (%) Most Common Industries - Manufacturing (%) Most Common Industries - Wholesale trade (%) Most Common Industries - Retail trade (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing, and utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Transportation and warehousing (%) Most Common Industries - Utilities (%) Most Common Industries - Information (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Finance and insurance (%) Most Common Industries - Real estate and rental and leasing (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and management, and administrative and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Professional, scientific, and technical services (%) Most Common Industries - Management of companies and enterprises (%) Most Common Industries - Administrative and support and waste management services (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services, and health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Educational services (%) Most Common Industries - Health care and social assistance (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Arts, entertainment, and recreation (%) Most Common Industries - Accommodation and food services (%) Most Common Industries - Other services, except public administration (%) Most Common Industries - Public administration (%) Occupation diversity Most Common Occupations - Management, business, science, and arts occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management, business, and financial occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Management occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Business and financial operations occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer, engineering, and science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Computer and mathematical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Architecture and engineering occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Life, physical, and social science occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, legal, community service, arts, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Community and social service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Legal occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Education, training, and library occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Arts, design, entertainment, sports, and media occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare practitioners and technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health diagnosing and treating practitioners and other technical occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Health technologists and technicians (%) Most Common Occupations - Service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Healthcare support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Protective service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Fire fighting and prevention, and other protective service workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Law enforcement workers including supervisors (%) Most Common Occupations - Food preparation and serving related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Personal care and service occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and office occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Sales and related occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Office and administrative support occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Farming, fishing, and forestry occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Construction and extraction occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Installation, maintenance, and repair occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production, transportation, and material moving occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Production occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Transportation occupations (%) Most Common Occupations - Material moving occupations (%) People in Group quarters - Institutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - Correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Federal prisons and detention centers (%) People in Group quarters - Halfway houses (%) People in Group quarters - Local jails and other confinement facilities (including police lockups) (%) People in Group quarters - Military disciplinary barracks (%) People in Group quarters - State prisons (%) People in Group quarters - Other types of correctional institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Nursing homes (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards, hospices, and schools for the handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals/wards and hospices for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospices or homes for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Military hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Other hospitals or wards for chronically ill (%) People in Group quarters - Hospitals or wards for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Mental (Psychiatric) hospitals or wards (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Schools, hospitals, or wards for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the deaf (%) People in Group quarters - Institutions for the blind (%) People in Group quarters - Orthopedic wards and institutions for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in general hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Wards in military hospitals for patients who have no usual home elsewhere (%) People in Group quarters - Juvenile institutions (%) People in Group quarters - Long-term care (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for abused, dependent, and neglected children (%) People in Group quarters - Residential treatment centers for emotionally disturbed children (%) People in Group quarters - Training schools for juvenile delinquents (%) People in Group quarters - Short-term care, detention or diagnostic centers for delinquent children (%) People in Group quarters - Type of juvenile institution unknown (%) People in Group quarters - Noninstitutionalized population (%) People in Group quarters - College dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) (%) People in Group quarters - Military quarters (%) People in Group quarters - On base (%) People in Group quarters - Barracks, unaccompanied personnel housing (UPH), (Enlisted/Officer), ;and similar group living quarters for military personnel (%) People in Group quarters - Transient quarters for temporary residents (%) People in Group quarters - Military ships (%) People in Group quarters - Group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Homes or halfway houses for drug/alcohol abuse (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally ill (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the mentally retarded (%) People in Group quarters - Homes for the physically handicapped (%) People in Group quarters - Other group homes (%) People in Group quarters - Religious group quarters (%) People in Group quarters - Dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Agriculture workers' dormitories on farms (%) People in Group quarters - Job Corps and vocational training facilities (%) People in Group quarters - Other workers' dormitories (%) People in Group quarters - Crews of maritime vessels (%) People in Group quarters - Other nonhousehold living situations (%) People in Group quarters - Other noninstitutional group quarters (%) Residents speaking English at home (%) Residents speaking English at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking English at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking English at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking Spanish at home - Foreign born (%) Residents speaking other language at home (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Born in the United States (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Native, born elsewhere (%) Residents speaking other language at home - Foreign born (%) Class of Workers - Employee of private company (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed in own incorporated business (%) Class of Workers - Private not-for-profit wage and salary workers (%) Class of Workers - Local government workers (%) Class of Workers - State government workers (%) Class of Workers - Federal government workers (%) Class of Workers - Self-employed workers in own not incorporated business and Unpaid family workers (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in houses and condos - No fuel used (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Utility gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Bottled, tank, or LP gas (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Electricity (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Coal or coke (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Wood (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Solar energy (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - Other fuel (%) House heating fuel used in apartments - No fuel used (%) Armed forces status - In Armed Forces (%) Armed forces status - Civilian (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Veteran (%) Armed forces status - Civilian - Nonveteran (%) Fatal accidents locations in years 2005-2019 Fatal accidents locations in 2005 Fatal accidents locations in 2006 Fatal accidents locations in 2007 Fatal accidents locations in 2008 Fatal accidents locations in 2009 Fatal accidents locations in 2010 Fatal accidents locations in 2011 Fatal accidents locations in 2012 Fatal accidents locations in 2013 Fatal accidents locations in 2014 Fatal accidents locations in 2015 Fatal accidents locations in 2016 Fatal accidents locations in 2017 Fatal accidents locations in 2018 Fatal accidents locations in 2019 Alcohol use - People drinking some alcohol every month (%) Alcohol use - People not drinking at all (%) Alcohol use - Average days/month drinking alcohol Alcohol use - Average drinks/week Alcohol use - Average days/year people drink much Audiometry - Average condition of hearing (%) Audiometry - People that can hear a whisper from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - People that can hear normal voice from across a quiet room (%) Audiometry - Ears ringing, roaring, buzzing (%) Audiometry - Had a job exposure to loud noise (%) Audiometry - Had off-work exposure to loud noise (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high blood pressure (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Checking blood pressure at home (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Frequently checking blood cholesterol (%) Blood Pressure & Cholesterol - Has high cholesterol level (%) Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at supermarket/grocery store Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on food at other stores Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on eating out Consumer Behavior - Money monthly spent on carryout/delivered foods Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at supermarket/grocery store (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on food at other stores (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on eating out (%) Consumer Behavior - Income spent on carryout/delivered foods (%) Current Health Status - General health condition (%) Current Health Status - Blood donors (%) Current Health Status - Has blood ever tested for HIV virus (%) Current Health Status - Left-handed people (%) Dermatology - People using sunscreen (%) Diabetes - Diabetics (%) Diabetes - Had a blood test for high blood sugar (%) Diabetes - People taking insulin (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Diet health (%) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Milk product consumption (# of products/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals not home prepared (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Meals from fast food or pizza place (#/week) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Ready-to-eat foods (#/month) Diet Behavior & Nutrition - Frozen meals/pizza (#/month) Drug Use - People that ever used marijuana or hashish (%) Drug Use - Ever used hard drugs (%) Drug Use - Ever used any form of cocaine (%) Drug Use - Ever used heroin (%) Drug Use - Ever used methamphetamine (%) Health Insurance - People covered by health insurance (%) Kidney Conditions-Urology - Avg. # of times urinating at night Medical Conditions - People with asthma (%) Medical Conditions - People with anemia (%) Medical Conditions - People with psoriasis (%) Medical Conditions - People with overweight (%) Medical Conditions - Elderly people having difficulties in thinking or remembering (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever received blood transfusion (%) Medical Conditions - People having trouble seeing even with glass/contacts (%) Medical Conditions - People with arthritis (%) Medical Conditions - People with gout (%) Medical Conditions - People with congestive heart failure (%) Medical Conditions - People with coronary heart disease (%) Medical Conditions - People with angina pectoris (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had heart attack (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had stroke (%) Medical Conditions - People with emphysema (%) Medical Conditions - People with thyroid problem (%) Medical Conditions - People with chronic bronchitis (%) Medical Conditions - People with any liver condition (%) Medical Conditions - People who ever had cancer or malignancy (%) Mental Health - People who have little interest in doing things (%) Mental Health - People feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble sleeping or sleeping too much (%) Mental Health - People feeling tired or having little energy (%) Mental Health - People with poor appetite or overeating (%) Mental Health - People feeling bad about themself (%) Mental Health - People who have trouble concentrating on things (%) Mental Health - People moving or speaking slowly or too fast (%) Mental Health - People having thoughts they would be better off dead (%) Oral Health - Average years since last visit a dentist Oral Health - People embarrassed because of mouth (%) Oral Health - People with gum disease (%) Oral Health - General health of teeth and gums (%) Oral Health - Average days a week using dental floss/device Oral Health - Average days a week using mouthwash for dental problem Oral Health - Average number of teeth Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to control insects (%) Pesticide Use - Households using pesticides to kill weeds (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity work activities (%) Physical Activity - People walking or bicycling (%) Physical Activity - People doing vigorous-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - People doing moderate-intensity recreational activities (%) Physical Activity - Average hours a day doing sedentary activities Physical Activity - Average hours a day watching TV or videos Physical Activity - Average hours a day using computer Physical Functioning - People having limitations keeping them from working (%) Physical Functioning - People limited in amount of work they can do (%) Physical Functioning - People that need special equipment to walk (%) Physical Functioning - People experiencing confusion/memory problems (%) Physical Functioning - People requiring special healthcare equipment (%) Prescription Medications - Average number of prescription medicines taking Preventive Aspirin Use - Adults 40+ taking low-dose aspirin (%) Reproductive Health - Vaginal deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Cesarean deliveries (%) Reproductive Health - Deliveries resulted in a live birth (%) Reproductive Health - Pregnancies resulted in a delivery (%) Reproductive Health - Women breastfeeding newborns (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had a hysterectomy (%) Reproductive Health - Women that had both ovaries removed (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever taken birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women taking birth control pills (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used Depo-Provera or injectables (%) Reproductive Health - Women that have ever used female hormones (%) Sexual Behavior - People 18+ that ever had sex (vaginal, anal, or oral) (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had anal sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Males 18+ that ever had any sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had vaginal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever performed oral sex on a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had anal sex with a man (%) Sexual Behavior - Females 18+ that ever had any kind of sex with a woman (%) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first had sex Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female vaginal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a woman (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of woman performed oral sex on in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male anal sex partners in lifetime (males 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average age people first performed oral sex on a man (18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male oral sex partners in lifetime (18+) Sexual Behavior - People using protection when performing oral sex (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of times people have vaginal or anal sex a year Sexual Behavior - People having sex without condom (%) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of male vaginal sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Average number of female sex partners in lifetime (females 18+) Sexual Behavior - Circumcised males 18+ (%) Sleep Disorders - Average hours sleeping at night Sleep Disorders - People that has trouble sleeping (%) Smoking-Cigarette Use - People smoking cigarettes (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with smell (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ having problems with taste (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had wisdom teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had tonsils teeth removed (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a loss of consciousness because of a head injury (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had a broken nose or other serious injury to face or skull (%) Taste & Smell - People 40+ that ever had two or more sinus infections (%) Weight - Average height (inches) Weight - Average weight (pounds) Weight - Average BMI Weight - People that are obese (%) Weight - People that ever were obese (%) Weight - People trying to lose weight (%) Settings Get link Loading data... Based on 2000-2020 data Loading data... 123 Hide US histogram 1,329 65.0% White alone 665 32.5% Black alone 35 1.7% Two or more races 7 0.3% Asian alone Races in Wedgefield detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of South Carolina and other state lists, there was 1 registered sex offender living in Wedgefield, South Carolina as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Wedgefield is 1,875 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is lower than the state average. Ancestries: English (5.9%), Irish (5.5%), American (3.8%), Scottish (2.9%), British (1.1%), Scotch-Irish (1.0%). Current Local Time: EST time zone 7 residents are foreign born This place: 0.4% South Carolina: 5.0% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2019: $512 (0.6%) Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2019: $474 (0.5%) Latitude: 34.81 N, Longitude: 82.25 W Area code commonly used in this area: 864 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 5.0% South Carolina: 4.1% Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI CO NO 2 SO 2 Ozone PM 10 PM 2.5 Pb Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 59.2. This is better than average. City: 59.2 U.S.: 74.2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) [ppm] level in 2011 was 0.187. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 7.0 miles away from the city center. City: 0.187 U.S.: 0.267 Nitrogen Dioxide (NO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 7.65. This is worse than average. Closest monitor was 4.9 miles away from the city center. City: 7.65 U.S.: 5.56 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 0.154. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 4.9 miles away from the city center. City: 0.154 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 25.8. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 4.0 miles away from the city center. City: 25.8 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 10 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 12.3. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 8.7 miles away from the city center. City: 12.3 U.S.: 19.6 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 6.56. This is better than average. Closest monitor was 4.0 miles away from the city center. City: 6.56 U.S.: 8.46 Lead (Pb) [g/m3] level in 2011 was 0.00369. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 8.6 miles away from the city center. City: 0.00369 U.S.: 0.00984 Tornado activity: Wedgefield-area historical tornado activity is near South Carolina state average. It is 10% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 5/5/1989, a category F4 (max. wind speeds 207-260 mph) tornado 26.2 miles away from the Wedgefield place center killed 2 people and injured 35 people and caused between $500,000 and $5,000,000 in damages. On 5/10/1952, a category F3 (max. wind speeds 158-206 mph) tornado 0.7 miles away from the place center killed 2 people and injured 4 people. Earthquake activity: Wedgefield-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above South Carolina state average. It is 10% greater than the overall U.S. average. On 8/2/1974 at 08:52:09, a magnitude 4.9 (4.3 MB, 4.9 LG, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 66.2 miles away from the city center On 8/9/2020 at 12:07:37, a magnitude 5.1 (5.1 MW, Depth: 4.7 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 132.4 miles away from the city center On 8/23/2011 at 17:51:04, a magnitude 5.8 (5.8 MW, Depth: 3.7 mi) earthquake occurred 322.1 miles away from Wedgefield center On 11/30/1973 at 07:48:41, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 MB, 4.6 ML) earthquake occurred 118.2 miles away from Wedgefield center On 4/29/2003 at 08:59:39, a magnitude 4.9 (4.4 MB, 4.6 MW, 4.9 LG) earthquake occurred 193.3 miles away from Wedgefield center On 7/27/1980 at 18:52:21, a magnitude 5.2 (5.1 MB, 4.7 MS, 5.0 UK, 5.2 UK) earthquake occurred 252.9 miles away from Wedgefield center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Sumter County (18) is near the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 9 Emergencies Declared: 6 Causes of natural disasters: Hurricanes: 8, Floods: 3, Storms: 3, Winter Storms: 3, Drought: 1, Ice Storm: 1, Tropical Storm: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Wedgefield: NHC HEALTHCARE - MAULDIN (Nursing Home, about 3 miles away; GREENVILLE, SC) ROLLING GREEN VILLAGE (Nursing Home, about 3 miles away; GREENVILLE, SC) SOUTHERN CARE GRV/SP (Hospital, about 4 miles away; GREENVILLE, SC) INTERIM HEALTHCARE GREENVILLE (Home Health Center, about 4 miles away; GREENVILLE, SC) CAROLINA HOME HEALTH CARE (Home Health Center, about 4 miles away; GREENVILLE, SC) VILLAGE HOSPITAL Acute Care Hospitals (about 5 miles away; GREER, SC) Acute Care Hospitals JOURNEY HOSPICE OF SOUTH CAROLINA, LLC (Hospital, about 5 miles away; GREER, SC) Amtrak station near Wedgefield: 10 miles: GREENVILLE (1120 W. WASHINGTON ST.) . Services: ticket office, fully wheelchair accessible, enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, vending machines, free short-term parking, free long-term parking, call for taxi service. Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Wedgefield: Greenville Technical College ( about 7 miles; Greenville, SC ; Full-time enrollment: 9,859) 7 ; 9,859) Bob Jones University ( about 8 miles; Greenville, SC ; FT enrollment: 3,308) 8 ; 3,308) Furman University ( about 14 miles; Greenville, SC ; FT enrollment: 2,988) 14 ; 2,988) Spartanburg Community College ( about 19 miles; Spartanburg, SC ; FT enrollment: 4,309) 19 ; 4,309) North Greenville University ( about 20 miles; Tigerville, SC ; FT enrollment: 2,341) 20 ; 2,341) University of South Carolina-Upstate ( about 21 miles; Spartanburg, SC ; FT enrollment: 4,994) 21 ; 4,994) Anderson University (about 30 miles; Anderson, SC; FT enrollment: 2,510) Public elementary/middle school in Wedgefield: F. J. DELAINE ELEMENTARY (Students: 131, Location: 5355 CANE SAVANNAH ROAD, Grades: PK-5) See full list of schools located in Wedgefield Sumter County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level less than 2 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Low Potential Average household size: This place: 2.8 people South Carolina: 2.5 people Percentage of family households: This place: 73.6% Whole state: 67.5% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This place: 7.0% Whole state: 6.0% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.5% of all households 0.5% Gay men: 0.2% of all households For population 15 years and over in Wedgefield: Never married: 29.9% 29.9% Now married: 56.7% 56.7% Separated: 1.3% 1.3% Widowed: 0.8% 0.8% Divorced: 11.3% For population 25 years and over in Wedgefield: High school or higher: 84.8% 84.8% Bachelor's degree or higher: 8.1% 8.1% Graduate or professional degree: 3.5% Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 8.3 South Carolina average: 11.4 Religion statistics for Wedgefield, SC (based on Sumter County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Evangelical Protestant 31,023 108 Black Protestant 13,905 46 Mainline Protestant 10,960 47 Other 2,323 12 Catholic 1,942 2 None 47,303 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 16 This county : 1.54 / 10,000 pop. State : 1.99 / 10,000 pop. Number of supercenters and club stores: 1 Sumter County : 0.10 / 10,000 pop. South Carolina : 0.15 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 8 Sumter County : 0.77 / 10,000 pop. South Carolina : 0.85 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 63 This county : 6.06 / 10,000 pop. South Carolina : 5.38 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 44 This county : 4.23 / 10,000 pop. South Carolina : 7.75 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Sumter County : 13.2% South Carolina : 10.6% Adult obesity rate: This county : 34.1% South Carolina : 29.4% Low-income preschool obesity rate: Here : 11.2% South Carolina : 13.4% 7.17% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($39,238 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.17% South Carolina average: 7.95% 0.61% of residents moved from foreign countries ($3,654 average AGI) Sumter County: 0.61% South Carolina average: 0.07% Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Richland County, SC 0.54% ($32,591 average AGI) from Clarendon County, SC 0.50% ($29,764) from Lee County, SC 0.23% ($26,144) 7.43% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($42,590 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.43% South Carolina average: 6.98% 0.46% of residents moved to foreign countries ($2,417 average AGI) Sumter County: 0.46% South Carolina average: 0.07% Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Richland County, SC 0.69% ($33,639 average AGI) to Clarendon County, SC 0.39% ($33,105) to Lexington County, SC 0.26% ($39,000) Strongest AM radio stations in Wedgefield: WLFJ (660 AM; daytime; 50 kW; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WCSZ (1070 AM; 50 kW; SANS SOUCI, SC; Owner: WHYZ RADIO, L.P.) WHYZ RADIO, L.P.) WMUU (1260 AM; 5 kW; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: WMUU, INC.) WMUU, INC.) WYRD (1330 AM; 5 kW; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) WBCU (1460 AM; 50 kW; UNION, SC) WGVL (1440 AM; 5 kW; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WFGW (1010 AM; 50 kW; BLACK MOUNTAIN, NC; Owner: BLUE RIDGE BROADCASTING CORP.) BLUE RIDGE BROADCASTING CORP.) WDAB (1580 AM; 5 kW; TRAVELERS REST, SC; Owner: DABNEY-ADAMSON BROADCASTING, INC.) DABNEY-ADAMSON BROADCASTING, INC.) WORD (950 AM; 5 kW; SPARTANBURG, SC; Owner: ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) WPJM (800 AM; 1 kW; GREER, SC; Owner: FULL GOSPEL WPJM 800 AM RADIO, INC.) FULL GOSPEL WPJM 800 AM RADIO, INC.) WFIS (1600 AM; 1 kW; FOUNTAIN INN, SC; Owner: GOLDEN STRIP BROADCASTING, INC.) GOLDEN STRIP BROADCASTING, INC.) WCKI (1300 AM; 1 kW; GREER, SC; Owner: SIRA-PACK RADIO, INC.) SIRA-PACK RADIO, INC.) WJFJ (1160 AM; 10 kW; TRYON, NC; Owner: COLUMBUS BROADCAST CORPORATION, INC.) Strongest FM radio stations in Wedgefield: WROQ (101.1 FM; ANDERSON, SC; Owner: OBC BROADCASTING, INC.) OBC BROADCASTING, INC.) WSSL-FM (100.5 FM; GRAY COURT, SC; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WMUU-FM (94.5 FM; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: WMUU, INC.) WMUU, INC.) WEPR (90.1 FM; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) WBZT-FM (96.7 FM; MAULDIN, SC; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WLFJ-FM (89.3 FM; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: RADIO TRAINING NETWORK, INC.) RADIO TRAINING NETWORK, INC.) WSPA-FM (98.9 FM; SPARTANBURG, SC; Owner: ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) WFBC-FM (93.7 FM; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) WESC-FM (92.5 FM; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WTPT (93.3 FM; FOREST CITY, NC; Owner: UPSTATE BROADCASTING, LLC) UPSTATE BROADCASTING, LLC) WJMZ-FM (107.3 FM; ANDERSON, SC; Owner: CXR HOLDINGS, INC.) CXR HOLDINGS, INC.) WMYI (102.5 FM; HENDERSONVILLE, NC; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WTBI-FM (91.7 FM; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: TABERNACLE BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE) TABERNACLE BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE) W247AB (97.3 FM; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: ISOTHERMAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE) ISOTHERMAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE) WOLT (103.3 FM; GREER, SC; Owner: ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM GREENVILLE LICENSE, LLC) WKSF (99.9 FM; ASHEVILLE, NC; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WMIT (106.9 FM; BLACK MOUNTAIN, NC; Owner: BLUE RIDGE BROADCASTING CORPORATION) BLUE RIDGE BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WNCW (88.7 FM; SPINDALE, NC; Owner: ISOTHERMAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE) ISOTHERMAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE) W218AD (91.5 FM; BREVARD, NC; Owner: WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC RADIO) WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC RADIO) W220CD (91.9 FM; ENKA, NC; Owner: CALVARY CHAPEL OF TWIN FALLS, INC.) TV broadcast stations around Wedgefield: WBSC-TV ( Channel 40; ANDERSON, SC; Owner: ANDERSON (WFBC-TV) LICENSEE, INC.) 40; ANDERSON, SC; ANDERSON (WFBC-TV) LICENSEE, INC.) WHNS ( Channel 21; ASHEVILLE, NC; Owner: MEREDITH CORPORATION) 21; ASHEVILLE, NC; MEREDITH CORPORATION) WSQY-LP ( Channel 66; SPARTANBURG, SC; Owner: ASHEVILLE MEDIA GROUP, LLC) 66; SPARTANBURG, SC; ASHEVILLE MEDIA GROUP, LLC) WRET-TV ( Channel 49; SPARTANBURG, SC; Owner: SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) 49; SPARTANBURG, SC; SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) WASV-TV ( Channel 62; ASHEVILLE, NC; Owner: MEDIA GENERAL BROADCASTING OF SOUTH CAROLINA HOLDINGS, INC.) 62; ASHEVILLE, NC; MEDIA GENERAL BROADCASTING OF SOUTH CAROLINA HOLDINGS, INC.) WYFF ( Channel 4; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: WYFF HEARST-ARGYLE TELEVISION, INC.) 4; GREENVILLE, SC; WYFF HEARST-ARGYLE TELEVISION, INC.) WNTV ( Channel 29; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) 29; GREENVILLE, SC; SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) WSPA-TV ( Channel 7; SPARTANBURG, SC; Owner: MEDIA GENERAL BROADCASTING OF SO. CAROLINA HOLDINGS, INC.) 7; SPARTANBURG, SC; MEDIA GENERAL BROADCASTING OF SO. CAROLINA HOLDINGS, INC.) WNEH ( Channel 38; GREENWOOD, SC; Owner: SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) 38; GREENWOOD, SC; SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL TV COMMISSION) WGGS-TV (Channel 16; GREENVILLE, SC; Owner: CAROLINA CHRISTIAN BROADCASTING, INC) Wedgefield fatal accident list: Nov 17, 2007 03:30 PM, Sr-763, 40, Lat: 33.898989, Lon: -80.469575, Vehicles: 2, Persons: 5, Fatalities: 1, Drunk persons involved: 1 May 8, 1985 10:40 PM, 76, Vehicles: 1, Persons: 1, Fatalities: 1, Drunk persons involved: 1 National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 1 Number of bridges Number of bridges 3ft / 1.2m Total length Total length 2,900 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 145 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 4,437 Total future (year 2037) average daily traffic FCC Registered Antenna Towers: 39 ( FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 2 Hwy Sc 763 1.2 Mi W Of Sc Hwy 763 ( Lat: 33.892389 Lon: -80.492861), Type: Tower, Structure height: 43 m, Call Sign: KDK665, Assigned Frequencies: 31.7800 MHz, 151.175 MHz, 151.190 MHz, 151.235 MHz, 151.265 MHz, 151.385 MHz, 159.270 MHz, 159.300 MHz, 159.375 MHz, 159.405 MHz, 159.450 MHz, Grant Date: 12/18/2014, Expiration Date: 12/06/2024, Registrant: South Carolina Forestry Commission, Columbia, SC 29221, Phone: (803) 896-8800 33.892389 -80.492861), Tower, 43 m, KDK665, 31.7800 MHz, 151.175 MHz, 151.190 MHz, 151.235 MHz, 151.265 MHz, 151.385 MHz, 159.270 MHz, 159.300 MHz, 159.375 MHz, 159.405 MHz, 159.450 MHz, 12/18/2014, 12/06/2024, South Carolina Forestry Commission, Columbia, SC 29221, (803) 896-8800 Wswd Office #1 Counter Drive (Lat: 33.893139 Lon: -80.510222), Type: Pole, Structure height: 6 m, Call Sign: WPWF624, Assigned Frequencies: 451.162 MHz, Grant Date: 11/05/2002, Expiration Date: 11/05/2012, Cancellation Date: 01/05/2013, Certifier: Robert Kelley, Registrant: U.S. Filter Control Systems, Inc, 1239 Willow Lake Boulevard, Vadnals Heights, MN 55110, Phone: (651) 766-2700, Fax: (651) 766-2743, Email: FCC Registered Paging Towers: 1 Wwdm-Fm Tower 0.5 Miles West Of (Lat: 33.854028 Lon: -80.529528), Overall height: 191.7 m, Call Sign: KNKP784, Assigned Frequencies: 931.612 MHz, Grant Date: 04/19/1999, Expiration Date: 04/01/2009, Cancellation Date: 03/26/2003, Registrant: Greenberg Traurig, 1300 Connecticut Avenue, Nw, Suite 1000, Washington, DC 20036, Phone: (202) 331-3161, Fax: (202) 331-3101, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 12 ( 39 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Antenna Towers in Wedgefield 12 ( See the full list of FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses in Wedgefield 2004 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents According to the data from the years 2004 - 2018 the average number of fire incidents per year is 20. The highest number of fire incidents - 43 took place in 2012, and the least - 0 in 2007. The data has a growing trend. Fire incident types reported to NFIRS in Wedgefield, SC 161 52.8% Outside Fires 106 34.8% Structure Fires 35 11.5% Mobile Property/Vehicle Fires 3 1.0% Other When looking into fire subcategories, the most incidents belonged to: Outside Fires (52.8%), and Structure Fires (34.8%). See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Wedgefield, SC Houses and condos Apartments 98.4% Electricity 1.6% No fuel used 100.0% Electricity Wedgefield compared to South Carolina state average: Median house value below state average. below Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Foreign-born population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher significantly below state average. Wolcott, Vermont Submit your own pictures of this town and show them to the world OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map Please wait while loading the map... Population in 2010: 1,676. Population change since 2000: +15.1% 1,676.+15.1% Males: 862 (51.4%) Females: 814 (48.6%) Median resident age: 38.4 years Vermont median age: 45.8 years Zip codes: 05680. Estimated median household income in 2019: $57,466 (it was $34,760 in 2000) Wolcott: $57,466 VT: $63,001 Estimated per capita income in 2019: $27,496 (it was $15,198 in 2000) Wolcott town income, earnings, and wages data Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $171,065 (it was $84,700 in 2000) Wolcott: $171,065 VT: $233,200 $57,466 ($34,760$27,496 ($15,198$171,065 ($84,700 March 2019 cost of living index in Wolcott: 96.7 (near average, U.S. average is 100) Business Search - 14 Million verified businesses Search for: near: 1,628 97.1% White alone 17 1.0% Two or more races 11 0.7% Hispanic 10 0.6% American Indian alone 5 0.3% Black alone 4 0.2% Asian alone 1 0.06% Other race alone Races in Wolcott detailed stats: ancestries, foreign born residents, place of birth According to our research of Vermont and other state lists, there were 2 registered sex offenders living in Wolcott, Vermont as of November 21, 2021. The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Wolcott is 838 to 1. The ratio of registered sex offenders to all residents in this city is lower than the state average. Latest news from Wolcott, VT collected exclusively by city-data.com from local newspapers, TV, and radio stations Ancestries: United States (25.3%), English (20.6%), French (18.0%), Irish (14.8%), French Canadian (7.6%), German (6.3%). Current Local Time: EST time zone Elevation: 712 feet Land area: 39.0 square miles. Population density: 43 people per square mile (very low). 49 residents are foreign born (1.6% Europe, 1.4% North America). This town: 3.4% Vermont: 3.8% Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units in 2000: Wolcott town: 1.7% ($1,432) Vermont: 2.0% ($2,196) Latitude: 44.58 N, Longitude: 72.48 W Area code commonly used in this area: 802 Single-family new house construction building permits: 1997: 10 buildings , average cost: $80,000 10 $80,000 1998: 12 buildings , average cost: $80,000 12 $80,000 1999: 12 buildings , average cost: $80,000 12 $80,000 2000: 13 buildings , average cost: $80,000 13 $80,000 2001: 15 buildings , average cost: $75,000 15 $75,000 2002: 18 buildings , average cost: $60,000 18 $60,000 2003: 19 buildings , average cost: $60,000 19 $60,000 2004: 25 buildings , average cost: $60,000 25 $60,000 2005: 14 buildings , average cost: $130,100 14 $130,100 2006: 13 buildings , average cost: $164,300 13 $164,300 2007: 8 buildings , average cost: $223,800 8 $223,800 2008: 7 buildings , average cost: $127,600 7 $127,600 2009: 2 buildings , average cost: $182,500 2 $182,500 2010: 11 buildings , average cost: $138,500 11 $138,500 2011: 4 buildings , average cost: $141,300 4 $141,300 2012: 3 buildings , average cost: $190,000 3 $190,000 2013: 2 buildings , average cost: $145,100 2 $145,100 2014: 3 buildings , average cost: $197,000 3 $197,000 2015: 4 buildings , average cost: $140,000 4 $140,000 2016: 3 buildings , average cost: $216,700 3 $216,700 2017: 5 buildings , average cost: $158,000 5 $158,000 2018: 9 buildings , average cost: $109,800 9 $109,800 2019: 5 buildings, average cost: $44,000 Unemployment in November 2020: Here: 3.8% Vermont: 2.8% Population change in the 1990s: +226 (+18.4%). Most common industries in Wolcott, VT (%) Both Males Females Construction (11.2%) Accommodation & food services (8.7%) Educational services (8.5%) Health care (7.7%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (6.1%) Public administration (6.1%) Administrative & support & waste management services (4.4%) Construction (18.9%) Agriculture, forestry, fishing & hunting (10.0%) Accommodation & food services (9.1%) Public administration (5.3%) Administrative & support & waste management services (4.6%) Food & beverage stores (4.3%) Motor vehicle & parts dealers (3.7%) Health care (15.1%) Educational services (14.8%) Accommodation & food services (8.2%) Public administration (7.1%) Finance & insurance (4.7%) Administrative & support & waste management services (4.1%) Professional, scientific, technical services (3.8%) Most common occupations in Wolcott, VT (%) Both Males Females Carpenters (4.9%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (4.7%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (4.6%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (4.4%) Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (3.2%) Fishing, hunting, and forestry occupations (3.1%) Retail sales workers, except cashiers (3.0%) Carpenters (8.9%) Other production occupations, including supervisors (6.4%) Fishing, hunting, and forestry occupations (5.7%) Vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics, installers, and repairers (5.3%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (4.3%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (3.7%) Driver/sales workers and truck drivers (3.2%) Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks (5.8%) Information and record clerks, except customer service representatives (5.5%) Other management occupations, except farmers and farm managers (5.2%) Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (5.2%) Other teachers, instructors, education, training, and library occupations (4.4%) Secretaries and administrative assistants (4.4%) Textile, apparel, and furnishings workers (4.1%) Average climate in Wolcott, Vermont Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations Air pollution and air quality trends (lower is better) AQI CO SO 2 Ozone PM 2.5 Air Quality Index (AQI) level in 2018 was 53.2. This is better than average. City: 53.2 U.S.: 74.2 Carbon Monoxide (CO) [ppm] level in 2018 was 0.100. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 19.7 miles away from the city center. City: 0.100 U.S.: 0.267 Sulfur Dioxide (SO 2 ) [ppb] level in 2018 was 0.180. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 19.7 miles away from the city center. City: 0.180 U.S.: 1.789 Ozone [ppb] level in 2018 was 34.3. This is about average. Closest monitor was 19.7 miles away from the city center. City: 34.3 U.S.: 33.3 Particulate Matter (PM 2.5 ) [g/m3] level in 2018 was 4.82. This is significantly better than average. Closest monitor was 19.7 miles away from the city center. City: 4.82 U.S.: 8.46 Earthquake activity: Wolcott-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above Vermont state average. It is 73% smaller than the overall U.S. average. On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.3 (5.3 ML, Depth: 3.0 mi, Class: Moderate, Intensity: VI - VII) earthquake occurred 60.4 miles away from Wolcott center On 4/20/2002 at 10:50:47, a magnitude 5.2 (5.2 MB, 4.2 MS, 5.2 MW, 5.0 MW) earthquake occurred 61.6 miles away from Wolcott center On 10/7/1983 at 10:18:46, a magnitude 5.3 (5.1 MB, 5.3 LG, 5.1 ML) earthquake occurred 102.0 miles away from Wolcott center On 1/19/1982 at 00:14:42, a magnitude 4.7 (4.5 MB, 4.7 MD, 4.5 LG, Class: Light, Intensity: IV - V) earthquake occurred 86.2 miles away from the city center On 10/16/2012 at 23:12:25, a magnitude 4.7 (4.7 ML, Depth: 10.0 mi) earthquake occurred 112.9 miles away from Wolcott center On 6/16/1995 at 12:13:11, a magnitude 3.8 (3.8 LG, Depth: 3.1 mi, Class: Light, Intensity: II - III) earthquake occurred 34.2 miles away from Wolcott center Magnitude types: regional Lg-wave magnitude (LG), body-wave magnitude (MB), duration magnitude (MD), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW) Natural disasters: The number of natural disasters in Lamoille County (28) is a lot greater than the US average (15). Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 22 Emergencies Declared: 2 Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 20, Storms: 19, Tornadoes: 2, Tropical Storms: 2, Winds: 2, Winter Storms: 2, Heavy Rain: 1, Hurricane: 1, Landslide: 1, Snowstorm: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category). Hospitals and medical centers near Wolcott: LAMOILLE HOME HEALTH AND HOSPICE (Home Health Center, about 6 miles away; MORRISVILLE, VT) THE MANOR, INC (Nursing Home, about 6 miles away; MORRISVILLE, VT) COPLEY HOSPITAL Critical Access Hospitals (about 6 miles away; MORRISVILLE, VT) Critical Access Hospitals ELMORE HOUSE AT COPLEY MANOR (Nursing Home, about 7 miles away; MORRISVILLE, VT) UNION HOUSE NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 15 miles away; GLOVER, VT) MAPLE LANE NURSING HOME (Nursing Home, about 16 miles away; BARTON, VT) Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Wolcott: Norwich University ( about 32 miles; Northfield, VT ; Full-time enrollment: 4,221) 32 ; 4,221) Saint Michael's College ( about 35 miles; Colchester, VT ; FT enrollment: 2,336) 35 ; 2,336) Community College of Vermont ( about 36 miles; Winooski, VT ; FT enrollment: 3,394) 36 ; 3,394) University of Vermont ( about 37 miles; Burlington, VT ; FT enrollment: 11,566) 37 ; 11,566) Champlain College ( about 37 miles; Burlington, VT ; FT enrollment: 2,623) 37 ; 2,623) SUNY College at Plattsburgh ( about 50 miles; Plattsburgh, NY ; FT enrollment: 5,934) 50 ; 5,934) Middlebury College (about 53 miles; Middlebury, VT; FT enrollment: 3,077) Public elementary/middle school in Wolcott: WOLCOTT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (Students: 142, Location: 320 SCHOOL HILL DRIVE, Grades: PK-6) See full list of schools located in Wolcott Library in Wolcott: G. M. KELLEY COMMUNITY (Operating income: $51,912; Location: SCHOOL HILL DR.; 8,500 books; 105 audio materials; 325 video materials; 1 state licensed databases; 16 print serial subscriptions) Lamoille County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential Drinking water stations with addresses in Wolcott and their reported violations in the past: WOLCOTT GENERAL STORE (Population served: 49, Groundwater): Past health violations: MCL, Monthly (TCR) - In JAN-2009, Contaminant: Coliform. Follow-up actions: St Tech Assistance Visit (JAN-09-2009), St Formal NOV issued (JAN-09-2009), St Public Notif requested (JAN-09-2009), St Boil Water Order (JAN-09-2009), St Compliance achieved (AUG-09-2010) WOLCOTT GENERAL STORE (49Groundwater): Average household size: This town: 2.6 people Vermont: 2.3 people Percentage of family households: This town: 70.4% Whole state: 62.5% Percentage of households with unmarried partners: This town: 12.0% Whole state: 9.2% Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households) Lesbian couples: 0.6% of all households 0.6% Gay men: 0.8% of all households Residents with income below the poverty level in 2009: This town: 14.6% Whole state: 9.4% Residents with income below 50% of the poverty level in 2009: This town: 1.8% Whole state: 3.6% 2 people in college dormitories (includes college quarters off campus) in 2000 For population 15 years and over in Wolcott: Never married: 25.1% 25.1% Now married: 59.1% 59.1% Separated: 1.2% 1.2% Widowed: 4.2% 4.2% Divorced: 10.4% For population 25 years and over in Wolcott: High school or higher: 84.1% 84.1% Bachelor's degree or higher: 18.2% 18.2% Graduate or professional degree: 8.2% 8.2% Unemployed: 4.3% 4.3% Mean travel time to work (commute): 28.5 minutes Education Gini index (Inequality in education) Here: 11.3 Vermont average: 11.7 Religion statistics for Wolcott, VT (based on Lamoille County data) Religion Adherents Congregations Catholic 2,339 7 Mainline Protestant 1,006 11 Evangelical Protestant 939 9 Other 344 4 None 19,847 - Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data Food Environment Statistics: Number of grocery stores: 11 This county : 4.46 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 3.84 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (no gas): 8 Lamoille County : 3.24 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 1.95 / 10,000 pop. Number of convenience stores (with gas): 15 Here : 6.08 / 10,000 pop. Vermont : 6.40 / 10,000 pop. Number of full-service restaurants: 40 Lamoille County : 16.22 / 10,000 pop. State : 11.52 / 10,000 pop. Adult diabetes rate: Lamoille County : 6.5% Vermont : 6.8% Adult obesity rate: This county : 23.1% Vermont : 22.3% Low-income preschool obesity rate: This county : 13.8% Vermont : 13.3% 7.51% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($57,615 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.51% Vermont average: 5.96% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved from foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016: from Chittenden County, VT 1.69% ($41,021 average AGI) from Washington County, VT 0.84% ($84,642) from Franklin County, VT 0.53% ($37,533) 7.10% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($47,461 average adjusted gross income) Here: 7.10% Vermont average: 6.30% 10 or fewer of this county's residents moved to foreign countries between 2015 and 2016. Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016: to Chittenden County, VT 1.43% ($47,000 average AGI) to Washington County, VT 0.87% ($43,806) to Franklin County, VT 0.56% ($37,159) Businesses in Wolcott, VT Lane Furniture: 1 Strongest AM radio stations in Wolcott: WDEV (550 AM; 5 kW; WATERBURY, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, INC.) RADIO VERMONT, INC.) WCHP (760 AM; 35 kW; CHAMPLAIN, NY; Owner: CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) CHAMPLAIN RADIO, INC.) WVMT (620 AM; 5 kW; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: SISON BROADCASTING, INC.) SISON BROADCASTING, INC.) WICY (1490 AM; 50 kW; MALONE, NY; Owner: CARTIER COMMUNICATIONS INC.) CARTIER COMMUNICATIONS INC.) WTWN (1100 AM; daytime; 5 kW; WELLS RIVER, VT; Owner: PUFFER BROADCASTING, INC.) PUFFER BROADCASTING, INC.) WGY (810 AM; 50 kW; SCHENECTADY, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WRKO (680 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) WVAA (1390 AM; 5 kW; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, KDR, LLC) RADIO VERMONT, KDR, LLC) WNNZ (640 AM; 50 kW; WESTFIELD, MA; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WEAV (960 AM; 5 kW; PLATTSBURGH, NY; Owner: CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) CLEAR CHANNEL BROADCASTING LICENSES, INC.) WCRN (830 AM; 50 kW; WORCESTER, MA; Owner: CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) CARTER BROADCASTING CORPORATION) WTWK (1070 AM; daytime; 5 kW; PLATTSBURGH, NY; Owner: CHAMPLAIN COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) CHAMPLAIN COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION) WEEI (850 AM; 50 kW; BOSTON, MA; Owner: ENTERCOM BOSTON LICENSE, LLC) Strongest FM radio stations in Wolcott: WLKC (103.3 FM; WATERBURY, VT; Owner: RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICES, INC.) RADIO BROADCASTING SERVICES, INC.) WVPS (107.9 FM; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO) WEZF (92.9 FM; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WCVT (101.7 FM; STOWE, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT CLASSICS, L.L.C.) RADIO VERMONT CLASSICS, L.L.C.) WNCS (104.7 FM; MONTPELIER, VT; Owner: MONTPELIER BROADCASTING, INC.) MONTPELIER BROADCASTING, INC.) WDOT (95.7 FM; DANVILLE, VT; Owner: MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) MONTPELIER BROADCASTING INC) WGMT (97.7 FM; LYNDON, VT; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WDEV-FM (96.1 FM; WARREN, VT; Owner: RADIO VERMONT, INC.) RADIO VERMONT, INC.) WPKQ (103.7 FM; NORTH CONWAY, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WHOM (94.9 FM; MT. WASHINGTON, NH; Owner: CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) CITADEL BROADCASTING COMPANY) WGLY-FM (91.5 FM; BOLTON, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) WCEL (91.9 FM; PLATTSBURGH, NY; Owner: WAMC) WAMC) W243AE (96.5 FM; ORLEANS, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) WEBK (105.3 FM; KILLINGTON, VT; Owner: 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) WMTK (106.3 FM; LITTLETON, NH; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WJJR (98.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) 6 JOHNSON ROAD LICENSES, INC.) WZRT (97.1 FM; RUTLAND, VT; Owner: CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) CAPSTAR TX LIMITED PARTNERSHIP) WCKJ (90.5 FM; ST. JOHNSBURY, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES, INC.) WKXH (105.5 FM; ST. JOHNSBURY, VT; Owner: VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) VERMONT BROADCAST ASSOCIATES, INC.) WGLV (91.7 FM; WOODSTOCK, VT; Owner: CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES INC) TV broadcast stations around Wolcott: WVNY ( Channel 22; BURLINGTON, VT; Owner: C-22 FCC LICENSEE SUBSIDIARY, LLC) 22; BURLINGTON, VT; C-22 FCC LICENSEE SUBSIDIARY, LLC) W54CV (Channel 54; BARRE, VT; Owner: NYN, LLC) Wolcott, Vermont Fatal accident count 12 Vehicles involved in fatal accidents 16 Fatal accidents involving drunk persons: 7 Fatalities 13 Persons involved in fatal accidents 25 Pedestrians involved in fatal accidents 0 Vermont average Fatal accident count 802 Vehicles involved in fatal accidents 1128 Fatal accidents involving drunk persons 339 Fatalities 889 Persons involved in fatal accidents 1867 Pedestrians involved in fatal accidents 36 See more detailed statistics of Wolcott fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here National Bridge Inventory (NBI) Statistics 12 Number of bridges Number of bridges 75ft / 23.4m Total length Total length $3,390,000 Total costs Total costs 21,970 Total average daily traffic Total average daily traffic 1,889 Total average daily truck traffic Total average daily truck traffic 30,885 Total future (year 2018) average daily traffic New bridges - historical statistics 1 1920-1929 1 1930-1939 1 1940-1949 1 1950-1959 1 1960-1969 4 1980-1989 3 1990-1999 See full National Bridge Inventory statistics for Wolcott, VT FCC Registered Broadcast Land Mobile Towers: 1 TOWN HILL CONTROL, 2301 Town Hill Road (Lat: 44.580833 Lon: -72.453361), Type: Tower, Structure height: 30.5 m, Overall height: 36.6 m, Call Sign: KSJ200, Assigned Frequencies: 159.217 MHz, 155.925 MHz, Grant Date: 07/19/2013, Expiration Date: 07/26/2023, Registrant: Burlington Communications, 4735 Williston Rd, Ste. 30, Williston, VT 05495, Phone: (802) 862-7092, Email: FCC Registered Microwave Towers: 2 Scribner Hill, Lat: 44.567833 Lon: -72.399250, Type: Gtower, Structure height: 39.6 m, Overall height: 40.5 m, Call Sign: WQLE338, Assigned Frequencies: 3650.00 MHz, Grant Date: 11/20/2019, Expiration Date: 10/17/2020, Cancellation Date: 12/19/2020, Certifier: Michael Birnbaum, Registrant: Cloud Alliance LLC, 311 Woodcock Rd, Plainfield, VT 05667, Phone: (802) 272-1027, Email: 44.567833 -72.399250, Gtower, 39.6 m, 40.5 m, WQLE338, 3650.00 MHz, 11/20/2019, 10/17/2020, 12/19/2020, Michael Birnbaum, Cloud Alliance LLC, 311 Woodcock Rd, Plainfield, VT 05667, (802) 272-1027, Scribner Hill, Lat: 44.567833 Lon: -72.399250, Type: Gtower, Structure height: 39.6 m, Overall height: 40.5 m, Call Sign: WQLE338, Assigned Frequencies: 3650.00 MHz, Grant Date: 11/20/2019, Expiration Date: 10/17/2020, Cancellation Date: 12/19/2020, Certifier: Michael Birnbaum, Registrant: Cloud Alliance LLC, 311 Woodcock Rd, Plainfield, VT 05667, Phone: (802) 272-1027, Email: FCC Registered Amateur Radio Licenses: 6 Call Sign: KB4RAX, Grant Date: 03/05/1991, Expiration Date: 03/05/2001, Cancellation Date: 03/06/2003, Registrant: Brian D Fitzgerald, 1950 Tatro Rd, Wolcott, VT 05680 KB4RAX, 03/05/1991, 03/05/2001, 03/06/2003, Brian D Fitzgerald, 1950 Tatro Rd, Wolcott, VT 05680 Call Sign: N1UEY, Licensee ID: L00930698, Grant Date: 12/18/2004, Expiration Date: 01/30/2015, Cancellation Date: 01/31/2017, Registrant: William B Taylor, 542 Homer\'s Rd., Wolcott, VT 05680-3026 N1UEY, L00930698, 12/18/2004, 01/30/2015, 01/31/2017, William B Taylor, 542 Homer\'s Rd., Wolcott, VT 05680-3026 Call Sign: N1XKK, Licensee ID: L01126810, Grant Date: 03/14/2016, Expiration Date: 05/28/2026, Certifier: Lawrence L Pecor, Registrant: Lawrence L Pecor, 2217 Marsh Road, Wolcott, VT 05680 N1XKK, L01126810, 03/14/2016, 05/28/2026, Lawrence L Pecor, Lawrence L Pecor, 2217 Marsh Road, Wolcott, VT 05680 Call Sign: WY0N, Previous Call Sign: KB1NDR, Licensee ID: L01122816, Grant Date: 01/11/2018, Expiration Date: 03/21/2028, Certifier: Jim R Albright, Registrant: Jim R Albright, 1620 A Rt 15, Wolcott, VT 05680 WY0N, KB1NDR, L01122816, 01/11/2018, 03/21/2028, Jim R Albright, Jim R Albright, 1620 A Rt 15, Wolcott, VT 05680 Call Sign: KK4RRP, Licensee ID: L01793522, Grant Date: 06/05/2013, Expiration Date: 06/05/2023, Certifier: Eric B Gagnon, Registrant: Eric B Gagnon, 1004 Gulf Rd, Wolcott, VT 05680 KK4RRP, L01793522, 06/05/2013, 06/05/2023, Eric B Gagnon, Eric B Gagnon, 1004 Gulf Rd, Wolcott, VT 05680 Call Sign: KC1DIL, Licensee ID: L01928042, Grant Date: 03/11/2015, Expiration Date: 03/11/2025, Certifier: Thurlow R Weed, Registrant: Thurlow R Weed, 1976 West Hill Rd, Wolcott, VT 05680 FAA Registered Aircraft: 3 Aircraft: STANDEFER GERALD W BLADE 912 ( Category: Land, Seats: 2, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: ROTAX 912S (100 HP) (4 Cycle) N-Number: 156WS, N156WS, N-156WS, Serial Number: 1190-0399-7-W993, Year manufactured: 1999, Airworthiness Date: 10/11/2006, Certificate Issue Date: 06/12/2012 Registrant (Co-Owned): Everett R Dryden, 756 Symonds Mill Rd, Wolcott, VT 05680, Other Owners: Ann Marie Dryden STANDEFER GERALD W BLADE 912 ( Land, 2, Up to 12,499 Pounds), ROTAX 912S (100 HP) (4 Cycle) 156WS, N156WS, N-156WS, 1190-0399-7-W993, 1999, 10/11/2006, 06/12/2012 Everett R Dryden, 756 Symonds Mill Rd, Wolcott, VT 05680, Ann Marie Dryden Aircraft: WSK PZL-KROSNO KR-03A ( Category: Land, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: None N-Number: 287S, N287S, N-287S, Serial Number: 03-22, Year manufactured: 1992, Airworthiness Date: 08/04/1992, Certificate Issue Date: 07/01/2013 Registrant (Individual): Richard T Smyth, Town Hill, Wolcott, VT 05680 WSK PZL-KROSNO KR-03A ( Land, Up to 12,499 Pounds), None 287S, N287S, N-287S, 03-22, 1992, 08/04/1992, 07/01/2013 Richard T Smyth, Town Hill, Wolcott, VT 05680 Aircraft: CESSNA TR182 (Category: Land, Seats: 4, Weight: Up to 12,499 Pounds), Engine: LYCOMING 0-540 SERIES (250 HP) (Reciprocating) N-Number: 4939S, N4939S, N-4939S, Serial Number: R18201478, Year manufactured: 1980, Airworthiness Date: 02/13/1980, Certificate Issue Date: 06/25/2007 Registrant (Individual): Daniel R Leriche, 1855 Rr 15, Wolcott, VT 05680 Houses and condos Apartments 48.7% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 31.4% Wood 16.6% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 2.7% Utility gas 0.7% Coal or coke 65.4% Fuel oil, kerosene, etc. 27.1% Bottled, tank, or LP gas 7.5% Wood Wolcott compared to Vermont state average: Unemployed percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Black race population percentage significantly below state average. significantly below Hispanic race population percentage below state average. below Median age below state average. below Renting percentage below state average. below Length of stay since moving in significantly above state average. significantly above Number of rooms per house significantly below state average. significantly below House age significantly below state average. significantly below Percentage of population with a bachelor's degree or higher below state average. Cost of Living Calculator Your current salary: State of origin: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Destination state: Choose state Alaska Alabama Arkansas Arizona California Colorado Connecticut District of Columbia Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Iowa Idaho Illinois Indiana Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Massachusetts Maryland Maine Michigan Minnesota Missouri Mississippi Montana North Carolina North Dakota Nebraska New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico Nevada New York Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Virginia Vermont Washington Wisconsin West Virginia Wyoming Losing a loved one can be a tragedy at any age. On top of going through the death of a relative, having to sift through documents and legal issues can be a daunting task. It can be downright intimidating if done independently. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources has warned against consuming shellfish harvested from certain bodies of water in eight provinces after they were found positive for toxic red tide. The BFAR, in a bulletin dated Nov. 5 but released on Sunday, identified these areas in Visayas and Mindanao as follows: - Coastal waters of Dauis and Tagbilaran City in Bohol - Coastal waters of Daram Island, as well as Villareal, Cambatutay, San Pedro, Maqueda and Irong-Irong bays in Western Samar - Coastal waters of Leyte town, as well as Carigara and Cancabato bays in Leyte province - Matarinao Bay in Eastern Samar - Dumanquillas Bay in Zamboanga del Sur - Lianga Bay in Surigao del Sur - Coastal waters of Baroy in Lanao del Norte - Coastal waters of Biliran Island "All types of shellfish and acetes sp. or alamang gathered from the areas shown above are not safe for human consumption," the advisory read. According to the bureau, toxic shellfish taste and appear no different from nontoxic ones, and cooking does not destroy the red tide toxin. Eating toxic shellfish, it explained, may result in paralytic shellfish poisoning, which immediately affects the nervous system. Symptoms include tingling of the lips and tongue which spreads to the face, neck, fingertips and toes, followed by headache, dizziness and nausea. The BFAR said that in severe cases, muscular paralysis and respiratory difficulty may occur within five to 12 hours. Deaths from respiratory paralysis have also been reported. Red tide occurs when there is high concentration of algae, resulting in the discoloration of water. Some of these algae produce toxic chemicals which are then consumed by the shellfish. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) President Rodrigo Duterte has come unexpectedly to the defense of political dynasties in the country, saying these were "not bad" and could only be removed if the Constitution was changed. "Unless you change the whole picture, unless you change the Constitution, unless you change the culture, puwede pa siguro. Pero og ani lang gihapon [But if we stay like this], we will have dynasties. And dynasties are not bad," Duterte said at an event in Siargao on Saturday. Article II, Section 26 of the 1987 Constitution says, "The State shall guarantee equal access to opportunities for public service, and prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law." But no law has been passed concerning the provision. In 2018, some lawmakers suggested a political dynasty ban under a proposed federal constitution, but has never advanced. RELATED: Proposed charter change seeks restrictions not ban on political dynasties Duterte said the provision on political dynasties would never push through because, he argued, people would tend to choose someone from the same family to replace a retiring leader. "Its the people who If you tell them, 'Choose a replacement because Im already old,' they would say, We choose another Duterte.' A 2015 study by the Asia Institute of Management Policy Center showed there are strong links between the existence of dynasties and poverty. It found that the "fattest dynasties" or those with the most number of family members in office are concentrated in the poorest parts of the country. A research article in the Asia-Pacific Social Science review in 2020 said "supplying alternative leaders and strengthening political parties is also key in political reform towards reversing the dynastic nature of Philippine politics." Duterte gave his time as mayor of Davao City as an example of people preferring leaders coming from one family. "When I stepped down as mayor, I had three terms, I told the people, I called the barangay leaders, 'Its time to choose who would replace me...' Even the leader of our group, Hugpong, unanimously they wanted Inday (Sara Duterte). Then for congressman, majority of the barangay captains wanted Pulong (Paolo Duterte)," he said. Duterte added the problem with dynasties would be if the family that rules in a certain area begins to monopolize businesses, kill their enemies, and even become involved in the drug trade. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) The Philippine government will resume processing documents for the deployment of workers to South Korea, after it resumed accepting migrant workers under its entry permit system (EPS). The Department of Labor and Employment on Sunday said it has directed the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to also discuss with Korean authorities the requirements and procedures for the safe re-entry of workers to the East Asian country. On Friday, Koreas Ministry of Employment and Labor announced the easing of restrictions on more EPS workers from all sending countries, including the Philippines, before the end of the month. The Korean Embassy in Manila said it is still awaiting guidelines on the issuance of the E-9, or non-professional employment, visas. Philippine Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III meanwhile welcomed the relaxed rules, saying thousands of Filipino EPS workers have been waiting for their deployment since last year. This is a very good news not only to our EPS workers and their families, but also to the Korean employers who have been waiting for our workers to return, he said in a statement. According to Koreas labor ministry, the workers will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as well as to present a negative RT-PCR test result, before departure. They will also be mandated to undergo quarantine and another swab test upon arrival in South Korea. The deployment of Filipino workers to South Korea under the EPS, which began in 2004, was halted since June last year due to COVID-19 restrictions. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) The Philippine National Police on Sunday has ordered the filing of criminal complaints and initiation of summary dismissal proceedings against a policeman for alleged kidnapping. Patrolman Wilfredo Mindanao of the PNPs Police Security Protection Group and his cohort, identified as Romeo Aday, were arrested on Friday for allegedly kidnapping a man accused of illegal drug possession. Apart from the filing of criminal complaints of serious illegal detention and usurpation of authority in the Manila Prosecutors Office against the suspects, I have instructed the Internal Affairs Service to initiate summary dismissal proceedings against Mindanao, said PNP chief Gen. Guillermo Eleazar in a statement. According to the report received by the PNP, Mindanaos accomplice Aday allegedly introduced himself to the victim as a National Bureau of Investigation agent and collared him for supposed possession of illegal drugs. The report said the victim was then illegally detained at Mindanaos house in Paco, Manila. The suspects allegedly demanded 50,000 in exchange for his liberty. After receiving the complaint, members of the Manila Police District were able to locate and arrest the suspects. Eleazar said they are conducting further investigation into the incident. Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, November 7) Filipinos who are still hesitant to take COVID-19 vaccines must be wooed with incentives instead of scare tactics, the Office of the Vice President said Sunday amid a proposal that beneficiaries of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) will not receive assistance if they refuse to get inoculated. "Ang kailangan ay incentive, bigyan ng katiyakan na kahit ikaw ay lagnatin, kailangan magpahinga ng isa o dalawang araw, hindi mo kailangang alalahanin ang iyong pamilya, Robredo's spokesperson Barry Gutierrez said during the vice president's radio show. "Maraming solusyon na hindi kailangan ng pwersahan, 'yun ang sinasabi ni VP Leni," he said. [Translation: What is needed is an incentive, a reassurance that even if you develop a fever, need to rest for a day or two (after your vaccination), you dont have to worry about your family. There are many solutions that do not need to use force, that's the stand of VP Leni.] The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) hinted at the possibility of a mandatory vaccination scheme after learning from officials of localities around the country that "many" of the more than 4 million 4Ps beneficiaries are yet to receive COVID-19 vaccines. "The 4Ps is called a conditional transfer because before you can get your regular subsidy from the government, you have to meet certain conditions," DILG spokesperson Undersecretary Jonathan Malaya said during a radio interview on Saturday. Malaya said the government may decide to add another condition, which is vaccination. Also reacting to the proposal, Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon hit the DILG, saying it is "detached from reality and unaware of the real plight of the poor." Drilon branded the "no vaccine, no subsidy" proposal as "absolutely unacceptable, inhuman and callous". "It pains me to see a government that has shown nothing but a total callous disregard for the vulnerable sector of our society. It is yet another display of the governments callousness," Drilon said in a statement released Sunday. The senator said the DILG should recall its proposal. He also urged the Department of Social Welfare and Development to protect the 4Ps beneficiaries against the looming condition. More Information March 11, 2021: President Biden signs ARPA into law, allocating $350 billion to states and localities for economic recovery. The City of Columbia will receive $25 million. May 26, 2021: Mayor Brian Treece presents his recommendations for the funds at a budget work session, allocating $10 million to broadband and smaller sums up to $3 million to mental health, stormwater, homeless shelters, etc. June 7, 2021: Members of the public start voicing concerns at the city council meeting. Throughout the summer, they argue that the city didn't solicit public opinion, cite any substantial data explaining their choices, and didn't assist those who'd been most negatively impacted by the pandemic. Sept. 7, 2021: People Before Projects holds a rally outside the city government building before the council budget hearing where they continue expressing their concerns Sept. 20, 2021: The city budget passes without the ARPA funds. The council members clarify that any decisions will be made separately from the city budget process. Oct. 4, 2021: Framework for the ARPA funds emerges, involving RFP and community input processes. Australian government updating secure internet gateway policy The Australian federal government is updating its secure internet gateway (SIG) policy to be consistent and support the implementation of cyberhubs. The effort will be headed by the Digital Transformation Agency with the help of Australian Signals Directorates Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC). Cyberhubs will centralise management and operations of agencies to strengthen the defences of government networks. A 12-month pilot started in July 2021 by the Department of Home Affairs and the Department of Defence and Services Australia. Both departments are responsible for the design and implementation of their hubs to test core services. [ Keep up on the latest thought leadership, insights, how-to, and analysis on IT through Computerworlds newsletters. ] The plan is that the cyberhubs will provide cybersecurity services, including SIG services to noncorporate Commonwealth entities. The SIG policy will be updated to help Commonwealth entities to readily adopt new technologies and capabilities. This policy also represents the end of the ASD certification for commercial and government SIGs. Enterprise growth in cybersecurity spending to continue through 2025 Australian enterprise spending on cybersecurity is expected to reach $4.7 billion in 2025, according to research firm GlobalData, which expects an annual growth of 6.7%. Key drivers of this growth include enterprise managed security service investments, rising demand for identity and access management, security intelligence, and management and endpoint security platforms. One reason for the more immediate investment is the increased use of mobile devices for people working from home. In the long term, more sophisticated attacks will be the reasons behind the increasing investment in cybersecurity. Spending on security software will see the fastest growth with a 6.5% annual growth expected up to 2025, GlobalData said. This will be a result of increasing demand for identity and access management, endpoint security, and security intelligence and management tools. The lack of skilled professionals will lead to an increase the spending of managed security services, which will be the largest share of the overall enterprise security spending, GlobalData said. Machine learning used to find Martian meteorites Curtin University researchers used a machine learning algorithm that analyses high-resolution planetary images to identify the likely origin of a group of meteorites originating from Mars. Researchers were able to compile a database of 90 million impact craters using the algorithm, which helped them find the potential launch position of the meteorites, likely to be the Tooting crater. The algorithm can be retrained to perform automated digital mapping of any celestial body. Lead researcher Anthony Lagain said this could then be applied to Earth to assist with managing agriculture, the environment, and potentially natural disasters. IBM to open innovation centre, create 300 jobs IBM has announced an IBM Client Innovation Centre to be located in Bathurst, New South Wales. The centre is expected to create 300 jobs and will provide support to customers in data science, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and hybrid cloud. A partnership with Charles Sturt University will see scholarships offered to its students and work experience at the centre. IBM will also assist in the creation of courses, focused on the intersection of technology and business transformation for innovation. IBM has a 25-year partnership with Federation University in regional Victoria which is similar to the newly announced one with Charles Sturt University. An economic impact report conducted by Western Research Institute found that the partnership contributed $629 million in economic value to the Victoria economy in 2018-2019 and that IBMs presence delivered $124 million to the states gross product, plus 711 jobs and $62 million in household income. 100% Website dosp.org uses latest and advanced technologies like: JQuery. It is very popular on the web, it's within the 1 million most visited websites of the world at position 397022 by Alexa. It supports HTTPS and GZIP compression. The main html page has a size of 102874 bytes (100.46 kb uncompressed) and 15392 bytes (15.03 kb compressed). This CoolSocial report was updated on 2021-10-03, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. Congratulations, nees.jo got a very good Social Media Impact Score! Show it by adding this HTML code on your site: Nees.jo scored 64 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 3/5.0 Stars by Social Team This CoolSocial report was updated on 2 Jun 2014, you can refresh this analysis whenever you want. The total number of people who shared the nees homepage on Delicious. The total number of people who shared the nees homepage on StumbleUpon. This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared, liked or recommended the nees homepage on Facebook + the total number of page likes (if nees has a Facebook fan page). This is the sum of two values: the total number of people who shared the nees homepage on Twitter + the total number of nees followers (if nees has a Twitter account). The total number of people who shared the nees homepage on Google Plus by a google +1 button. Basic Information PAGE TITLE DESCRIPTION KEYWORDS OTHER KEYWORDS The description meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. The title found in the head section of the homepage. The URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the address of the site. The keywords meta-tag found in the head section of the homepage. CoolSocial advanced keyword analysis tool is able to detect and analyze every keyword on each page of a site. Domain and Server DOCTYPE CHARSET AND LANGUAGE SERVER Microsoft-IIS/7.5 (ASP.NET) OPERATIVE SYSTEM Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2008 R2 Type of server and offered services. Character set and language of the site. Represents HTML declared type (e.g.: XHTML 1.1, HTML 4.0, the new HTML 5.0) Operative System running on the server. The language of nees.jo as detected by CoolSocial algorithms. Site Traffic trend during the last year. Only available for sites ranked <= 100000 in the world. Referring domains for nees.jo by MajesticSeo. High values are a sign of site importance over the web and on web engines. Facebook link FACEBOOK PAGE LINK NOT FOUND The total number of people who like website Facebook page. The description of the Facebook page describes website and its services to the social media users. A Facebook page link can be found in the homepage or in the robots.txt file. The total number of people who tagged or talked about website Facebook page in the last 7-10 days. The URL of the found Facebook page. The type of Facebook page. Facebook Timeline is the new layout of Facebook pages. Twitter account link TWITTER PAGE LINK NOT FOUND Sax got his nickname because he almost died so many times, his mother actually said: "The child is doomed to suffer; he won't live." And, yeah, most moms say stuff like that when you get a C in math, but Mrs. Sax wasn't being dramatic here. When he was just two, young Adolphe fell down a flight of stairs, banged his head, and ended up in a coma for a week. His second coma came about a few years later when a heavy roof tile fell on his head. Unfortunate encores like that were a regular part of life for Adolphe, who was poisoned no less than three times after mistaking white lead, copper oxide, or arsenic for a tasty drink. Appropriately, the future inventor of the sexiest instrument ever went through life so thirsty, he rarely bothered to check what was in a cup before he gulped it down. Thester11/Wiki Commons It was the 1800s. All liquids smelled the same and were equally likely to kill you. Continue Reading Below Advertisement What else? Well, he once swallowed a needle, was caught in a gunpowder explosion, burned himself badly on a stove, fell out of a third-story window, and almost drowned in a river. Before he hit puberty, his head was covered by so many scars and burns, he was basically a real-life Jigsaw. The Punisher villain, not the guy from Saw. But later also the guy from Saw because he too got cancer. Sometime in the 1850s, Sax developed a cancerous tumor on his lower lip. It eventually grew so massive that it made it impossible to eat and actually threatened to suffocate him. Most surgeons at the time told him that to deal with this, they would basically have to remove half of his jaw, and this was back when "anesthesia" involved the surgeon sharing some of their whiskey with you before the operation. Rumors say that Adolphe Sax was eventually cured by a mysterious "Dr. Vries," an underground healer from India known as "the Black Doctor," and, all right, why hasn't this story been reimagined yet as an HBO fantasy series? It has all the right elements, including tons of drama. A Connecticut State Police sergeant who injured a woman and her daughter in a Southbury crash two years ago resigned this week amid a second internal affairs investigation into his work with a time-management system, a state spokesperson said Friday. Sgt. John McDonald, who was on administrative duty since the September 2019 crash, resigned Thursday after a second investigation examined the truthfulness related to the management of a computer software system, a state police spokesperson said. There was no financial loss to the state at all, no theft, just truthfulness, said Brian Foley, a spokesperson for state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner James Rovella. Robert Britt, an attorney who represented McDonald in court for his driving under the influence charge, did not respond to a phone message and email seeking comment about his clients resignation. State police said McDonald submitted a letter of resignation on Thursday, more than two years after the crash. Following his resignation, the agency began the steps to de-certify McDonald through the Police Officer Standards and Training Council, which would prevent him from working as a police officer with another agency. Hearst Connecticut Media has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the files in both internal affairs investigations. A state law enacted in 2008 requires the Attorney Generals office to seek a reduction or revocation of the pensions of state and local officials convicted of certain crimes. But the statute specifically relates to corruption-related crimes such as embezzling funds or bribery. The benefits that (McDonald) will be applying for are contractually obligated and the exact same benefits he would have received had we terminated him, Foley said Friday. However, McDonald will receive a fraction of what a retired trooper would get, Foley said. While a sergeant with the Western District Major Crime Squad, McDonald attended another officers retirement party at an Oxford brewery with other state troopers on Sept. 25, 2019. Video from inside the brewery showed McDonald arrived around 2 p.m. that day and consumed eight drinks inside the building. According to a warrant for his arrest, McDonald drove his state police vehicle through a stop sign at the intersection of Route 188 and Airport Road less than a mile from the brewery, colliding with a car containing a woman and her daughter, around 7:30 p.m. that night. The force of the T-bone crash sent both cars into the nearby woods. In May, McDonald pleaded nolo contendere to two counts of second-degree reckless endangerment, meaning he neither admitted nor denied the charge. A judge also accepted McDonalds application for a pre-trial alcohol education program, which will result in the DUI charge against him being dropped if he completes the program. Though the judge in the case entered a finding of guilty, it cant be used against him in a civil lawsuit filed by the woman and daughter in the other car. Their civil suit is ongoing, according to online court records, and is scheduled for a remote hearing on Monday. CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) Two police officers serving in North Carolina's largest city have been placed on administrative leave while the circumstances of a fatal shooting of an armed man outside a Walmart are investigated, authorities said on Saturday. The State Bureau of Investigation is looking at Friday's shooting by Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers. The police department identified on Saturday the armed man who died as 23-year-old Derrell Lamar Raney. BAGHDAD (AP) The failed assassination attempt against Iraqs prime minister at his residence on Sunday has ratcheted up tensions following last months parliamentary elections, in which the Iran-backed militias were the biggest losers. Helicopters circled in the Baghdad skies throughout the day, while troops and patrols deployed around Baghdad and near the capitals fortified Green Zone, where the overnight attack occurred. Supporters of the Iran-backed militias held their ground in a protest camp outside the Green Zone to demand a vote recount. Leaders of the Iran-backed factions converged for the second day on a funeral tent to mourn a protester killed Friday in clashes with security. Many of the faction leaders blame the prime minister for the violence. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi suffered a light cut and appeared in a televised speech soon after the attack by armed drones on his residence. He appeared calm and composed, seated behind a desk in a white shirt and what appeared to be a bandage around his left wrist. Seven of his security guards were wounded in the attack by at least two armed drones, according to two Iraqi officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements. Al-Khadimi called for calm dialogue. Cowardly rocket and drone attacks dont build homelands and dont build a future, he said in the televised speech. Condemnation of the attack poured in from world leaders, with several calling Al-Khadimi with words of support. They included French President Emmanuel Macron, Jordans King Abdullah II and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Saudi Arabia called the attack an apparent act of terrorism. Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Facebook urged all sides in Iraq to join forces to preserve the countrys stability. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked with al-Kadhimi on Sunday to relay U.S. condemnation of the attack and to underscore that the U.S. partnership with the Iraqi government is steadfast, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Also on Sunday, al-Khadimi met with Iraqi President Barham Salih and headed security and Cabinet meetings. A security video showed the damage to his residence: a van parked outside the residence badly mangled, a shallow crater near the stairs, cracks in the ceiling and walls of a balcony and broken parts of the buildings roof. Two unexploded rockets were filmed at the scene. There was no claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on Iran-backed militias. They had been blamed for previous attacks on the Green Zone, which also houses foreign embassies. The militia leaders condemned the attack, but most sought to downplay it. It was a dramatic escalation in the already tense situation following the Oct. 10 vote and the surprising results in which Iran-backed militias lost about two-thirds of their seats. Despite a low turnout, the results confirmed a rising wave of discontent against the militias that had been praised years before as heroes for fighting Islamic State militants. But the militias lost popularity since 2018, when they made big election gains. Many hold them responsible for suppressing the 2019 youth-led anti-government protests, and for undermining state authority. The attack is to cut off the road that could lead to a second al-Kadhimi term by those who lost in the recent elections, said Bassam al-Qizwini, a Baghdad political analyst. They started escalating first in the street, then clashed with Iraqi Security Forces, and now this. On Friday, protests by supporters of the pro-Iran Shiite militias turned deadly when the demonstrators tried to enter the Green Zone where they had been camped out, demanding a recount. Security forces used tear gas and live ammunition. There was an exchange of fire in which one protester affiliated with the militias was killed. Dozens of security forces were injured. Al-Khadimi ordered an investigation. The blood of martyrs is to hold you accountable, said Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, addressing al-Kadhimi in recorded comments to supporters. He blamed him for election fraud. In the strongest criticism of the prime minister, Abu Ali al-Askari, a senior leader with one of the hardline pro-Iran militias, Kataib Hezbollah, questioned whether the assassination attempt was really al-Kadhimis effort to play the role of the victim. According to our confirmed information no one in Iraq has the desire to lose a drone on the residence of al-Kadhimi, al-Askari wrote in a Twitter post. If anyone wants to harm this Facebook creature there are many ways that are less costly and more effective to realize that. Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the assassination attempt on al-Khadimi and indirectly blamed the U.S. The escalation also reveals a level of nervousness among Iran and its allies as they realize that political results dont always translate into control, said Joseph Bahout, a director of research at the American University of Beirut. This is an act depicting fear of loss of control. Al-Khadimi is being now perceived as a Trojan horse for more erosion of Irans grip on the country, Bahout said. Al-Kadhimi, 54, was Iraqs former intelligence chief before becoming prime minister in May last year. He is considered by the militias to be close to the U.S., and has tried to balance between Iraqs alliances with both the U.S. and Iran. Prior to the elections, he hosted several rounds of talks between regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad in a bid to ease regional tensions. Marsin Alshamary, an Iraqi-American research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy Schools Belfer Center, said the attack resurfaced the long-term challenge of how to curb the powers of the militias without triggering a civil war. For al-Kadhami, the stakes are now higher if he is to remain as prime minister. He doesnt have a political party and so he is susceptible to direct attack with no party to negotiate or protect him, she added. Iraqs election commission has yet to announce the final results. The parliament could then convene, elect a president and form a government. The U.S., the U.N. Security Council and others have praised the election, which was mostly violence-free and without major technical glitches. But the unsubstantiated fraud claims have cast a shadow over the vote. The standoff with the militia supporters has increased tensions among rival Shiite factions that could spill into violence and threaten Iraqs newfound relative stability. Influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who won the largest number of parliament seats in the Oct. 10 elections, denounced the terrorist attack, which he said seeks to return Iraq to the lawlessness and chaos of the past. While al-Sadr maintains good relations with Iran, he publicly opposes external interference in Iraqs affairs. ___ Associated Press writers Zeina Karam in Vienna, Sarah El Deeb in Beirut, Jon Gambrell and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) South Dakota's Government Accountability Board called Monday for more information in at least one ethics complaint against Gov. Kristi Noem as it weighed multiple requests from the attorney general to consider whether the governor twice abused the powers of her office. Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg asked the board to consider two issues: Whether Noem's use of state airplanes should be investigated for breaking the law and concerns about whether she interfered in a state agency that was evaluating her daughters application for a real estate appraiser license. The board also considered a third complaint, but the details of who made it or whom it was against were not public. After meeting for nearly an hour in a closed-door session, the four retired judges on the board dismissed one of the complaints, but did not make public which one. It is sending the other two complaints back to the people who made them with requests for more information. Attorney general spokesman Tim Bormann said the office had not heard anything from the Government Accountability Board following the meeting. The board is required to keep the details secret unless it decides the complaints warrant a public hearing. When members of the public were allowed in Monday's meeting, board members said next to nothing about the complaints besides taking a vote on them. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice David Gilbertson, who was appointed to the board by Noem, abstained from voting on the requests for more information on two of the complaints. He did not give a reason for doing so. The Legislature is conducting a separate inquiry into the state agency that grants real estate appraiser licenses. Noem has faced scrutiny over the matter since The Associated Press reported that just days after the Department of Labor and Regulation moved to deny her daughter's application for an appraiser license last year, Noem called a meeting with her daughter, the labor secretary and the then-director of the appraiser certification program. Noem's daughter received her license four months later. Ravnsborg and Noem are both Republicans but are not allies. In response to the board's action Monday, Noem's spokesman Ian Fury said, Were not surprised the Board has apparently sent these baseless attacks back. Noem, who has positioned herself as a prospect for the GOP presidential ticket in 2024, has defended her conduct by saying she was working to cut red tape to solve a shortage of appraisers and calling the report on the meeting a political attack. She used a similar defense when a report from the news website Raw Story detailed her use of the state's airplane. Noem flew in 2019 to events hosted by political organizations like the National Rifle Association, Turning Point USA, and the Republican Jewish Coalition. Noem called that report politically motivated and explained that she was acting as an ambassador for the state. South Dakota officials are not allowed to use the planes for anything other than state business, and Democratic Sen. Reynold Nesiba had asked the attorney general to investigate. Ravnsborg referred that request to the Government Accountability Board in September. The board has not scheduled its next meeting. Former South Dakota Supreme Court Justice Lori Wilbur said it would once it has something to act upon. The day I graduated from Oxford more than 30 years ago was one of the proudest of my life. But when I look at my alma mater today, I feel a growing sense of shame. The revelation yesterday that the university and two of its colleges have accepted a 12 million bequest, derived from the fortune of the late British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, should sicken any right-thinking person. But it is especially offensive to all of us in Britains Jewish community. Mosley was a racist and Hitler-worshipper, rightly interned during the Second World War. Would Oxford be willing to take money from Stalins heirs? From the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un? Or perhaps a new library endowed by Pol Pot? The new grants have been made from a trust set up a decade ago by Oswalds late son, the Formula 1 tycoon Max Mosley, himself a thoroughly questionable character and thanks to a seminal Daily Mail investigation a proven former racist. The revelation yesterday that the university and two of its colleges have accepted a 12 million bequest, derived from the fortune of the late British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, should sicken any right-thinking person The new grants have been made from a trust set up a decade ago by Oswalds late son, the Formula 1 tycoon Max Mosley, himself a thoroughly questionable character and thanks to a seminal Daily Mail investigation a proven former racist Since the trust is founded on Maxs bloated inheritance the tainted money of his fascist father it is Oxfords disgrace to have accepted it. Oswald Mosleys racist bigotry is well-known. He spent decades leading one crackpot far-Right sect after another: his pre-war British Union of Fascists became the so-called Union Movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In their wisdom, the British people were largely repelled by him. But one particularly rotten apple did not fall very far from the tree. Max Mosley, who died earlier this year, was very much his fathers son. His dubious sexual proclivities are not our concern here: suffice to say that sadomasochistic orgies, including whipping prostitutes dressed in striped pyjamas while counting in German, are not to everyones taste. Max Mosley, who died earlier this year, was very much his fathers son. His dubious sexual proclivities are not our concern here More important are his politics. And here, in his later years and like many genuine fascists, Max Mosley poured his fortune into trying to muzzle the free Press while also trying to obscure his racist past. In the end, not even he could hide the fact that, during the 1960s, he was an active supporter of his fathers movement. On one march through a Jewish district of east London in 1962, Max Mosley went shoulder to shoulder with his fathers acolytes as they chanted: Jews out! He then fought Jewish protesters, some of whom were veterans of the Second World War. One, whom the Mail spoke to in the course of its investigation, had lost relatives in Auschwitz. In 2018, the Mail revealed the sordid details of Max Mosleys racist history, including a leaflet he produced for a Manchester by-election in 1961, claiming that coloured immigrants were spreading tuberculosis, venereal disease and leprosy, and threatening childrens health. To his dying day, he refused to apologise for this appalling tract. Today, Oxford University insists that it has taken legal, ethical and reputational issues into consideration when accepting the donation from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, named after Max Mosleys son who died of a heroin overdose in 2009. But it cannot have done so with the necessary rigour. For one thing, the Mosley grant will be used to set up the Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund. Ill say it again: the Mosleys supported Hitler, who murdered six million Jews among them members of my own family. Now Jewish students at Oxford will be forced to see the Mosley name every day, woven into the fabric of the university. What are the ethics of that? Yet perhaps even worse than taking the money and dont forget, Oxford and its colleges have a combined endowment of over 6billion, so they are hardly struggling is the context. For several long, exhausting years, Oxford has surrendered prostrate before the frenzied demands of a narrow band of woke students. Curriculums have been decolonised amid tortured debates about tearing down statues of long-dead figures such as the Victorian mining magnate Cecil Rhodes. Peter Conrad, an internationally respected English don, bemoaned recently how the academic study of literature has been reduced ... to an annexe of identity politics, while calls have been made for buildings associated however peripherally with the slave trade to be renamed. Oswald Mosleys racist bigotry is well-known. He spent decades leading one crackpot far-Right sect after another: his pre-war British Union of Fascists became the so-called Union Movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists and the Blackshirts, inspects the womens+ sections before a march on Victoria Embankment But unlike Rhodes and the Atlantic slave trade, Oswald and Max Mosley are not figures from a distant past. There are people alive today who bravely stood up to Oswald Mosleys blackshirts during the 1930s. I was a child at the time Max Mosley was viciously campaigning for his fathers Jew- hating Union Movement. To their credit several leading Oxford academics have protested at the donation and are urging students to do the same. Indeed, where are those oh so woke students now, demanding that Mosley Must Fall? Their hypocrisy and that of the university is staggering. And, of course, Oxford has form in this area. Only last week we read how one Oxford college has accepted an eye-watering 155million from a self-made Vietnamese billionairess airline tycoon, with alleged links to that countrys tough communist regime, and who has been fined several times for using semi-naked stewardesses to promote her flights. The college, Linacre, is even renaming itself in her honour. Such double standards are nauseating. For years, I have made a monthly donation to my old college. With a heavy heart, Im now going to think very carefully about whether I keep doing so. Sadie Frost imagined an 'amazing princess life' after marrying Gary Kemp at the age of 22 - but has now accepted she's 'probably better off single'. The actress turned designer wed the Spandau Ballet guitarist in 1988 after meeting on the set of a music video, having son Finlay in 1990 before splitting seven years later. The 56-year-old, who recently moved from north London to the countryside, admitted that she 'didn't know what marriage was about' after walking down the aisle for the first time. Following her split with Gary, Sadie married actor Jude Law - with whom she had three children Rafferty, Iris, and Rudy, before divorcing in 2003, later dating businessman Darren Strowger who she separated from last month. Sadie Frost, pictured in London last month, says she had imaged an 'amazing princess life' after marrying Gary Kemp at the age of 22 - but has now accepted she's 'probably better off single' The actress turned designer wed the Spandau Ballet frontman in 1988 after meeting on the set of a music video, having son Finlay in 1990 before splitting seven years later In an interview with the Guardian, she said: 'I thought I knew everything, but I didnt know what marriage was about. 'I imagined this amazing princess life ahead of me, but it was never going to be that easy.' Sadie is the daughter of psychedelic artist David Vaughan - who died in 2003 - and his muse, actress Mary Davidson - who were 16 and 21 when they welcomed Sadie. The designer says both she and her mother are more than happy on their own. 'Weve been through lots of children, a few divorces, and both realise we are probably better off being single', she said. Following her split with Gary, Sadie married actor Jude Law - with whom she had three children Rafferty, Iris, and Rudy, before divorcing in 2003 'I would have hated to be a Hollywood star because Ive wanted to be grounded, to be at home. Showing up, cooking good food and loving my family. Thats whats important. Mum taught me that.' The former socialite, who was famed as part of the Primrose Hill set with the likes of Kate Moss and Noel Gallagher, has said goodbye to the affluent north London suburb after revealing her plans to purchase a small farm next year. Sadie sold the 8million home in Belsize Park in 2019, after purchasing it for 2million in 2002, with her then-husband Jude Law, 48. The property that Sadie shared with her ex-husband located in north London's celebrity enclave was the setting for a string of legendary parties enjoyed by members of the clique. The former socialite, who partied in Primrose Hill with the likes of Kate Moss and Noel Gallagher, said goodbye to Primrose Hill after revealing her plans to purchase a small farm next year. 'I think I will be based out there by this time next year', she told The Times. 'I have always wanted to have a small farm. I was googling how to buy a flock of sheep an hour ago.' She recently completed a MA in film studies at Staffordshire University before following it up with a course on documentary making, and has just premiered her documentary on the designer Mary Quant at the BFI. Last month Sadie split from her partner of eight years Darren, but said there was 'no drama or stress' in the 'amicable' split, and that she is embracing the single life. Speaking to Stella Magazine, she said: 'Ive decided to spend time on my own because of all my life changes, because of work, and the house. I want to live the life I want to live,' Frost said. 'Maybe it sounds incredibly selfish, but my kids are finally [at an age where] I dont have to worry about them and Im on a mission for me.' When it was announced last week that Dr Aaron Beck, the eminent American psychiatrist, had died at the age of 100, my first thought was: Id so like to attend his funeral and pay my respects. I never knew him: rather, the feeling was born from gratitude. Gratitude to a man dubbed the Father of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), a therapy which helped save me when I thought nothing could come to my rescue. And when, essentially, I believed I wasnt worth saving. If this all sounds rather melodramatic, thats because one of the effects of deep and lasting depression, alongside debilitating anxiety, is a downward spiral of negative and distorted thinking that robs you of the ability even to begin recovery. Pills might do the trick, but not always, and not necessarily on their own. Psychotherapy can go on for years and cost a fortune. Linda Kelsey (pictured) revealed how has CBT helped to put her back in control of her life after suffering a breakdown While traditional talking therapy assumes youre a victim of concealed, unconscious forces over which you have little or no control, CBT puts you firmly in the driving seat. It encourages you to realistically evaluate your negative thoughts, and reappraise the way you feel about yourself. That shift in self-evaluation is the first step to recovery. Its no miracle cure, but if it works for you, then things can improve quickly. And as time goes by, you can use the techniques youve learned when you feel the black cloud descending or the panic rising. For that, I and the millions of others who have benefited from CBT have to thank Dr Beck, who first developed his groundbreaking theories in the 1960s. Twenty-five years ago, I suffered a breakdown that lasted two years at its most severe, with knock-on effects for years after. It crept up on me when I was 44 and my situation appeared, and in many ways was, an enviable one. I was heading up She magazine, a glossy for women who were juggling career and family. I had a loving partner and an adorable son, Thomas, who at this point was eight years old. Appearances can be deceptive. Despite having a high-profile job and easily dealing with the day-to-day business of managing staff and making editorial decisions, I found the public-facing stuff of making speeches, doing TV and radio, terrifying. I gave the impression of being imperious and unfriendly. Some found me intimidating. In fact, I was shy and socially awkward. I also had a classic case of Imposter Syndrome, certain Id be found out and found wanting at any minute. After all, Id dropped out of university was I even bright enough for the positions Id been promoted into? Linda said sales of the magazine began dipping and her partner's job appeared at risk. Pictured: Linda as a top magazine editor in the 1980s On Sundays, as I watched the clock tick down towards another week of work, Id get a gnawing feeling in my stomach. For a while, I just about felt I had everything under control but that all changed when my son was born. A raft of health problems, all of which he thankfully recovered from, kept me and in those first few years, him too awake at night. Once out of the habit of sleeping, I never got it back. Work got tougher. Over five years, starting in 1990, Id helped Shes circulation soar, but now sales were slightly dipping and the boss was on my back. If only I could sleep and catch my breath. Then my partners job appeared at risk. Get on with it, Id tell myself: you are so lucky to do a job you love, lead a privileged lifestyle and be a mother to a gorgeous boy. You should stop being such a wimp and pull yourself together. One lunchtime, I was in M&S buying supplies for supper when, quite suddenly, I felt the world spinning, my breath coming in gasps and a sense that I was about to collapse or die. I dropped my wire basket and ran out of the store. I dont remember how I made it back to the office, but somehow I got there. I sat at my desk clutching a plastic cup of water and pondered whether I was ill or going mad. CBT: the therapy that puts you in control Dr Aaron Beck was an American psychiatrist who developed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy while working at Pennsylvania University in the 1960s. Dr Aaron Beck (pictured) developed Cognitive Behavioural Therapy while working at Pennsylvania University in the 1960s Since then, more than 2,000 studies have verified its efficacy and it is now a mainstay of NHS mental health treatment with celebrity fans including singers Ellie Goulding and Cheryl, who praised it for actively undoing all the bad thought patterns and traps I used to fall into. A talking therapy, CBT aims to revise your thought processes to make them more constructive. It rests on the idea that thoughts, feelings and actions are all interconnected, and that by shifting from negative to more positive thought patterns, you can change the way you feel and behave. It is predominately used to help those with anxiety or depression but can treat a range of mental and physical health issues, including anorexia, irritable bowel syndrome, panic attacks, obsessive compulsive disorder, performance anxiety and insomnia. Common CBT treatments include exposure therapy (where you confront and learn to tolerate the things causing your anxiety); journaling (writing down and challenging your negative thoughts); and wearing an elastic band on your wrist. Pinging the band every time you have a negative thought prompts you to change that negative thought into a positive one. The NHS recommends you meet with a CBT therapist for between five and 20 weekly or fortnightly sessions, with each session lasting 30-60 minutes. Advertisement Nowadays, many more people, celebrities, too, are open about their mental health issues. According to figures from NHS England, reported in January 2020, one in six people were experiencing a common mental disorder such as anxiety or depression in any given week. And this was before the pandemic exacerbated the problem. Back in the mid-90s, however, people rarely talked about having panic attacks. I had no idea what was happening to me in M&S. And things got worse. Id jerk awake several times a night, my heart pounding as though about to jump out of my chest. Once I was at a star-studded film premiere, sitting mid-row. As the panic struck, I had to jump up from my seat, work my way in front of everyones knees to the aisle and dash for air. People clucked and tutted. I went to the GP, who prescribed beta blockers, which made me feel faint and weak. He suggested anti-depressants and I blew up at him, denying depression. My mother had been depressed; my grandmother had been depressed and had committed suicide in her early 60s but what had that got to do with me? A lot, I later learned, as genetics almost certainly play a part. I had my heart checked out, in case it was that. It wasnt. I tried acupuncture, then hypnotherapy, but neither was much use. Over the course of the next nine months, things gradually fell apart until I was unable to carry on. My boss suggested an extended leave, with someone else taking over as editor. On the advice of my GP, I checked myself into the Nightingale Hospital, a private psychiatric clinic in central London. It was a strange, other-wordly existence. Two doors down from my room, a nurse was stationed round the clock outside one patients bedroom a deeply troubled young man on suicide watch. Opposite was a beautiful young Asian woman who wore designer clothes and full make-up at all times, but who was deeply disturbed, having been sexually abused, she told me, by relatives from an early age. And then there were patients with eating disorders, compulsions to jump off bridges and drug addiction. What the hell was I doing there, I asked myself. Slowly, I began to accept that I needed this respite from the responsibilities of my normal life. The routine was yoga, group therapy, one-on-one sessions with the consultant. I could even go out for the occasional meal. My partner, Christian, now juggling his own work issues with taking care of Thomas, visited often, but there were few other people I felt up to seeing. I felt a total failure useless as an editor, useless as a mother, and useless as a partner. I was in the hospital for several weeks on Valium, sleeping pills and first one anti-depressant, then another. Frankly, by the end, I wasnt a great deal better. Coming out was almost as scary as going in. I got myself a psychotherapist CBT was not yet on my radar and spent the sessions either crying or pointing out to the woman therapist that we both favoured similar black suede boots. I raked over my rather happy childhood but couldnt trace my woes back to any neglect and abuse. (There were blips but nothing dreadful.) The antidepressants caused so many side-effects hallucinations, nausea and profound lassitude that I felt I was not improving but getting worse. The consultant psychiatrist from the Nightingale suggested electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), but I believed it would turn me into even more of a zombie than I already was, and refused. Then a lawyer friend, whod been having a depressive episode triggered by overwork, told me about the CBT he was doing. It involves lots of homework, he told me, but Im a bit of a nerd like that and it suits me. Twelve sessions in and he was a new man, so I discussed it with my psychiatrist and he referred me for some sessions. In contrast to many other therapies, CBT focuses on the present. Dr Becks idea centres on distorted thinking. Depressed people, for example, believe their situation is more hopeless than it really is. Anxious people believe situations are more threatening than they really are. By learning to challenge these automatic negative thoughts you can begin to more effectively deal with the difficulties life throws at you. The idea is to help you make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts. And you do this in a structured and pragmatic way. At first I found it tough. I recall being asked by the clinical psychologist to separate a thought I had, that Id become a useless mother as a result of falling ill, from how I felt about it. Useless, of course, I repeated, tight-lipped and dismissive. But then I paused and found myself saying I feel ashamed. And it released a torrent of tears. When I could gather myself, I was asked to give the evidence for and against my having become a useless mother. In addition to naming what I couldnt do right now run around with my son, laugh and joke with him or even help him with homework I found myself reluctantly listing what I could do: pick him up from school because I was on sick leave, curl up with him in front of the TV, give extra cuddles. Obvious, perhaps, but not when you are in the slough of despond. When it came to panic attacks, switching off that Im going to die thought Id had enough attacks to know they wouldnt kill me by now helped me to deal with them. Over the next few months, my black and white thinking began to take on more helpful shades of grey. One day, after months of not going on the Tube, I gave it a go. I did feel a bit panicky and dizzy, but I managed to stay on for two stops before getting out and walking home. It was a sign for me that the CBT was working. CBT has now become the NHS therapy of choice. Cynics will say thats because, being shorter in duration than on-going psychotherapy, it costs less money. But its also because there is plenty of evidence it works, and it can also be used to treat a range of disorders in addition to anxiety and depression, including eating disorders and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). After my breakdown, I made the decision to lead a lower-powered life as a writer, and take on challenges such as returning to learning which Id never have found time for before. Now 69, do I ever feel myself getting depressed? Yes. Anxious? Often. But Ive been practising challenging my negative thoughts for so long now that I can often nip them in the bud. CBT has helped put me back in control of my life. It has enabled me to release myself from the tyranny of the shoulds and negativity that dominated my thinking. I can manage my feelings far better than I used to and for that I have Dr Beck to thank. Spencer Cert: 12A, 1hr 51mins Rating: The Card Counter Cert: 15, 1hr 51mins Rating: Eternals Cert: 12A, 2hrs 37mins Rating: I love it when a film wins me over, and thats exactly what happened with Spencer. I went in with the lowest possible expectations, in no mood for yet another retelling of the tragedy of Princess Diana. Id already binged my way through series four of The Crown with Emma Corrin in the role, seen endless newspaper photographs of the even more willowy Elizabeth Debicki taking over for series five and endured at least one recent documentary solemnly marking what would have been the late Princesss 60th birthday. I was at peak Diana; just past, in fact. And for half an hour maybe a little longer I saw little to change my mind. American actress Kristen Stewart seemed to be making up for her lack of height with a laboured impersonation. By aiming for a heightened reality, Pablo Larrain gives us the most powerful depiction of the wretched misery of Diana, played by Kristen Stewart (above) What Larrain has artfully fashioned is not so much a fable as a cautionary fairy tale of an unhappy Princess, whose bedroom curtains are sewn shut so no one can see her dressing, is weighed in public (apparently a Sandringham tradition) despite her known problems with food, and is so lonely she ends up talking to a scarecrows battered canvas jacket. And lets not even mention those visions of Anne Boleyn. Put like that, it sounds barking mad, but thats the point. By aiming for a heightened reality, an exaggerated version of the truth, Larrain gives us the most powerful depiction of the wretched misery of Diana Ive seen. Paranoid, self-harming and throwing up after every meal, this is a woman on the edge of madness. Suddenly, Stewarts big performance starts to make perfect sense. Well before the end, I could see why shes being hotly tipped come awards season. Paranoid, self-harming and throwing up after every meal, this is a woman on the edge of madness. Suddenly, Kristen Stewarts big performance starts to make perfect sense Despite the Princesss beautifully recreated and iconic wardrobe, Spencer is still not perfect. It eventually becomes repetitive in structure, with the Princess having at least one too many heart-to-hearts with sympathetic Palace servants. But do look out for some touching scenes with her beloved boys, an unexpected declaration of love and a terrific supporting turn from Sean Harris as the Royal head chef. Theres more fine acting on show in The Card Counter with Oscar Isaac commanding our attention as William Tell, a professional gambler, and Tye Sheridan almost as good as Cirk, the young sidekick William recruits for company as he travels from casino to casino, from motel to motel. But why does he wrap every item of furniture in his motel room in a sheet at night? The answer almost certainly lies in his troubled past, and in particular his military service in Iraq. The film is written and directed by Paul Schrader, best known for supplying the screenplays for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. But here, after an intriguing opening hour, he comes unstuck, ultimately failing to link past and present in a remotely convincing way. Remember the opening screen-crawls from the Star Wars films that bring us up to date with Empire and Rebel Alliance news? Well, Eternals, Marvel Studios latest, has something similar at the beginning, only much shorter despite dealing with the history of the entire universe. Its only about four paragraphs long but I was hopelessly lost by the end of it. Singularities celestials deviants eternals someone possibly called Arishem? Or was it Ajak? Two-and-a-half long hours of cod-mythology and crash-bang-wallop, visual-effects-driven action later and despite the best efforts of a cast led by Gemma Chan, Angelina Jolie and Richard Madden, I was modestly more informed but no more entertained. Avengers fans will probably warm to it more than I did. If you have a problem, email Caroline at c.west-meads@mailonsunday.co.uk. Caroline reads all your letters but regrets she cannot answer each one personally I dont know if I can trust my husband Q I have been married for 35 years and my husband and I are in our mid-50s. Weve had a largely happy marriage with three children, now grown-up but we split temporarily about 30 years ago after my husband had an affair. When we got back together, we worked hard to recover our marriage. However, when the pandemic started, my husbands work dried up and he took a temporary post in London doing Covid testing. He spent weekdays away and only came home at weekends. Alarm bells began ringing when, after he went back to his old job in April, I noticed he was being secretive with his phone. I asked if he was having an affair and he denied it. But a couple of months later, I discovered hed been contacting a woman he had worked with on a daily basis. When I confronted him, he said they werent having an affair, they just got on well together. He apologised and said they would stop contacting each other as he realised how it looked. Now Im struggling to trust him and wondering if our marriage can survive. I really dont want to check up on him but, with social media, it is so easy for them to stay in touch. I love him and he says he still loves me, but I wonder whether thats true. I have considered counselling, but I doubt hed go. Perhaps it would help me decide what to do. It would be hard to leave someone I love, but if he cant be straight with me, what option do I have? Hes been contacting another woman on a daily basis A It must be difficult for you to trust him, especially as he had an affair before. Unfortunately, because he is secretive, it may sadly be that your fears are true. Even if it wasnt physical, they may have been having an emotional affair. This can feel just as painful because all that closeness the in-jokes, thoughts and feelings are shared with someone else instead of you. I agree that social media makes it very easy to keep in touch now, yet equally hard to check up on someone. But if trust is to be rebuilt, you must check your husbands phone, emails and social media and he must agree to prove his commitment to you. You should certainly go to counselling together to see whether your marriage can be saved. If it cant, as you say, it will help you decide what to do next. Thirty five years is a long time, so if you decide to part you will need plenty of support. You are only in your mid-50s and theres always the possibility of meeting someone else who you could love and trust completely. This may seem unimaginable now, but please dont see your marriage as all or nothing. If your husband refuses to go to counselling, tell him that it shows a lack of willingness to make your marriage work. Also tell him that you feel very hurt by his closeness to this woman and that if he doesnt agree to counselling, you may feel unable to stay married to him. If he still refuses well, that tells you a lot, so go on your own to help you to decide what to do. Since my son left home, Ive been a wreck Q I am in my early 50s, with a good marriage and two lovely sons. But the youngest has just gone to university and Im having trouble coping. I know Im lucky to have had a really happy family, but with both my sons finding their way in the world, it feels like its all been taken away from me. It wasnt as bad when the eldest left four years ago as he was at university nearby so he came home quite often and his brother was still here. But our youngest now lives over 200 miles away and hasnt yet been home. My husband says that our son is happy so I should let go, but I find Im counting the days until Christmas and crying a lot. I know its not healthy but I dont know what to do. A I feel for you, as empty nest syndrome can leave a big void in a parents life. It marks such a huge change and there is grief for part of your life that is over while the new phase isnt yet clear. This can be particularly hard if you feel being a mother defines your identity. I do think also that the pandemic and the huge uncertainty that it has created has made problems like this worse. Few people have escaped without a significant increase in their anxiety levels, so no wonder we want to keep our loved ones close. But your husband is right your son is happy and you do need to concentrate on things that define you outside motherhood: your marriage, friends, volunteering, taking up new hobbies, etc. However, the crying and feelings of hopelessness perhaps indicate a deeper level of sadness, possibly depression, so do please see your GP for help. Stellar career, loving marriage, three gorgeous kidsHOLLY WILLOUGHBY really did have it all. So why did she feel that she was unravelling? She opens up to Julia Llewellyn Smith about the life crisis she didnt see coming Holly wears dress, Claire Mischevani. Sandals, Jennifer Chamandi Not long ago Holly Willoughby invited her great friend and This Morning co-host Phillip Schofield round to her house in West London not for dinner, but so she could give him a bath. A sound bath, that is. Come again? A sound bath, repeats Holly, 40. I said, I know youll think Im mad but just lie down, and then I played the bowls for him. At the end I asked him how he felt and he sat up and said, That was amazing! In case like me you havent the foggiest idea what shes talking about, allow Holly to explain. Sound bowls are big, deep, glass bowls; theyre all different sizes and shapes and made from different crystals, each with a different healing property. When you strike them they emit sounds and vibrations that you can feel in your body. I did a level-one sound bowl course in a room with a bunch of people I didnt know and thought, Oh God, this is going to be so awkward. But I just loved it. Now, if I need to chill out, I get out the sound bowls and play, while the cat walks all over me. This isnt what I was expecting to hear from the queen of daytime telly. I can imagine Holly and Phil having a few cocktails together, or a meal with their buddies Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. But in the past couple of years, the girl-next-door Holly we all thought we knew prone to giggling fits and addicted to chocolate has subtly metamorphosed into someone intent on exploring the spiritual side of life. She meditates twice a day, is fascinated by the power of the moon and crystals and doesnt care if some people find this a bit woo-woo. There is an opinion of people who are into crystals or meditate a definite sense of wackiness. But for me, it feels right, she says. For years Hollys hectic life involved hosting not only This Morning and Dancing on Ice, but also bringing up her three children Harry, 12, Belle, ten, and Chester, seven all of which meant she had no time to connect with what I wanted or needed. Suit, The Deck. Bra, & Other Stories. Earrings, Alighieri. Sandals, Emmy London The catalyst for change came three years ago when she was asked to co-host Im a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! with Dec, after Ant was admitted to rehab. Holly headed to New South Wales, Australia, and for the first time in years found herself living entirely alone. I was there for three weeks before the kids joined me. I walked into my apartment and felt like Macaulay Culkins character Kevin in Home Alone: Oh my God, my family have disappeared. Ive got time! She set off exploring the neighbourhood of Byron Bay, Australias capital of alternative therapies. I stumbled across all these different places that offered tarot readings and kinesiology [which explores how the body moves] and I thought, Im going to do everything and see what happens. And there was not an awakening, because when you say things like that people think youre completely mad but an opening up. When I came back I didnt want it to be a holiday romance; I had scratched the surface of something I wanted to dig deeper into. Id always enjoyed things like this, but life gets in the way and you dont always have time. Now I wanted to continue. Last time I met Holly was just before this Australia trip and although she was pleasant, she did seem distracted and rushed. Today, in contrast, she seems engaged and calm. Shes just opened her post and is thrilled to find the first hard copy of her new book, Reflections, a startlingly personal account of her new direction, written during lockdown. Writing it was scary, but I loved doing it and felt it was very much needed. The words just poured out. As Holly explains, Reflections isnt an autobiography or a self-help book. Its my guide on how to figure things out for yourself, because I cant do that for you. After all, everyone has different concerns. For Holly, one issue was not fully enjoying her very privileged life. She often felt numbed and a bit adrift. I wasnt unhappy but I felt I was missing out on something. The busier i was the less time I had to listen to myself The busier I was and the more plates I kept spinning the less time I had to sit in silence and listen to myself, she says. We give ourselves high fives for multitasking. People say, I dont know how you do it! and you think, I know. I was quite happy on the hamster wheel. I never crashed, I never fell off. But you cant sustain that for ever. Holly began re-engaging with her buried feelings using a mix of alternative therapies and sessions with a psychologist and she was astonished at what she uncovered. I was unravelling and unplugging myself, taking a long, hard look into dark corners and the range of emotions I felt good and bad was huge. Once the plaster was ripped off I felt so angry. Anything that happened to me for example, someone underestimating me I felt massively. Someone said, Its a hormonal thing, but it wasnt, its just that I had taken off a filter. One example of unexpected rage was when her husband of 14 years, TV executive Dan Baldwin, 46, asked, Why are you watching this s*** on TV? Holly says, He didnt mean anything by it, but the rage Id feel was disproportionate because I was thinking, You think Im crap because Im watching crap. Then Id think, Thats interesting, Ive worked out whats going on here without having a therapist in the room. Anger is a brilliant emotion because it cuts through bulls*** and if you can work out where it comes from it can be very revealing. Holly with co-host and best friend Phillip Schofield at the National Television Awards in September It helped that Hollys children were becoming more independent, leaving time for introspection. The machine spits you out the other side; youre suddenly going, Oh my God! They can wipe their own bums. Well, now whats my role? You have to start finding your own identity again. Obviously, you dont suddenly stop being a parent but you do have a bit more space. Previously she had toyed with having a fourth child. Theres part of me that would love to have another baby but it isnt fair to take myself away from the kids I do have, especially when I work as hard as I do and I have my own passions I want to nourish. I wonder if turning 40 sparked some kind of midlife crisis? But Holly who wore the same dress her mother wore to her 40th birthday for her own celebrations had no qualms about entering a new decade. Im not afraid of getting older. The older I get the more confident and stronger I am. In my 20s I was terrified of everything. Id just started my career and was trying to fit in to what was expected of me. Rightly or wrongly, you adapt and change to the opinions people have of you. My 30s were better. With more experience you have a voice, and the more you use it the more comfortable you feel tapping into it. Now my 40s are better than my 30s. Its like, Lets do it!, so Im just going to keep riding that wave until I cant. The youngest of two girls, Holly grew up in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, where dad Terry sold double glazing and mum Linda a former air stewardess stayed at home. I grew up in this traditional structure, without a strong desire to be anything. I wasnt academic; I wasnt confident in a room full of people. I knew I wanted to be a mum and as I grew up in the country I thought, Well, that was perfect Ill do that. But life had this different plan. With her daughter Belle Instead, Holly became a teenage model after being spotted by a scout at The Clothes Show Live event aged just 14. Brief stints as a receptionist and a runner on a now defunct satellite TV channel followed before she moved into childrens presenting. Despite this early success Holly felt she didnt deserve her job. I still have imposter syndrome to an extent. Society dumped expectations on me and I was willing to play that role, she says. Are we talking about the expectations that surround being blonde and pretty which some people can (wrongly) equate with superficial? Yeah, Holly nods. Some of that serves you well, but some you have to let go of. For a long time I was willing to be underestimated. It suited me fine because if people have no expectations of you, you cant disappoint anybody. So I wasnt ready to defend myself. I was willing to sit in that space, because I didnt know who I was. I needed to learn the slow way until eventually I realised I had underestimated myself too. In the past few years weve seen a more confident Holly emerge. Estimated to be worth 10 million, she left her prestigious management agency last year to run her affairs independently. I needed to take a big step out on my own and, scary as it was, it was the right thing, she explains. Im a massive control freak and I needed to take back the day-to-day running of my life. Since then shes launched Wylde Moon a website, podcast and online boutique which explores this new interest in spirituality. The news cant have pleased Peter Jones, the Dragons Den entrepreneur, who three years ago was said to be furious when, just a few weeks before its launch, Holly pulled out of Truly, the online lifestyle boutique they set up together with Peters wife Tara Capp. Holly explained at the time that she felt unable to dedicate herself to the brand without it affecting her family. Its not about me having my dream and everyone fitting around it. Its about putting family first. With the stock ready in the warehouse, Peter was forced to slash prices in a huge sale, although he and Tara have since steered their lifestyle venture back on course. Truly wasnt quite the right time, she says diplomatically. Wylde Moon was something I felt I needed to do that channels all this new energy and passion. Some have called her the British answer to Gwyneth Paltrow, whose lifestyle brand Goop is worth an estimated 183 million. Obviously, thats the most incredible comparison. What Gywneths done is a huge, global success. Wylde Moon is a tiny acorn, and if success happens, fine but for me thats just a by-product. As our time together nears its end, she returns to the subject of her TV husband Phillip Schofield. Holly is closer than ever to Phil, 59, who shes worked with now for 15 years, and who came out as gay in February last year with the full support of his wife Stephanie and two daughters. While he says there are no plans to divorce, he is rumoured to have moved into a 2 million bachelor pad close to Holly in Chiswick, West London. It was already a very strong friendship and it deepened during the pandemic when we were in work every day with a small crew. Often, it was just Phil and me and we really had the space to talk. It was a stressful time for everyone the four walls of that make-up room have seen it all. We laughed and cried in equal measure. Hes a very important piece of my life. She even has Phil opening up his own spiritual side. Hes getting into crystals. Hes got one by his bed, Holly smiles. We all need to work out what keeps you sane in all the madness. Lifes not perfect, but for me everything looks a little bit brighter and lighter. Ive got a toolkit thats working. Hollys book Reflections: Life Lessons on Finding Beauty Inside and Out is published by Century, price 20. To order a copy for 17 until 25 November, go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3308 9193. free UK delivery on orders over 20.p Picture Editor: Stephanie Belingard. Styling: Sasha Barrie. Stylists Assistant: Meg Edmond Make-up: Patsy ONeill using Delilah, Suqqu. Hair: Ciler Peksah using Virtue, Rossano Ferretti, GHD, Bumble and Bumble, Oribe. It's not often that you discover that your house is bigger than you thought, but that's exactly what happened to restaurateur Rose Wood An original painting of The Rolling Stones Keith Richards by Ronnie Wood and framed Ferrari stickers adorn the dining room walls. The vase is by oka.com. The chairs are from Amsterdam and covered in Colefax & Fowler fabric (colefax.com) When having their home renovated, restaurateurs Rose Hood and her husband Anthony were told by their builder that hed found two extra rooms! The couple, who live in West Londons Notting Hill close to their cafe, Farm Girl, bought their penthouse flat six years ago. They always knew the split-level property had potential. However, getting around to unleashing that potential only began this year. We had always wanted to extend over the mezzanine and knew there was the possibility of gaining eight foot, says Rose, who moved to the UK from Melbourne 12 years ago, so when we decided to have a child this year [Rocco was born just last week], we went for it. The renovations, led by construction specialist Steve Beckett, started in June. Halfway through he called Rose saying, I need to show you something. Ive found two rooms in the eaves. Knocking into them, which the previous architect had sealed off, gave Rose and Anthony a walk-in wardrobe, a dressing room and a sauna. Anthony uses it three to four times a week, says Rose. Hes got Finnish blood, so its part of his culture. With the arrival of Rocco, four Farm Girl cafes in London (with a fifth opening before Christmas), plus the healthy food brand Roll Baby (which the couple launched in lockdown) to manage, Rose is looking forward to relaxing in the sauna, too. thefarmgirl.co.uk The pale blue sofa in the living room is from The Conran Shop (theconranshop.com). A Matilda Goad raffia lampshade (matildagoad.com) is paired with a clear glass lamp base bought, says Rose, many moons ago. For similar, try loaf.com. A selection of marbled velvet cushions and a pendant light, both by Roses good friend and interior designer Beata Heuman (beataheuman.com), add a chic touch. The antique recliner chair was found while Anthony was living in Johannesburg Rose putting her feet up just days before baby Rocco arrived One of the rooms discovered in the eaves now has a sauna, the outside of which is painted in Breakfast Room by farrow-ball.com In the bedroom, a mirror by Alice Design (by-alice.co.uk) leads to the once-hidden eaves space that is now a dressing room. The cushion is from hm.com In the bathroom, the cast-iron bath was lifted through the window and is painted in Vardo by farrow-ball.com. The pendant lamp is from beataheuman.com Get the look Plush textiles and a muted palette are key to Roses style Thefireplace in the living room was made with limestone slabs. The painting is of Anthonys mothers first husband, an Austrian F1 driver called Jochen Rindt Table lamp, 79, 2LG Studio, made.com Drew Barrymore 'dips in and out' of dating apps though she finds it 'hard' to find Mr Right as the men are either too young or 'I don't know who they are' Investors in fine vintage wines can raise a glass to tasty returns with some bottles doubling in value over the past three years. Yet while traditionally investors have focused on fine clarets, from the Bordeaux region of France, many of the best financial returns are now coming from Italian wines. The price of the best Italian wines has gone up by 20 per cent over the past 12 months, according to the fine wine trading platform LiveTrade. Bordeaux wines rose in value by 14 per cent on average over the same period. Premium: Some Italian wines have risen in price by more than French ones Among the biggest winners is the Tuscan wine of Sassicaia. The 2018 vintage has jumped in value by 14 per cent since the start of the year to around 160 a bottle. But a 2015 vintage of Sassicaia, released in 2018, has increased by almost 120 per cent in three years and now changes hands for around 360. Sassicaia is a so-called 'Super Tuscan'; along with Ornellaia, Solaia and Tignanello (Meghan Markle's favourite tipple). Another great winery in the region that is highly regarded by wine enthusiasts is Brunello di Montalcino. Investors are also increasingly turning their attention to the Italian north west region of Piedmont. This includes the areas of Barbaresco and Barolo, where investment wines such as the 2014 Bartolo Mascarello can sell for 180 a bottle. Matthew O'Connell, chief executive of LiveTrade, says that although Italian vintages have long been cherished by wine lovers, it has only been in the last decade that they have been taken seriously in the investment market. He adds: 'There were some particularly fine Tuscan wines in the 2015 and 2016 vintages capturing the attention of not only wine fans, but critics as well. This has helped develop the market from just a niche player.' Rupert Millar, managing editor at the wine tracking service Liv-Ex, points out that former US president Donald Trump may also have inadvertently helped Italian wine investors. He says: 'Italian wines enjoyed a renaissance when the United States slapped a 25 per cent tax tariff on imports of wines from France a couple of years ago but not from Italy. Although this tariff was lifted earlier this year, when Joe Biden became President, the taste for Italian wine remains. There is also a huge Italian-American population that has kept demand high and this has impacted favourably on Italian wine investments.' Millar adds that Italian wines also benefit from being less expensive than French alternatives. He points to examples of relative bargains, such as the Tuscan label Tignanello, for which some vintages can be picked up for just over 80 a bottle. A comparable French top wine, such as Lafite Rothschild or Mouton Rothschild, can cost more than 400 for a similar vintage and the same sized 75-centilitre bottle. O'Connell says: 'Great vintages coming out at the same time as the American tariffs were imposed was a happy coincidence for Italian wine producers. We believe Italian wine investments are in a strong place for an upward surge.' You will not find investment quality Italian wine at the supermarket. Instead, specialist wine merchants can provide investment advice as well as tips on what you might drink. Among the most well known merchants are Berry Bros & Rudd, Farr Vintners and Justerini & Brooks. Reading up on the opinions of wine critics can also be useful, as their views tend to influence values. For example, the judgment of US wine taster Robert Parker holds great sway. He invented a 100-point quality scale used by industry publication The Wine Advocate to rate the investment potential of wine. Anything rated 96 or above is 'an extraordinary wine of profound and complex character' that is the equivalent of gold dust to investors. The vintage the year in which the grape was grown is a vital consideration as well as the region and vineyard and the variety of grape used. The weather during the year in which it was harvested is a key factor. Of course, wine purchased as an investment should not be put at the back of the drinks cabinet, but stored in a special 'bonded' warehouse. This is not just to keep the bottles away from temptation, but also because there is no VAT or tax duty to pay on wine resting in a 'bonded' controlled environment. A warehouse will also be temperature controlled and the wine will be fully insured against loss or damage. For such a service, expect to pay about 20 a year for a case of 12 bottles. Wine is also deemed to be a 'wasting asset' by Revenue & Customs so should also escape capital gains tax. Traditionally, investors trade in dozens rather than just a single bottle. They also tend to store wine for at least ten years before trading because it can take several years before supply levels fall enough as the wine gets drunk for values to rise significantly. When you decide to sell your wine usually back to the merchant from whom it was purchased you will be asked to pay a commission equivalent to around ten per cent of its value. Never buy investment wine from a cold-calling salesman or on the back of a 'get-rich-quick' promotion as there is a strong chance you could be the victim of a scam. Wine investing is an unregulated market and investors are not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if it all goes wrong. Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday's ace investigator, fighting readers corners, revealing the truth that lies behind closed doors and winning victories for those who have been left out-of-pocket. Find out how to contact him below. I.L. writes: During 2019, I spent one day working for a company before deciding the job was not for me and I quit. I was paid for the day, and received the usual tax form P45 showing I had left. Months later, checking my online tax account, I found the employer had mistakenly used my National Insurance number for a new employee it had taken on. This meant 14,000 of someone else's income was added to my tax records. Mistake: The tax problem lasted for two years but has been resolved Revenue & Customs says only the employer can resolve this, but the company itself says it has updated this and removed the income from my account. Nevertheless, Revenue & Customs is still saying I owe 721 in back taxes. I have also checked online and found that the new employee's earnings were still being attributed to me for every month until March this year. Tony Hetherington replies: Soon after contacting me, you thought you had found a sympathetic official at the tax office who would sort out your tax record for 2019. However, you then found that since then, the employer had carried on linking someone else's earnings to your tax and National Insurance record, with phantom wages supposedly paid to you right up to March this year. You even tried to sort this out by contacting the company that employed you for just one day in 2019, but you were bounced around with one department blaming another and then vice versa. As the employee who succeeded you really has been getting paid, what seems to have happened is that her earnings are being entered twice in company records, once in her name and then again in your name. The big difference is that you are not receiving a penny of these ghost wages, but you are being treated by the tax office as if the money is yours, so it is no surprise that the taxman has been expecting to get his hands on a slice. I asked officials at the Revenue & Customs head office to step in and sort this out, and they did so quite quickly. The company had given the tax office 'mismatched employee details', I was told, and the problem had now been resolved. This left open the question of the demand for 721, though. As Revenue & Customs reviews employers' records annually, it turned out that a specialist team had cleaned up your own tax file for 2019, only to find the same problem continuing for two more years. A Revenue & Customs official told me: 'Corrective action has now been taken and the unpaid tax bill has been cancelled. The previous bill of 721 was wrong as it was not based solely on Mr L's income. 'We can confirm that Mr L has no tax to pay, and we are sorry for the concern this has caused him.' Veto: Pensioners moving to warmer places such as Portugal do not qualify I deserve the FULL winter fuel payout Mrs S.C. writes: In 2004, my daughter and I bought the house in the UK we still live in, from a gentleman who was living in Portugal. Since this gentleman has become old enough to qualify for the Winter Fuel Allowance, the Department for Work and Pensions has told me that as I am cohabiting with him, he is entitled to half my 200 allowance. Every year we tell the DWP this is not true, but they still give him 100 from my allowance. Tony Hetherington replies: The Winter Fuel Allowance is not paid to pensioners who have moved to warm countries such as Portugal, so my guess is that the man who sold you the house in the UK has never informed the Department for Work and Pensions that he lives abroad. Its records will show his address as yours. I asked the DWP to look into this. It told me: 'Mrs C was receiving her full and correct entitlement of Winter Fuel Allowance up until 2019, when it was incorrectly changed to a shared rate.' Records have now been amended to show you are not cohabiting, and are entitled to the full payment. By the time you read this, you will have received top-up payments covering the past two years. If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned. What is the perfect number of companies that an investment fund should hold within its portfolio to make your money grow? No one knows. Ask a dozen clever fund managers and you're likely to get a dozen different answers. Some invest in just a handful of companies, others in several hundred. And while there is variety in the number of companies they hold, there is one matter on which fund managers are consistent: they all believe their approach is the best. Recipe for success: We rely on fund managers to come up with the best strategies to grow our wealth This doesn't make life particularly easy for ordinary investors. We rely on fund managers to come up with the best strategies to grow our wealth, but how can we trust their approaches when they vary so wildly? Of course, the number of company holdings is just one of the characteristics of a fund, and its investment success relies on other factors. But it reveals a great deal about the fund manager's strategy and their chance of making a good return. That's why Wealth has crunched the numbers and spoken to fund managers from both camps: those who like to run concentrated portfolios and those who prefer to spread their investments across as many companies as possible. Good things come in small packages Undoubtedly, many of the best-performing investment funds hold just a small number of companies. In the table below, wealth platform AJ Bell has calculated the ten-year returns generated by those funds invested either in the UK stock market or globally with the smallest number of company holdings. For example, fund house Lindsell Train has UK and Global funds (UK Equity and Global Equity) that have turned a 1,000 investment into an impressive 3,421 and 4,590 respectively over ten years, outperforming their respective benchmarks. It has done this by investing each fund in fewer than 30 companies. Similarly, Fundsmith Equity, run by star manager Terry Smith, holds just 29 companies from across the world. It has turned every 1,000 investment into 4,692 over ten years. Both Lindsell Train and Fundsmith believe a concentrated portfolio is key to their investment success. Only in this way can they keep a close eye on the companies in which they invest. As Fundsmith tells clients: 'Most fund managers own too many stocks. How much can you know about the 80th company in your portfolio?' Many fund managers also believe that a sprawling portfolio runs the risk of looking too similar to the index it is trying to outperform. As a result, it stands little chance of beating it. An index simply tracks the performance of an overall stock market and is made up of hundreds or, in some cases, thousands of companies. For example, it will track the biggest companies listed in the UK (the FTSE100) or even the largest companies listed around the world (MSCI World). A fund manager carefully handpicks those companies they believe will do better than the index over the long term. However, if they pick too many companies, it becomes harder to differentiate their fund from the index and therefore more difficult to outperform it. Matthew Page is manager of fund Guinness Global Innovators which has turned 1,000 into 5,521 over ten years. There are just 31 companies in the portfolio, which puts it among the ten most concentrated global funds. Page says: 'As an actively managed fund, we try to find best of breed companies which we can build a portfolio around that is going to be different from the benchmark. 'We don't want to have too few companies because the impact on the portfolio is too high if something goes wrong with one company. 'But in our fund, each holding makes up around three per cent of the portfolio, which controls overall risk but also allows us to build something unique.' ...Or perhaps big is beautiful? As the table shows, there are some investment funds with hundreds of holdings that still manage to shoot the performance lights out. Take Marlborough Special Situations, for example. This fund currently comprises 155 companies, but over the past 20 years it has sometimes held 220 stocks. It is among the most diversified UK funds, although some rivals have even more holdings. It has turned 1,000 into 4,242 over ten years better than some concentrated UK funds. Marlborough's managers believe they have found the secret to holding a diverse portfolio: a big investment team who are willing to speak their minds. Co-manager Eustace Santa Barbara says: 'The legendary investor Warren Buffett once reportedly said, 'Keep all your eggs in one basket, but watch that basket closely.' We have lots of eggs, but lots of eyes watching our basket. There are about a dozen of us, with a huge amount of experience.' Santa Barbara believes that a large basket of shares is essential due to the type of fund he co-manages. Marlborough Special Situations invests in small UK companies, which tend to be unproven and therefore riskier than large, established companies. He says: 'We would like to get it right every time when it comes to picking stocks, but with the best will in the world, we just don't. 'That is why we think it is safer to have small stakes in lots of really exciting opportunities. Then, as we become more comfortable with a company, we start to increase our holding. Conversely, if we lose confidence in a holding, we quickly drop it.' Then there's the 'Big and active' approach The higher the number of holdings in an actively managed fund, the closer it is likely to resemble its benchmark. But that is not always the case. Pictet Global Megatrend Selection is an active, global fund made up of 550 stocks. However, despite the large number of holdings, there is very little overlap with its index, the MSCI World Index of over 1,500 global companies. That is because Pictet Global Megatrend Selection is constructed from stocks held by 12 different Pictet thematic funds, each overseen by its own management team. Senior product specialist Marc-Olivier Buffle explains: 'Each thematic fund is run by three or four managers and typically holds 40 or 50 stocks. 'The Pictet Global Megatrend Selection aggregates the ideas from all these teams into one fund. As a result it's a highly-actively managed fund that looks very different from the index. In fact, 45 per cent of the stocks in the fund are not in the MSCI World at all.' ...or let the algorithms design a portfolio Many of the active funds with the biggest number of holdings use algorithms rather than just relying on fund manager expertise to compile a portfolio. In a technique known as factor investing, fund managers will apply filters to an index to give extra weighting to companies displaying the characteristics they believe stand them in good stead to outperform the market. Invesco Global ex UK Enhanced Index Fund, for example, invests in around 400 of the 1,583 companies that form part of the MSCI World ex UK index. It has turned a 1,000 investment into 3,689 over ten years, slightly underperforming the index. Senior portfolio manager Georg Elsaesser explains that they filter the index to favour companies they believe are cheaper, better quality and have stronger growth momentum than rivals. He says: 'Using this process, we aim to produce a long-term excess return above the index. 'However, because we are limited as to how much we diverge from the benchmark, our returns will never shoot the lights out.' So what should ordinary investors do? Emma Wall is head of investment analysis and research at wealth platform Hargreaves Lansdown. She believes that in general, the smaller the companies a fund invests in, the more diverse the underlying portfolio should be. 'As a rule of thumb, the bigger the stocks that a fund manager is investing in, the more concentrated a fund portfolio they can get away with holding,' says Wall. 'That is because bigger companies are more established and therefore usually less volatile to invest in.' In contrast, she says, if you're holding smaller companies, these tend to be riskier and so a diversified fund portfolio is preferable. 'You don't want to double down on the underlying risk by buying a concentrated portfolio which adds its own risk,' Wall adds. Investors may also be able to learn from this approach in their own investment decisions. Laith Khalaf is head of investment analysis at AJ Bell. He believes that ordinary investors should limit the number of actively managed funds they hold to increase the likelihood of outperforming the market. However, this needs to be balanced by holding enough active funds to not be too exposed if one does badly. Khalaf says: 'A high conviction approach to investing is generally preferable. If you can identify skilful investment managers, this gives you a better chance of outperforming the market. But this does add risk because one bad apple can spoil the cart.' Former Barclays boss Jes Staley has been ordered by the US Virgin Islands to hand over any files related to massages offered or given to him at the properties of the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Prosecutors have filed a subpoena a legal demand instructing Staley to disclose information on all his dealings with Epstein. The document, seen by the MoS, asks the banker to hand over 'all documents... related to massages offered to, sought by, or given to you at any Epstein property or by any female associated with Jeffrey Epstein'. Probe: Jes Staley has previously insisted that he knows nothing about Jeffrey Epstein's crimes He must also surrender photographs, recordings and copies of all diary entries relating to any visits he made to Epstein's private island in the Caribbean. Young women were routinely coerced by Epstein and his associates to perform sex acts in a massage room on his estate. Staley has previously insisted that he knows nothing about Epstein's crimes. In a fresh blow to Barclays, The Mail on Sunday can reveal the details of a separate subpoena calling on the bank to disclose all of the information it has on Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was a customer at the bank until February this year. Maxwell is set to stand trial on sex abuse charges within weeks. The interventions by the US Virgin Islands threaten to intensify the turmoil for Barclays after Staley stepped down as chief executive last week. In a move that shocked the City, the bank said Staley had resigned to contest the findings from a probe by the City regulator. The Financial Conduct Authority has been investigating whether Staley and Barclays accurately described his relationship with Epstein when he became chief executive of the bank in 2015. Staley was Epstein's private banker between 2000 and 2013 at his previous employer JP Morgan. The FCA's report has not been made public, but Barclays has said it does not show Staley was aware of Epstein's crimes. Separately, the US Virgin Islands is suing Epstein's estate for damages to compensate the scores of women abused on the disgraced billionaire's island. The Mail on Sunday has seen full details of the two subpoenas submitted by the US Virgin Islands Attorney General Denise George to courts in the US and in Britain. George is asking Staley to hand over all of the information he acquired on Epstein's estate between 1998 and October 2020, when the petition was first filed in the US. Staley is also being told to submit details of all of his visits to the island and to hand over all documents he has relating to Epstein's substantial investments and his tax affairs. The subpoena also demands all photos and recordings relating to Staley's visits to Epstein's tropical property which has been dubbed 'Paedophile Island'. The retreat played host to a string of powerful politicians, business executives and luminaries including Prince Andrew. Staley has admitted that he visited the Caribbean estate on a boat trip with his wife in 2015. The US Virgin Islands also wants information regarding claims that Epstein lobbied for Staley to get the Barclays job. Staley is being instructed to hand over any communications with Epstein about the 'efforts or introductions' the sex offender made in relation to Staley's appointment as Barclays' boss. The Mail on Sunday revealed in 2015 that Epstein secretly backed Staley to lead Barclays. The board at the time said it had not been lobbied by Epstein. In a separate subpoena to the bank filed in the UK courts Barclays is asked to disclose details of any attempts Epstein made to contact its bankers in regard to the decision to hire Staley. The Barclays subpoena calls for the handing over of all documents relating to the bank's own probe of Staley's dealings with Epstein. Barclays hired lawyers to probe the relationship between the men when the FCA raised concerns. Barclays has previously expressed fears that transactions made through Maxwell's account may have put it in breach of the law or financial regulations. Deutsche Bank has already been fined 120million for failing to properly monitor its relationship with Epstein. Barclays did not count Epstein as a client, but Maxwell reportedly had an account with the bank until last February. Barclays shut down the account while she was trying to fund the cost of her legal case. Banks have a duty to investigate customers suspected of dealing with the proceeds of crime. Maxwell reportedly received $20 million (15million) from Epstein, who is accused of amassing enormous wealth from a Ponzi scheme run by investment banker Steven Hoffenberg in the 1990s. It is not known where Maxwell deposited any funds received from Epstein. Barclays is yet to hand over any of the information requested. In its submission for information to a UK court in October, US Virgin Island prosecutors said: 'The government has unsuccessfully attempted to obtain these financial documents by serving subpoenas on related entities based in the United States. 'The government has also tried to obtain these financial documents by informally requesting them from Barclays Bank Plc, but Barclays Bank Plc refused to produce the documents.' Staley last night declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Barclays said: 'Barclays will respond to that subpoena once it is served.' Royal Mail is investigating claims that its drivers are logging fraudulent overtime claims after The Mail on Sunday raised the alarm. We have handed the FTSE100 giant a number of cases of so-called 'fake hours' claims being submitted across the country. Royal Mail is now probing allegations that four HGV drivers at its vast national distribution centre in Crick, Northamptonshire, routinely manipulated their hours. Probe: We have handed the FTSE100 giant a number of cases of so-called 'fake hours' claims being submitted across the country It is investigating claims of similar practices at three other offices. Sources said the HGV drivers at Crick regularly sign up for lengthy, lucrative overtime shifts at weekends that involve driving long distances as far as Newcastle and Preston. The drivers allegedly then take on lighter duties, including administration work, leaving after just a few hours. Agency staff are then tasked with taking on the long drives instead, it is claimed. A source said the practice had enabled the drivers to more than double their annual salaries. One has allegedly been manipulating his hours for nearly two decades. The source added: 'We see and work with this every day of the week. It's unfair and makes me sick to the core.' Royal Mail said it is reviewing information provided by the MoS, adding: 'If we find evidence of inaccurate payment of overtime, we will take appropriate action'. The MoS revealed last month that workers at Royal Mail's office in Llanelli had gone on strike after an employee was fired when he tried to blow the whistle on a fake hours scam, which can artificially boost delivery office budgets. The employee has since been reinstated. Employees at other Royal Mail offices have since told this newspaper that the practice is common within its 140,000-strong workforce. One postman, based in the North East, said logging overtime which was paid before it was worked was so routine it was not seen as fraudulent. Chief executive Simon Thompson is trying to modernise the company in the face of increasing competition, including from Amazon. Have you witnessed fake hours being logged at Royal Mail? Email: alex.lawson@mailonsunday.co.uk Backlash: Mark Hartigan is defiant that he has secured the best deal Mark Hartigan is jabbing his finger emphatically at a document in front of him. The LV boss has just been hit by a fierce backlash over plans to sell the 178-year-old mutual to US private equity giant Bain and he is quite clearly exasperated. The information pack on his desk explains that customers will receive 100 each if they agree to the deal, plus an extra 0.1 per cent return for every year they've held a with-profits policy since 1996. But the payouts offered to customers last week have been described as 'paltry' by critics. Labour MP Gareth Thomas even said it was a 'bad deal' that handed a member-focused business to a 'private equity shark'. Hartigan can barely contain his frustration at the days of criticism he's received over a sale offer presented to 1.2million members after months of hard work. 'There's a lot of emotion and sweat and tears in that pack my goodness we've worked so hard to get it clear and right,' he says, with more than a hint of weariness in his voice. '[Critics] might think it's a paltry sum, which I respect, but it's the very best that we could achieve, the very best the board could achieve for their members.' The central complaint from members is that 100 is a poor reward for a 530million deal that spells the end of LV as a mutual owned by its customers. They point out that the offer pales in comparison to the bumper handouts from other companies that have demutualised. For example, Halifax customers received 200 shares in 1996, worth 1,469 at the time, when the former building society became a bank. Hartigan insists the offer from Bain 'was the most anyone was going to offer', beating 11 other bidders. 'The absolute overriding priority was which of all the 12 [bidders] is going to give us most money, and actually it was a good price in relation to the size of business and similar deals in the market,' he says. 'We've taken 40 per cent [of the sale price], that's 212million, and we're going to distribute that directly to members.' Hartigan, a former soldier, is dressed in a crisp suit befitting a man on a tricky mission. The 58-year-old has agreed to speak to The Mail on Sunday in an attempt to explain why selling LV to a new owner is vital. His signet ring glistens as he gestures at the member pack and insists LV simply does not have enough money to invest in the business to remain competitive. One of its biggest costs is its with-profits fund, where members pool their money to be invested in stocks and bonds in return for regular payouts. He says LV has to manage these payments by ensuring there's enough money for day-to-day operations. In addition, he says LV is saddled with 350million of debt even after selling its general insurance arm for 1billion in 2019. 'We can't raise any more debt because we're maxed out,' he explains. 'If we were to stay as is, to get the investment we need, I would need to take money from the with-profits pot.' He explains that would mean reducing payouts to savers, which he clearly doesn't want to do. The next option was to 'close to new business, sack everyone and close all the sites down', he says. 'All the money in the with-profits fund would be secure but we wouldn't be adding to it either.' The third option was selling LV, using the proceeds to boost the with-profits fund. 'Some of the money [from Bain] will be given out to members, but the rest of it stays in the fund,' Hartigan says. Even if members accept Hartigan's logic about a sale being the best course of action, why couldn't he have found another mutual to buy LV? After all, the prized mutual status is what attracted many customers in the first place. Hartigan says the problem with selling to Bain's rival bidder Royal London, for example, was that mutuals cannot raise money from external investors. In other words, he believes a fellow mutual wouldn't be able to fix LV's financial problems without also changing the insurer's ownership model. 'We understood that all roads lead to demutualisation even going to another mutual,' Hartigan says. 'It would have led to the same thing.' Private equity firms such as Bain are known for loading companies with debt and cutting costs to the bone to ratchet up profits. Couldn't Hartigan have found a less controversial owner? He says Bain has assured him it won't get involved in day-to-day matters. 'They're not going to run the business,' he says. 'What Bain have done is to say, 'We'll back you guys and we're going to give you money in the hope that in the long-term you're going to grow this business'.' Bain will also reduce LV's debt pile, he says. Another question from members is whether Hartigan will lead LV after the sale. After all, he's on an extended contract that was only meant to last a year and there has been speculation he'll receive a huge bonus for seeing the deal through, as well as a hike to his 1.2million pay packet. 'I hope to stay on, I'm emotionally attached to the outcome,' Hartigan says. 'Today, I can tell you, I have no contract in my hand. And it would be inappropriate of me to have one before the vote.' But he dismisses the question about his pay, saying: 'There is no deal-related remuneration going to me or the management team or any member of the board.' LV is also holding a vote on another crucial issue: a move to ditch the requirement for 50 per cent of members to vote on demutualising the business. If a majority support the deal but not the move to ditch the 50 per cent voting requirement, the 100 payout would be slashed to 60. This is because extra costs will be involved in restructuring the deal, Hartigan explains. To many it seems like a sneaky way of pushing through the Bain sale by putting members between a rock and a hard place. Hartigan sees it differently: 'In order to achieve the best outcome, to get this extra money to get into that fund, we have to find a mechanism to allow for it.' Hartigan is used to the heat of battle. As a soldier, he commanded a regiment before becoming a colonel and served in Ulster in the early 1980s as well as Kosovo, Bosnia, and Iraq, and taught at Sandhurst. He switched to the insurance industry in the early 2000s, joining Nexus Insurance as a broker in the Middle East. He was plucked by Swiss insurer Zurich to lead its Middle East and Africa operations and later appointed its head of operations for Europe. Unusually for a military man, Hartigan isn't afraid of revealing his emotions on the LV deal that could define his career in the City. 'All of us have felt the weight of responsibility,' he says. 'That's why I stayed on to finish the job. This is a great British brand that will continue and survive as a consequence of this transaction.' How members will decide LV fate LV members can vote for or against the sale of the insurer to private equity firm Bain Capital for 530million. They should have received a Member Vote Pack in the post by November 18. The deal means LV will lose its status as a mutual, meaning it will no longer be owned by its policyholders. In return, customers will receive 100. Of these, 297,000 are with-profits policyholders. They will receive an increase to their exit bonus worth 0.1 per cent for each year they have held the policy since 1996. The total payout amounts to 212million 40 per cent of the sale price. The first vote will be on approving the acquisition by Bain. It will require 75 per cent to support the deal to go ahead. The second vote will be on dropping the need for 50 per cent of members to vote, because LV is not expecting many members to take part. If members vote for the sale but against this second motion, they will receive just 60. Votes can be cast via post by Wednesday, December 8 online or in person at the Special General Meeting on Friday, December 10. Online mogul Matt Moulding was under pressure last night to clarify comments after he appeared to suggest that he may take The Hut Group private. The MyProtein to LookFantastic entrepreneur admitted in an interview he had been blindsided by a 70 per cent plummet in the share price that has wiped almost 6billion off THG's value in two months describing it as 'a sh*tty time'. But he went on to suggest he had 'options' as a 'big shareholder' who owns more than half the business when combined with 'a few people that I'm close with'. Unhappy: Matt Moulding bemoaned last year's London IPO as a 'mistake' and said he wished he had chosen the US instead Moulding bemoaned last year's London IPO as a 'mistake' and said he wished he had chosen the US instead. He also doubled down on laying the blame for the share price crash on short sellers, likening them to bank robbers. Despite Moulding's claim, THG is currently only the 109th most shorted share on the London Stock Exchange. The explosive interview with GQ magazine, also reported by the The Times newspaper yesterday, highlighted the comments about a possible buyout. A spokesman for THG last night declined to provide further information. However, it may be forced to do so if City regulators deem it necessary or if the share price rises sharply tomorrow. Fund giant Abrdn is close to acquiring Interactive Investor for more than 1.5billion. The FTSE100 asset manager is locked in advanced talks with the DIY stock-picking site. A source said a deal 'is getting close'. An acquisition would turbocharge Abrdn's plans to sell more products directly to customers cutting out advisers as middlemen and would pit it against investment supermarket giant Hargreaves Lansdown. Sign of the times: An acquisition would turbocharge Abrdn's plans to sell more products directly to customers The potential deal, reported by Sky News yesterday, would also put an end to Interactive Investor's plan to float on the London Stock Exchange. Richard Wilson, chief executive of Interactive Investor, hinted in an interview with The Mail on Sunday last year that he would consider takeover approaches. He said big firms keen to invest in the UK would look at businesses like Interactive Investor and say 'I want one of those'. He added: 'There is a lot of [profit] margin to go after.' A deal would lead to an attractive payout to private equity firm JC Flowers, Interactive Investor's largest shareholder. Interactive Investor is Britain's second largest investment site after Hargreaves, with more than 400,000 customers. Abrdn boss Stephen Bird, who joined from Citi bank last year, is attempting to galvanise the fund group since its formation in 2017 from a merger between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management. LV members have blasted an offer of just 100 each to sell the 178-year-old insurer to an American private equity firm. The 'paltry' payment would let Bain Capital seize LV, formerly Liverpool Victoria, stripping it of its mutual status. This would mean the firm would no longer be owned by its members but run by a profit-hungry investor. Speaking out: Tory peer Lord Heseltine has urged LV members to reject the deal Tory peer Lord Heseltine has urged LV members to reject the deal. He said: 'It's 30 pieces of silver, converted into 100 of today's money. I would hope members reject it.' Bain will pay 530m in total for LV. But only 212m of that will go to members. That includes an uplift to policies for eligible members who have a with-profits policy. Solicitor Peter Bloxham, an LV member, said chairman Alan Cook and chief executive Mark Hartigan had been 'weasely' about what they will gain from the deal. He said it was 'clear' that Hartigan will continue as chief executive if the deal goes ahead which will mean a pay rise potentially worth millions. 'When they announced the sale clearly they were proud of the 530m offer and made out it would go to members,' he said. 'Well where is it all going?' The 100 proposal has been condemned as trying to buy members' rights for 'less than the cost of a good meal out'. Bosses were accused of 'taking members for fools' by Labour MP Gareth Thomas. The Daily Mail has been inundated with emails from policyholders urging members not to be 'bribed' with their own money. Clarissa Johnson, 74, said: 'When I saw the 100 I laughed at my computer. It seems quite paltry.' Gary Hewitt, 79, said it was 'shocking'. LV's bosses claim the firm needs cash to invest in new technology. They said seeking money from a third party meant they wouldn't have to invest members' money, reducing the risk to customers. How on earth can we function without a bank or cash machine?' That is the question the 2,150-strong community of the Isles of Scilly is now asking itself after Lloyds Bank announced last month it was pulling the plug on the islands' last bank branch and cash machine next April. It is the latest, and most striking, example in a wave of closures that have left communities struggling to get access to cash, a plight highlighted by The Mail on Sunday's Keep our Cash campaign. The move has left islanders feeling badly let down, and angry. As newsagent Avril Mumford, 79, says: 'This closure is bitterly disappointing. How does anyone expect us to manage without a bank?' Avril, 79, a local councillor, has been both a Lloyds personal and business bank customer for most of her life. The shop has been in her husband's family for a century. Experience: Toby Walne's 20-minute flight on the tiny Twin Otter plane from Land's End to the six-square-mile main island of St Mary's wass a white-knuckle affair 'We are told we can use the post office, but this is not a practical solution,' she says. 'A shared branch funded by banks would work. If you cannot justify a shared branch here where on earth can you?' Avril, who runs the newsagent with 83-year-old husband Clive, is also furious that the first customers learned of the closure was reading about it in the newspapers. Customers only received a letter about the closure a week later. The axe will fall at the worst possible time for islanders, just as tourists start returning to the picturesque archipelago by air and sea. I went to see what it means for them, and discover what lessons their predicament may have for Britain's growing number of communities left without a vital bank. Getting to the isles in winter can be a lottery with the ferry service not running and flights prone to cancellation as a result of inclement weather. I'm lucky, but the 20-minute flight on the tiny Twin Otter plane from Land's End to the six-square-mile main island of St Mary's is a white-knuckle affair as the aircraft is buffeted by strong winds. Hugh Town is the islands' main hub. With brightly coloured boats bobbing up and down in the Atlantic Ocean harbour, it is the gateway to the other four inhabited isles St Martin's, Bryher, St Agnes and Prince William's holiday favourite Tresco. The high street is peppered with a dozen shops and home to the doomed Lloyds' branch. A closed building opposite is all that is left of the old Barclays branch that shut three years ago. Local trader Terry Ward owns four tourist shops on the islands, selling everything from jewellery to clothing. He believes the bank misunderstands how vital its branch is for locals, tourists and the economy of the Isles of Scilly. He says: 'You will find no 'card or contactless payment only' signs here. We have old-fashioned values. Many of us rely on hard cash. The isles have honesty boxes where people sell flowers, fruit and vegetables for cash.' The 65-year-old adds: 'So when Lloyds decides to close the only cash machine on the islands you can't help but think it is acting spitefully. The bank's departure could strike the death knell for this community.' Joe Badcock can trace his family roots on the islands back to 1670. He proudly describes himself as a true 'Scillonian'. He relies heavily on tourism to survive financially with his Guiding Star boat popular with some of the 125,000 visitors that flock to the isles every year. The 53-year-old says: 'It is the vulnerable and elderly I fear for most of all. All the nonsense that the banks come out with about the virtues of banking online and customers no longer using branches is nothing but a downright lie.' Doomed: The Lloyds' branch, due to close in April, with the post office nearby Paint is flaking off the front door of the Lloyds' branch, a sign that the bank has not invested in it for several years. Staff have been ordered by the bank's top brass to say nothing to me about the closure, but they do thrust a letter into my hand when I challenge them about the bank's destructive move. Full of graphs and pie charts justifying the branch's closure, it points out that the next nearest Lloyds' branch is just '44.15 miles away' and accessible via the 'ferry service from St Mary's to Penzance'. But the leaflet fails to point out the service shut for winter last week. As a result, a round trip to the nearest branch will now involve an unreliable flight service and costs around 200. The post office, located just a couple of doors down from the doomed Lloyds' branch, is braced for a huge influx of new business. But it does not have the infrastructure to handle it. Bank customers will be able to use the counter service to make deposits and cash withdrawals, but it does not have an ATM. Sub-postmistress Lindsay Rodger says: 'We will have to introduce some form of queuing system because at the moment we simply could not handle a major surge in usage.' She adds: 'There is a hope that we might get our own cash machine in the future, but because this is a Grade II-listed building there is a lot of red tape to wade through. 'We hardly make any money from people using us to access cash, but it is a service that is vital for locals and we must step up to the plate.' Worry: Lindsay Rodger runs the post office With husband Euan, Lindsay runs a cafe alongside the post office. But the cramped space may become an issue if crowds of postcard-toting tourists and locals posting parcels have to fight it out at the single counter with customers wanting to get some money. Away from the crowds, regular tourist and bird watcher John Mullin is in reflective mood. Last year, the retired engineer lost Irene, his wife of 57 years, and has returned to the isles in her memory they spent many a happy summer holidaying on St Mary's. John is look ing out at a seal from his vantage point in Old Town Bay. The septuagenarian, from Fakenham in Norfolk, says: 'Banks make an awful lot of money out of us. 'They should have a moral responsibility to help the communities that have made them so rich. Lloyds survived the 2008 financial crash thanks to a 20 billion Government bailout funded by taxpayers, but it shows its customers little gratitude.' John likes the idea of a shared branch on the islands, but is sceptical that it will ever happen. Rudi Plummer is walking his labrador Corker on the coastline near Porth Hellick Down burial chamber where Bronze Age chieftains were entombed 4,000 years ago. The 64-year-old says: 'The internet is a foreign language to me. We live in a brutal world and I understand Lloyds is not a charity. But the cynical use of advertising to pretend that it is 'by your side' while shutting branches and forcing people to bank online is shameful behaviour.' On Friday, Lloyds said its decision to shut its branch on the Isles of Scilly was a result of a drop in customer use. The closure is one of 48 Lloyds, Halifax and Bank of Scotland branches being axed next year. Hundreds of assaults on Jobcentre staff have potentially been avoided due to scrapping face to face appointments during the pandemic, according to official statistics. In 2020/21, when Jobcentre opening times were limited and face to face appointments replaced with virtual ones, there was an 89 percent year-on-year reduction in physical attacks on staff. There were 27 assaults on Jobcentre staff in 2020/21, according to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). That compares with pre-pandemic figures of 242 assaults in 2019/20 and 257 in 2018/19. New statistics reveal a dramatic drop in assaults on Jobcentre staff in 2020/21 compared with the pre-pandemic period, likely due to remote working. In one harrowing incident on October 7 2019, Brendan Cole (pictured), 19, stabbed a Jobcentre security guard in the back with a large carving knife at a Jobcentre Plus in Belle Vale, Liverpool A Jobcentre in Horfield, Bristol, which had 70 windows smashed by a claimant who went on a rampage with a claw hammer after staff told the 53-year-old he would have to travel to Bath to discuss his benefits One case on October 7 2019 saw a security guard stabbed in the back with a large carving knife while working at a Jobcentre Plus in Belle Vale, Liverpool. The security guard, a man in his 40s, intervened when a 19-year-old threatened a female member of staff. Brendan Cole, 19, who was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for the attack, left the security guard with 'a serious but non-life-threatening injury to his back', according to Merseyside Police. Of the 499 assaults on Jobcentre staff in 2018/19 and 2019/20, 83 resulted in cuts and bruises, while 17 resulted in more serious injuries. The data come from a MailOnline Freedom of Information request sent to the DWP. Charlotte Hughes, who volunteers outside Ashton Under Lyne Jobcentre and runs a blog called The Poor Side of Life, said: 'Whilst assaults on Jobcentre staff have fallen massively mainly because of online appointments, we can't forget that it's the Universal Credit system that causes their frustration. Charlotte Hughes, a volunteer outside Ashton Under Lyne Jobcentre, said she feared staff assaults would continue to rise once appointments were moved back to face to face appointments due to claimants' frustration with the Universal Credit system 'No claimants actually want to assault Jobcentre staff but the way that the system punishes them causes frustration and anger. 'They can't find another way to express their feelings. 'Jobcentre staff do have the right to work in a safe environment but I fear that, until the DWP Universal Credit system changes to a more understanding one, staff assaults will continue to rise once appointments are moved back to face to face appointments.' One terrifying incident at Horfield Jobcentre in Bristol saw a 53-year-old claimant go on a rampage with a claw hammer, smashing 70 windows on October 17 2019 after being told he would have to travel to Bath Jobcentre to discuss his benefits. Mark King, who was jailed for 24 months, caused 30,000 of damage to the Jobcentre on Monks Park Avenue, Bristol. At the Ebbw Vale Jobcentre in Wales, members of staff were grabbed and threatened with a knife by a man who said 'youre all going to have it if you dont give me my money'. Ian Littlewood, 47, became violent during an appointment on November 24 2017 after he was told his Employment Support Allowance (ESA) would be stopped as he had failed to attend a medical appointment. Ebbw Vale Jobcentre staff were threatened with a knife in November 2017 by 47-year-old Ian Littlewood (pictured) who warned them 'you're all going to have it if you don't give me my money' A victim statement from Anne Kinnear, who was assaulted by Littlewood, read: 'He grabbed my right shoulder and I was terrified because the knife was so close. 'I wondered what part of my body he would stick it in. I feared for my life and wanted to back away but I couldnt.' Littlewood was sentenced to 34 months imprisonment at Cardiff Crown Court. A spokesperson for the DWP said the department 'takes the health and safety of all its staff, contractors and visitors very seriously'. They continued: 'We have robust control measures in place to minimise and mitigate all incidents of Unacceptable Customer Behaviour including Actual Physical Assault and we encourage staff to report any incident that may have caused or have the potential to cause harm both physical and mentally. 'These figures should be considered in the context of the millions of face to face interactions with our customers that take place without incident each year in our Jobcentres.' LNP Senator Gerard Rennick A Liberal senator has pulled his support for Scott Morrison's Government due to concerns with the Covid-19 vaccination rollout. Queensland senator Gerard Renick has declared he will not vote for any government legislation unless his five demands are met. He wants immediate compensation payments for people who suffer side effects; easier exemptions for patients who have side effects after one shot; an end to vaccine mandates; no vaccinating of children and an immediate opening of state borders. The 50-year-old, who worked in finance before becoming a LNP senator in 2019, has been sharing stories from people who claim to have serious side effects after taking the vaccine, including 19-year-old Cienna Knowles. Ms Knowles, a keen horse rider, suffered clots in her lungs, stomach and legs a day after getting her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine. Doctors diagnosed her with portal vein thrombosis (PVT), which is not a listed side effect of the Pfizer jab, and believe she had a reaction to the contraceptive pill. But Ms Knowles and her family argue she's a 'one in a million' case of blood clotting - one of several such anti-vaccine stories which Senator Rennick has shared, and which have attracted the attention of the anti-vax brigade. Senator Rennick has built up a following among anti-vaxxers who lauded a recent Sky News interview in which he demanded 'immediate income support' for anyone suffering vaccine side effects. Under an indemnity scheme announced in August, Aussies who suffer severe side effects can claim up to $20,000 in compensation - but only if the costs of their injuries exceeds $5,000. Cienna Knowles (pictured), 19, suffered from blood clotting hours after her second Pfizer jab but doctors said the cause was the contraceptive pill Senator Rennick says the threshold should be removed and wants the cash given to people faster. 'Payments from the scheme won't be made until next year. People who cannot work because of their injury from the vaccine need the money now to make ends meet,' he wrote on Facebook. Senator Rennick also railed against state and territory governments which have used public health orders to mandate vaccines for workers in certain industries such as health care and construction, despite the Federal Government's policy that jabs are voluntary. 'Vaccine mandates need to be lifted immediately. They should never have been implemented but they are going to cause so many issues including labour shortages, endless legal lawsuits, loss of livelihoods, discrimination,' he wrote. He also complained about rules which prevent the unvaccinated from participating in society because they pose an increased health risk. 'Since when was the threat of losing your job, unable to enter stores, go to the gym or cross borders, voluntarily. It's this kind of double speak that is undermines trust in government,' he wrote. This is despite the fact that fully vaccinated people are between 86 and 93 per cent less likely to spread Covid-19, according to the Doherty Institute. Scott Morrison (pictured at the COP26 climate conference) said he will speak to Senator Rennick when he returns from Glasgow Senator Rennick is also demanding the Federal Government challenge state border closures under section 92 of the constitution which specifies trade between the states 'shall be absolutely free'. A High Court challenge by Clive Palmer last year failed, with the court ruling Western Australia was within its rights to close its border to stop Covid-19. Withholding support from the Government is a serious move by Senator Rennick and will make it harder for Mr Morrison, who already relies on co-operation with independent senators, to pass laws through the senate. Parliament next sits on November 22 and will deal with divisive legislation such as new laws requiring voters to show ID at polling booths. A spokesman for Scott Morrison said: 'The Prime Minister will continue to follow the health advice of Australia's medical experts and make decisions in the best interests of Australians. 'The Prime Minister will discuss the matter with Senator Rennick.' Senator Rennick is a social conservative who has promoted conspiracy theories including that the Bureau of Meteorology is falsifying climate data as part of a 'global warming agenda'. The Therapeutic Goods Administration's safety report released on October 28 says there have been 74,380 adverse events reported after 34.36 million doses of all Covid vaccines in Australia, a rate of 0.22 per cent. Australians have been conned out of $33billion a year in online scams prompting the Labor Opposition to promise a major crackdown on the 'scamdemic'. Government agency The Cyber Security Centre has revealed scams more than doubled in 2020 before doubling again in 2021. The massive spike has placed Australia in the top five countries most affected by scammers. The biggest culprits are fake cryptocurrency and investment scammers, fake parcel-delivery services and fake invoices targeting small business email accounts. Australians have been conned out of $33billion a year in online scams prompting the Labor government to promise a major crackdown on the 'scamdemic' The Labor Opposition has accused prime minister Scott Morrison of repeatedly ignoring warnings that Australia was 'ripe for exploitation'. Shadow assistant treasurer Stephen Jones told Daily Mail Australia now was the time for increased penalties for businesses and social media platforms aiding scammers. 'Australians are being smashed by scammers and fraudsters, the government is either disinterested or incapable of doing about it,' he said. The Opposition has vowed to take matters into their own hands and set up a National Anti-Scam Centre. The centre will be based on the UK model 'Fusion Cell' and fuse efforts from law enforcement, banks, telecommunications providers and consumer advocates to bolster national defences. Funding will be doubled for identification recovery services that is expected to help an additional 20,000 Australians. 'We need to provide more support to victims who have had their identities stolen and ensure they can repair and recover from ID theft,' Mr Jones said. Tough new industry codes will also be brought in for banks, telecommunications providers, social media providers and Government agencies. They codes will clearly define the responsibilities of the organisations to protect consumers and businesses online. 'We need to ensure that banks, telecommunication companies and social media platforms are doing their bit,' Mr Jones said. Online platforms will also be held responsible for removing false advertising from their sites with greater penalties introduced for scammers. In October, it was revealed scammers were impersonating an Australian Border Force officer in an elaborate scheme to dupe Australians. The scam initially involves an automated message suggesting a parcel addressed to the person has been seized because it contains illegal material. The message states an arrest warrant has been issued due to the parcel, with the recipient told to dial one to speak with an officer. The Opposition has vowed to take matters into their own hands and set up a National Anti-Scam Centre A spokesperson from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, who run Scamwatch, said recipients of the call should 'hang up immediately' in a statement to 7 News. 'Once the individual dials "one" (the scammers) would ask the reporter (victim) to Google their local Australian Federal Police phone number and (they had) called the reporter from that number through spoofing,' the spokesperson explained. 'Scammers would then get the victim to share bank account details, driving licence, passport, and a photo of reporter holding the licence. With these details, scammers can compromise the victim's identity, with the photo being useful to pass a variety of institutions' Know Your Customer checks.' This terrifying scam is thought to be a variation of two other scams that have been reported to the ACCC before. They involved one impersonating an Australian Taxation Officer and the other the Australian Federal Police. Both reportedly threatened receivers of the call if they didn't immediately make payments. An elderly dementia sufferer died after getting lost in a remote forest after following GPS guidance to travel to a funeral with her mentally-disabled daughter. Deputies say the pair - Dorothy 'Kae' Turner, 84, and daughter Heidi Turner, 58 - were following a navigation system from Pendleton, Oregon to Salt Lake City when they got lost in the northern Idaho forest. Relatives say Dorothy suffered from dementia. Dorothy left to find help when their car broke down, but died from exposure to the elements while Heidi, who is mentally disabled, stayed behind. She survived her ordeal, although no further updates on her condition have been given. A hunter discovered the mother's body in the Solitaire Saddle area of the Panhandle National Forest and reported it to the authorities at 11.45am Friday, according to the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office. Deputies then discovered the broken-down gold 2015 Chrysler Town and Country minivan nearby with the daughter still alive and suffering from minor injuries. Dorothy 'Kae' Turner, 84, died of 'exposure to the elements' after her car broke down during a road trip from Oregon to Utah for a family funeral. Relatives say she had dementia Dorothy and her 58-year-old daughter Heidi Turner (right), who is mentally disabled, were on their way to Salt Lake City for a family funeral Deputies say their GPS led them to the Panhandle National Forest in northern Idaho, above The family said their deviation was an 'unusual route' and reported them missing last week A family member who reported them missing said they were taking an 'unusual route' through Idaho, according to the East Idaho News. They were reported missing from Pendleton, about 5 hours southwest of the forest, on Wednesday. 'They were en route to Salt Lake City, UT from Pendleton, OR for a family funeral. Kay suffers from dementia and we have reason to believe that they may be lost and/or in danger,' family member Doniell Taylor Arnold said in a Facebook post Thursday. Deputies say the incident is under investigation but doesn't appear to be suspicious. On Friday, Arnold updated her post: 'Kae and Heidi were in an accident in the Coeur dAlene area,' referring to an area of the Idaho forest. 'Aunt Kae passed and our hearts are broken. Heidi has minor injuries. Please continue to keep our family in your prayers.' She added that the dead woman's loved ones, including her adult son Gene who also lives at home, had 'lost their pillar.' The women had been reported missing by their family on Wednesday; they were found Friday Relative Tara Dahl commented on the sheriff's office press release on Facebook thanking deputies and the hunter who found them. 'These 2 ladies were my aunt and cousin. I wanted to personally reach out and thank all the officers who helped find my aunt and cousin. I can't tell you how much we appreciate Kootenai County Sheriff's Office. 'Also to the hunter that helped, thank you. Words also can't describe how much we appreciated you. If anyone knows who this hunter is please let him know how much appreciation we have for him.' Chuck Schumer was spotted celebrating the passing of President Biden's infrastructure bill on Friday night, but the Senate Majority Leader who was in Puerto Rico, appeared to let the win for the Democrats go to his head and forgot to wear a face mask. Strict local rules on the Caribbean island are still in place and require those in public places indoors to wear face coverings, regardless of their vaccination status. Schumer, 70, was seen embracing island life as he attempted to perform the merengue alongside New York City Council member Carlina Rivera who was also maskless. Senator Chuck Schumer, 70, is currently in Puerto Rico for the SOMOS conference. He was seen maskless while dancing during a Friday night party Schumer was spotted dancing the merengue alongside New York City Council member Carlina Rivera who was also not wearing a mask 'Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and pals in clear violation of Puerto Rico's indoor mask mandate,' tweeted Puerto Rican journalist Carlos Berrios Polanco. 'His dancing sucks too,' he added in a final barb. Schumer, who was dressed in chinos and a white shirt looked as though he had just stepped out of the office and had his signature reading glasses balanced at the end of his nose as he continued to dance at a party being held in a hotel conference room. Schumer was spotted at the annual SOMOS conference, a five day event that sees a mix of both past and present elected officials, lobbyists and consultants all schmoozing with one another. Schumer is feeling the music at Somos pic.twitter.com/voQZ7KgsMb Emma G. Fitzsimmons (@emmagf) November 6, 2021 Schumer wasn't the only one spotted without a mask at the SOMOS conference The senator caught the attention of an unidentified woman who proceeded to dance with him The conference, at which more than 800 were expected this year, is supposed to highlight the needs of the Hispanic community in New York and to strengthen relationships between Puerto Rico and the Big Apple, but in reality the event is more of a networking extravaganza. It wasn't just Schumer who failed to adhere to Puerto Rico's masking guidelines. A number of other New York politicians including Governor Kathy Hochul, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio together with mayor-elect Eric Adams, were all at the conference and without masks. Schumer's office contacted the New York Post to say the senator is fully vaccinated and has received a booster shot as well as being regularly tested for the coronavirus. Senator Schumer's dancing looked slightly awkward as he bust a move while still wearing his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Magazine reporter and founder of the 1619 project, said she felt 'shame' as an 'American and a human being' on Saturday after visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan. The museum features artifacts belonging to the estimated 146,000 victims of the atomic bomb. 'Feeling ashamed of shameful things is not BAD. Its called being an empathetic and moral human being,' Hannah-Jones, who uses the name Ida Bae Wells on Twitter, wrote. 'Shame helps us do better. When I visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum about the impact of the USs atomic bomb, as an American, I felt shame.' Nikole Hannah-Jones, New York Magazine reporter and founder of the 1619 project, said she felt 'shame' as an 'American and a human being' on Saturday after visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in Japan The Hiroshima Peace Memorial (pictured), commonly called the Atomic Bomb Dome or A-Bomb Dome is part of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima, Japan 'As a Black American, I knew the same govt that bombed Japan was also actively segregating Black Americans & tacitly condoning racial terrorism & fascism in the U.S. South, and so even though my people were not responsible, as an American and a human I felt shame,' she continued 'The desire for so many Americans to be free of collective shame, collective atonement and collective responsibility for the shameful legacy of centuries of slavery, racism, apartheid & terroristic violence visited upon fellow citizens is the sign of an immature & selfish culture,' she wrote Nikole Hannah-Jones (pictured) won a Pulitzer prize for the 1619 Project, which was launched in August 2019 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving in colonial Virginia. The project aims to 'reframe' America's history, arguing that slavery underpins every aspect of American life 'As a Black American, I knew the same govt that bombed Japan was also actively segregating Black Americans & tacitly condoning racial terrorism & fascism in the U.S. South, and so even though my people were not responsible, as an American and a human I felt shame,' she continued. 'How is this bad?' She used the humbling moment to reflect on Americans' relationship with their country's checkered past. 'The desire for so many Americans to be free of collective shame, collective atonement and collective responsibility for the shameful legacy of centuries of slavery, racism, apartheid & terroristic violence visited upon fellow citizens is the sign of an immature & selfish culture,' she wrote. The atomic bomb that immediately killed about 80,000 people was dropped on August 6, 1945, at the tail end of World War II - the death toll grew to more than 146,000 as victims succumbed to the effects of deadly radiation over the following months. Three days later on August 9, a second bomb was dropped over Nagasaki, killing another 40,000 Japanese nationals immediately. The atomic bomb that immediately killed about 80,000 people was dropped on August 6, 1945, at the tail end of World War II - the death toll grew to more than 146,000 as victims succumbed to the effects of deadly radiation over the following months Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer prize for the 1619 Project, which was launched in August 2019 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved Africans arriving in colonial Virginia. The project aims to 'reframe' America's history, arguing that slavery underpins every aspect of American life. However, critics say that it is full of historical inaccuracies - including the claim that the Revolutionary War was fought solely to preserve slavery - and portrays the U.S. as fundamentally racist. A naked man was rescued by firefighters after being trapped inside the walls of a historic theater in Upstate New York for days on Friday morning, according to local authorities. The Syracuse Fire Department received a call just after 7:30 am of a person trapped inside the walls of the Landmark Theater, which opened back in 1928, after an employee at the performing arts center heard a man yelling for help, Syracuse Fire Deputy Chief John Kane told Syracuse.com. Authorities believe the 39-year-old man, who was not identified by name, had gained entry to the theater on Tuesday or Wednesday. The department was forced to drill a hole into the theater wall to make space for a tiny fiber-optic camera, which was used 'to determine his exact location and how best to extricate him.' Pictured: firefighters knocking down a wall where a man was trapped inside a historic theater in Syracuse on Friday morning, the Syracuse Fire Department said The man had become trapped after falling inside a wall in the theater's men's bathroom, pictured, after making his way into a crawl space where he hid for two days After locating the naked man with the camera, a rescue crew were eventually able to free him after 'carefully cutting through several layers of drywall and structural clay tile,' pictured After locating the naked man with the camera, a rescue crew were eventually able to free him after 'carefully cutting through several layers of drywall and structural clay tile.' Mike Intaglietta, the theater's executive director, told Syracuse.com that the man had been seen wandering around the building earlier in the week, with employees saying they figured he had left the building after losing track of him. 'I don't know if he was entering to keep warm or to use the bathroom. I don't know,' Intaglietta told the outlet. Kane told Syracuse.com that the man had found his way into a crawl space in the building, where he hid for two days before falling into a wall in the men's restroom, when he became trapped. The Syracuse Fire Department received a call just after 7:30 am Friday of a person trapped inside the walls of the Landmark Theater, pictured, which opened back in 1928 Authorities found the man, who was naked, and transported him to Upstate University Hospital for evaluation, according to police. The man did not appear to have any injuries, however he was likely dehydrated after days of no food or water, Kane said. No criminal charges have been filed against the man as of Saturday evening, police said. A left-wing Labour MP was forced to apologise last night after appearing at a protest at which police were branded 'assassins' and activists called for 'no cops'. Zarah Sultana sparked fury from some Labour members after a photograph emerged of her standing alongside protesters bearing inflammatory anti-police banners. But after The Mail on Sunday challenged the staunch Jeremy Corbyn supporter yesterday, she said: 'I absolutely do not share those views.' She also said she regretted not checking the signs the protesters were carrying. Zarah Sultana sparked fury from some Labour members after a photograph emerged of her standing alongside protesters bearing inflammatory anti-police banners After The Mail on Sunday challenged the staunch Jeremy Corbyn supporter yesterday, she said: 'I absolutely do not share those views' At 28, the Coventry South MP is already being touted in Labour's hard-Left circles as the person best placed to take on the mantle of former leader Mr Corbyn. But there was anger in her party last week after it emerged that on May 1 she appeared at the rally in Coventry where the offensive anti-police banners were displayed. A photograph showed her standing in the city's Broadgate within feet of a man holding a sign proclaiming 'Police are the assassin'. Another carried a cardboard placard declaring 'ACAB' which stands for 'All Cops Are Bastards'. A third stated 'No Killers, No Cops, Reclaim The Block'. The Kill The Bill rally was held against the Government's Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, which would give police in England and Wales more power to impose conditions on non-violent protests. Labour opposes it for 'disproportionately and unnecessarily' removing the right to peaceful protest. But sources said Ms Sultana's appearance at this event had undermined Sir Keir Starmer's bid to re-establish Labour as a party of law and order. One insider pointed out how Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds tweeted 'best wishes' yesterday to police hurt in anti-establishment demonstrations on Friday evening. Ms Sultana is a leading light in the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs loyal to Mr Corbyn. Labour investigated her over social-media posts in 2015 in which she said she would celebrate the deaths of Tony Blair and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She later apologised. Last night she said: 'This was a busy demonstration defending our hard-won civil liberties with lots of people taking photographs and I regret not checking the signs people around me were holding.' Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is tomorrow set to launch a bid to heal Westminster's bitter sleaze row. He is considering proposing a review of the Commons' standards procedures in the wake of the Owen Paterson scandal. Sources said the review was likely to be set up in consultation with standards committee chairman, the Labour MP Chris Bryant. But Commons insiders said the Speaker would only make up his mind after a scheduled three-hour debate on the sleaze row. Last night there were predictions that a review would lead to MPs found guilty of financial misdemeanours being able to appeal to a retired judge one of the Tories' key demands in last week's stormy exchanges in the House. There are also suggestions that the review could include looking at how MPs were allowed to earn thousands of pounds from outside interests on top of their Commons' salary of 81,932. Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle (pictured) is tomorrow set to launch a bid to heal Westminster's bitter sleaze row In tomorrow's debate Labour, Liberal and Tory MPs are expected to vent their fury at Boris Johnson's failed bid to use the verdict on Mr Paterson to demand reforms of the standards system. In a sign of Tory anger at being ordered to vote to suspend the Paterson verdict only for Mr Johnson to abandon the plan last week, Yorkshire MP Philip Davies sent a blistering protest to Tory Whips. He wrote: 'Please don't ever ask me to vote for anything ever again. I voted yesterday (as you know under protest) for something to support the party in a tough situation, and get abuse from my constituents for it, to then find the party overturns the decision.' Adding to the controversy, last night the Tory Party was accused of abusing the honours system by offering seats in the Lords to a select group of multi-millionaire donors who give more than 3 million to the party. In a sign of Tory anger at being ordered to vote to suspend the Paterson verdict only for Mr Johnson to abandon the plan last week, Yorkshire MP Philip Davies (pictured) sent a blistering protest to Tory Whips An investigation by the Sunday Times and the Open Democracy website reported that wealthy benefactors appear to be guaranteed a peerage if they take on the temporary role of party treasurer and increase their donations beyond 3 million. In the past 20 years, all 16 of the party's main treasurers apart from the most recent, who stood down two months ago after donating 3.8 million were offered a seat in the Lords, they reported. Last night a Government spokesman said: 'Peerages reflect long-standing contributions to civic life and also a willingness to further contribute to public life as a legislator in the Second Chamber. 'It is wrong to criticise individuals being honoured just because they have also chosen to support or donate to a political party.' Schoolchildren as young as five could soon be expected to sing the national anthem every day before starting class. The policy was proposed at a state Liberal party council meeting in Gladstone, Queensland, on Saturday. Fiona Simpson, MP for Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, said such a policy could help to foster strong 'national identity' in Australian youth. Poll Should schoolkids sing the national anthem before class every day? YES NO Should schoolkids sing the national anthem before class every day? YES 80 votes NO 36 votes Now share your opinion She said it was crucial children embraced the importance of the anthem from a young age so they could understand its meaning by the time they became adults. 'We must ensure our children understand how important it is as part of their national identity and then grow that as citizens,' Ms Simpson said at the meeting, after leading the party room in singing the anthem. Similarly, former state candidate Pinky Singh said singing the anthem daily would help to foster unity among children and their peers, regardless of race or religion. These LNP members are calling on the state opposition to 'adopt a policy that would mandate the singing of the National Anthem at the beginning of the school day for all schools'. It comes amid claims some schools across the nation do not ever sing the anthem. It is standard practice for most schools to sing the song weekly - normally during an assembly or parade day. Schoolchildren as young as five could soon be expected to sing the national anthem every day before starting class The anthem has been a point of contention for years and caused heartache for some of the indigenous population in particular. Many feel the lyrics do not accurately represent them and their heritage. The critics have long claimed that describing Australia as a 'young nation' in the line 'we are young and free' overlooks the fact Aboriginal people have lived on the continent for tens of thousands of years. The controversial lyrics have sparked public protests, with national sporting events typically at the forefront of debate around changing the national anthem. Last year, half of the indigenous team refused to sing the Australian national anthem played in the lead up to the NRL game against the Indigenous All Stars and Maori All Stars. Fiona Simpson, MP for Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, said such a policy could help to foster strong 'national identity' in Australian youth NEW AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM Australians all let us rejoice, For we are one and free; We've golden soil and wealth for toil; Our home is girt by sea; Our land abounds in nature's gifts Of beauty rich and rare; In history's page, let every stage Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair. Beneath our radiant Southern Cross We'll toil with hearts and hands; To make this Commonwealth of ours Renowned of all the lands; For those who've come across the seas We've boundless plains to share; With courage let us all combine To Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair. Advertisement Nine Origin stars refused to sing the anthem before game one of 2019 series at Brisbane's Suncorp Stadium, including Blues stars Cody Walker, Josh Addo-Carr, Latrell Mitchell, and Payne Haas. Maroons stars Josh Papalii, Dane Gagai, Kalyn Ponga, Dylan Napa, and Will Chambers also boycotted the anthem. Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on New Year's Eve that the second line of the anthem, Advance Australia Fair, had been changed from 'for we are young and free' to 'for we are one and free'. 'While Australia as a modern nation may be relatively young, our country's story is ancient, as are the stories of the many First Nations peoples whose stewardship we rightly acknowledge and respect,' he said. Governor-General David Hurley also agreed to a government recommendation to change the wording of the anthem. Mr Morrison said the change was made to reflect all Australians. 'During the past year we have showed once again the indomitable spirit of Australians and the united effort that has always enabled us to prevail as a nation,' he said. 'It is time to ensure this great unity is reflected more fully in our national anthem.' Advance Australia Fair was composed by Peter Dodds McCormick and first performed in 1878. It was adopted as the national anthem in 1984. Boris Johnson faces a fresh call today to safeguard British farms in post-Brexit trade deals after a poll found that Leave voters were keener than Remainers to protect quality, home-grown food. Nearly three quarters of people who voted to leave the EU say all food entering the country should be produced to British environmental standards. Brexit backers are also more likely than Remainers to insist we should outlaw imported food produced using pesticides banned in this country. The Deltapoll findings come amid growing unease over the impact on the UKs world-renowned farming sector from post-Brexit trade deals, including ones with Australia and New Zealand which critics fear could lead to cheaper, lower-quality produce. Boris Johnson faces a fresh call to safeguard British farms in post-Brexit trade deals after a Deltapoll found that Leave voters were keener than Remainers to protect quality, home-grown food There have also been worries that a future US trade deal could lead to hormone-treated meat imports. Nearly three in four Brexiteers 74 per cent believe the UK should insist that all imported food is produced to the same environmental standards UK farmers must abide by. That compares with 66 per cent of Remainers. Minette Batters, president of the National Farmers Union, said: This poll shows that protecting quality, home-grown British food has never been a Leave vs Remain issue. However you voted in the EU referendum, its clear the British public will never accept food imports that are not produced to the same standards that British farmers have to abide by here. The Mail on Sundays Save Our Family Farms Campaign has drawn attention to the risks to the UKs 10 billion agricultural industry. The new poll shows 77 per cent of Leave voters say all food entering the UK should be produced to the same rules on antibiotics that British farmers must follow, with 70 per cent of Remainers taking that view. In June, Liz Truss, then International Trade Secretary, said: I dont buy this defeatist narrative that British agriculture cant compete' The poll, for the cross-party European Movement, also found support for protecting quality British food across the political divide. Last night, Labour peer and European Movement chairman Andrew Adonis said: Importing chlorinated and hormone-injected food from the other side of the world is not what Britons want. Ministers have played down farmers fears and highlighted future opportunities. In June, Liz Truss, then International Trade Secretary, said: I dont buy this defeatist narrative that British agriculture cant compete. 'We have a high-quality, high-value product which people want to buy, particularly in the growing middle classes of Asia. A spokesperson for the Department of International Trade responded to the new polling by saying: Maintaining high standards is a red line in all our trade negotiations and our deals with New Zealand and Australia are no different. All agri-food products imported into the UK will comply with our high standards and import requirements. The boyfriend of missing British woman Sarm Heslop has been spotted on a yacht in Barbados. Ryan Bane, 44, is the only person of interest in the case but has not surfaced since detectives admitted losing track of him in early July. He was seen on the same vessel that Heslop, 41, from Southampton, Hampshire, vanished without a trace from on March 7 after she and Bane had drinks at the 420 in Center dive bar in Frank's Bay, St. John. The boyfriend of missing British woman Sarm Heslop has been spotted on a Caribbean Island. Pictured: Ryan Bane, 44, sitting on the deck of his boat in March 2021 Bane was moored at Grenadas Le Phare Bleu Marina, but has changed the name of the boat, which is on sale for 220,000, from Siren Song to Orions Belt, the Mirror has reported. It costs 50 a night to moor in the marina and he has allegedly asked to be kept off the ledger. He has been seen cleaning his boat, chatting with locals, taking his dog for a walk, getting supplies and running in the area. Bane (above) is the only person of interest in the case but has not surfaced since detectives admitted losing track of him in early July. Pictured: Bane on his boat in March 2021 'He has been here since September 7. He comes into the restaurant here regularly,' a source said. 'He eats breakfast and lunch and drinks a club soda or fruit juice, not alcohol. But he is enjoying the good life for sure its a playboy lifestyle. 'This place is paradise. He has never mentioned Sarm. No one here has any idea about that.' In March, lawyers representing Bane said that he is 'devastated' that his girlfriend is missing, but said he would not be speaking to the media. Bane, who has a conviction for assaulting his ex-wife, was charged with obstructing law agents by refusing to let US Coast Guard officials search his boat. When the officials boarded, Bane is reported to have stood in a doorway and told them they could not enter. He was handed a citation, which does not result in a criminal record. He was seen on the same vessel that Sarm Heslop (pictured), 41, from Southampton, Hampshire, vanished without a trace from on March 7 after she and Bane had drinks at the 420 in Center dive bar in Frank's Bay, St. John Bane was moored at Grenadas Le Phare Bleu Marina, but has changed the name of the boat, which is on sale for 220,000, from Siren Song to Orions Belt. Pictured: Bane on his boat in March 2021 The family of missing Sarm Heslop pleaded with her boyfriend to come forward and give them answers after she disappeared from his boat in the Caribbean. Her parents are appealing for Bane to come forward and answer questions about her sudden disappearance. 'They say time heals but not when your daughter is missing. How can you move on when you have no answers?', her father Peter Heslop said. 'We want, need and deserve answers as to what happened to our daughter, sister and friend. We ask Bane to come forward to help us find those answers'. Facebook's own researchers found that around 1 in 8 of the social network's 2.9 billion users have addiction-like problems, according to a report. The problems associated with using the platform are said to affect users' sleep, work, parenting or relationships. The social media platform euphemistically calls the issues 'problematic use' but in the wider world it is more commonly known as 'internet addiction.' The usage patterns are 'perceived by users to be worse on Facebook than any other major social media platform, which all seek to keep users coming back,' according to the report as seen by the Wall Street Journal. The information was all contained in documents leaked to the press part of the Journal's Facebook Files, a trove of reporting based on internal documents provided by whistleblower Frances Haugen who testified before Congress last month. A Facebook survey conducted by company researchers found the social network is harmful for 1 in 8 of its users. The platform negatively impacts users sleep, work or personal relationships Whatever the term, the numbers involved are staggering with problems said to be affecting 12.5 percent of Facebook's users or more than 360 million people. The researchers estimated about 10 percent of U.S. users engage in such behavior with the numbers believed to as high as 25 percent in the Philippines and India, the 'company's largest market.' The research into how the use of social-media might negatively affect people's day-to-day lives was started several years ago with the idea of mitigating any harmful behavior the company identified. Researchers noted how some users lacked discipline when it came to the amount of time they were spending on Facebook. 'Activities like shopping, sex and Facebook use, when repetitive and excessive, may cause problems for some people,' they noted. Facebook addiction led to problems including things such as a loss of productivity with people unable to complete tasks in their own lives because of the amount of time they were spending on the site. Other users reported a lack of sleep because of late night scrolling The problems included things such as a loss of productivity with people unable to complete tasks in their own lives because of the amount of time they were spending on Facebook. Other users reported a lack of sleep because of late night scrolling. In some cases, 'parents focused more on FB than caring for or bonding with their children,' the researchers wrote. Researchers noted that it wasn't just Facebook which was being used compulsively but a variety of other social media apps including Instagram and WhatsApp which are owned by parent company Meta. Twitter and Snapchat were also mentioned with users feeling pressured to respond to messages and constantly checking for new content on their smartphones. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has said the company is continuing to look at the issue of addiction. 'We certainly do not want our products to be addictive,' he said in a November 2020 Senate hearing Various app designs would trigger addictive usage including the appearance of red dots which would signify when new content was available to be clicked on. Videos that autoplayed were also found as another factor that made it hard to put the app down. Facebook does have settings that allow users to turn off the notifications and autoplaying of videos but they are not easy to find. A Facebook 'user well-being team' suggested various fixes to curb 'problematic use', some of which were implemented. One measure that was suggested and later introduced was to reduce the frequency of user notifications and create tools that would encourage people to take breaks. Ultimately, the team that made the suggestions to reduce such addiction issues was disbanded in 2019 although a company spokesperson told the Journal that Facebook was still 'dedicated' to solving the problem. 'We have a role to play, which is why we've built tools and controls to help people manage when and how they use our services,' Dani Lever, a Facebook spokeswoman, said in the statement. 'Furthermore, we have a dedicated team working across our platforms to better understand these issues and ensure people are using our apps in ways that are meaningful to them.' The company is said to be making a renewed attempt to address 'problematic use' including other well-being worried including body image and mental health. Researchers added a word of caution to their analysis as they pondered whether Facebook was actually causing sleep problems or whether people who already had sleep problems were simply turning to Facebook for comfort. The researchers urged further research on the matter to be conducted before their unit was ultimately shut down. 'We welcome other teams to take on these opportunities,' one of the researchers posted on Facebook's internal communications system. 'Please get in touch if we can help.' Despite the negative findings from the company's own research, in 2017 an executive with Facebook addressed the issues of social-media addiction. It suggested that a passive consumption of social media could make people feel worse but those who were more active would feel better. 'Actively interacting with peopleespecially sharing messages, posts and comments with close friends and reminiscing about past interactionsis linked to improvements in well-being,' the company said. The suggestion saw Facebook adjust its algorithm to post content that was often seen as angry or sensation because such posts resulted in increased engagement by users. The info was contained in documents leaked to the press part of the Journal's Facebook Files, a trove of reporting based on internal documents provided by whistleblower Frances Haugen Such findings were revealed in documents copied by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen which she claims essentially showed Facebook understood the harm it is causing, yet failed to act on it. One set of reports, for instance, suggested Facebook knew that its Instagram platform was toxic for teenage users. Haugen testified before Congress on October 5, saying Facebook was 'internally dysfunctional,' and that it was unlikely to change its behaviors without action from external regulators. 'There's only going to be a certain amount of time Facebook can say there is nothing causal out there,' said public health professor Brian Primack who said the evidence gathered appeared to be 'pointing in a certain direction.' Responding to the research in a blog posting, Pratiti Raychoudhury, the Head of Research at Facebook claims the Journal misrepresented the research saying they 'chose to selectively pick and choose from internal company documents to present a narrative that is simply wrong about how we use research to address an important issue -- this time about problematic use'. Raychoudhury said the company 'has been engaged and supportive throughout our multiyear effort to better understand and empower people who use our services to manage problematic use. That's why this work has taken place over multiple years, including now.' Raychoudhury argues in her blog that 'problematic use does not equal addiction,' and that the company introduced 'features to help people manage their experiences on our apps and services.' 'Since 2018, we have introduced nearly 10 products to better support people's well-being, including problematic use of our apps, and that work continues today," Raychoudhury explained in response. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has previously said the company is continuing to look at the issue. 'We certainly do not want our products to be addictive,' he said in a November 2020 Senate hearing. 'I don't think the research has been conclusive, but it is an area that we care about and study,' Zuckerberg said. The revelations of this latest survey comes just days after Facebook rebranded itself as Meta in a bid to distance itself from the criticism the moniker has attracted for the company, its employees and its executives, including Zuckerberg. Facebook said it will shut down its face-recognition system and delete the faceprints of more than 1 billion people Meta refers to the 'metaverse,' Zuckerberg's vision for the company's transition into shared augmented reality, where uses work and play in virtual world environments. The company is steeped deep in crisis after Haugen leaked internal documents and made bombshell claims that it 'puts profits over people' by knowingly harming teenagers with its content and stoking anger among users. Haugen, a former product manager at the company, left Facebook with tens of thousands of confidential documents that she copied in secret and released to roughly two dozen news outlets. Facebook employees said they knew misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic was dominating parts of the social media platform creating 'echo-chamber-like effects' ultimately reinforcing hesitancy over the vaccine. Haugen testified before Congress on October 5 and British Parliament on October 25, presenting findings on the harm social media caused young users. One revealed that 13.5 percent of British teenagers and 6 percent of American teenagers experiencing suicidal thoughts said that they traced them to Instagram. Last month, it was revealed how Facebook researchers are said to have had extensive knowledge that coronavirus and misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine existed on the company's apps, yet did little to combat it let alone share the information with the White House. Documents presented by Haugen show how multiple studies were run producing a number various number detailing the types of users who were most likely to share fake news. Lawmakers, academics and the White House have urged Facebook to share such information publicly. It is being described in Westminster as 'the end of the Spartans' the brigade of veteran Tory backbenchers who battled for Brexit and made Theresa May's life a misery but ended up dying on the hill of Owen Paterson's business interests. But just as Spartan society collapsed in ancient Greece when it was sacked by the Visigoths in 396 AD, so the likes of former Cabinet Minister David Davis and Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg are facing the fury of the new generation of 'Red Wall' MPs: they are raging about the amount of political capital they spent trying to protect Mr Paterson from the consequences of breaching lobbying rules over his 500,000 of outside earnings. Those close to Downing Street, where Boris Johnson's allies were shaken by the scale of the uproar over the Paterson saga, predict that it will catalyse a generational changing of the guard within the parliamentary party. A source said: 'They started with good intentions, but as so often with the Spartan MPs, it was ill-thought through and ultimately self-defeating. They have lost the confidence of the new generation in the Commons.' 'The Spartans' a warrior class was the name given to the most hardcore members of the European Research Group (ERG) who pressurised David Cameron into calling the EU referendum and then defied Mrs May over the Brexit deal she tried to negotiate with Brussels, securing a harder Brexit and helping to pave the way for Mr Johnson's premiership. In Government, blame for the fiasco is being placed at the feet of Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured), Chief Whip Mark Spencer and No 10 Political Secretary Declan Lyons. In September, the core members met at the Carlton Club for a reunion dinner of smoked trout salad with boiled quail's egg, capers and cucumber followed by lamb rump with confit peppers, sun-dried tomato and couscous. There have been no such celebratory banquets following the events of last week, which have left the Prime Minister bruised and facing a by-election in the departing Paterson's North Shropshire seat. MPs from the Red Wall seats former Labour bastions which fell to the Tories for the first time in 2019 have been exchanging bitter messages on their WhatsApp groups about the 'arrogance' of the Spartans and Mr Johnson's failure to avert the disaster. One member of the new intake, Bury South MP Christian Wakeford, is said to have called Paterson a c*** in the division lobby, while others spoke darkly about the Prime Minister having 'lost' the party. In Government, blame for the fiasco is being placed at the feet of Mr Rees-Mogg, Chief Whip Mark Spencer and No 10 Political Secretary Declan Lyons. The likes of former Cabinet Minister David Davis (pictured) and Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg are facing the fury of the new generation of 'Red Wall' MPs: they are raging about the amount of political capital they spent trying to protect Mr Paterson from the consequences of breaching lobbying rules over his 500,000 of outside earnings Sources say that Mr Rees-Mogg acted as a 'vector' for the pressure from his fellow Spartans and by talking in emotional terms about the toll taken on Mr Paterson by his wife's suicide. Despite the misgivings of a number of No 10 aides, including Chief of Staff Dan Rosenfield, Mr Lyons agreed that Mr Paterson's suspension should be blocked linked to a simultaneous overhaul of Parliament's standards system while Mr Spencer took the disastrous decision to whip it through the Commons and obtained the support of Mr Johnson, just back from a hectic round of appearances at the COP26 summit in Glasgow followed by a late-evening dinner with former colleagues from the pro-Paterson Daily Telegraph. Labour then secured an easy political 'win' by refusing to back the proposed new standards committee. A source said: 'Spencer will never be trusted by MPs again. After this, how can they ever be sure that when he argues for a cause of action it is the right thing to do, and it won't blow up in their faces?' However, allies of Mr Spencer challenge the claim that he was gung-ho about forcing through the vote. The chaos was seized upon by Dominic Cummings, Mr Johnson's former adviser and nemesis, who claimed that it was a pre-emptive strike against Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, in case she decides to join the Electoral Commission in investigating the use of Tory donors to fund the refurbishment of the Prime Minister's Downing Street flat. The saga has renewed familiar calls for 'more grey hair' in No 10 and the appointment of 'a Willie Whitelaw figure' Margaret Thatcher's seasoned Deputy who can 'horizon scan' for problems and deter Mr Johnson from making any more ill-fated decisions. Dan Andrews has paid for dozens of Victorian companies to attend a major trade show in China that the federal government boycotted. The Victorian premier broke ranks with Scott Morrison's policy towards Beijing for a second time after signing up to Beijing's Belt and Road infrastructure plan Foreign Minster Marise Payne cancelled that deal earlier this year under new veto powers, saying it wasn't in Australia's national interest to sign a $1.5 trillion contract with China. The federal government also has no presence at the China International Import Expo, which opened on Friday, as it encourages Australian businesses to find new markets. However, the Victorian Government covered the costs of dozens of companies to exhibit at the trade show, going against federal wishes. 'Our presence at the Expo is helping connect Victorian businesses to key markets to secure new contracts and grow jobs,' a Victorian Government spokesman said. Dan Andrews has sent a huge team to a major trade show in China after signing up to Beijing's international 'belt and road' infrastructure plan Earlier this year the Morrison government cancelled Victoria's deal with China, saying it wasn't in Australia's national interest to sign away a $1.5trillion contract to the Pacific rivals The Victorian Government has its own stall, which is branded with its official logos, as part of a major trade push into China. Mr Andrews also commissioned a building in Shanghai called Vic House, which opened a few weeks ago, to facilitate closer trade ties. Federal Trade Minister Dan Tehan said in a briefing with China-focused businesses that the federal government wanted a 'whole of nation' approach to dealings with the country. 'Team Australia Australian government (and) Australian business working together has never ever been more important,' he told the companies. There are 100 Australian companies hosting exhibits at the China International Import Expo, down from 180 in 2020, according to The Australian. The Morrison Government is encouraging businesses to diversify away from China that have been worth $20 billion to the political rivals in the past. Mr Tehan told a Taiwan-focused businesses a day before the Import Expo that companies needed to move into markets that were not dependent on China. 'We welcome businesses considering alternative markets and a diversified consumer base to protect themselves against shifting demand over a protracted period,' he said. There are 100 Australian companies hosting exhibits at the China International Import Expo, down from 180 in 2020 Morrison government scrapped Victoria's 'Belt and Road' deal with Chinese government in April saying it wasn't in Australia's best interests In April Ms Payne cancelled Victoria's Belt and Road deal with China, also canning a scientific cooperation agreement between Victoria and Syria, and an educational agreement with Iran. 'I consider these four arrangements to be inconsistent with Australia's foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations,' she said. Victoria signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese regional infrastructure initiative in 2018 and then signed a 'framework agreement' with Beijing in 2019. Areas of cooperation included increasing participation of Chinese companies in Victoria's infrastructure program and promoting cooperation of Victorian businesses in China. It also allowed Victoria's engineering and design firms to bid for contracts for Belt and Road Initiative projects around the world. Mr Andrews in December said cancelling the agreement would be a mistake, and would risk already-strained economic ties with China. He said the deal promised to bring jobs and investment to Victoria and argued it should be a priority amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The Vietnamese tycoon whose name is being adopted by an Oxford college has close links to the country's brutal Communist regime. Linacre College is set to become Thao College after Madam Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, Vietnam's first self-made female billionaire, made a 'transformative donation' of 155 million. The deal sparked controversy amid claims that the college described as 'one of the greenest' in Oxford is honouring a tycoon who founded the budget airline VietJet Air, and has been fined several times for using semi-naked stewardesses on flights. The Mail on Sunday can reveal that Madam Thao and her husband Nguyen Thanh Hung have close ties to the Vietnamese government, which is judged to have one of the world's worst human rights records. Linacre College is set to become Thao College after Madam Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao (pictured), Vietnam's first self-made female billionaire, made a 'transformative donation' of 155 million Linacre College, named after 15th century scholar Thomas Linacre, prides itself on its commitment to freedom of expression and even insists students follow a code of conduct that describes free speech as 'the lifeblood of a university'. Yet, according to the non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch, 'basic rights, including freedom of speech, opinion, press, association and religion are restricted' under the Vietnamese regime, while 'rights activists and bloggers face harassment, intimidation, physical assault and imprisonment'. VietJet Air's parent company Sovico boasts on its website of having 'excellent relationships with the Vietnamese government, ministries and localities'. Earlier this year, it donated around 200,000 to the country's Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, named after the brutal former Communist leader who led North Vietnam in its war against the US. Dr Hung was photographed at a reception last March with Cao Tien Dung, a senior Communist government official. Dr Hung has also been pictured at parties rubbing shoulders with China's totalitarian leader Xi Jinping and Vietnam's prime minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. Husband Nguyen Thanh Hung (pictured) and Madam Thao have close links to the Communist Thai government Madam Thao retains close links to the Kremlin after becoming one of Russia's first female millionaires at the age of 21 by importing fax machines and latex rubber to Moscow. She had been sent to the USSR as a brilliant 17-year-old student by the Communist authorities in Vietnam. According to records from the time, she drove a blue Mercedes 500 with a diplomatic number plate, indicating she was on the technical staff of the Vietnamese embassy and benefited from diplomatic immunity. It was in Moscow that Madam Thao met her husband. One ex-business partner told the MoS: 'I know them very well. They had a lot of support from the Vietnamese trade mission in Russia.' According to the ex-associate, support from the Vietnamese regime was the 'key to their success'. The family relocated to Vietnam after a decade in Moscow, but maintained close ties in both Russia and ex-Soviet republic Kazakhstan through Sovico where their burgeoning business empire was involved in building new capital city Astana, now called Nur-Sultan. Dr Hung, an expert in cybernetics, was made an honorary consul for Kazakhstan a country widely seen to have a deeply corrupt ruling class in 2013. Last night, neither Sovico nor Linacre College responded to requests for comment. Victorian MP Tim Smith will not run in the next state election after crashing his car while drunk last weekend. But that election is more than a year away - on November 26, 2022 - and many within his own Liberal Party want him to quit parliament now. Victorian Liberal leader Matthew Guy said he was 'extremely angry and disappointed' after 38-year-old Mr Smith returned a breath test reading of 0.131 - almost three times the legal blood alcohol limit. Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith has announced he will not run in the next state election after crashing his car while drunk last weekend He crashed into a car and a Hawthorn home on the night of October 30, narrowly avoiding a child's bedroom. His licence was immediately suspended and he has been fined $750. Mr Smith sent an email at midnight on Sunday to Kew Liberal Party members saying he would not contest the next election in that seat. He said he had been touched by the encouragement he received from supporters and Liberal Party members. 'This, however, does not excuse the terrible lapse of judgement that I made last weekend,' Mr Smith wrote. 'I believe it is in the best interests of the party that I do not contest the next election in Kew.' According to Victorian Police, Tim Smith's vehicle collided with another before smashing into a fence on Power Street in Hawthorn, Melbourne's inner east, about 8.55pm on Saturday, October 30. The 38-year-old was taken to a police station where he blew a 0.131 alcohol reading - far higher than the 0.05 legal limit Mr Guy said it was his 'unequivocal' position that Mr Smith should not contest the next election. 'I made it very clear to Tim that he wouldn't find his way on to the front bench of any parliamentary Liberal Party that I lead,' he said. 'And I made it clear that I didn't want him to nominate at the next election and that I didn't believe he should nominate for the seat of Kew.' Mr Smith said: 'Last Saturday, I made a terrible error. It was my mistake and my mistake alone. 'I have been deeply touched by the encouragement I have received from Liberal Party supporters and members in Kew and around Australia over the past week. 'This, however, does not excuse the terrible lapse of judgment that I made last weekend.' Mr Smith added that, because of Mr Guy's intervention, 'I believe it is in the best interest of the party that I do not contest the next election in Kew'. Victoria's former shadow attorney-general Tim Smith resigned after he was caught driving almost three times over the legal limit, crashing into another car and a fence In a Melbourne radio interview on Wednesday, Mr Smith apologised 'profusely' for his actions and said he spoke to his doctor about giving up alcohol while still in the public eye. 'I'm so so so sorry for the embarrassment and harm that I have caused my family, my party, my leader, it was an appalling lapse of judgement and I'm just so incredibly sorry for what I've done' he said. 'I certainly spoke to my GP about not ever drinking again, certainly whilst in public life and I give you that undertaking.' When 3AW radio's Neil Mitchell asked the disgraced MP if he was an alcoholic, Mr Smith rejected the idea, but admitted he consumed too much alcohol on several occasions, which led to conversations with his doctor. The MP also blamed his high alcohol reading of 0.131 on the lack of food he ate during the day and said he didn't think he was over the legal limit. 'I hadn't eaten much all day so as a consequence I blew much more than I ever thought I had consumed,' he said. A Cambridge University college at the centre of rows over funding linked to the Chinese Communist Party has been accused of 'woke-washing' by returning a colonial statue to Nigeria. Concerns have been raised about the links with Beijing after Jesus College accepted a 200,000 grant in 2018 from an agency linked to the ruling communist party for its Global Issues Dialogue Centre. It also accepted 155,000 from Chinese technology company Huawei, sparking fears that Beijing was exerting undue influence. Archivist Robert Athol (pictured) with a bronze statue of a cockerel called The Okukor, one of the Benin Bronzes, at Jesus College, University of Cambridge Last month, in an apparent bid to 'right wrongs', the college returned an antique 'Benin bronze' to Nigeria that was looted more than 120 years ago by British forces. Last night a senior Government source accused officials of trying to 'distract attention' from its dealings with the Chinese. The source said: 'How convenient that they are making a big hoopla about returning the bronze at a time when their links to China are coming under the microscope. It's woke-washing.' Last night, a Jesus College spokesman said; 'We returned the bronze to the people of Nigeria because it is the right thing to do. 'The college announced its decision to repatriate the bronze in November 2019, three months before the first unjustified attack on our China-related academic work in February 2020.' Julian Assange and his fiancee Stella Moris are bringing legal action against Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and the Governor of Belmarsh Prison, accusing them of preventing the couple from marrying behind bars. They fear the obstacles put in the way of their wedding by UK authorities are linked to a US-backed political war against the Wikileaks publisher and campaigner. In September it was revealed the CIA had drawn up plans to kidnap or kill Assange during his seven years exiled in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. The agency also spied on his family and friends and led a campaign of misinformation against him. Stella, 38, a lawyer, said: Those catch-or-kill plans were not implemented but other hostile measures were and this is the sting in the tail. In September it was revealed the CIA had drawn up plans to kidnap or kill Assange during his seven years exiled in the Embassy of Ecuador in London. The agency also spied on his family and friends and led a campaign of misinformation against him Its part of an enormous conspiracy against Julian which makes itself felt in all that we try to do. A wedding would be a moment of happiness, a bit of normality in insane circumstances. Julian needs things to hold on to because daily life is a struggle for him in Belmarsh and there is so much uncertainty about his future. Our love for each other is the one thing which has carried us through and being married would be another bulwark in our emotional defences. There is no reason for political interference in what is a basic human right. The CIA revelations show the lengths some agencies are willing to go to in their persecution of Julian. Assange, 50, and his fiancee have been engaged for five years, have two children and are both practising Catholics. They have been asking since May for help to arrange their wedding in Belmarsh. He is being held on remand in the maximum security jail while the US tries to extradite him to face allegations of conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defence information following Wikileaks publication of hundreds of thousands of leaked documents relating to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Stella, 38, a lawyer, said: Those catch-or-kill plans were not implemented but other hostile measures were and this is the sting in the tail' Stella is adamant their wedding ceremony would have no legal impact on extradition since his right to a family life in the UK is determined by the fact that their sons Gabriel, four, and Max, two, are British citizens. She also has rights of residency, having lived in Britain for 20 years, although she was born in South Africa. On Friday, the couple opened legal action paving the way for a judicial review. The case is brought against the Justice Secretary and Belmarsh Governor Jenny Louis. The wedding stand-off began in May when Stella approached the prison chaplain to ask about arranging a ceremony. After an initial response, no further help was forthcoming. On October 7, Assange formally asked the Governors office to agree to a Belmarsh wedding, but he has had no reply. On October 14, the couples lawyers asked the prison to grant permission for Stella and a registrar from Greenwich Register Office to visit Assange together, so the couple could give notice of their intention to wed. Three follow-up requests have failed to secure any reply. Their legal action says this creates a total and indefinite barrier not only to the claimants marrying, but even to them beginning the statutory process for the same. Ms Louis has told the couples legal team she was obliged to refer the wedding request to the Crown Prosecution Service. But their lawyers say this is irrelevant because there are no UK charges against him. The legal action accuses Mr Raab and Ms Louis of abusing their power over Assange, behaving irrationally and unfairly, and denying the couple and their children their human rights. The have been given until November 12 to respond. Assange took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2012 to avoid extradition to the USA via Sweden where he faced sex offence allegations for which he was never charged. He denied those and they were later dropped. He was forcibly removed from the embassy by police in 2019 and put in Belmarsh. He has been there ever since awaiting the outcome of the US bid to extradite him. The result of a hearing last month should be known by Christmas but unless America formally drops its case, Assange will not be imminently released. A university debating whether to 'cancel' a 19th Century scientist over his theories on race has close links with some of the world's most sinister regimes. Imperial College London has established multiple ties to Chinese military specialists as well as forging relationships with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Imperial is considering a proposal to rename a campus building honouring biologist Thomas Huxley and removing a bust of him. It follows an independent report that claimed an essay by Huxley on the link between race and intelligence 'fed the dangerous and false ideology of eugenics'. Imperial College is considering a proposal to rename a campus building honouring biologist Thomas Huxley and removing a bust of him (pictured) The Mail on Sunday has uncovered more than a dozen projects that show Imperial scientists working on potential military technologies. Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith, co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: 'Imperial is seeking to 'cancel' a world-famous scientist but it has no qualms about forging close links with a Chinese regime guilty of genocide.' Imperial last night said: 'This bizarre attempt to connect Imperial's open dialogue about its history with international scientific research is totally misleading and baseless. 'Imperial is not 'cancelling' anyone.' Last week's miserable political mess was a bad experience for the many people who want to believe in Boris Johnson and are cheered up and inspired by his optimism, bustle and boosterism. When a politician is good at looking as if he walks on water, it is sad to see him floundering in a bog. Now he has climbed out of it again, and not without sustaining some damage, he would do well to take a careful look at the bad advice and bad tactics which got him into the swamp in the first place. Many Conservative MPs are unhappy about the current Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, Kathryn Stone. Perhaps some of their discontent is justified. But such unhappiness is inevitable, given the nature of the Commissioner's job. So it was an error to weaponise that unhappiness by undermining one of her most important verdicts, against the former Environment Secretary, Owen Paterson. Out of that misjudgment came one of the worst crises to engulf Boris since he arrived in Downing Street. Boris may have thought he was trying to get justice done. But this was a major failure of perception. Last week's miserable political mess was a bad experience for the many people who want to believe in Boris Johnson and are cheered up and inspired by his optimism, bustle and boosterism After the great parliamentary expenses upheaval, which swept through Westminster like a raging torrent just over ten years ago, the public quite reasonably have no time for excuses from MPs who even appear to be profiting from their influence. MPs are paid far more than most voters, for a job that does not look especially arduous, and they cannot expect much patience or mercy if they seek extra income that looks like paid lobbying. The Premier's attempt to save Owen Paterson's bacon, however much personal sympathy he might have had for him, was a transparently wrong decision, and bound to go down badly with taxpaying voters. Unlike so many political scandals, this is simple. The sight of our politicians with their snouts in a trough will always provoke rage. A Tory government must act more severely against it than any other sort of government, because Labour can so easily exploit it. Many Tories have found it deeply painful in the past few days having to admit that the attacks made on them by prominent Labour MPs have been largely just. Things are bad when Angela Rayner can score points off you. It is especially sad to see such a mess when the Government has managed to tot up some significant achievements, from Brexit to the Covid vaccine roll-out to COP26, and when a clever hand on the helm over the next year or so may deliver more, including the clearing of the NHS backlog and tax cuts before the Election, to compensate for the emergency measures forced on Rishi Sunak by the pandemic. So it is time to get a firm grip again, and to be very careful what advice to take. Boris has many counsellors, and some of them are perhaps becoming a little divorced from reality after more than two intense years in power. Margaret Thatcher famously had Willie Whitelaw at her side, a man who instinctively knew the limits of power. The present Government has no such figure, so the Prime Minister needs to ensure in future that those whose advice he takes have their feet firmly on the ground, and properly understand the hearts and minds of Middle Britain, the source of his power and the most accurate barometer of what is best for this country. Lindsay Boylan, 36 Former aide Lindsay Boylan, 36, was the first woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment in a Medium post on February 24. She claimed that the governor asked her to play strip poker and kissed her on the lips without her permission when she worked for him in 2017. Lindsay Boylan, 36 Charlotte Bennett, 25 Charlotte Bennett, 25, came forward a few days after Boylan and claimed that Cuomo sexually harassed her last June while she was working as a health policy adviser in his administration at the height of the COVID-19 crisis. Bennett accused Cuomo of 'grooming' her and asking inappropriate questions about her sex life. She also claimed that he told her he was open to dating women in their 20s. BENNETT said the governor asked her about her love life - including whether she ever had sex with older men - and talked about his own, saying that age differences didn't matter in relationships and he was open to dating women over 22. During a meeting alone in his office, the governor said he was lonely and talked about wanting to hug someone, Bennett said. She said she swiftly complained to Cuomo's chief of staff and was transferred to another job. She said she spoke to a lawyer for the governor, but didnt insist on further action because she liked her new post and wanted to move on. Charlotte Bennett, 25 Anna Ruch, 33 Anna Ruch was the third woman to accuse Cuomo of sexual harassment and the only one thus far who did not work with him in a professional capacity. She claimed that Cuomo put his hands on her face and asked if he could kiss her just moments after they met at a September 2019 wedding in Manhattan. Anna Ruch, 33 Ana Liss, 35 Ana Liss, 35, a former aide, said Cuomo asked her whether she had a boyfriend, once kissed her hand at her desk and called her by patronizing names, including 'blondie,' 'sweetheart' and 'honey.' At a reception, the governor hugged her then put his arm around her lower back and waist as they posed for photo, Liss said. She said she eventually asked for a job transfer. In an interview, Liss said she was 'not claiming sexual harassment per se,' but felt the administration 'wasn't a safe space for young women to work.' Liss, who previously served as Cuomo's policy and operations aide between 2013 and 2015, told the Wall Street Journal that during her time in his administration, the governor had subjected her to unsolicited advances, including touching her lower back, kissing her hand and quizzing her about her love life. Ana Liss, 35 Karen Hinton, 62 The oldest allegations against Cuomo came from Karen Hinton, who served as a press aide for him when he led the US Department of Housing and Urban Development two decades ago and she was a consultant for the agency. Hinton told the Washington Post about a 2000 incident when she said Cuomo summoned her to his 'dimly lit' hotel room and embraced her after a work event. She said she tried to pull away from Cuomo when he pulled her back and held her before she managed to escape the room. Karen Hinton, 62 Unnamed sixth accuser The most damning allegations leveled against Cuomo to date came from a sixth accuser, whose name has not been released. The accuser, who is a member of Cuomo's staff, alleged that he closed a door, reached under her blouse and fondled her after summoning her to the governor's mansion in Albany for help with his cellphone, according to the Times Union of Albany. It first reported on her accusation last month; she then gave more detail in her first interview on the matter, published Wednesday. The woman spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her privacy, although her identity is known within the governors circle, the Times Union reported. The woman, an executive assistant, told the Times Union the governor gave her kisses on the cheek and inappropriately tight hugs for years and made remarks including, 'If you were single, the things that I would do to you' and 'I'm single and ready to mingle.' Then, one day in November, she was summoned to his Executive Mansion office to help him with a cellphone problem, she said. He got up from his desk, started groping her and told her 'I don't care' after she tried to deflect him by saying he was going to get them into trouble, and then he slammed the door, she said. Then he reached under her blouse and clutched one of her breasts over her bra, she told the newspaper. The woman told a colleague this winter about the alleged encounter, and the co-worker told a supervisor in early March, according to the newspaper. Cuomo called the report 'gut-wrenching' in a March statement and said: 'I have never done anything like this.' Another female aide, who has remained anonymous, claimed he called her to his Executive Mansion last year, reached under her blouse and fondled her Jessica Bakeman Jessica Bakeman claimed in a first-person article for New York Magazine that she was sexually harassed by Cuomo on several occasions since the start of her journalism career in 2012. Bakeman added her voice as the seventh accuser as she detailed inappropriate touching by the governor as he continued to deny all of the claims. 'He took my hand, as if to shake it, then refused to let go,' Bakeman wrote of an interaction with Cuomo as she said goodnight at a holiday party in 2014 when she was only 25 years old. 'He put his other arm around my back, his hand on my waist, and held me firmly in place while indicating to a photographer he wanted us to pose for a picture.' At the time Bakeman had been working for what is now Politico New York and claimed that red flags went up as her 'job was to analyze and scrutinize him'. 'I didn't want a photo of him with his hands on my body and a smile on my face,' she wrote. Jessica Bakeman, a reporter who once covered the Cuomo administration, was the seventh woman to come forward with claims of harassment 'But I made the reflexive assessment that most women and marginalized people know instinctively, the calculation about risk and power and self-preservation. I knew it would be far easier to smile for the brief moment it takes to snap a picture than to challenge one of the most powerful men in the country.' In an earlier 2012 incident while she was working for USA Today, Bakeman also claims that Cuomo kept her pinned to his side as he told a story to her male colleagues. 'He left it there, and kept me pinned next to him, for several minutes as he finished telling his story,' she said. 'I stood there, my cheeks hot, giggling nervously as my male colleagues did the same. We all knew it was wrong, but we did nothing.' The reporter, who now works in Florida, claimed that Cuomo 'never let me forget I was a woman' as she also alleged that he made frequent attempts to humiliate her, including calling out her purple phone instead of answering her question during a press gaggle. Alyssa McGrath, 33 McGrath, a current administrative assistant in Cuomo's office, told The New York Times that he looked down her shirt, quizzed her about her marital status, and told her she was beautiful, using an Italian phrase she had to ask her parents to interpret. McGrath didn't say the governor made sexual contact with her but thought his behavior was sexual harassment. She recalled Cuomo kissing her on the forehead and gripping her firmly around the sides while posing for a photo at a 2019 office Christmas party. Alyssa McGrath (pictured) is one of two aides who have come forward to accuse the governor of harassment Sherry Vill, 55 Sherry Vill, 55, accused Cuomo of sexual misconduct during a press conference with her attorney Gloria Allred on Monday. She alleges Cuomo grabbed her face and kissed her 'aggressively and in a sexual manner' on both cheeks in May 2017 while he was touring her home in Greece, near Rochester, as he inspected local flood damage. Vill, who said she felt uncomfortable at the time, shared an image her daughter took on the day that showed Cuomo holding her face as he kissed her cheek and her attorney held up multiple photos showing the Governor inside her home. The same photos appear on Cuomo's Flickr account, as well as multiple others that show him kissing and greeting residents as he toured the town. None of the women in the other photos have accused the governor of inappropriate behavior or wrongdoing. A leaked paper has shown ministers could walk away from three major EU research programmes. Britain could withdraw from Horizon Europe, Copernicus and Euratom, denying the EU up to 15billion in funding. The Government is working on domestic alternatives should Britain have to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the next few weeks. Entry to the programmes have been stalled by Brussels, in comparison to non-member states like Norway. A leaked paper has shown ministers could walk away from three major EU research programmes Britain could withdraw from Horizon Europe, Copernicus and Euratom, denying the EU up to 15 billion in funding The leaked government document has revealed ministers think that the delay is a deliberate tactic by Brussels to create leverage in the talks over Northern Ireland, the Telegraph reported. The paper said departments have been advised to prepare 'alternatives to each programme in case association should not prove possible to a satisfactory timeline'. It added 'programme benefits cannot be fully replicated in domestic alternatives' and withdrawing 'would impact the ambition to become a science superpower'. Lord Frost, the Brexit minister, has allegedly been working with Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, to create a British alternative to the Horizon Europe called 'Discovery Fund'. This week, European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic will travel to London to continue talks. On Friday he warned that triggering Article 16 would have serious consequences. Downing Street has repeatedly rejected EU claims that the UK was about to trigger Article 16 imminently and said it preferred settling their differences through negotiation. The Government is working on domestic alternatives should Britain have to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol in the next few weeks Entry to the programmes have been stalled by Brussels, in comparison to non-member states like Norway However, the UK is prepared to use the mechanism if a solution cannot be reached. After three weeks of intensive negotiations, talks have stalled, with the UK side saying the EU has not made enough concessions. Sticking points include discussions over cutting the amount of customs checks, red tape around medicines and the movement of pets between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. A Government source said: Weve always said that well use Article 16 if solutions cant be found. But people need to understand that were taking these talks seriously and we mean it when we say that we want a negotiated outcome. The source said the EUs proposals so far dont deliver what they say on the tin. The number of checks and processes would still be unacceptably high, contrary to what the Commission said when they first announced them. A Byron Bay school is losing a third of its staff after anti-vax teachers refused to get the jab in time for classes to return. From Monday, only vaccinated workers are allowed in NSW schools to ensure all educational facilities are safe for students. Shearwater Steiner School, a private co-ed school in Mullumbimby, is struggling to fill the void with 40 staff members having to be let go after refusing the jab. Shearwater Steiner School, a private co-ed school in Mullumbimby, are struggling to fill the void with 40 staff members having to be let go after refusing the jab Byron Bay has become Australia's anti-vax capital, with extremely low rates among residents 'We have some teachers who have been here for many years, served the school well and really created an incredible environment for learning,' principal James Goodlet told the ABC. 'It will be a huge loss for the school.' The NSW Government mandated 'all people working at a school or early education and care facility must be fully vaccinated by November 8, 2021. According to the PHO, relevant work includes'. Mr Goodlet said his school was reeling from the decision, with as many as 40 members of staff including 30 teachers unable to work because they're unvaccinated. 'I've had to have very difficult conversations with people just to point out the reality of the situation and that's taken its toll on me personally,' he said. 'To come in with suitably qualified, experienced teachers in Steiner education - that's a niche market.' Mullumbimby (pictured) has one of the lowest immunisation rates for children in Australia and has low coronavirus vaccine figures among adults Mullumbimby has one of the lowest immunisation rates for children in Australia and has low coronavirus vaccine figures among adults. The area is yet to hit 70 per cent fully vaccinated and less than 80 per cent have at least a single dose. This is 10 per cent lower than nearby areas, with schools paying the price for the area's attitude towards the jab. Everyone should undergo a mid-life brain MOT in the future to spot those most at risk of developing dementia in their later years, says one of Britains top researchers. They should be offered the check-ups regularly from the age of 40, says Professor Bart De Strooper, in just the same way as we are currently invited for an NHS Health Check, which focuses on cardiovascular fitness. The brain check would combine a mental quiz and a blood test that looks both for biomarkers that betray the very earliest signs of brain degradation, and genes that predispose us to dementia. That would enable doctors to spot people at high risk of developing dementia before the vast majority of the damage has been done, Prof De Strooper told The Mail on Sunday. They could then be given new treatments, which are most likely to work best very early in the course of disease to stop the development of full-blown dementia, he said. Everyone should undergo a mid-life brain MOT in the future to spot those most at risk of developing dementia in their later years, says one of Britains top researchers Almost 900,000 people have dementia in the UK today a number projected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040. A quarter of NHS hospital beds are occupied by people with dementia, and the overall cost to the economy is estimated at 35 billion a year. Prof De Strooper, director of the UK Dementia Research Institute, said the technology to implement such a screening programme was more advanced than most people thought. With enough funding it could be just three years away, he predicted. But he said a deep-seated taboo about dementia, including the fatalistic belief that it was an inevitable part of the ageing process, was holding back the flow of cash and stymying life-changing research. Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, he said: Dementia is something which is too much of a taboo in society. Its one of the big missions of our Institute to start making people think about it in a much more rational way. That will help people to become more hopeful. There was no doubt taboo and pessimism impacted funding, he said, with even some scientists thinking it was too hard a nut to crack. The Institutes biggest backer is the taxpayer-funded Medical Research Council, while it receives significant support from charities including Alzheimers Society and Alzheimers Research UK. Prof De Strooper is a world-leading molecular biologist who came to Britain from Belgium in 2016 to head up the Institute, which was set up as part of David Camerons push to accelerate dementia research. The academic said the Institute had achieved some amazing breakthroughs, but admitted he had been left a bit disappointed at the funding situation in recent years. Dementia scientists often struggled compared to colleagues in cancer research, he said. While there have been some 74,000 trials of potential cancer medicines since 2000, there have been just 2,400 for Alzheimers disease, which causes two-thirds of dementia cases. And while 512 cancer drugs have been approved by US regulators in that timeframe, just six have been green-lighted for Alzheimers. Prof De Strooper said this meant when a cancer drug failed it was not such a big deal but when an Alzheimers drug hit the buffers it was major news, casting a pall over research. The paucity of successes has resulted in some pharmaceutical companies ceasing research in the area, although a number are now re-entering the arena. However, a new survey of 200 UK DRI scientists has found 90 per cent are confident that new treatments will be found in the next decade, while 72 per cent think the pace of breakthroughs is increasing. Unsurprisingly, 100 per cent think additional funding is important to enable further breakthroughs. In June US regulators controversially approved a new drug, aducanumab, for treatment of Alzheimers despite serious questions over its effectiveness. But Prof De Strooper said there were sound reasons to think that it would work better than initial trial results suggested, and believed the approval would act as a catalyst for investment in other drug trials, which are extremely expensive. Such drugs could then be used to promptly treat those diagnosed with early signs of the neurological diseases that are the root cause of dementia. These include Alzheimers, vascular dementia, Parkinsons and Motor Neurone Disease. Leeds will get its own tram network as consolation for the HS2 link to the city being scrapped, under plans being considered by Ministers. High Speed 2 was conceived as a 250mph rail line linking London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. But Ministers are expected to scrap the eastern leg, with the high-speed track no longer being laid in full between Birmingham and Leeds. Ministers will soon publish the integrated rail plan which is expected to confirm scrapping the eastern leg as part of significantly downsizing the UKs biggest infrastructure project. The plans have drawn criticism that the Prime Minister risks abandoning a key part of his levelling up agenda. Leeds is being offered a tram service instead of a high speed link to London according to sources close to the government Plans are now under discussion for alternative options to HS2, The Mail on Sunday understands. A source said last night: We are considering improvements to bring Leeds into line with other cities. On Thursday, Boris Johnson is due to hold an away day for the Cabinet at Chequers to discuss his levelling up agenda. Ministers will gather for a lunch till dinner event at the Prime Ministers country residence in Buckinghamshire. They will hear presentations from Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove and Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England chief economist now advising the Government. Other Ministers will give shorter presentations. They will be required to bring with them A3 maps showing their plans to level up the country by 2024, according to The Times, along with slides to illustrate their hopes for 2030. As well as the eastern leg change, there has been speculation the Government may downgrade plans for a high-speed east-west line across the Pennines amid concerns over mounting cost. Instead of a rapid trip to the capital, people in Leeds will have an overground rail service Opponents of HS2 have warned it will cost 150 billion. Mr Johnson said during the Tory leadership contest it was likely to exceed 100 billion. This summer, Lord Berkeley, who was deputy chairman of Mr Johnsons review of the scheme, wrote to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case calling for an inquiry into whether the Government had misled Parliament over the costs. Tory MPs have urged the Government to put HS2 out of its misery. HS2 Ltd the Government-backed body set up to develop the scheme has responded to the criticism, saying it is a project for the next 100 years and beyond. It added: It will add new capacity into our crowded rail network, better connect the great towns and cities of the North and Midlands, and accelerate the shift from cars and lorries to low-carbon rail. Question Time panellist Nazir Afzal today backed Fiona Bruce, saying he had 'no criticism' of the host after accusing her during the show of asking him first about the cricket racism row because he is a 'brown person'. The BBC programme has become embroiled in an 'unconscious racism' row after Bruce asked Mr Afzal, the only non-white member of the panel, to be the first person to answer an audience member's query about racism. During the show, Mr Afzal agreed with Bruce that he thought she was 'wrong' to go to him first. But reacting this morning after the incident prompted huge debate online, Mr Afzal tweeted: 'I have no criticism of Fiona Bruce. I made point that racism is something which everyone should have a view on, not just minorities. If the subject was say child or domestic abuse, you wouldn't just ask the victim. It's everybody's business.' The question, which was partly about recent allegations of racist abuse made by cricketer Azeem Rafiq, was asked last night to a panel made up of former crown prosecutor Mr Afzal; white psychologist Jordan Peterson; and three white MPs - Mims Davies from the Conservatives, Stella Creasy of Labour and Stephen Flynn from the SNP. Bruce then immediately turned to Mr Afzal and asked him to answer, prompting him to say: 'The brown person will answer first'. As he made the comment he turned to the audience and laughed, which saw some chuckle with him. The presenter then asked him: 'Nazir, so do you think that was wrong of me to come to you first?' Mr Afzal replied: 'I think so' and attempted to continue answering the question while pointing towards the audience. But Bruce then added: 'Well let's not do it. I'm not being sarcastic at all. I mean if that's how you feel, I respect that.' Mr Afzal then stopped speaking and sat silently, while Bruce went to Mr Peterson to hear from him instead. Seven people had to be rescued via airlift onto a helicopter on Thursday evening after being stranded for a week at a remote Alaska fishing camp, according to Alaska State Troopers. Ice on the Yukon River had trapped the group at the camp, which lies about 20 miles east of the tiny city of Emmonak, home to a population of only 815 residents. The US Coast Guard received a report that the group was stuck on October 29, however bad weather and mechanical issues with a rescue helicopter initially prevented their rescue. Seven people had to be rescued after being stranded for a week at a remote Alaska fishing camp, pictured, according to Alaska State Troopers Pictured: two of the seven hunters who were stranded for a week at a remote Alaska fishing camp Pictured: The stranded hunters received a supply drop on Sunday, October 31 that contained food and medicine, according to authorities Pictured: the US Coast Guard drops supplies by parachute with a cargo and search aircraft Troopers had said earlier Thursday that the group was 'adequately supplied with food, water, shelter, and necessary supplies.' No injuries were reported. Officials said six adults and a teenager were eventually airlifted from the remote site into an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter and taken to Nome, a city of 9,906 which is about 130 miles away from the fishing camp. The closest town to where the camp was located, Emmonak, does not have roads, with supplies containing food and medicine being dropped by parachute by a cargo and search aircraft on Sunday, October 31. On October 25, the group had set out on a hunting trip and in the process of bringing back food for Pilot Station and another nearby village, Rex Nick, one of the rescued hunters, told NBC affiliate KTUU. The river iced over three days later on October 28, he said. Pictured: the view from a rescue helicopter as it approaches the remote fishing camp, where seven hunters had become stranded Pictured: another hunter is rescued after being lifted into a MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter Emmonak, pictured, is located 490 miles from Anchorage in Western Alaska, along the coast of the Bering Sea 'It's like, the plane will be there, the chopper will be there, and it never showed up,' he said, while telling the station that the wait for rescue was frustrating. The group of hunters, from Pilot Station, were eventually able to contact authorities thanks to an Inreach - a satellite-based communication device - as there was no cell phone service in the area. The Associated Press reports Petty Officer 1st Class Ali Blackburn said that that a break in the bad weather allowed its helicopter to fly Thursday and rescue the group. Meanwhile, freezing fog kept crews grounded for several days, KTUU reported. Emmonak located 490 miles from Anchorage in Western Alaska, along the coast of the Bering Sea. Millions of pounds are being ploughed into developing variant-proof Covid vaccines that could be as effective against future strains as those circulating now. Scientists fear that current jabs could offer little protection against new versions of the Sars-Cov-2 virus putting the world back to square one. The international Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to which the UK has contributed 260 million, is backing two projects. Israeli firm MigVax has been given 3.2 million to advance a vaccine pill known as MigVax-101, which would work as an easy-to-administer booster, and the University of Saskatchewan in Canada has been given 3.7 million to develop its own version. Both are subunit vaccines that introduce chunky fragments of the virus into the body. These fragments cannot infect cells, but teach the immune system how to recognise the whole virus. Because they show the body larger parts of the virus than todays vaccines, they are thought to be better at protecting against multiple variants. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has survived an assassination attempt after his residence in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone was targeted by a drone laden with explosives. The attack, which security sources said injured several members of Kadhimi's personal protection, came after protests in the Iraqi capital over the result of a general election last month turned violent. The groups leading protests and complaints about the result of the October vote are heavily-armed Iran-backed militias which lost much of their parliamentary power in the election. They have alleged voting and vote-counting irregularities. Washington condemned the attack in the Green Zone - which also houses foreign embassies - as an 'act of terrorism.' Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt after his Baghdad home, pictured was targeted by a drone laden with explosives Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by gunfire from the direction of the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone Security sources said the attack injured several members of Kadhimi's personal protection 'We are relieved to learn the prime minister was unharmed. This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state,' State Department spokesman Ned Price said. 'We are in close touch with the Iraqi security forces charged with upholding Iraq's sovereignty and independence and have offered our assistance as they investigate this attack,' he added. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign embassies. A statement from the Iraqi military said that the attack targeted Kadhimi's residence and that he was in 'good health'. It provided no further detail. Kadhimi's official Twitter account said the prime minister was safe and called for calm. Two government officials said Kadhimi's residence had been hit by at least one explosion and confirmed to Reuters that the prime minister was safe. Security sources told Reuters that six members of Kadhimi's personal protection force stationed outside his residence had been injured. Western diplomats based nearby in the Green Zone said they heard explosions and gunfire in the area. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was 'unhurt' in the attack at his Baghdad home Supporters of Iran-aligned militia groups which have grown their power in parliament and government in recent years have alleged voter fraud and irregularities in counting the results of the Oct. 10 election. Protests by supporters of parties who dispute the results of the vote turned violent on Friday when demonstrators pelted police with stones near the Green Zone, injuring several officers. The police responded with tear gas and live gunfire, killing at least one demonstrator, according to security and hospital sources in Baghdad. Independent analysts say the election results were a reflection of anger towards the Iran-backed armed groups, which are widely accused of involvement in the killing of nearly 600 protesters who took the street in separate, anti-government demonstrations in 2019. Australians will need Covid vaccine booster shots at least once a year 'for the foreseeable future' to keep the deadly disease at bay. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia warned that with more deadly variants emerging, keeping people safe could require getting booster jabs every six to 12 months. PGA president Trent Twomey said booster shots would help protect people from Covid for years to come until the virus becomes manageable. Covid-19 booster shots may be needed to go to the pub or sporting events in Victoria Australians may need got booster shots every six to 12 months for the foreseeable future 'The question is what booster and what interval we need to get that booster, whether it's every six, nine or 12 months. Those decisions need to be based on evidence and facts and at the moment that is an evolving space,' he said. Covid-19 vaccine booster shots will be available for all adults six months after their second dose from November 8. About 1.7 million Australians will be eligible for a booster dose by the end of 2021 but there is no percentage target the government hopes to reach. Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey (pictured) says a Covid-19 shot will just be another element of the vaccination program 'It will probably take until 2023 until we reach some sort of steady state vaccination program' similar to the annual flu shot, Mr Twomey told Nine newspapers. 'In time we will treat Covid like many other viruses that have been around for decades, and a Covid-19 shot will just be another element of the Australian vaccination program.' Why are boosters being offered? Overseas data showed the effectiveness of Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines at stopping infections decreases over time. A study in the UK in August showed two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were 88 per cent effective at stopping infection after one month but that dropped to 74 per cent after five months. The effectiveness of AstraZeneca dropped from 77 to 67 per cent. Pfizer says its booster can restore effectiveness to 96 per cen Advertisement Though Australia passed the 80 per cent vaccinated mark for over 15s on Saturday, on a state-by-state basis just NSW, Victoria, and the ACT have reached that figure. Jonathan Ball, Professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham in Britain, said vaccine immunity waned over time. 'This undoubtedly is contributing to the high levels of virus circulation. Giving a vaccine boost will help reduce virus circulation and likelihood of disease,' he said. 'If we have the doses, and the means to administer them, then I think it makes sense to increase the number of people eligible for that boost. 'Vaccines really are the best way of keeping on top of this virus.' Booster shots used in Australia will be the Pfizer vaccine regardless of what jab the patient had before. AstraZeneca can be given instead if the patient had an allergic or serious reaction to Pfizer. States and territories will decide whether residents need to have a booster to be considered fully vaccinated - but boosters will not be required for international travel. Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said boosters may be needed to go to the pub or sporting events in his state. 'A month before your six months is up, then you will get a message and your vaccination certificate, the thing that gets you the green tick, you'll be prompted to go and book a time to go and have your booster shot,' he said. 'There may be state clinics in that or it might be all done through GPs and pharmacies, that hasn't been worked through yet. We're happy to play our part, though. So it'll be about the maintenance of your vaccination status.' The move makes Australia only the second country in the world - after Israel - to offer booster shots to all ages. The US offers them to those over 65 and high risk workers while the UK offers third jabs to residents over 55 and frontline workers. Former Home and Away star Isabel Lucas and an ex-Qantas pilot joined hundreds of other anti-vaxxers at a protest rally on Sunday on the Gold Coast. The protest is part of a series of rallies across the country against mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations for certain industries and occupations. One of those addressing the crowed was former Qantas pilot Graham Hood who resigned because of the vaccine mandate, which this week also saw about 4,000 Queensland Health workers being suspended. 'You're not going to touch our kids, you're not going to inject our kids,' he said as crowds cheered. Former Home and Away star Isabel Lucas attended and anti-vax rally on Sunday on the Gold Coast 'When I stood on this stage a few weeks ago I was fighting for the spirit of Australia and as I look around now I see that.' Lucas, a prominent anti-vaxxer, was also among crowds gathered at the Queensland-NSW border. She told the Gold Coast Bulletin the crowd was peaceful and the police respected them. Protestors, many of whom were wearing white, carried signs calling for the end of border restrictions and Covid vaccine mandates, with very few wearing masks. Hundreds of people attended a rally against vaccine mandates at the Queensland/NSW border on Sunday Hundreds of people also swarmed the streets and parts at a protest held in the western Sydney suburb of Parramatta on Sunday. NSW Police said the 'Reclaim The Line' rally is proceeding without incident. One man wrote on social media that it looked like 'the biggest turnout in the area since Parra fans [congregated] after Parra's first premiership'. Protesters dressed mostly in white, with some carrying Australian flags, formed a line along the Parramatta River bank and held anti-vaccine placards with messages such as 'no mandatory vaccine'. NSW recorded 244 new cases of Covid and one death on Sunday, a day before more restrictions are slashed across the state. Protesters participate in a 'Reclaim The Line' rally against vaccination mandates along the Parramatta River in Sydney on Sunday, November 7 So far 89.8 per cent of eligible people are fully vaccinated in NSW, with 93.9 per cent having had at least one dose. There were large anti-vaccination and lockdown protests in Melbourne and Darwin on Saturday. More than 1,000 people marched down Bourke Street in Melbourne towards Parliament House, with some chanting 'free Victoria' and 'sack Dan Andrews'. Many of their banners referred to a proposed bill that would allow Covid-19 regulations to remain during other global pandemics, rather than relying on state emergency powers. Police said seven arrests at the Darwin protest which coincided with a snap lockdown in the city. That lockdown, which started on Friday, is due to lift at midnight. Today's protests come as it was revealed that Australians will need Covid vaccine booster shots at least once a year 'for the foreseeable future' to keep the deadly disease at bay. The Pharmacy Guild of Australia warned that with more deadly variants emerging, keeping people safe could require getting booster jabs every six to 12 months. Protesters at a 'Reclaim The Line' rally in the western Sydney suburb of Parramatta on Sunday, November 7, 2021 PGA president Trent Twomey said booster shots would help protect people from Covid for years to come until the virus becomes manageable. 'The question is what booster and what interval we need to get that booster, whether it's every six, nine or 12 months. Those decisions need to be based on evidence and facts and at the moment that is an evolving space,' he said. 'In time we will treat Covid like many other viruses that have been around for decades, and a Covid-19 shot will just be another element of the Australian vaccination program.' Former President Donald Trump told the Republican Jewish Coalition that 'no president has been a better friend to the state of Israel' on Saturday as he and presidential hopefuls vie for the group's backing in 2024. Trump enumerated his administrations' actions that favored the country, including the long-anticipated and controversial move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal. Although he never alluded to his plans for the 2024 election year, Trump anticipated that Republicans 'will win back that beautiful white building sometimes referred to as the White House.' 'The stakes have never been higher,' the former president said in his address, delivered via video. Former President Donald Trump (pictured) enumerated his administrations' actions that favored the country, including the long-anticipated and controversial move of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain and the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal Former Vice President Mike Pence said at the event that current President Joe Biden has 'turned his back on Israel.' Biden has 'restored funding for the Palestinian Authority, announced his intention to rejoin the Iran Nuclear Deal, and now the Biden administration is planning to open a consulate in Jerusalem for the Palestinian people,' Pence told the gathering, where he spoke in person. 'This is an unlawful step and its time for Congress to act to deny President Biden from opening a consulate in Jerusalem,' Pence added. The former Vice President also didn't announce any plans to run for President in the upcoming election, although he said that the party would 'win back this country in 2024.' Former Vice President Mike Pence (pictured) said at the event that current President Joe Biden has 'turned his back on Israel' Although former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie acknowledged that he was an early supporter of Trump and recalled playing the role of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for the former president in debate prep sessions, he urged members of the coalition not to dwell on the previous administration's accusations of election fraud. 'We can no longer talk about the past, and past elections,' Christie said, eliciting applause. 'No matter where you stand on that election... it is over. Every minute that we spend talking about 2020, all the wasted time that were there, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are laying ruin to this country.' The former New Jersey governor spoke of his success running for office in the state despite the Democratic majority there. He called upon the Republican party to zero in their focus on 'hardworking, working class' people who felt abandoned by the Democratic party. 'People want someone to fight for them, but to do it in a way that doesnt hurt their ears, and you all know what I mean,' Christie said. 'Demand a plan for tomorrow, not a grievance about yesterday.' Although former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (pictured) acknowledged that he was an early supporter of Trump and recalled playing the role of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden for the former president in debate prep sessions, he urged members of the coalition not to dwell on the previous administration's accusations of election fraud While Christie was well-received by the group, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis got a standing ovation from the crowd. DeSantis called Florida the 'freest state in America,' and took credit for the designation, saying that new residents were attracted by low taxes and lax government policy. The governor touted legislation he'd signed banning mass mailings of absentee ballots and the practice of 'ballot harvesting,' a term describing people who aren't related to a voter collecting their ballots for them. While Christie was well-received by the group, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (pictured) got a standing ovation from the crowd. He said his state was the 'freest' in America He also denounced the Biden administration's vaccine mandates, and declared that no one in Florida would lose their jobs because they are unvaccinated: '[Biden] doesn't have the constitutional authority to do what he's trying to do.' 'No cop, no firefighter, no nurse should be kicked out of their job because of these mandates.' A Bronx teacher was arrested Friday and charged with numerous sexual-related crimes after he allegedly sent three students photos of his genitals and touched one inappropriately while on school grounds. Police say Alexander Guzman, 26, forcibly kissed a 16-year-old student while in a classroom and put his hands in her pants. The newly-hired Bronx School for Law, Government & Justice teacher is also accused of using Snapchat to send lewd photos to the teen and two other female students, ages 16 and 18. He reportedly made sexual comments to the girls, saying they were 'pretty' and 'had a nice body,' according to the Daily News. The New York City Department of Education (DOE) said Guzman was 'immediately removed from the school' and that there are 'stringent protections in place to address any allegations of impropriety'. Guzman was taken into custody around 11pm and has since been charged with two counts of disseminating indecent material to minors, sexual misconduct, forcible touching, two counts of aggravated harassment, and harassment. A Bronx School for Law, Government & Justice teacher was arrested Friday and charged with numerous sexual-related crimes after he allegedly sent students photos of his genitals and touched one inappropriately while on school grounds Police say Alexander Guzman, 26, forcibly kissed a 16-year-old student while in a classroom and put his hands in her pants The DOE called the charges against Guzman 'deeply disturbing' and said officials are cooperating with police. 'The safety of our students is our top priority,' the school authority said in a statement to DailyMail.com. A woman, who has a daughter currently enrolled at the Bronx school and another who recently graduated, called the alleged incident 'inappropriate' and 'surprising.' 'It's unacceptable. It's inappropriate. This is really a good school at the end of the day It's surprising,' she told ABC 7. 'It's definitely scary,' echoed another outraged parent. One parent even went on the question the department's new-hire vetting process. 'We need to know who they are hiring,' the individual argued. 'At the end of the day schools need to be safe for our kids.' The New York City Department of Education (pictured) said Guzman was 'immediately removed from the school' and that there are 'stringent protections in place to address any allegations of impropriety' Guzman started working at the Bronx secondary school in September. The school media exchanges reportedly took between September 23 and October 31. It was not immediately clear when the alleged molestation occurred. According to authorities, the investigation into the charges against Guzman remains ongoing. As of Saturday, his arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending. A woman was allegedly threatened at gunpoint inside her own home for hours in her own home. The 34-year-old managed to escape as heavily-armed police surrounded the apartment block in Bonnyrigg in Sydney's south-west about 7pm on Saturday. The distressed woman told officers a man was still holed up inside the unit allegedly armed with a gun and a knife. A distressed woman was allegedly threatened with a gun and knife inside her unit in Sydney's south-west on Saturday night. pictured is a woman outside the apartment block She also suffered arm injuries as a result of being allegedly assaulted but did not need medical attention. It was not clear what she was assaulted with. Police forced their way into the Bonnyrigg Avenue unit a short time later, where they arrested a 35-year-old man and two women, aged 42 and 32. Police will allege precursor chemicals and equipment for the manufacture of meth were found inside the unit. A police dog also found a loaded gun nearby. Footage from the scene shows officers taking away brown paper bags of evidence to be forensically examined. A man was escorted by police from the apartment block in handcuffs. He will face court on Sunday charged with 11 offences A loaded firearm (pictured) was located at the scene by a NSW Police dog The man was charged with 11 crimes including detaining a person while intending to commit a serious indictable offence, reckless wounding, two counts of assault causing bodily harm, and possession a loaded firearm. He spent the night in a police cell and is due to appear in Parramatta Bail Court later on Sunday. The two women were released without charges laid, pending further investigation. Police were called to a Bonnyrigg apartment block (pictured) on Saturday night A 77-year-old retired Chicago Fire Department captain shot and killed an armed robber who tried to take his belongings in Chicago on Saturday, according to the Chicago Tribune. The former captain, who retired from the department about 15 years ago and has a valid firearm owners identification card and concealed-carry license, was inside his garage on East 89th near MLK in the Burnside neighborhood when the incident took place. Around 12:30 pm, a robber drove up to his residence, got out of the vehicle and pulled out a gun before demanding the mans property, Chicago Police and CFD spokesman Larry Langford said. The man then retrieved his own gun, which had had on him at the time of the would-be robbery, and shot the assailant in the head and chest. The robber, who was not immediately named, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to police. Police said both the retired fire captain and the robber's guns were found on scene. Police did not immediately reveal who's handgun is pictured above Pictured: police in the 500 block of East 89th Street in the Burnside neighborhood of Chicago, where a retired Chicago Fire Department Captain shot and killed an armed robber Chicago Police officers, pictured, investigate the scene where the 77-year-old man and concealed carry license holder killed his would-be robber, who was also armed with a gun Meanwhile, the 77-year-old man was not injured. Police said both the retired fire captain and the robber's guns were found on scene. Authorities were able to confirm he had a valid firearm owners identification card and concealed carry license. Several shootings involving concealed carry licensed gun holders have made the headlines in Chicago in recent years. In 2019, a concealed carry holder and a man who was robbing him were both killed in shootout in the Roseland neighborhood of the Windy City. Derrick Gholston, 43, was standing about 7:15 pm outside of a business on East 112th Place when two men approached him while flashing a handgun and demanded his belongings, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiners office. Gholston complied and handed over his property before the two suspects walked into the business before announcing another robbery, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Authorities were able to confirm the retired captain had a valid firearm owners identification card and concealed carry license Pictured, the home and garage where the elderly man was when he was approached by his assailant around 12:30 pm Saturday afternoon, police said Gholston - a concealed carry permit holder then entered the store himself with his own gun and a confrontation ensued, leading to the three exchanging gunfire. Both he and one of the armed robbers, Carlos Smith, 18, were shot and taken to a nearby hospital in Oak Lawn, where they were both pronounced dead within an hour of the shootout. A year later in December 2020, another man with a concealed carry license and gun shot and killed an armed man who was trying to rob a cell phone store in Humboldt Park, Fox 32 Chicago reported at the time. The robber was shot in the chest and abdomen, police said. The suspect in that case was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead. Police confiscated both the robbery suspect's gun and the gun belonging to the 29-year-old man concealed carry permit holder. The desperate search for a father believed to have been mauled to death by a huge shark has only returned a pair of goggles as hope he will be find alive fades. A 57-year-old has been missing since Saturday after a great white shark attacked him about 30m off Port Beach in Perth. A group of teenagers told authorities they witnessed the man get taken under the waves by the huge shark just after 10am and never saw him resurface. Water police are currently coordinating a marine search for the victim, who is understood to have been attacked 30m offshore A 57-year-old has been missing since Saturday after a great white shark attacked him 30metres off Port Beach. The group on a boat first alerted authorities of the attack after witnessing it on Saturday morning. They told lifesavers they saw him struggling in the water before he was 'dragged under' the waves and did not reappear. The search continued today, with boats and helicopters attempting to locate the 57-year-old. Western Australian Premier Mark McGowan offered his sympathies to the family of the man despite search and rescue efforts continuing. 'A very sad and horrific situation, and very difficult for the man and his family. A family is now grieving, a man has lost his life - it is a terribly sad situation for everyone involved,' he said. 'The people who participated in getting the people out of the water particularly the young men - I would like to thank them for all their efforts. 'I would like to thank Surf Life Saving and volunteers who have been out there searching 'And all the people more broadly who are out there searching they are doing all they can to find the man's body.' Local councils have closed Port Beach and all beaches from Leighton Dog beach to Sand Tracks beach A search and rescue is underway to located a missing 57-year-old swimmer who was mauled by a shark in North Fremantle on Saturday Fisheries Minister Don Punch confirmed a pair of goggles believed to have belonged to the father were found and the surrounding beaches were all closed. 'So far we haven't been able to recover any items other than one pair of goggles and that pair of goggles has been swabbed for testing,' he said. 'The beaches remain closed until 12 noon today and then it will be reviewed at that point by the City of Fremantle and Town of Cottesloe.' A witness told The West Australian a teenager in a dinghy saw the swimmer attacked and raised the alarm. 'I've actually gone out to meet him at his boat to get more of an account of what's just going on. He said ''someone's been done, they've taken most of him'',' they said. 'That kid deserves a shout out, he was an avid little boatie, got everyone out.' Kaiden Boult, 16, was surfing with his friends when the teenage boy also alerted them to get out of the water. He and his friends quickly hopped out onto nearby rocks to get a higher viewpoint and saw a 'massive shark' in the water. 'At first we thought the dude was okay. But police are now saying that he's not. There's a big search going on so someone has been taken,' he said The attack happened at 10am (local time) at Port Beach, 16km south west of the centre of Perth Carolyn Cutri witnessed a woman hysterically sprinting along the beach when she arrived for a walk. Ms Cutri said she noticed a police and ambulance services in the car park before she saw a woman dash to the beach. 'And then there was a lady frantically on the beach searching, calling out, and she ran up to the police,' she added. Local councils have closed Port Beach and all beaches from Leighton Dog beach to Sand Tracks beach. The state's Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development has urged residents to take additional caution in the Port Beach area. Australians in three states are set to be drenched by torrential rain predicted to last a week amid warnings of supercell thunderstorms and heavy flooding. Meteorologists have warned of a wet week ahead for most of the country with heavy rain, thunderstorms, hail and even snow forecast to hit the east coast until the end of the week. Jonathon How from the Bureau of Meteorology said New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria will experience 'plenty of thunderstorms' due to intensify mid-week. He said eastern NSW and inland southeast Queensland would receive most of the wild weather with flood warnings issued for all three states. Australians in three states are set to be drenched by torrential rain predicted to last a week amid warnings of supercell thunderstorms and heavy flooding (pictured, rain in Melbourne) Meteorologists have warned of a wet week ahead for most of the country with heavy rain, thunderstorms, hail and even snow forecast to hit the east coast for days (pictured) 'Severe storms are likely in the Balonne shire and Goondiwindi region, more broadly possible over southern inland Queensland. Main risks with severe storms tomorrow will be heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding and damaging wind gusts,' the Bureau of Meteorology Queensland said in a tweet. In NSW, intense storms are due to roll across the Tablelands region and hit Coffs Harbour with showers to continue in Sydney, travelling from the west to the east. The meteorologist said storms would fire up on Monday with 20 to 30mm due to hit all of Queensland including Brisbane and the Gold Coast. He said 20 to 30mm of rain would fall across Brisbane and would extend to the north-east corner of Victoria and NSW. The wild weather is expected to ramp up on Wednesday with intense storms to hit Queensland state-wide and a cold front in Victoria. On Thursday, a burst of tropical rain will travel along the eastern sea board from Queensland down to Victoria with the potential of flash flooding in all three states. In NSW, intense storms are due to roll across the Tablelands region and hit Coffs Harbour with showers to continue in Sydney, travelling from the west to the east The cause of the wet weather is a trough and rain band travelling from the west to the east of the country following showers in the outback Mr How said Sydneysiders can expect temperatures in the low 20s with showers to continue but less storm activity at the weekend. Queensland is predicted to be dry by Sunday however Victorians have been warned to rug up for a cold and showery few days. The cause of the wet weather is a trough and rain band travelling from the west to the east of the country following showers in the outback. The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe thunderstorm warning for damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rains across NSW on Sunday. 'Severe thunderstorms are likely to produce damaging winds, large hailstones and heavy rainfall that may lead to flash flooding in the warning area over the next several hours,' it read. People in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria should prepare for 'plenty of thunderstorms' due to intensify mid-week according to meteorologists (pictured, rain in Sydney) 'Locations which may be affected include Grafton, Wollongong, Nowra, Goulburn, Tamworth and more.' The Bureau recommends residents to unplug computers and appliances, move vehicles under cover and secure loose items in their house, yard and balconies. It's a similar story in Queensland, with severe thunderstorms to continue over the southern interior and borders areas of the state. People in the Darling Downs and Granite Belt and parts of Central Highlands and Coalfields, Wide Bay and Burnett and Maranoa and Warrego Forecast Districts have been warned to prepare for damaging winds, hail and heavy rainfall. Two little girls died while visiting their father at an isolated commune west of Byron Bay despite a woman's harrowing call to triple zero begging for help. The twins, aged four, were sleeping near a lit candle on top of a piano when the blaze suddenly engulfed the Nunkeri Multi Occupancy commune in the hinterland of Goonengerry. A woman, who is not believed to be related to the girls, made a desperate emergency call in the early hours of Sunday saying 'hurry, the babies can't breathe'. Paramedics arrived about 4am and both little girls were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. They could not be revived. A woman was also treated for shock. A member of the public reacts while holding a bouquet of flowers outside the home where twin four-year-old girls died following a house fire Neighbours dropped off flowers to the grieving family Police remain on the scene as they investigate the cause of the blaze The girls' father is crushed by their deaths and Daily Mail Australia understands the twins were visiting him and their mother was not present. 'I'm told the father is in a bad state. He blames himself. He's really shaken up,' a neighbour told the Daily Telegraph on Sunday afternoon. 'I heard a fire engine go off around 3am and knew something was wrong, it's quiet around here, we don't get sirens going off.' There was little damage to the property itself, which is part of a 20-home commune that has existed in the Byron Bay hinterland for at least 30 years and is situated on 100 acres of farmland. Police are investigating whether a candle was left burning on top of a piano inside the home overnight. Both girls were sleeping 'fairly close' to the piano, police said. Four-year-old twin sisters have both died from smoke inhalation after their home caught fire overnight. The home is within a 'multiple occupancy' community down this street, 30km west of Byron Bay Horrified neighbours arrived at the home later on Sunday to drop bouquets of flowers to the family 'The people at the scene obviously went in to check and saw what they saw and police were called,' Tweed-Byron Police District commander Superintendent Dave Roptell said. 'It's unbelievably devastating to see anyone die in these circumstances. But two four-year-old females, it's just a tragic set of circumstances.' Detectives will work with fire investigators, who remain on the scene, to determine the exact cause of the blaze. Horrified neighbours arrived at the home later on Sunday to drop bouquets of flowers to the family. One woman fought back tears as she left flowers in the letter box. A hand written note was left on one of the bouquets reading: 'Mourning with you.' Anyone with information about this incident is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. A White Island survivor has slammed sick vandals who damaged multiple gravestones at a Melbourne cemetery, including one belonging to her family. Stephanie Browitt, 25, was exploring the island in December 2019 with sister Krystal, 21, and their father Paul when a volcano erupted off the coast of Whakatane in New Zealand. She suffered third-degree burns to 70 per cent of her body and was in a coma for three weeks, but her father and sister were among the 22 killed. Victoria Police is investigating after a vandalism spree at Fawkner Cemetery in Melbourne caused damage to multiple tombstones (pictured) White Island Survivor Stephanie Browitt (right) with her sister Krystal and father Paul (centre) who died in natural disaster. Her mother Marie Browitt (left) was the only member of the family to stay on the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship when the volcano erupted Ms Browitt shared pictures to her Instagram of the attack which is understood to have taken place on Saturday at Fawkner Cemetary. 'Absolutely disgusting. Our monument has been up for a week and it's already vandalised,' Ms Browitt wrote. She also questioned why there was no CCTV at Fawkner Cemetery. Victoria Police are aware of the incident and said they were investigating reports of damage to tombstones at the cemetery. Anyone who might have information on the act of vandalism is asked to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000. Ms Browitt slammed the vandals on her Instagram story saying there were multiple graves targeted in the 'disgusting' attack In July this year, Ms Browitt opened up about about losing her father and sister in the natural disaster 'leaving just me, my mum and our gorgeous dog Arlo'. Her mother Marie was the only member of the family to stay on the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship when the eruption occurred. She said Arlo had been a loyal source of support throughout her recovery. 'My sister Krystal and I got him together only 6 months before we went on the cruise to New Zealand, so he was just a puppy when it all happened' she said. 'We were only supposed to be gone for two weeks so we put him in a kennel, but two weeks turned into much longer.' She said despite spending three weeks in a coma and enduring multiple painful skin graft operations courtesy of 12 skin donors, she was determined to get through rehab enough to get home to her beloved dog. New Zealand White Island survivor Stephanie Browitt and her dog Arlo, who she said has been a pillar of strength in her recovery (pictured) The 25-year-old (pictured) has since amassed a huge TikTok following after sharing details about her lengthy and painful recovery 'On Arlo's first birthday, I was able to get my day pass from hospital to see him for the first time since the eruption,' the post read. 'I was so worried he had forgotten me or that he wouldn't recognise me because I looked different with the mask on and my bandages and everything...well I was totally wrong!' She recounts the moment they reunited for the first time since the tragedy as 'pure joy', saying Arlo ran towards her the second he heard her voice. Arlo has been essential in Ms Browitt's recovery since the disaster, counting each moment with him as 'a blessing'. Since her sister's death, Ms Browitt has dedicated herself to raising Arlo, revealing her sister was studying to become a veterinary nurse. 'He was mine and my sisters and I want to raise him for her' she said. Since the harrowing ordeal, Ms Browitt has been a beacon of strength, sharing her journey on TikTok attracting more than 645,000 followers, for her candid posts on her lengthy recovery process. Scott Morrison's attempt to cook his family a curry for the Indian festival of Diwali sensationally backfired on social media with commenters blasting the prime minister's 'humiliating' performance on the international stage last week. Fresh off his trips to the G20 in Rome and the COP26 in Glasgow, the Aussie leader snapped a photo of himself in a chef's apron frying off onions and chilli for a 'very special' curry night with close friends and loved ones to celebrate the sacred Indian holiday. But the culinary diplomacy was met with a spicy reaction from commenters who took offence to the 'Kerala Prawn Curry, Coconut Chicken Curry and a Potato Saag,' saying it will take a lot more than a few curries to repair Australia's dwindling international reputation. Scott Morrison takes a selfie while frying up some onions and chilli as he prepares an Indian feast The culinary diplomacy was met with a spicy reaction from commenters still fuming over the G20 and COP26 Summits Users said it will take a lot more than a few curries to repair Australia's dwindling international reputation 'You've lost touch with reality PM, and lack self awareness, these posts are insensitive,' one Instagramer said. Another called the post a 'lazy' attempt at marketing, while others ruthlessly mocked Mr Morrison. 'Good curry, bad government,' one person summarised. 'I've destroyed our international trust and reputation, but hey look over there! Curry!' another said. Users also took aim at the bitter fallout with French President Emmanuel Macron over the cancelation of the $90billion submarine contract. 'What no cordon bleu or snails? Maybe some humble pie?' a commenter said. The prime minster cooked up 'Kerala Prawn Curry, Coconut Chicken Curry and a Potato Saag,' wishing Indians a happy Diwali festival But one user ruthless mocked the post by simply saying: 'Good curry, bad government' Another wrote: 'This again. Damage control on max.' 'The only thing cooking is your goose mate resign before you are thrown out,' a third said. But many Indian commenters appreciated the gesture and wished the prime minister well for the five-day post-harvest festival celebrated by Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and some Buddhists across the globe. 'Amazing. Thanks for what you do for Australia!' one person wrote. Another said: 'India is having good relations with Australia. You are a good prime minister. But I didn't know that you cook delicious food. Happy Diwali to you from India.' 'Happy Diwali sir, love from India,' a third commented. Scott Morrison (pictured right) seemingly gets the cold shoulder at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow by being sat far apart from host nation leader Boris Johnson Many Australian political commentators declared Mr Morrison's standing on the global stage was severely diminished after getting into a bitter dispute with the French government and failing to give a whole-hearted commitment on reducing CO2 emissions at the COP26 climate summit. At a meeting chaired by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Mr Morrison was seated on the outer edge of a panel of world leaders, made worse by the fact his neighbour - the Argentine delegate - was a no-show. A forlorn looking Mr Morrison was so far from Mr Johnson that he may have been thinking more about getting the cold shoulder than addressing global warming. As the UK leader had an elbow bump with Nisreen Elsaim, the Chair of UN Secretary General's Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, Mr Morrison could only look on from the distance and take some notes. The warm conversation between US president Joe Biden and French President Emanuel Macron was far from the icy and awkward handshake Mr Morrison shared with Mr Macron He was also left hanging by world leaders while trying to mingle at the G20 Summit in Rome last weekend. The prime minister appeared to receive more cold shoulders than handshakes during the seemingly awkward encounters at the summit. Mr Morrison and other leaders had gathered on a podium as they waited for a group photo to be taken. While other leaders chatted with each other, Mr Morrison was seen bouncing between the groups and struggling to grab their attention. He patted Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the back but failed to get his attention as Mr Kagame continued to shake hands with South Korean President Moon Jae-In. Scott Morrison was left hanging by world leaders after he struggled to shake their hands at the G20 Summit (pictured, Scott Morrison with Rwandan president Paul Kagame and South Korean president Moon Jae-In) Mr Morrison stood on his own and awkwardly folded his face mask in his hands as he looked around the room. Across the podium, US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to be all smiles as they chatted with each other. The leaders met briefly on the sidelines of the G20 summit, just two days after a first phone call since Australia opted for nuclear-powered submarines in partnership with the US and Britain in the AUKUS pact. Mr Morrison told reporters he only briefly bumped into the French leader and 'said G'day' and that he hoped they could speak more later. Diplomatic tensions between France and Australia have escalated since Australia pulled out of a $90billion deal with France to manufacture its next generation of submarines. Hours after the pair shared the awkward exchange at the Summit, the French President made his feelings known about Mr Morrison during a fiery exchange with Australian journalists. 'We will see what he will deliver,' Mr Macron told reporters on Sunday. 'I have a lot of respect for your country, a lot of respect and friendship for your people. I just say when we have respect, you have to be true and you have to behave in line and consistent with this value. The French president was asked if the Australian prime minister had lied. 'I don't think, I know,' Mr Macron replied before cutting off further questions. Mr Morrison has since shut down the claims at a press conference. 'No,' he replied when asked if he had lied to President Macron. He added decisions he makes are in Australia's best interests. Prime Minister Scott Morrison arrives at the G20 summit of world leaders to discuss climate change, Covid-19 and the post-pandemic global recovery at the La Nuvola center G20 Summit, Rome, Italy It is not the first time Mr Morrison has been left on his own when surrounded by world leaders (pictured, a lonely Scott Morrison at the G7 Summit in 2019) 'I will always stand up for Australia's interests,' Mr Morrison reiterated. 'These decisions are difficult. Of course it has caused disappointment and it has caused an impact on the relationship with France.' He added he had previously explained to Mr Macron 'very clearly' a few months ago the submarines ordered from France were 'not going to meet Australia's interests'. It is not the first time Mr Morrison has been left on his own with the prime minister cutting a lonely figure at the G7 Summit in France in 2019. Invited by French President Emmanuel Macron, Mr Morrison was left to stare at his phone as then-US president Donald Trump mingled with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Footage showed the leaders socialising while a glum-looking Mr Morrison stood alone in the background, despite his wife Jenny being present. Advertisement Ministers tried to play down the government's sleaze shambles as a 'storm in a teacup' today despite Boris Johnson's ratings plunging to their worst ever level. Environment Secretary George Eustice tried to settle the ship after the PM's net approval rating slumped to minus 20 in the latest Opinium survey. The Conservatives are now just one point ahead of Labour, with the advantage down four points following a week in which Mr Johnson's bid to save ally Owen Paterson from punishment for lobbying humiliatingly collapsed. The premier is braced for more pain tomorrow when MPs debate the standards meltdown, with Speaker Lindsay Hoyle expected to step in to defend the 'integrity of parliament'. He is believed to be privately livid at the 'arrogance' displayed by the government, and is likely to back a review of the system in an effort to shore up confidence. There are predictions that a review will lead to MPs found guilty of financial misdemeanours being able to appeal to a retired judge one of the Tories' key demands in last week's stormy exchanges in the House. But it could also look at whether MPs should still be able to earn thousands of pounds from outside interests on top of their Commons' salary of 81,932. Yesterday former prime minister Sir John Major launched a blistering attack on the 'shameful' actions of Mr Johnson's government, arguing that they were 'perhaps politically corrupt'. But Mr Eustice said today that it is a 'Westminster storm in a teacup' and took a potshot at Sir John. 'He's wrong... I disagree with John Major on quite a few issues,' he told Sky News. 'He is not somebody whose cue I would normally take.' He suggested that Mr Johnson deserved credit for not 'throwing people under the bus for what you night judge to be, sort of, minor errors of judgment'. But Mr Eustice hinting at his own frustration saying the Paterson case 'inevitably' ended up getting conflated with calls for wider standards reform. He also admitted he is disappointed the issue has been heading the news agenda with the COP26 summit going on in Glasgow. Labour leader Keir Starmer has now written to the body that considers nominations for peerages to argue that Mr Paterson - who resigned from the Commons on Thursday - should not be granted an honour if Downing Street recommends him for one. Sir Keir also accused the PM of trying to undermine standards commissioner Kathryn Stone, amid claims that she has been given police protection after receiving death threats over the Paterson case. Boris Johnson (left) suffered a brutal poll blow today as his ratings plunged to their worst ever in the wake of the row over Owen Paterson's (right) standards report Mr Johnson and Home Secretary Priti Patel visit the Hindu temple in Neasden, London, today to mark Diwali celebrations The premier is braced for more pain tomorrow when MPs debate the standards meltdown, with Speaker Lindsay Hoyle expected to step in to defend the 'integrity of parliament' The scale of the damage was underlined again today with an Opinium poll for the Observer putting the Tories on 37 per cent, down three points on last week Yesterday former prime minister Sir John Major (right) launched a blistering attack on the 'shameful' actions of Mr Johnson's government, arguing that they were 'perhaps politically corrupt'. But George Eustice (left at COP26 in Glasgow today) dismissed the row as a 'storm in a teacup' Settling old scores? PM's years of clashes with sleaze watchdog Kathryn Stone The debacle over the Owen Paterson report was far from the first time Boris Johnson has clashed with Commons standards commissioner Kathryn Stone. And their relationship is unlikely to get easier, as he could face another probe by the watchdog into the 'Walpapergate' controversy over refurbishment of his grace-and-favour flat - as well as his refusal to declare his recent 'freebie' Marbella holiday on the parliamentary register . Ms Stone has previously castigated the Prime Minister over a lavish 15,000 Caribbean holiday funded by Tory donors. But he was saved from punishment - which could have included being the first serving premier to be suspended from the Commons, by MPs who overturned her ruling. She has also pulled him up over an 'over-casual attitude' to declaring his own personal financial interests to Parliament, including a six-figure stake in an English country mansion. Mr Johnson was dramatically cleared in the summer of breaking Commons rules over a 'freebie' trip to the millionaire's playground of Mustique with Carrie - despite Ms Stone condemning his behaviour and the 'unusual' arrangements. The cross-party Standards Committee found the PM had made an 'accurate and complete' declaration about the holiday in December 2019, saying it was a donation from Carphone Warehouse founder David Ross even though the couple did not stay in his villa. The committee - chaired by Labour MP Chris Bryant - overruled Ms Stone after she concluded that Mr Johnson did breach the Code of Conduct for MPs during a 15-month wrangle after initially failing to provide a full explanation, slamming him for 'not showing the accountability required of those in public life'. The report also suggested that the premier himself did not know exactly how the jaunt was being funded until after he arrived on Mustique and realised he was not staying in Mr Ross's own property. In another looming tension, Ms Stone has revealed she will consider whether to launch an investigation into Mr Johnson's conduct when Tory donors initially part-funded the lavish overhaul of his residence above No11 Downing Street. Mr Johnson is also facing a backlash over refusing to declare his recent holiday to Lord Goldsmith's luxury villa near Marbella on the Commons register. The decision to use the ministerial register, which means he does not have to disclose the value of the gift, could be a further flashpoint with Ms Stone. One Commons source told MailOnline that as the villa is owned by the Goldsmith family it cannot be treated solely as a gift from Lord Goldsmith - which could torpedo No10's arguments against putting it on the MP register. Advertisement The scale of the damage was underlined again today with an Opinium poll for the Observer putting the Tories on 37 per cent, down three points on last week. Labour was up one point on 36 per cent, the Liberal Democrats up one on 9 per cent and the Greens down one on 6 per cent. Mr Johnson's net approval rating was down from minus 16 last week with 30 per cent of those surveyed approving of the job he is doing and 50 per cent disapproving. Sir Keir was minus nine, with 29 per cent approving and 37 per cent disapproving. Mr Paterson quit after Mr Johnson abandoned a plan which would have seen his case and the whole standards regime reviewed by a Tory-led committee. Mr Eustice today acknowledged the Government had 'made a mistake' in wrapping Mr Paterson's case with the wider system. But he said: 'What we have seen is a Westminster storm in a teacup. 'Yes, we made a mistake in bringing that forward in the way that we did, so we withdrew it. 'But the overall principle, that you should have due process and a right of appeal in these types of situations, I don't think anybody doubts.' Mr Eustice said the PM had displayed loyalty. 'He doesn't believe in throwing people under a bus for what you might judge to be, sort of, minor errors of judgement,' he told Times Radio. 'And you know, in that sense yes, he's very different to someone like Tony Blair, who I think threw Peter Mandelson under the bus three times, for not much reason. 'And so I think he's very loyal and doesn't believe in being bounced into doing the wrong thing and treating people badly for the wrong reasons.' But Mr Eustice said it was 'highly unlikely' Mr Paterson would join the House of Lords. 'He's been very clear that he wants to continue in public service but not in politics, he said. 'He couldn't have been clearer about that... 'I think it's highly unlikely that he'd return to the Lords.' The intervention by Mr Eustice immediately fuelled Tory infighting, with backbencher Robert Largan branding his words 'unhelpful'. The High Peak MP told Times Radio: 'I don't think it's very helpful to say 'oh, it's just a storm in a teacup'. 'In my view, this was something that we got badly wrong.' Sir Lindsay has authorised a three-hour emergency debate tomorrow, where opposition MPs are set to revisit questions about his lavish Downing Street flat overhaul and 'freebie' holiday in Spain. The Speaker is ready to bring forward proposals for a review of the standards system, potentially led by retired clerks. A source close to the Speaker told the Sunday Times: 'He has got to listen to what MPs are saying in tomorrow's debate before taking decisive action. 'But he is clear he will have to step in to protect the integrity of parliament if no other solution is forthcoming.' Mr Johnson is also facing a backlash over refusing to declare his recent holiday to Lord Goldsmith's luxury villa near Marbella on the Commons register. There are concerns the decision to use the ministerial register, means he does not have to disclose the value of the gift, could fuel an escalating spat with the Speaker over ministers failing to show respect for Parliament. Sir Lindsay has repeatedly rebuked the government for making announcements in press conferences and interviews instead of coming to the Commons. The Speaker tore into Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng last week for suggesting that standards commissioner Kathryn Hudson should resign. One Commons source told MailOnline that if the villa was owned by the Goldsmith family it could not be treated solely as a gift from Lord Goldsmith - which could torpedo No10's arguments against putting it on the MP register. A source close to Ms Stone told the Sunday Times that she had received 'awful threats', and been accused of killing Mr Paterson's wife, who committed suicide in June last year. Appearing on the BBC's Andrew Marr show after being released from Covid self-isolation, Sir Keir accused Mr Johnson of undermining Westminster's sleaze watchdogs because of his own run-ins with the standards system. The Labour leader said the PM was unable to clean up Westminster because he is 'up to his neck in this'. How John Major's Tories were rocked by sleaze in the 1990s Former PM John Major launched a blistering attack on Boris Johnson over the sleaze miring the government yesterday. But his own administration suffered huge damage from a series of scandals in the 1990s, before the Conservatives were routed by Tony Blair at the 1997 election. Sir John left the door open for allegations of hypocrisy in 1993 when he launched a campaign promising to go 'back to basics', returning Britain to a more moral stance based on decency and respect for the law. The drive became an object of ridicule over the following years as controversies erupted over extra-marital liaisons and paid lobbying. They included the cash-for-questions row that engulfed Neil Hamilton, and Jonathan Aitken's 'sword of truth' libel battle with the Guardian. Ironically, news of Sir John's own four-year affair with fellow minister Edwina Currie did not emerged until 2002. Advertisement 'When there was sleaze in the mid-1990s John Major rolled up his sleeves and he put in place the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life - so he was the prime minister who said 'I will clear this up'. 'Boris Johnson is the Prime Minister who is leading his troops through the sewer - he's up to his neck in this.' Sir Keir said: 'There is a whiff that the Prime Minister would quite like the scrutiny and the standards to be weakened because they are looking too closely at him.' He claimed the Prime Minister had a sense there is 'one rule for him and his mates and another rule for everybody else'. In a further signs of Tory anger about the mess, ex-minister Caroline Nokes a prominent critic of Mr Johnson said the government's behaviour 'stinks'. She wrote in the Sunday Mirror: 'If my postbag is anything to go by, the public think the PM's decision to circle his wagons and attack Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone well and truly stinks. And it does.' Defence committee chair Tobias Ellwood said Mr Johnson risked ending up as 'just another former occupant of No 10' if he takes Parliament for granted. Mr Ellwood wrote that testing times prompted the public to look to its Government to provide 'leadership, statecraft and vision'. 'A PM who takes Parliament for granted will achieve none of these things and simply end up, not as a big beast, but as just another former occupant of No 10,' Mr Ellwood wrote in The Sun. The senior Conservative, who was axed from the Government when Mr Johnson replaced Theresa May in July 2019, said: 'This mess should be used as an opportunity to press the reset button on the entire Parliament-government relationship, then regroup. There is genuine rage within the ranks. 'Constituents have been rightly appalled by what they have seen. One system for MPs, another for the public.' It comes as Labour claimed there was a 'cash for access culture' in the Tory party following reports a series of donors who give the Tories 3 million and serve as the Conservative treasurer have been put forward for seats in the Lords. Sir John said yesterday that a peerage for Mr Paterson would be 'rather extraordinary'. :: Opinium surveyed 1,840 UK adults on November 5-6 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has written to the body that considers nominations for peerages to argue that Mr Paterson - who resigned from the Commons on Thursday - should not be granted an honour if Downing Street recommends him for one Police officers are being asked to report colleagues who they know or suspect of being complicit in misogynistic behaviour according to the police's new national lead on violence against women and girls. Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth declared this week that officers should bring attention to colleagues who display 'disgusting' attitudes towards women on duty to stamp out the 'culture of misogyny' in the police force that has been revealed in the wake of Sarah Everard's death. Blyth, who began in the newly created post last month, said Everard's murder had triggered a radical review of outstanding misconduct cases and the police's vetting procedures by the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC). 'We very much want to be an upstander and not a bystander in terms of anything that should remotely suggest conduct that falls below ethical standards,' Blyth said. 'Shining a light [on the police] is going to mean that more matters get exposed because we do know there will be a minority who are attracted into policing because of the power and authority which they think it has.' It comes as the Mail on Sunday revealed today that police prosecutions of exposure and voyeurism cases have almost halved in six years while cases have risen by a staggering 59 per cent. Yet despite the huge rise in cases forces have prosecuted far fewer suspects since 2014. The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) has announced in September that Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth (pictured) has been appointed as the National Police Lead for Violence Against Women and Girls, to coordinate police action across England and Wales Wayne Couzens, 48, (R) a Metropolitan Police diplomatic protection officer, was sentenced to a whole-life prison term in September after he carried out a bogus arrest on Everard, 33, (L) in March before raping and murdering her. Misogyny and misconduct in police ranks has been under the microscope like never before this year after the murder of Sarah Everard in March. Wayne Couzens, 48, a Metropolitan Police officer, was sentenced to a whole-life prison term in September after he carried out a bogus arrest on Everard, 33, in south London before raping and murdering her. The case triggered a torrent of public criticism directed towards the police and opened the floodgates for a sea of misconduct claims to be levied against officers. In October, the NPCC announced that all police forces in England and Wales will review allegations of violence against women and girls involving serving officers and staff. NPCC chairman Martin Hewitt said at the time that police bosses were doing 'everything that we can do to ensure that the way we deal with violence against women and girls is as effective and as assertive as it can be'. But Blyth, who became a police officer only five years ago via the force's fast-track direct-entry scheme, said this week that despite the reviews there has been a 'loss of public trust and confidence' in the police force. She implored women who felt they had been 'approached inappropriately' by police to report it. 'It is vital that we have any information or intelligence about any police officer inappropriately using their warrant card or their status to attract the attention of any female' she said. 'Always report anything that feels wrong.' Martin Hewitt, chairman of the National Police Chiefs Council, said police bosses were doing 'everything that we can' to investigate violence against women and girls Her comments come during a torrid time for the police after the Office for National Statistics revealed last week that rape offences reported to the police had hit a high in England and Wales, while the proportion of prosecuted cases languishes at a mere 1.4% - statistics that have been labelled as 'woeful' by Blyth. Meanwhile, Home Office data analysed by the Mail on Sunday has shown that since 2014 prosecutions for exposure and voyeurism have dropped from 1,047 nationally to 594, despite the fact that reported offences have sharply risen from 6,420 in 2013-14 to 10,203 in March to this year. Blyth also levied an assault at police officers accused of 'victim-blaming' for saying that women have any responsibility when it comes to incidences of violence or misogyny. 'There is no way that this is the responsibility of any woman or any women, and the responsibility for any violence and particularly the tragic circumstances around [the Everard case] are on that perpetrator, and are on men,' Blyth said. Philip Allott, the police and crime commissioner responsible for policing in North Yorkshire, was forced to resign after suggesting on BBC Radio York that Everard should have been more 'streetwise' and resisted what was later revealed to be a bogus arrest by Couzens. Philip Allott, the police and crime commissioner responsible for policing in North Yorkshire, was forced to resign after suggesting Everard should have been more 'streetwise' and should not have 'submitted' to arrest by Couzens. Sir Tom Windsor has said that trawls of private and work mobile phones would help deter officers using WhatsApp and other social media channels to share photographs of crime scenes and inappropriate jokes Meanwhile, Sir Tom Windsor, the chief inspector of the constabulary, told The Times this week he believes that trawls of private and work mobile phones would help deter officers using WhatsApp and other social media channels to share photographs of crime scenes and inappropriate jokes. It comes as four police officers, three of whom are still serving, are under investigation with the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) for allegedly participating in a group WhatsApp with Couzens where the group shared racist and misogynistic messages. A Met probationary constable is also the subject of a misconduct inquiry for sharing a 'highly offensive' image with colleagues during the search for Sarah Everard in the days following her kidnapping, involving a joke about luring a woman into the woods and killing her. The Royal Court Theatre has apologised and changed the Jewish name of a character in a new play after being accused of 'perpetuating an anti-Semitic stereotype'. The theatre in London's West End said it would be changing the name of the Silicon Valley billionaire character named Hershel Fink, who features in the new play Rare Earth Mettle by Al Smith, to Henry Finn. Fink, who is the CEO of an electric car company and has been compared to Elon Musk, is not Jewish and there is no reference to him being Jewish in the show, the theatre have said. However, the Royal Court admitted the naming of the character was an example of 'unconscious bias' and it will be changed. The Royal Court Theatre has apologised and changed the name of a character in a new play Rare Earth Mettle The theatre in London's West End admitted the naming of the character was an example of 'unconscious bias' and it will be changed A Royal Court Theatres spokesperson said: 'The Royal Court Theatre apologises unreservedly for this situation. It was a mistake, it shouldn't have happened, and we are sorry it did. 'We stand in solidarity with our Jewish staff, artists, audiences and friends and are grateful to those who got in touch to communicate that the character named Hershel Fink was perpetuating an antisemitic stereotype. 'In response, the writer has decided to change the name to Henry Finn this will be effective from the first performances next week, and we shall reprint all communications and the play text with this change. 'Now we are looking towards the dialogue that will help us reflect on the process that enabled the name to remain and what is missing in our systems that would have mitigated this unnecessary harm. 'Our anti-racism work is current and ongoing, and this experience proves once again how necessary and wide that work must be. We will work hard now in the hope of building trust and confidence within our Jewish community.' Following the move, comedian, author and screenwriter David Baddiel took to Twitter to write: 'Apparently @royalcourt claim they didn't realise 'Hershel Fink' was a Jewish name. Hmm. Somehow it just sounded so right for a world conquering billionaire. 'I've written a play. Everything - particularly now and particularly about ethnicity - gets relentlessly discussed. Except as regards one ethnicity apparently. 'Anyway. To be fair @royalcourt have acknowledged their unconscious bias here and changed the name. It's still a very instructive Jews Don't Count episode.' David Baddiel said 'everything - particularly now and particularly about ethnicity - gets relentlessly discussed' during the creation of play The comedian, screenwriter and author took to Twitter to share this thoughts on the move And theatre director Adam Lenson said: 'So, Al Smith at The Royal Court has taken a character clearly based on Elon Musk and when fictionalising him has given him an obviously Jewish name. 'Casually making a Silicon Valley billionaire Jewish perpetuates anti-Semitic stereotypes and will cause ideological harm.' The new play centres around a leading doctor who travels to Bolivia to solve the British mental health crisis and advance her career. She is joined there by a Silicon Valley billionaire who believes he can save the world building affordable electric cars. MPs could be banned from taking up positions as consultants outside their parliamentary duties after it emerged this week that Tory MP Owen Paterson had lobbied the government on behalf of two companies he worked for. Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle is expected to put forward a proposal to review the House of Commons' standards procedures which may prevent MPs for offering consulting services to earn extra cash amid today's parliamentary debate over the Paterson scandal. An investigation led by the standards commissioner Kathryn Stone said Paterson had broken Commons rules by lobbying for two firms that paid him 500,000, and he resigned from his position on Thursday after a botched plan concocted by the Prime Minister to block his suspension from Parliament buckled under a torrent of criticism. Despite his resignation, Paterson has vehemently denied any wrong-doing, saying he was acting in the public interest and protesting that the procedural route to the findings against him were against due process by not affording sufficient means of appeal. Dozens of MPs are being paid tens of thousands of pounds a year to act as consultants and advisers for a range of companies, with some receiving many times their yearly parliamentary salary of 81,932 according to the Register of Members' Financial Interests. There are no rules against MPs being paid for advising external businesses provided they record it in their register of interests, but they must not lobby the Government on behalf of those businesses. Speaker of the House of Commons, MP Sir Lindsay Hoyle (pictured November 3, 2021 during PMQs) is considering a proposal to review the House of Commons' standards procedures which may prevent MPs for offering consulting services to earn extra cash amid today's parliamentary debate over the Paterson scandal Owen Paterson resigned as the MP for North Shropshire on Thursday after a botched plan concocted by the Prime Minister to block his suspension from Parliament buckled under a torrent of criticism. Paterson was found guilty of lobbying the government on behalf of two firms who paid him 500,000 in an investigation led by standards commissioner Kathryn Stone Prime Minister Boris Johnson concocted a plan to block the parliamentary suspension of Paterson who was found to have broken Commons' rules on lobbying, but was forced into a humiliating U-turn amid public outcry at the decision A survey carried out by the Daily Mail this week revealed that the majority of voters believe MPs should be ordered to give up lucrative second jobs outside Parliament with claims of wrong-doing investigated by a High Court judge, not politicians themselves. It comes after Boris Johnson government was labelled the 'sleaziest' in more than 40 years of British politics according to a Daily Mail poll. Meanwhile, analysis of the Register of Members' Financial Interests shows that 34 sitting MPs have listed payments from companies for whom they provide consulting work, with many of them receiving tens of thousands each year outside their parliamentary salary. Paterson, who is employed by diagnostics company Randox and sausage-maker Lynn's Country Foods, is one of two MPs to be paid more than 100,000 per year for consultancy or advisory work. He was found to have breached lobbying rules in favour of those firms in an investigation led by Kathryn Stone, and in what critics have characterised as an attempt to let Mr Paterson off the hook, the Government backed and won a vote on plans to tear up Parliament's anti-sleaze rules on Wednesday. But the next morning, the Government was forced into a humiliating U-turn in the face a public outcry and anger among Tories, who had been forced to back the amendment. With Boris Johnson's support effectively withdrawn, Paterson quit what he described as 'the cruel world of politics' on Thursday. A survey carried out by the Daily Mail this week revealed that the majority of voters believe MPs should be ordered to give up lucrative second jobs outside Parliament with claims of wrong-doing investigated by a High Court judge, not politicians themselves. It comes after Boris Johnson government was labelled the 'sleaziest' in more than 40 years of British politics according to a Daily Mail poll (pictured) The highest paid MP is former international development secretary Andrew Mitchell, who receives 182,600 per year for 32.5 days working for firms including investment companies Investec, SouthBridge and Kingsley Capital Partners, along with accountants Ernst & Young and consultants Montrose Associates. Other MPs paid more than 100,000 per year for consulting work include former cabinet minister Chris Grayling, who is paid 100,000 annually by Hutchison Ports Europe, and Chief Whip Julian Smith, who receives a total of 144,000 per year from three companies. Now, the parliamentary committee on standards, which rules on whether MPs have broken the code of conduct, is expected to discuss a proposal to review the rules by which MPs must abide. It is understood several figures on the committee believe restrictions on outside interests - such as paid consultancy work - must be tightened further after Paterson was found to have committed an 'egregious' breach of the current rules on lobbying by Kathryn Stone's investigation. MPs are allowed to take on outside jobs but are banned from making representations that might benefit their employers for six months following the end of their work, while direct lobbying is banned altogether. Meanwhile, former Conservative Prime Minister Sir John Major this morning became the latest figure to hit out at the current government over the Paterson scandal. In an extraordinary broadside, Major - who lead the government and the party from 1990 to 1997 - called the current cabinet's behaviour 'very un-Conservative' and argued some of their actions have been 'politically corrupt'. 'There's a general whiff of "we are the master's now" about their behaviour and I think this is cutting through to the public,' Major told the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme. 'It seems to be me as a lifelong conservative that much of what they are doing is very un-conservative in its behaviour,' he added. Every one of these incredible photographs of Britain was taken from the air using a drone. They show the Great British countryside in all its glory, from the spectacular agricultural views of Somerset to the jaw-dropping beauty of rural Scotland. The photographs are all entries into a competition called Shot On My Drone run by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). More than 300,000 Britons fly drones and model aircraft, although research by the CAA found 20 per cent of them and half of the general public are unaware that the organisation's approval is usually needed to fly one in a town or city. Jonathan Nicholson, the CAA's assistant communications chief said: 'The launch of #ShotOnMyDrone aims to showcase some of the stunning images that UK drone users take while also reminding everyone that whether they're flying in a town, city, or the countryside, they must comply with our Dronecode and stay safe when flying a drone.' The winners in each category will have their images placed on display at the prestigious London headquarters of the UK Royal Aeronautical Society. The competition is open until January 31, 2022 and can be entered at caa-dronecomp.uk. Glen Cova is one of five such narrow vallies in Angus, Scotland, and proffers jaw-dropping views of the glaciated landscape A set of four merged structures in the Aust Viaduct, the Severn Bridge, the Beachley Viaduct and the Wye Bridge, the Severn Bridge connects England and Wales and was built in the 1960s Photographer Steve Valentine captured this gorgeous shot of sunlight bursting through the clouds above an ochre field of hay bales in Somerset Burrow Mump and its eighteenth century ruined church of St Michael watches over Southlake Moor in the village of Burrowbridge within the English county of Somerset, as it rises above atmospheric mist The advantage of a drone's agility meant this vantage point could be acheived, producing a fine image of the bridge over the River Wear in Bishop Aukland, County Durham This mysterious crop circle was first spotted in 2018 near Sixpenny Handley in Dorset and has become a regular feature of the surrounding area A rather wonderful winter shot of rust-coloured bushes on an emerald and yellow hill along the Ridgeway path in Oxfordshire The Clifton Suspension Bridge has perhaps never looked more beautiful as it does from more than 340 ft in the air, which is within the CAA's Dronecode regulation cap of 400ft Glen Doll sits at the top of Glen Cova in the Cairngorms National Park in Scotland, with this low-flying drone shot offering a view of the mountains from just above the top of surrounding trees The Mendip Hills of Somerset rise up, bathed in golden light as the sun beats down from the heavens above the south west of England There is unlikely a more peaceful sight in Britain than the serene scene of snow-crested hilltops and fields in the ancient pathway of the Ridgeway Drones don't only allow for amazing photoraphs of nature but feats of human engineering too. Here, rows of solar panels soak up the sun's energy and convert it into electricity in Somerset Sunset over the Lake District's Derwent Water in Cumbria was pictured offering its last throws of warmth on a set of boats for hire on the beach and piers of north west England This rocky beach formation on the coast of Scotland has the uncanny trait of looking like a slightly speckled azure eye from above The hooked curl of the River Tweed in Melrose on the Scottish Borders may one day become an oxbow lake if it's wide meander is ever cut off by years of erosion Brookwood Military Cemetery (pictured) is the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission war cemetery in the United Kingdom with more than 5,800 graves The Mendip Hills (pictured) separate the Somerset Levels from the north Somerset Levels, which are a set of marine clay 'levels' at the coast and inland peat-based 'moors' Images have emerged of the Iraqi Prime Minister's damaged home after explosive-laden drones were fired at his residence in an assassination attempt. Piles of rubble lay strewn across the residence and doors had been blown off their hinges after Mustafa Al-Kadhimi's residence in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone was targeted by a drone in the early hours of Sunday. Elsewhere a damaged SUV vehicle was spotted parked in the PM's garage as officers stood guard. Remains of a small explosive-laden drone used in the attack were also retrieved by security forces to be investigated, a security official with knowledge of the attack said. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and United Nations chief Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, which also left seven members of Mr Al-Kadhimi's personal protection injured. It came after protests in the Iraqi capital over the result of a general election last month turned violent. Today, Iraq's Prime Minister said the 'rocket's of treachery will not discourage believers' as he called for 'calm and restraint' in the aftermath of his assassination attempt. Images from inside the Iraqi Prime Minister's home showed rubble scattered across the residence The PM's residence in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone was targeted by a drone laden with explosives A damaged SUV vehicle parked in the garage of the Iraqi Prime Minister's home Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said he was unhurt and called for 'calm and restraint' today A Downing Street spokesman said Mr Johnson 'strongly condemned the attack on the prime minister's home in Baghdad and offered his sympathies to those injured'. 'He made clear that the UK stands by the Iraqi people and supports prime minister Khadimi's efforts to form a government following elections, which is vital for the long-term stability of Iraq,' the spokesman said. Mr al-Kadhimi wrote on Twitter: 'The rockets of treachery will not discourage the believers. The steadfastness and insistence of our heroic security forces will not falter as they work to preserve the security of the people, achieve justice and enforce the law. 'I am fine, praise be to God, among my people, and I call for calm and restraint from everyone, for the sake of Iraq.' He later appeared on Iraqi television, seated behind a desk in a white shirt, looking calm and composed. 'Cowardly rocket and drone attacks don't build homelands and don't build a future,' he said. A security official on condition of anonymity said: 'It's premature now to say who carried out the attack. 'We're checking our intelligence reports and waiting for initial investigation results to point the finger at perpetrators.' In a statement, the government said an explosives-laden drone tried to hit Mr Al-Kadhimi's home. Three drones were used in the attack, including two that were intercepted and downed by security forces while a third drone hit the residence, state news agency INA quoted a spokesman for the interior ministry as saying. Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by heavy gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and government offices. The statement released by state-run media said security forces were 'taking the necessary measures in connection with this failed attempt.' No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the Green Zone, which houses government buildings and foreign embassies. It comes amid a stand-off between security forces and pro-Iran Shiite militias whose supporters have been camped outside the Green Zone for nearly a month after they rejected the results of Iraq's parliamentary elections in which they lost around two-thirds of their seats. On Friday, protests turned deadly when the demonstrators tried to enter the Green Zone and pelted police with stones, injuring several officers. The police responded with tear gas and live gunfire, killing at least one demonstrator, according to security and hospital sources in Baghdad. Independent analysts say the election results were a reflection of anger towards the Iran-backed armed groups, which are widely accused of involvement in the killing of nearly 600 protesters who took the street in separate, anti-government demonstrations in 2019. Images showed bricks and rubble strewn across the floor in the aftermath of the attack on the Iraqi PM's home which is under investigation Security sources said remains of a small explosive-laden drone used in the attack were also retrieved Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by heavy gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone An image released by the Iraqi Prime Minister's office shows the damage caused by the drone attack Bricks and pieces of wood lay strewn across the floor in the aftermath of the drone attack on Sunday Following the assassination attempt, the U.S. strongly denounced the 'act of terrorism' which was 'directed at the heart of the Iraqi state' The United States, which has around 2,500 troops in the country, said it was 'relieved to learn the Prime Minister was unharmed'. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said: 'This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state. 'We are in close touch with the Iraqi security forces charged with upholding Iraq's sovereignty and independence and have offered our assistance as they investigate this attack.' Iraq's President Barham Salih, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said the attack 'requires a united position in confronting the evil actors trying to mess with this country's security and the safety of its people. 'We cannot accept dragging Iraq into chaos and to a coup against the constitutional system.' Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also condemned the assassination attempt. Mr Al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt after his Baghdad home, pictured was targeted by a drone laden with explosives Security sources said the attack injured several members of Al-Kadhimi's personal protection Writing on Facebook, he called on all sides in Iraq to 'calm down, renounce violence and join forces to preserve the country's stability.' And Saudi Arabia issued a statement of support for stability in Iraq and said it strongly condemned the 'cowardly terrorist attack that targeted Iraq's prime minister.' Sunday's attack comes during a period of soaring tensions over the results of the October 10 elections, the fifth since the 2003 US-led invasion ousted dictator Saddam Hussein with the promise of bringing freedom and democracy. Hundreds of Hashed supporters clashed with police on Friday while protesting near the Green Zone to vent their fury over the preliminary result. One protester died of injuries in hospital, according to a security source, while a Hashed source said two demonstrators were killed. Several hundred supporters of pro-Iranian groups returned to the edge of the Green Zone on Saturday to protest, and some burned a portrait of the prime minister, whom they called a 'criminal'. The pro-Hashed protests are aimed at strengthening its negotiating position during the coalition bargaining process, Iraqi political analyst Ihsan al-Shamari has said. Mr Al-Kadhimi was Iraq's former intelligence chief before becoming prime minister in May last year. He is considered by the militias to be close to the U.S., and has tried to balance between Iraq's alliances with both the U.S. and Iran. Prior to the elections, he hosted several rounds of talks between regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad in a bid to ease regional tensions. Former PM John Major launched a blistering attack on Boris Johnson over the sleaze miring the government yesterday. But his own administration suffered huge damage from a series of scandals in the 1990s, before the Conservatives were routed by Tony Blair at the 1997 election. Sir John left the door open for allegations of hypocrisy in 1993 when he launched a campaign promising to go 'back to basics', returning Britain to a more moral stance based on decency and respect for the law. The drive became an object of ridicule over the following years as controversies erupted over extra-marital liaisons and paid lobbying. Ironically, news of Sir John's own four-year affair with fellow minister Edwina Currie did not emerged until 2002. In his interview yesterday, Sir John said the difference between the 1990s and now was that he had taken action to stamp out abuses, creating the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life. 'The striking difference is this: in the 1990s I set up a committee to tackle this sort of behaviour,' he told the BBC. 'Over the last few days we have seen today's government trying to defend this sort of behaviour. 'Sleaze is unacceptable, was unacceptable when I was there, and I suffered a great deal of pain and anguish over it. It's unacceptable today, and it needs to be stopped.' John Major (left) left the door open for allegations of hypocrisy in 1993 when he launched a campaign promising to go 'back to basics'. David Mellor (right) was among the ministers who had to resign David Mellor's affair and Spanish holiday In 1992 culture minister David Mellor was subject to kiss-and-tell revelations from actress Antonia de Sancha, with whom he had been having an affair. The PM stood by his minister despite a series of lewd details emerging - which later turned out to have been made up by celebrity publicist Max Clifford. However, it later emerged that Mona Bauwens, the daughter of a senior member of the Palestine National Fund, had hosted the Mellors for a family holiday to Marbella in Spain. He then quit in September 1992. At the 1997 election BBC war correspondent Martin Bell (right) stood against Neil Hamilton (left) in Tatton as an anti-sleaze candidate, ejecting him from the Commons Cash-for-questions In October 1994 the Tory government was left reeling by allegations that MPs had taken payments from businessman Mohammad Al-Fayed to ask questions in Parliament. Neil Hamilton was forced to resign as a junior minister despite denying the allegation, and launched a libel action - which he later withdrew. At the 1997 election former BBC war correspondent Martin Bell stood against Mr Hamilton in Tatton as an anti-sleaze candidate, ejecting him from the Commons. The scandal led Sir John to set up the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life in a bid to clean up politics. Mr Hamilton is now the leader of Ukip. In 1995 the Guardian alleged that Jonathan Aitken (pictured), then Treasury Chief Secretary, had allowed aides of the Saudi royal family to pay his 1,000 hotel bill at the Paris Ritz two years earlier Jonathan Aitken's 'sword of truth' In 1995 the Guardian alleged that Jonathan Aitken, then Treasury Chief Secretary, had allowed aides of the Saudi royal family to pay his 1,000 hotel bill at the Paris Ritz two years earlier. He sued the newspaper, famously vowing to 'cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play.' But he admitted committing perjury after the paper produced evidence that showed he was lying in his evidence. He was jailed for 18 months in 1999, and has since been ordained as a priest. A former mistress of warped morgue killer David Fuller has told of her two-year affair with the perverted double murderer and how he was 'the perfect gentleman'. Fuller, 67, had already killed two women when he began a relationship with the unsuspecting nurse behind the back of his second wife in 1990. The hospital electrician admitted the 1987 sexual assaults and murders of Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, at Maidstone Crown Court this week. Both women lived alone in ground-floor flats just a mile apart in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Fuller also sexually abused at least 100 corpses in the hospital, while police found hard drives, floppy discs and CDs with 14 million images of sex offences - including filming himself committing the heinous acts. His oldest victim was 100 and his youngest aged just nine. The custody picture of David Fuller, 67, who has admitted the murders of Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells in 1987 Fuller, 67, admitted killing Wendy Knell, 25, (left) and Caroline Pierce, 20, (right) in 1987 in what became known as the 'Bedsit Murders' one of Britain's longest unsolved murder cases Fuller acted surprised when officers arrived at his home to arrest him on suspicion of murder. He replied 'oh blimey' when he was informed of why officers were in attendance Fuller pictured out on a bicycle ride. He sexually abused more than 100 bodies while working as a hospital electrician The former mistress, who has not been named, told The Sunday Mirror that he seemed a 'perfectly ordinary person' who wooed her with cocktails and tickets to a pop concert. They were together for two years from 1990, three years after Fuller's gruesome offences, before he dumped her for another nurse. She said: 'To think Im associated with someone who did something so terrible is awful. Im very lucky he didnt kill me.' The nurse added that she lived in a studio flat just around the corner from the two victims and met Fuller at a hospital social club. The pair attended a Beverley Craven concert together, but she believed him to be ice cool and described how he would 'never get angry'. She said: 'I was 27 when I began seeing him and I was with him for just over two years. 'I was a district nurse and some of us used to go up to the canteen in Kent and Sussex Hospital [in Tunbridge Wells]. 'I was at a loose end and trying to make new friends, so I started going to the social club. I remember thinking he was quite odd for a man because he drank Archers and lemonade. 'He wasnt a beer man. He was quite a quiet man, but he was quite friendly. He just seemed like a perfectly ordinary person.' Despite her impression of Fuller being 'a quiet man', he was in fact a despicable man who, in addition to his horrendous crimes, had affairs with at least two colleagues during three marriages. The woman continued: 'I was quite aware of the Bedsit Murders and I was very nervous about them. The murders were in my mind and a lot of young womens minds. 'Little did I know I was actually dating the person responsible. In the back of my mind I do still think, Why was I spared? 'I was in the right criteria in that I lived in the roads near where the girls worked, I had a bedsit and I was in my 20s.' Kent Police has set up a helpline for distraught relatives who believe their loved ones could have been violated. Local Conservative MP Greg Clark, for Tunbridge Wells, has also said a public inquiry into how Fuller carried out hundreds of sex attacks is required, adding that the investigation launched by the local NHS trust was 'not sufficient'. Fuller's ex-lover only became aware of his offending when he admitted the murders and sex offences in court earlier this week. She said: 'He was a perfect gentleman with me. I didnt see a bad side to him at all. Police say they will never know how many women and girls David Fuller (pictured) violated but admit it could be hundreds more Pictured: David Fuller's NHS security badge 'There was nothing to lead me to believe hes the person weve now found him out to be now. 'He never showed any perversion in bed. He was totally ordinary and normal. There was nothing at all. I still cant believe that he could be capable and part of me still doesnt want to believe it, but equally I want him to pay for what hes done. I didnt know anything about the mortuary offences until it came out in court. I was really shocked. 'The police said to me, "be prepared for a nasty shock", but I wasnt expecting anything as horrific as this. 'I just thought it was going to be that there were other women like me, or multiple women that he was dating all at the same time. Its been a traumatic time.' She said their first date together was a trip to Folkestone Air Show, while Fuller would also regularly visit her at her flat. A mother's grief and revulsion after her daughter's body was defiled by David Fuller A woman whose daughter's body was defiled by David Fuller pleaded yesterday: 'This must never happen again.' The warped hospital electrician sneaked into the mortuary at Tunbridge Wells Hospital in Kent three times to sexually abuse Azra Kemal, 24, who died after plunging from a bridge. Horrifically, the first two attacks happened just hours before and after her grief-stricken mother, Nevres Kemal, had visited her daughter and stroked her hair to say farewell. She said: 'I had spent two hours in the mortuary sleeping with her. And that gave me some sort of comfort. Little did I know that my daughter had been violated prior to that day and the evening of that day. So, while I'm stroking my daughter's hair, sleeping on her hair, a man had... crawled all over her skin. And there's me kissing and cuddling and saying my last goodbyes.' Sickening: Azra Kemal was one of Fuller's victims Miss Kemal, who worked as a researcher for Sky News, was one of Fuller's most recent victims. He carried out his sickening assaults in July last year. Her mother a London social worker told Sky News: 'Men and women up and down the country will be appalled by what they are reading. 'And I remind them that if this was your loved one you would roar with rage and I am silently roaring. We need to respect the dead and this must never happen again.' Advertisement The majority of the time, though, the pair spent time together at the hospital social club. The nurse said Fuller was 'always pleasant and friendly' and she was aware he was unhappy with his wife, but the relationship ended 'because he didn't want what I wanted'. Kent Police has formally identified 81 victims in the mortuary, but an investigation is still ongoing and anyone with information is urged to get in contact with the force. Fuller was still working for the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust when revolutionary DNA profiling techniques led detectives investigating the historic murders to his home in Heathfield, East Sussex, on December 3 last year. Police found a hidden cache of printed photos along with thousands of digital images and videos that exposed one of Britain's biggest healthcare scandals. Fuller had spent at least 12 years abusing corpses in the mortuaries of Kent and Sussex and Tunbridge Wells hospitals. The hoarder kept detailed handwritten diaries of his abuse, along with thousands of videos and images of himself having sex with the corpses organised into folders. Libby Clark, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: 'No British court has ever seen abuse on this scale against the dead before and I have no doubt he would still be offending to this day had it not been for this painstaking investigation and prosecution.' In his role as electrician, he had a swipe card that allowed him unsupervised access to all parts of the hospital. Mortuary staff usually finished for the day at 4pm, while Fuller's shift was from 11am to 7pm, police have said. He would carry his bag of tools with him and ensured his abuse could not be picked up by CCTV, which covered only part of the mortuary. It meant there was evidence of him moving around the mortuary, but no footage of him interactive with the bodies. Instead, all the evidence came from his own filming. When he was arrested, Fuller seemed surprised to see officers at his home. He was caught on an officer's body worn camera saying: 'Oh blimey.' Fuller had previously admitted responsibility for the deaths with 'diminished responsibility' at Maidstone Crown Court, but initially denied murder. Ms Knell's bloodstained body was found in her flat on June 23, 1987, after Fuller a convicted burglar had climbed in through the window, before beating and strangling her to death. Ms Pierce was abducted from outside her home on November 24 the same year. Her body, naked apart from a pair of tights, was found in a water-filled dyke near Romney Marsh three weeks later. Fuller will be sentenced at a later date. A British national in Ireland has been charged for making threats to kill a female Labour MP three days after Sir David Amess was stabbed to death. The 41-year-old man was detained in Douglas near Cork on Saturday by police with armed support. A number of electronic devices were seized by police to be searched. The man was held at Bridewell garda station in Cork under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act where he could be held for 24 hours for questioning, The Irish Times reported. The man will appear before Cork District Court today. Up to 15 gardai were involved in the operation which led to the arrest outside the man's rented apartment at 7.30am. A British national has been charged in Ireland for making threats to kill a female Labour MP just three days after Sir David Amess was stabbed to death He was taken to the Bridwell Garda station (pictured) where he was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act for up to 24 hours The suspect is alleged to have phoned the MP and made death threats on October 18, and gardai were alerted by British officers. In an unconnected case, the alleged terrorist accused of fatally stabbing Sir David Amess will enter pleas next month at the Old Bailey ahead of a potential trial in March next year. The alleged terrorist accused of fatally stabbing Sir David Amess will enter pleas next month at the Old Bailey ahead of a potential trial in March next year. Ali Harbi Ali is charged with murdering the Conservative MP for Southend West during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on October 15. The 25-year-old British defendant, who is in custody, is also charged with preparing acts of terrorism between May 1, 2019 and September this year. Ali Harbi Ali, 25, is charged with murdering the Conservative MP for Southend West last month A draft indictment claims Ali engaged in reconnaissance of locations of targets to attack including addresses associated with MPs and the Houses of Parliament. He also allegedly did online research relating to targets to attack. Ali appeared on Friday morning at the Old Bailey for a preliminary hearing by videolink from HMP Belmarsh. Wearing a pale blue jumper, Ali spoke only to confirm his name. The judge Mr Justice Sweeney set a preparatory and plea hearing for December 21. A provisional trial date has already been identified for March 7 next year. Following the brief hearing, the defendant was remanded into custody. Ali appears via videolink from HMP Belmarsh for an Old Bailey hearing on October 22 Sir David with (from left) daughter Katie, wife Julia and other daughters Flo, Sarah and Alex at Flo's wedding in August. On October 15, the veteran MP was pronounced dead at the scene Ali is accused of travelling by train from his home in Kentish Town, North London, to attend 69-year-old Sir David's surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church. During the meeting, he was allegedly seen to use his mobile phone before standing up, and allegedly producing a large knife from his pocket and repeatedly stabbing Sir David. The veteran MP was pronounced dead at the scene at 1.10pm and a preliminary post-mortem report gave the cause of death as multiple stab wounds to the chest. Ali was arrested at the scene and later charged before appearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court. Forensic officers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Essex on October 15 People look at flowers left by the police cordon near Belfairs Methodist Church on October 17 On October 22, Ali appeared at the Old Bailey for the first time by videolink from high security Belmarsh prison in South East London. In that hearing, the defendant lifted up his face mask to confirm his name and date of birth and was not asked to enter pleas to the charges. Ali's barrister, Kevin Toomey, made no application for bail in that hearing and the defendant was remanded in custody. The Crown Prosecution Service alleges the murder has a terrorist connection because of its 'religious and ideological' motives. Shocking footage has emerged of German police spraying tear gas in the faces of protesters after they staged a rally against Covid passports. Disorder broke out after 1,000 people began marching in the eastern city of Leipzig, Saxony, yesterday, with 24 arrests understood to have been made. From Monday, Saxony will be the first federal state in the country to implement the '2G' rule, which has angered campaigners against new restrictions. In Germany, the 2G rule means people must be fully vaccinated against Covid or be able to prove they have recovered from it, in order to visit pubs, restaurants and other indoor events. Over 3,000 protesters against the new rule had originally pledged to take part in the rally in the city - the largest in Saxony - before authorities set a cap on 1,000 people. But by morning, this number had already been reached and police struggled to control the crowds in the city centre. A video shows the protest - which had been peaceful up to a point - become gradually more tense with angry shouts from the crowd. Clashes took place between police and protesters after thousands of Covid sceptics staged a rally in Leipzig Police struggled to maintain order in the city despite a cap on the number of protesters being set at 1,000 people All of a sudden, the scene in Grimmaische Strae descends into chaos - with several pushes and shoves before police and protesters begin jostling against each other. Protesters can be hearding screaming as police then begin spraying tear gas among the crowd. One man is seen being pushed by an officer as he staggers around disoriented from the spray. Elsewhere, a woman with a bicyle cries out in pain after being caught in the middle of several volleys of spray. Police said those who were arrested had been carrying banned objects, according to German news website DW. Saxony currently has the highest Covid rate in Germany at 415.8 new infections per 100,000, as well as the lowest vaccine takeup with just 57 per cent of people fully inoculated, compared to 66 percent nationally, according to the Robert Koch Institute of Infectious Diseases. Stephan Kramer, head of the domestic intelligence agency in the eastern state of Thuringia, warned of increasing radicalization among anti-Covid campaigners. 'The fourth wave, the discussion about booster vaccinations and tightening of coronavirus measures such as the extension of proof of vaccination or recovery regulations can lead to a new impetus for the scene,' Mr Kramer told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland news group. 'We are experiencing online bullying, insults, physical attacks and ultra-aggressive behaviour all over the country.' Covid passports have attracted controversy in other areas where they have been introduced. Covid passports are compulsory in Wales and Scotland to enter nightclubs, adult entertainment venues and large-scale events. In Wales, the rules also apply to cinemas, theatres, nightclubs and concert halls. Plans for the scheme to be rolled out in England in September were scrapped by the government. The rally continued into the evening, with protesters carrying banners criticising the German government's stance on Covid passports The protest was described as relatively peaceful until a disorder broke out in Grimmaische Strae in the city centre Leipzig came to a standstill yesterday after 1,000 protesters took to the city's streets The video footage of the disorder provoked strong reactions when it was shared online. Jennifer Hies wrote on Twitter: 'I lived in Leipzig for two years. They are literally standing in front of one of the buildings that was destroyed during Kristallnacht and a block away from the St. Nicholai church where the peoples movement against the communist regime began. History repeats itself over and over.' Elsewhere, Jules Lancashire tweeted: 'Oh my goodness. Summer 2018 I visited my eldest there during his Erasmus. I did a very informative free walking tour and gave thanks that I had never experienced what the East Germans had, nor never would. Im very sad to say that now I know I was mistaken.' The baffling mystery of missing campers Russell Hill and Carol Clay could be days from being solved as police release images of a dark blue 4WD, with detectives believing its driver killed the couple and stuffed their bodies inside the car's trailer. The couple, who were having a secret affair known only to her sister, vanished from a remote campsite at the rugged Wonnangatta Valley in the Victorian Alps in March 2020. Since then, police have had few leads in the case, having initially thought the pair had intentionally disappeared - but bombshell evidence has left them convinced the couple were killed. The homicide detectives who scoured their burnt out tent, table and folding chairs are now sure Mr Hill, 74, and Ms Clay, 73, were murdered and likely driven away from the grisly scene. So far there are no suspects in the case but new bombshell CCTV footage shows a mid-1990s model Nissan Patrol towing a trailer that detectives say holds the 'key' piece of the puzzle. Russell Hill (pictured, left) and Carol Clay (right) are believed to have been murdered during a camping trip The vehicle is now central to the investigation because painstaking video analysis has managed to account for every car exiting the remote valley that weekend - except the blue 4WD. 'Throughout our extensive and significant investigation over the last 20 months, we have not been able to eliminate this blue four-wheel drive from our enquiries,' Inspector Andrew Stamper said in a public alert. 'We have witness statements that put this blue vehicle and its trailer in the valley at the time Russell and Carol were there, and indeed near the spot that they had set up their camp.' The 4WD has roof racks, side steps, off-road tyres and a bulbar. The box trailer is 'fairly standard' but has been fitted with 'off-road wheels'. From the earliest stages of the investigation detectives had wondered why the couple set up their campsite away from the river in a less secluded spot. Inspector Stamper now believes it's because somebody else was already camping there when they arrived. The mid-1990s model Nissan Patrol (pictured) is now central to the investigation because painstaking video analysis has managed to account for every car exiting the remote valley that weekend - except the blue 4WD The 4WD (pictured in a police sketch) has roof racks, side steps, off-road tyres and a bulbar. The box trailer is 'fairly standard' but has been fitted with 'off-road wheels' A witness reported seeing a vehicle which matches the Nissan Patrol's description parked near their campsite on the night they went missing. Another recalls hearing it leave the area around midnight and getting stuck on a closed road before turning around. The leading theory now is that there may have been some sort of altercation between the campers which turned deadly. Inspector Stamper says the killer has then tried to cover their tracks by burning the campsite and using the trailer to move the bodies. 'My believe is that this was not planned or premeditated attack it was just something that happened quickly which probably means whoever did it would have acted quickly in trying to conceal them,' he told 60 Minutes. 'The person who carried out this is probably just an ordinary member of the community who is operating in a normal job and carrying a significant load on their mind.' The pair went missing in the Wonnangatta Valley, more than 200km north east of Melbourne Mr Hill's white Toyota Landcruiser (pictured) was found with minor fire damage at their burnt campsite near Dry River Creek Track in the valley on March 21 From the earliest stages of the investigation detectives had wondered why the couple set up their campsite away from the river in a less secluded spot (shown above) but Inspector Stamper now believes it's because somebody else was already camping there when they arrived In the initial stages of the case, authorities suspected the couple had simply run off together, but neither has accessed their bank accounts since their disappearance. Possessions belonging to the couple were found inside Mr Hill's Toyota 4WD at the scene. The only things missing were their mobile phones and a remote control drone. Mr Hill's wife Robyn, 71, said she had no idea her husband was with another woman when he went missing. She said her husband had been friendly with Ms Clay for decades but was unaware they were travelling together. Another working theory was that the pair had become lost, but given Mr Hill is an experienced outdoorsman with knowledge of the area, that would appear extremely unlikely. Multiple major search operations involving drones, helicopters, mounted police, search dogs and ground crews have also come up with nothing. Russell Hill and Carol Clay (pictured) were last heard from on March 20 last year, with Mr Hill's wife unaware he was travelling with another woman Mr Hill (above) had recently retired and was an experienced outdoorsman who reportedly knew the remote Alpine region of the Gippsland well In an emotional television interview, Mr Hill's two daughters Colleen and Debbie (pictured) visited the campsite for the first time and said they believe their father was murdered because he would never leave his family An 'overheated' mobile phone charger was initially believed to have set their campsite on fire and burned their tent, table and camping chairs but now detectives have completely changed their tune, saying the blaze was deliberately lit. Inspector Stamper acknowledged the early stages of the investigation may have been hampered by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. 'We understand that initially, given the confusion around Covid-19 and state-wide lockdowns that people may have been reluctant to come forward, or that someone may simply have missed our repeated appeals for information,' he said. 'But if you are the driver of this blue Nissan Patrol, or you know who is, we would urge you to come forward if nothing else, so we can eliminate you from our enquiries and move forward.' In an emotional television interview, Mr Hill's two daughters Colleen and Debbie visited the campsite for the first time and said they believe their father was murdered because he would never leave his family. The area is notorious for blood-thirsty hunters illegally killing deer, who often use thermal imaging with their high-powered rifles Homicide Squad detectives who scoured their burnt out tent, table and folding chairs (pictured) are convinced Mr Hill, 74, and Ms Clay, 73, were murdered and likely driven away from the grisly scene 'I really don't believe he could be alive, he wouldn't hide,' Debbie Hill said. 'You just hope someone will speak up if they know something to help the situation... We just want to know what happened and where he is.' Carol's younger sister Jill told the Chanel Nine program she also shares their anguish of not knowing what happened. 'It's difficult each day because it's with you all the time,' she said. 'You're not able to put it down that is the problem of someone who has gone missing. You never have a resolution. You just have to keep on holding it and holding it.' The charred remains (pictured) from the couple's campsite have been released for the first time Police originally believed the fire was not deliberately lit but started with an overheated mobile phone charger (pictured) MISSING CAMPERS THEORIES THE BLUE NISSAN PATROL Homicide detectives now suspect a person travelling dark blue Nissan Patrol got into an altercation with the couple which turned deadly. Investigators theorise the person may have driven their bodies away in a trailer. SHOT BY HUNTERS Locals believe the pair may have been shot and killed after Mr Hill's drone unwittingly caught illegal hunters in the act. Large numbers of deer carcasses were found near the burnt out campsite. MURDERER STALKING THE AREA A friend of Mr Hill said hunters in the area has seen a 'sinister' figure lurking near their campfire. THE 'BUTTON MAN' An 'oddball loner' expert bushman known as the 'button man' for his habit of making buttons out of deer antlers became a person of interest after the disappearance, but there is no evidence he is linked to the disappearance. KILLED BY UNKNOWN ATTACKERS Police acknowledge that some other unknown attackers could have set upon the campers. Advertisement A women who suffers with type 1 diabetes has blasted nightclub owners after the bouncers tried to confiscate her insulin pen amid increasing reports of injection spiking. The woman, who has asked not be named, was visiting the popular Coalition club in Brighton when staff carrying out a routine bag search said her insulin and blood testing kit would have to be taken away before she was allowed in. Despite always carrying her insulin pens and kit, which contains her blood glucose monitor, testing strips and a lancet which is used to prick her fingertip, she was told all medication was being confiscated on entry following the rise in injection spiking cases. It comes after a recent spate of reported spikings by women who claim they were injected with drugs or had their drinks spiked. A women who suffers with type 1 diabetes has blasted Brighton's Coalition club (Pictured) owners after the bouncers tried to confiscate her insulin pen amid increasing reports of injection spiking Four women claimed they were 'spiked' by injection and hospitalised whilst on separate nights out over the Halloween weekend. Almost 200 drink spiking incidents have been reported to police forces across the UK over the past two months. Speaking about the incident, the woman said: 'I was told that if I came in and I needed my insulin that staff could try and get it back to me in under 40 seconds. 'I tried to say that it's dangerous for me to be without it, but they just kept saying that if I came in, it would have to be confiscated. 'In a busy nightclub it would be impossible to guarantee that my medicine would give back to me in a matter of seconds. 'It was said to me that insulin pens are being used for spiking, but in my 20 years as a diabetic I have never been denied entry into anywhere because I have an insulin pen. I've been on nights out in clubs since the needle spiking began, and I haven't had my medication taken away from me.' The woman, who was visiting Brighton for a holiday, said she felt 'dismissed and discriminated against'. A spokesman for The Pier Group, who owns the Coalition club on the seafront, said it is currently asking all customers who have medical items that involve needles to 'voluntarily' hand them over. He added that the club would like to 'apologise unreservedly' if its staff were 'over zealous' in enforcing the policy. He said: 'I would stress that this is a voluntary measure - it is most definitely not a condition of entry. Between Monday and Wednesday this week around 10-15 people have voluntarily handed us their equipment for safe keeping while in the club. 'We have had, we think, two people refuse, in which case they were obviously permitted entry anyway. 'We've spoken to our door staff and if the customer in question was made to feel that handing in her devices was a condition of entry or if they were overzealous in dealing with her, then we apologise unreservedly - this was most definitely not our intention. 'Under no circumstances would we be so thoughtless and inconsiderate as to attempt to 'confiscate' anything of this kind.' A tradie who worked on the house where Cleo Smith was allegedly held by a kidnapper has told investigators the loner had a room decorated for a little girl, and had claimed he had a young daughter. The man who was hired to paint the Carnarvon, WA, public housing commission duplex which Terence Darrell Kelly rented was interviewed by police in the days following his arrest and told them he had seen a room adorned with doll-lined shelves. A door to one of the rooms in the house which can allegedly be locked from the outside is also of particular interest to detectives, reports The Australian, with WA's housing department having a policy to not install locks on internal doors for safety reasons. Cleo went missing from the Quobba Blowholes campground in mid-October, sparking a massive police search which ended 18 days later when she was found alive and well in a raid just minutes away from her parents' house. Four-year-old Cleo Smith (pictured) is now recovering with her family after being missing for 18 days The 36-year-old alleged abductor's fixation with dolls has been brought to light following his arrest, with forensic police seen removing several large evidence bags believed to be filled with dolls from the rundown house in recent days. A leading theory put forward by investigators is that the abduction was not pre-meditated but that Kelly had allegedly been at the Quobba Blowholes campground and stumbled across little Cleo. While he was known to police for petty crimes he was not on the sex offender list and was not immediately focused on as a suspect. Terence Kelly's duplex in Carnarvon, Western Australia, was swarming with forensic police on Saturday Bizarre details have emerged about the accused's strange obsession with toys as numerous social media accounts linked to Kelly show a room full of children's dolls (pictured) However, information given to police by telecommunications operators allegedly showed a phone registered to him pinged off the Point Quobba phone tower nearby the campground at 3am, just three hours before Cleo's parents woke up to find her missing from her tent. The crucial piece of information led police to investigate Kelly further with detectives understood to have quickly uncovered more links between between him and the alleged abduction - though they have not revealed what these are. Forensic investigators are expected to continue their work at the derelict house until at least Wednesday, having already removed a significant amount of evidence including carpets from multiple rooms. Bags of evidence were removed, believed to contain contain some of Kelly's beloved Bratz dolls Remarkable bodycam footage captured the moment Cleo was rescued by detectives, with the brave little girl clinging to her savior as she is gently spoken to and told she would soon see her 'mummy' The dilapidated house where Cleo was found was is in an area of Carnarvon which locals have said has become increasingly unruly in recent years. Both Carnarvon council and police records show a major riot broke out in and around Tonkin Crescent, home to the accused kidnapper, late Friday night on October 16, 2020. That date is exactly one year to the day before Cleo Smith was allegedly snatched from her tent at the Quobba Blowholes. The street - nicknamed 'Toxic Crescent' in the coastal town - was the centre of violent riots which left several officers injured, residents told Daily Mail Australia. Last year's riots re-emerged as a large team of forensic officers scoured Kelly's home on Saturday afternoon, with dozens of dolls believed to be among the piles of evidence seen being removed from the derelict property. Forensic teams are seen leaving the Carnarvon house on Saturday as they continue to scour the scene (pictured) Kelly, 36, allegedly held four-year-old Cleo Smith inside the derelict home for 18 days after she was taken from her family's tent Police officers bundle evidence wrapped in white plastic into a trailer after combing the property on Saturday Cleo Smith, four, was found alive and well, 18 days after she vanished from her family's tent at the remote Blowholes campsite in north-west Western Australia Forensic officers - who also were seen inspecting a bedframe and holding a box filled with coloured pens - may take as long as two months to fully search the home, The Sunday Times reported. Locals claimed the riots last year led to 'many arrests' and ultimately saw police withdrawing from the site for their own safety. One Carnarvon resident, who asked not to be named, said the riot was 'a big deal' at the time amid concern the the area was becoming a hub for drugs, alcohol and violence. In the days following the riots, local Senior Sergeant Jayd Morawski addressed Carnarvon council and described chaotic scenes as large groups - fuelled by excessive alcohol use - attacked police officers. He said the worst hit areas were Shallcross Street, Crossland Street/Hubble Street and Mills and Tonkin Crescent - the latter being where Cleo was miraculously found alive early on Wednesday following her 18-day ordeal. Crisis talks were then held between local police and councillors about the town's drug and alcohol problems and how to solve them 'immediately'. According to council meeting notes, local Nationals member Vince Catania said he would raise the issue at an upcoming parliament sitting. A year on and Catania said this week that Kelly's neighbourhood - a housing commission precinct - had been left to fall into 'rack and ruin' and that little had improved since the violent incident a year ago. Littered with broken glass and rubbish, the street and neighbouring David Brand Drive is also nicknamed by Carnarvon locals as 'ground zero' and was dubbed 'scorched earth' by some of the media covering Cleo's abduction. Small children can often be seen wandering the area alone, with dog attacks and break-ins 'common' according to residents. One business owner, who has resided in the area for seven years, said Cleo's alleged abduction came at a time when the town was slipping down a slope of 'rampant' crime and social disturbance. Residents claim the area has become a hub for drugs, alcohol and violence. Police officers are pictured at Kelly's home on Saturday Forensic officers were seen in the backyard of Kelly's property on Saturday as they searched through piles of evidence Neighbours claim riots on his street led to 'many arrests' and ultimately saw police withdrawing from the site for their own safety Police records confirm the street was the site was one of Carnarvon's most violent riots exactly a year before her disappearance 'We left Carnarvon and got stuck in Thailand due to Covid but when we returned we were shocked at how bad things had become,' said shop-owner Denam French who described the area around Kelly's Tonkin Crescent home as a 'well-known no-go area'. 'It's an area that even taxis stopped driving to some time ago,' he said. 'You just don't drive anywhere near there. 'If you do you can have your car pelted with rocks or bottles. 'It's just a part of town that is generally avoided.' Forensic experts will remain at Kelly's duplex home for several more days as they search for evidence that can be used against him before his next court appearance in December. A police officer in full protective gear is seen at the Carnarvon home where Cleo was found The large team of experts are believed to have been brought in from Perth and Carnarvon's surrounding areas earlier in the week. Tonkin Crescent's dark history was revealed as it emerged detectives used mobile data to track down Cleo's alleged abductor. Sources close to the investigation claim the mobile phone data was crucial in helping police to identify Kelly as a prime suspect. 'His phone was allegedly in the area as part of the data collection,' a source told The West Australian. 'That is part of the information that led the taskforce to him.' There are at least three new mobile base stations located not far from the remote campsite where Cleo vanished from at Quobba Point, 73km north of Carnarvon, on October 16. Telecommunication providers then gave police a list of phone numbers that had been used in the area during the times of interest. A forensic team is pictured standing in front of a Mazda vehicle outside the rundown home Detective superintendent Rod Wilde said the data was then layered with other information before Kelly became a person of interest. 'So we put the phone data over numberplate-recognition data, CCTV, witness accounts, forensics... And when you layer them on top of each other you solve crimes and that is merely what we have done here.' Police tailed Kelly in an unmarked police car at 11.24pm on Tuesday - just hours before they raided his housing commission home at Carnarvon at 1am on Wednesday. Detective senior sergeant Cameron Blaine said officers had been waiting for Kelly to 'go mobile and leave the premises'. 'It was clear in my head what had to occur so it was: 'OK, let's do that'.' Dashcam footage from a passing taxi captured the moment Kelly was pulled over by the unmarked police vehicle as he drove down Robinson Street. Police tailed Kelly in an unmarked car at 11.24pm on Tuesday - just hours before they raided his housing commission home at Carnarvon at 1am on Wednesday A second unmarked police vehicle pulls up in front of the parked car to prevent any chance of escape. A bystander recalled watching police then pin Kelly to the ground before arresting him. 'We saw one of the detectives on top of the guy pinning him down on the curb ... you know really vigorously,' they said. With their prime suspect now in handcuffs, detectives made the decision to search his housing commission home at 12.46am on Wednesday. Detectives then allegedly found Cleo playing with toys in one of the rooms which had been locked. 'I just saw a little girl sitting there and didn't think about anything else than picking her up,' detective senior constable Kurt Ford said. It will be a day WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson will never forget as he recalled new details of the rescue to the state's 7,200 officers in internal weekly publication From The Line. Cleo Smith was pictured in her mum Ellie's arms outside her Carnarvon home on Thursday, 24 hours after her incredible rescue Stepfather Jake Gliddon (pictured on Thursday), Cleo and Ellie spent their first night together sleeping in the same room as the four-year-old who they didn't want to let out of their sights 'It was a day that will go down in history as one of the greatest triumphs for WA Police Force. For many officers, it will be the greatest day of their careers,' Commissioner Dawson said. 'My heart has been bursting with pride since I first received a phone call from Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch advising of Cleo's rescue shortly before 1am. 'Today, I want that pride to fill the hearts of all employees of this great agency.' The commissioner met Cleo along with her mum Ellie Smith, stepfather Jake Gliddon and her grandparents at the family home just hours after the little girl was rescued. 'As Cleo and her mum were exchanging kisses and hugs she fell asleep in Ellie's arms,' he recalled. 'None of us will forget that day. It's why we join the police force. 'From the bottom of my heart - which is so very swollen with pride - thank you to all... Enjoy this moment in history and let it carry you forward in service of our community.' He also sent an photo of Cleo smiling and waving in hospital to WA Premier Mark McGowan, who described the little girl as well adjusted, sweet and delightful during his visit to the family home on Thursday. Commissioner Dawson also recalled the heart-melting moment he first heard the audio of the little girl's rescue and the first words she uttered, telling officers: 'My name is Cleo'. 'In policing, we frequently see the worst of society and the circumstances surrounding Cleo's abduction certainly fit that bill,' he said. 'But on occasion...we also have the great privilege of having a front row seat to witness the very best of humanity and the rescue of Cleo is one of those moments. 'It should be treasured.' Kelly, who is not known to the family but lives just minutes away, was charged with multiple offences on Thursday night, including Cleo's kidnapping. A beaming Cleo is seen from her hospital bed after she was rescued by police on Wednesday He appeared in Carnarvon Magistrate's Court on Thursday afternoon, where he was formally refused bail. Police have warned Cleo's parents to wait until specialist child abuse detectives formally interview the four-year-old before talking about the traumatic events with her. A heart-warming audio clip of the moment detectives first found Cleo alone in a room playing with toys was also heard for the first time on Thursday. Sergeant Blaine can be heard asking the little girl 'what is your name?' three times before she finally falteringly replied: 'M-my name is Cleo.' He said police have tried to share as much information they can with the parents but at this stage investigators are still piecing all the details together themselves. Terry Kelly, 36, was taken away from Carnarvon police station, in Western Australia, after sustaining head injuries CLEO DISAPPEARANCE TIMELINE By Olivia Day for Daily Mail Australia Friday, October 15 Cleo along with her mother Ellie Smith, her partner Jake Gliddon and her little sister Isla Mae arrive at the Blowholes campsite around 6:30pm. They had a 'quiet' night and arrived at sunset. Saturday, October 16 1:30am: Parents' last sighting of Cleo in the tent she shared with her parents and baby sister when the four-year-old asks for some water. 6.23am: Ellie calls 000 to report her eldest daughter missing as she continues to search the camp ground. 6.30am: The first two officers are dispatched from Carnarvon police station. They travel to Blowholes as a matter of priority, with sirens and lights. 6.41am: A second police car with another two officers is sent to Blowholes, also with lights and sirens. 7.10am: The first police car arrives. The second is only minutes behind. 7.26am: Police on the scene establish a protected forensic area which is taped off to the public, surrounding the family tent where Cleo was last seen. 7.33am: A drone operator is called upon to search from the skies. 7.44am: A third police car is dispatched to the Blowholes. 8am: Family and friends of Cleo's parents begin to arrive to help with the ground search. Another group of detectives briefly searches Cleo's home to make sure she's not there. They then head to Blowholes and begin stopping cars coming into and leaving the area. 8.09am: A helicopter from a local company arrived at the scene and started searching as police request an SES team attend the Blowholes search. 8.24am: Police air-wing and volunteer marine searchers are called in to assist with the search. 8.34am: Roadblocks are set up at the entrance of Blowholes as detectives gather the names, registration details and addresses of people coming and going. Police search cars. 9.25am: Nine SES personel arrive at the Blowholes to assist with the search. Investigators, bounty hunters and officers from the Australian Federal Police have spent two-and-a-half weeks searching for missing four-year-old Cleo (pictured) 9.30am: Detectives sit down with a distressed Ellie and remain by her side for the rest of the day while other search crews hunt for Cleo. 11am: Homicide detectives from the Major Crime Division are called and begin travelling from Perth to assist with the search. 1pm: More homicide detectives and search experts are flown in from Perth. 3pm: Officers and search experts arrive in Carnarvon to offer their expertise. Sunday, October 17 Ms Smith takes to social media to plead for help finding her missing daughter. A Facebook post uploaded at 1:45am on Sunday which said: 'It's been over 24 hours since I last seen the sparkle in my little girl's eyes. 'Please help me find her! 'If you hear or see anything at all please call the police!' Police suggest Cleo may have been abducted. Monday, October 18 Police release an image of the red and grey sleeping bag missing from Cleo's tent. Cleo's biological father is interviewed by police in Mandurah and is asked to provide a statement, which he does so willingly. WA Police with the help of SES members, volunteers and aircraft continue the land hunt for Cleo, with officers searching nearby shacks and vehicles in the area. Tuesday, October 19 Cleo's mother Ellie Smith and her partner Jake Gliddon front the media for the first time and describe the terrifying moment they realised the little girl was missing. Ms Smith says her four-year-old would never have left the tent by herself. Police release new images of Cleo and the pink and blue one-piece she was wearing the night she went missing to aid the investigation. Investigators urge anyone who was at the campsite or in the vicinity on October 15 to get in contact with police. Wednesday, October 20 Police reveal the zip of the family tent, which was found hanging wide open by her mother at 6am on Saturday morning, was too high for Cleo to reach. Officers say they 'haven't ruled out' reports from campers who heard the sound of screeching tyres in the early hours of Saturday morning. Deputy Police Commissioner Daryl Gaunt confirms officers are investigating the whereabouts of 20 registered sex offenders in the Carnarvon area. Thursday, October 21 The WA Government offers a $1million reward for information that leads to Cleo's location announced by WA Premier Mark McGowan. 'All Western Australians' thoughts are with Cleo's family during what is an unimaginably difficult time,' Mr McGowan said. 'We're all praying for a positive outcome.' The speed of the reward being issued - within days of her disappearance - was unprecedented. Pictured: Police are seen examining rubbish left near the Blowholes campsite in remote WA Monday, October 25 WA Police confirm Cleo was definitely at the camp site - on CCTV footage on a camera installed inside a beach shack just 20 metres from the family tent she disappeared from. Tuesday, October 26 Forensic officers and detectives spent much of the day at her home in Carnarvon, 900km north of Perth, on Tuesday and left with two bags of evidence. Although investigators had been to the home before, this was the first time they thoroughly searched inside with a forensics team. Acting WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch said the search of the family home was 'standard practice' and did not indicate they were suspects in Cleo's disappearance. Wednesday, October 27 WA Police forensics officers return to the Blowholes campground and are seen collecting soil samples from a number of campfires near shacks in the area. The federal government announce Australian Federal Police officers had been drafted in to support forensic and intelligence efforts. Friday, October 29 Police return to the Blowholes camp to analyse the area with drones. Detective Superintendent Rod Wilde returns to the Blowholes campsite to join the search for Cleo as the search hit the two-week mark. He confirms national and international agencies are engaged in the search for Cleo. Sunday, October 31 Detectives go door-knocking at a number of homes along the North West Coastal Highway in the North Plantations, 5km from Cleo's hometown on Sunday. Monday, November 1 Detectives sort through mounds of rubbish from roadside bins located hundreds of kilometres away from the campsite she vanished from. The material was transported to Perth, where forensic officers and recruits sorted through hundreds of bags in search of items that may have helped them find Cleo. Officers issue a plea for dash cam and CCTV footage from within a 1000km radius of where the four-year-old disappeared. Police renew an appeal for more businesses in Carnarvon to provide footage and go door to door in an industrial area on the outskirts of the town. Her elated mother, Ellie, (pictured, with Cleo, her partner and younger daughter) broke her silence the morning Cleo was found, sharing a series of love heart emojis on Instagram Wednesday, November 3 After two-and-a-half weeks of searching Cleo Smith is found alive and well in the early hours of November 3. WA Police Deputy Commissioner Col Blanch confirmed just before 7am AEST that little Cleo is alive and well and had been reunited with her relieved parents. 'One of the officers picked her up into his arms and asked her 'what's your name?' he said. 'She said: 'My name is Cleo'.' Ellie Smith posted to social media: 'Our family is whole again'. A Carnarvon man is currently in custody and being questioned by detectives. On October 19, Ellie Smith (pictured) and her partner Jake Gliddon fronted the media for the first time and begged the public to report any information 'big or small' Advertisement 'We share with them what information we can. They know what they need to know,' Senior Sergeant Blaine said. 'Obviously it's still a time where we're exploring all the facts. We're getting information from, still, a number of different sources. Some of that information is completely wrong. 'So we're careful about what information we share with people, we want to make sure we're 100 per cent sure of the facts.' Mark Glaze, 51, was once referred as 'the face of the gun control movement' by the WSJ after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 A campaigner credited with helping found the modern gun control movement has killed himself in jail while being held on a DUI charge. Mark Glaze died last month while being held at Lackawanna County Prison in Pennsylvania, with the 51 year-old's death announced in a New York Times story published Sunday. Glaze, a father-of-one, is said to have been suffering from addiction and severe depression in the period leading up to his arrest and death. 'As we celebrate the life of our beloved Mark, we would be remiss not to mention his harrowing struggle with alcohol, depression, and anxiety,' a Facebook statement said. 'In the last years of his life, Mark actively sought help. He completed several treatment programs, with the hope of finding peace and breaking free of the addictive cycle that caused him to feel so desperately alone and in pain. We pray that by being open about Mark's cause of death, something positive may emerge from our devastating loss.' Glaze was being held at Lackawanna County Prison after his arrest on September 9th for fleeing the scene of a car accident in Dunmore, Pennsylvania. Police charged him with DUI, accidents involving deaths or personal injury, abandoning a vehicle on the highway and careless driving, according to court documents. Glaze grew up in Colorado - with his father a hunter who was a member of the National Rifle Association. He qualified as a lawyer, and joined campaign group Mayors Against Guns in 2011 as a consultant, working alongside luminaries including Michael Bloomberg. His campaigning intensified in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Massacre, which saw 20 kids and six adults shot dead at a Connecticut elementary school. The gun safety advocate was gay, and drew inspiration for the battle to overturn the Supreme Court's ban on same-sex marriage during his gun safety efforts. As the executive director of Everytown for Gun Safety (pictured), he took on the National Rifle Association and helped make gun violence a winning issue Glaze provided blueprints for then-President Barack Obama's proposed reforms, which sought to ban assault weapons and expand background checks. But the bill was gradually killed by pressure from Democrat and Republican senators who feared upsetting the National Rifle Association. He was credited for inspiring protests against and boycotts of the NRA, which have been credited for plunging the organization into ongoing chaos. Highlighting a long career of public service, Glaze served as an advisor to the Commission on Federal Election Reform led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker. He also worked as a consultant for the Raben Group, a D.C.-based public affairs firm that tacked some of the toughest social issues in the US, including gun control. Glaze's clients included some of America's best-known nonprofits, foundations and corporations. Prior to beginning his consulting practice in June 2014, Glaze served as executive director of Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention group in the county chaired by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Glaze (center) opened his own consulting practice after years of advocating for gun-control. He was took other issues to heart, including campaign finance reform, government ethic and LGBTQ rights He was also an advocate of campaign finance reform, government ethics and LGBTQ issues and was hired by the Human Rights Campaign in 2010 to push the Senate to repeal legislation on the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. According to the Wall Street Journal, after the Newtown mass shooting, Mark became 'the face of the gun control movement.' In a 2014, Glaze said the US was 'at a tipping point' following schools shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six school officials were killed. 'The mass shootings are happening more and more rapidly, and they're becoming more and more deadly,' Glaze told the Washington Blade. 'The Newtown shooting was the second biggest mass shooting in U.S. history after Virginia Tech in 2007.' 'And, you know, the kids who were shot and murdered were my son's age, and it was right before Christmas. So, I think that combination of things has just got the public and the president ready to say, 'Enough is enough, let's finally get this right.'' Glaze, who was gay, is survived by his 14-year-old son, Archer; aunts, uncles, cousins and a wide circle of friends in D.C. and beyond Mark Glaze, a gun safety advocate, was widely considered a founding figure in the modern gun-control movement. His long career in public service included working for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an organization that was founded by Michael Bloomberg as a coalition of 15 mayors Glaze's father, Mark Charles Glaze, was part of the N.R.A. and and owned a gun store in Colorado, while his mother, Nancy Green, was a homemaker. 'If you had told me when I was growing up in the mountains of Colorado, shooting guns on the weekend with a dad who is an N.R.A. member and a gun dealer, that The Wall Street Journal would call me the face of the gun control movement, I'm not sure I would have believed you,' Mr. Glaze said in a video he made for Colorado College, his alma mater. He later went on to study law at the George Washington University Law School. In 2014, Robert Raben, head of the Raben Group, praised Glaze's efforts. 'We are unbelievably proud of Mark's leadership; he has enormous responsibility and meets it well, with vision and delivery,' Raben said. 'That he is an openly gay man helping lead such an important effort is a tribute to his professionalism, and how the country and its understanding of our talent has changed.' Glaze, who was gay and a prominent campaigner for LGBT rights, is survived by his 14-year-old son, Archer; aunts, uncles, cousins and a wide circle of friends in D.C. and beyond. High winds off the Florida coast have prompted SpaceX to delay the return of four space station astronauts in orbit since spring - as they'll be forced to wear diapers flying back to Earth after the company's flagship Dragon capsule's toilet broke. The US, French and Japanese astronauts were supposed to leave the International Space Station on Sunday, with their capsule splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday morning. However, due to gusts exceeding safety limits, SpaceX bumped the departure to Monday afternoon, with a night-time return to conclude their six-month mission. Their trip home will now last eight hours, less than half as long as before. The toilet in their capsule is broken, and so the four will need to rely on nappies while flying home. Targeting Monday, November 8 at ~2:00 p.m. EST for Dragon and the Crew-2 astronauts to depart from the @Space_Station and return to Earth https://t.co/bJFjLCilmc pic.twitter.com/ckybRvvIZ0 SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 7, 2021 Four NASA astronauts will be forced to wear diapers flying back to Earth after the SpaceX's flagship Dragon capsule's toilet broke Due to gusts exceeding safety limits, SpaceX also bumped the departure from Sunday to Monday afternoon, with a night-time return to conclude their six-month mission NASA astronaut Megan McArthur said during a press conference on Friday that the situation was 'suboptimal,' but NASA was not too worried about it. 'Spaceflight is full of lots of little challenges,' she said from space. 'This is just one more that we'll encounter and take care of in our mission. So we're not too worried about it.' In September, an urine tube came unglued during SpaceX first civilian launch. The toilet aboard Inspiration4 craft malfunctioned during the crew's three-day journey around the Earth in September, causing urine to leak inside the capsule. William Gerstenmaier, a SpaceX vice president who used to work for NASA, told the New York Times that bodily fluids collected under the floor of the Resilience capsule. 'We didn't really even notice it, the crew didn't even notice it, until we got back,' Gerstenmaier said. When we got the vehicle back, we looked under the floor and saw the fact that there was contamination underneath the floor of Inspiration4.' European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, left to right, Nasa astronaut Megan McArthur, Nasa astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Akihiko Hoshide at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida The toilet aboard SpaceX's Inspiration4 craft malfunctioned during the crew's three-day journey around the Earth in September, causing urine to leak inside the capsule. The toilet is located on top of the capsule Shortly after Inspiration4, which included Jared Isaacman (left), Sian Proctor (right), Haley Arceneaux (2nd left) and Christopher Sembroski (2nd right), arrived back on Earth reports surfaced that an alarm went off while the four were in orbit - and the alarm was due to a malfunctioning toilet Urine began leaking from the toilet when a tube came unplugged and pooled beneath the floor panels. The same malfunction was uncovered by the astronauts aboard the Dragon's capsule Endurance as they pulled up floor panels in October, as staff worked to prevent zero-gravity discharge. SpaceX is still aiming for a Wednesday night launch, at the earliest, of their replacements. This flight has also been delayed by bad weather, as well as an astronaut's undisclosed medical issue. The issue, described as minor, should be resolved by launch time, officials said. Last week, SpaceX and Nasa flipped the order of the launch and landing because of the deteriorating weather and the looming deadline to get the capsule back from the space station. SpaceX capsules are certified for a maximum 210 days in orbit, with the one currently up there now approaching 200 days. Britain's Covid-19 infections have fallen by 20 per cent in a week as health chiefs continue to urge the elderly and the vulnerable to receive their booster jabs amid an impending winter wave. Department of Health bosses reported a further 30,305 cases today, a drop from the 38,009 reported last Sunday. The number of people dying with the virus also fell by 16 per cent, with 62 deaths reported today compared to 74 on October 31. It comes as the latest figures reveal that 10million booster jabs have now been administered in the UK. Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted : 'An amazing 10 million people across the UK have already come forward for their booster. 'We know vaccine immunity wanes over time, so boosters are vital in keeping you and your loved ones protected through the winter. 'Please get this lifesaving jab as soon as you are called.' In addition, a further 35,045 first doses and 23,952 second doses have also been given out which means 50,234,416 people have had at least one jab and 45,836,791 have had two. Hospitalisations also fell to 1,055 on Tuesday, the latest date data is available for. They were down 3.2 per cent on the previous week. This week the chief executive of NHS Providers warned that health trusts in England are already at peak winter levels for bed occupancy. And health secretary Sajid Javid urged the elderly and vulnerable to get their booster jabs as part of a 'national mission' to help avoid a return to coronavirus restrictions over Christmas. He said: 'Almost 10 million people in the UK have received their Covid-19 booster and third jabs, a phenomenal achievement in under two months. 'As we approach this milestone, I want to thank those who have come forward and urge everybody across the nation to get vaccinated, get protected and get boosted. 'We know immunity begins to wane after six months, especially for the elderly and the vulnerable, and booster vaccines will top-up their protection to keep people safe over the winter. 'I strongly urge everybody who is eligible for a Covid-19 booster or flu vaccine to take up the offer as soon as you can. 'For those not yet eligible, please help your parents, grandparents or vulnerable loved ones get their jabs, it could save their life. 'And if you haven't yet had your first and second vaccines, it is not too late, the NHS will always be there to welcome you with open arms. This truly is a national mission. 'If we all come together and play our part, we can get through this challenging winter, avoid a return to restrictions and enjoy Christmas.' The health secretary's comments came as chief executive of NHS Providers Chris Hopson said the NHS is expecting to see a combination of higher levels of Covid and higher levels of flu this winter while dealing with the backlog of care for patients. In a pre-recorded interview to be broadcast on Times Radio, he said: 'The accident and emergency pathway is very, very busy. So, at a point when our staff are really exhausted, it is very worrying. 'The bit that's particularly worrying is ... if you look at acute hospitals, where effectively you look at bed occupancy, which is a very good measure of how busy a hospital is, we're seeing bed occupancy levels, it's sort of 94, 95, 96 per cent.' He added: 'At this point, before we're into peak winter. We've not seen that before. That's unprecedented. So, there's a real sense that the NHS is going to be under real pressure.' From Monday the double vaccinated will be able to book their third dose a month earlier than before. It comes as a second significant development, a new antiviral pill was also found to slash the risk of vulnerable people being hospitalised or dying from coronavirus. Ministers have faced fierce criticism over booster jabs, with the sluggish pace of the rollout blamed for high case numbers. So far third doses could only be booked when they become due six months after a second jab. That resulted in people waiting weeks for a convenient appointment, at a time when their immunity was waning. But next week bookings can be made a month in advance online or by calling 119. Health Secretary Sajid Javid called for people to come forward for their third doses, stating that younger relatives should urge eligible parents and grandparents to take up the offer Britain is no longer 'Europe's Covid capital': Belgium, Austria and Ireland's outbreaks overtake UK Britain's Covid outbreak is no longer the worst in Western Europe, according to official data that shows infections are beginning to soar across the continent. Cases spiked in the UK when schools went back in September, which led to the country being branded Europe's coronavirus capital by advocates of the Government's 'Plan B' strategy. Many scientists, including No10's own, argued that the UK was only recording higher case, hospital and death rates because it is testing far more than other EU nations. But latest statistics show Austria, Belgium and Ireland have all overtaken Britain in Western Europe's infections league table. This is despite all three countries having a mix of tougher restrictions, including face masks, work from home guidance and vaccine passports. And Germany today reported its highest ever daily infection toll, prompting the country's health minister to warn the fourth wave has hit the country with 'full force'. The World Health Organization warned Europe is 'back at the epicentre' of the pandemic. Britain led the way with Covid vaccinations at the start of the year and was months ahead of the rest of the EU, which many scientists believe led to immunity waning quicker here and left the country vulnerable to another uptick in cases. Advertisement Six million people in England who had a second dose at least six months ago and are eligible for a booster are yet to have it, with the gap continuing to widen, according to the Covid-19 Actuaries Response Group. Protection against symptomatic disease falls from 65 per cent three months after the second dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab to 45 per cent after six months. The figures for the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine are 90 per cent and 65 per cent. Over the same timescales, protection against hospitalisation falls from 95 per cent to 75 per cent for Oxford/AstraZeneca and from 99 per cent to 90 per cent for Pfizer/BioNTech. A small change in effectiveness has major repercussions. A drop from 95 per cent to 90 per cent protection against hospitalisation would lead to a doubling of admissions in the vaccinated. Early results from Pfizer show that a booster restores protection back up to 95.6 per cent against symptomatic infection. Maggie Throup, the vaccines minister, said: 'The Covid-19 booster programme is making great progress thank you to the NHS and everybody who has come forward so far to secure vital protection ahead of the winter. 'I encourage everybody eligible for a booster and flu vaccine to book your jab as soon as possible to keep yourself and your loved ones safe over the coming months.' Clinical guidance was updated last week to enable Covid boosters to be given slightly earlier to those judged at highest risk. This allows care home residents who may have received their second doses at different times to be vaccinated in the same session, as long as it has been five months since their second dose. It may also help with other vulnerable groups, such as housebound patients, so that they can have their flu and Covid vaccines at the same time. Covid boosters have been delivered or booked in at almost every older adult care home in England. Over 9,700 care homes almost nine in ten have been visited since the rollout began in mid-September and a further 1,100 homes have visits scheduled for the coming weeks. More than four in five eligible residents have now had their top-up jab. Some care homes cannot be visited currently because of norovirus or Covid outbreaks but dates have been agreed for future visits, NHS England said. Stephen Powis, national medical director at NHS England, said: 'Seven million people in England have already received their lifesaving booster vaccine, as the NHS moved at pace to get jabs in arms. 'While this winter is undoubtedly going to be different, the most important thing you can do is come forward for both your Covid booster and flu jab as soon as possible now with the added convenience of booking in advance making it even easier to protect yourself and loves ones.' A crew member winding down production of Rust faces losing his arm after being bitten by a venomous spider, just weeks after Alec Baldwin accidentally shot and killed the movie's cinematographer. Jason Miller, a lamp operator and pipe rigger, was working to wind down production of the film after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot by actor Alec Baldwin, when he was bitten by a brown recluse spider - a venomous spider that is native to North America. Within days, Sky News reports, Miller started experiencing severe symptoms, including necrosis of his arm, which occurs when cells die, and sepsis. A fundraising page set up to pay for his health care expenses says: 'He has been hospitalized and endured multiple surgeries each day as doctors do their best to stop the infection and try to save his arm from amputation. 'It will be a very long road to recovery for Jason if the medical team is able to save his arm. 'If under worse circumstances, he loses his arm, this is a life-changing and devastating event for Jason and his family.' That page now appears to have been taken down. A spokesperson for the Rust producers, including Alec Baldwin, told Sky News in a statement: 'We do not comment on individual members of the cast and crew's private matters.' Jason Miller, a lamp operator and pipe rigger, was working on the set of Rust in New Mexico (pictured) when he was bitten by a venomous spider The set has been shuttered since actor Alec Baldwin fatally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on October 21 The brown recluse spider is a venomous spider that is native to North America (file photo) The set of the western film has been shut down since Hutchins, 42, died on October 21 after Baldwin pointed and fired a Colt pistol at her while rehearsing a scene. Baldwin himself has said it is unlikely the low-budget movie will ever be completed. Baldwin, who also served as a producer for the movie, was handling the vintage gun on the set of Rust in Santa Fe, New Mexico, when it accidentally discharged killing the mom-of-one and wounding director Joel Souza. The gun was supplied by the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed and checked by the assistant director David Halls, who told Baldwin it was a 'cold gun,' meaning it had blanks. Gutierrez-Reed's lawyer, Jason Bowles, told the Today Show that 'She's heartbroken, and she's just devastated by what's happened. ' Bowles previously told NBC News that the young armorer had 'no idea where the live rounds came from' and never witnessed anyone shooting live ammunition on set. Gutierrez-Reed was set to receive less than $8,000 for her job on the set, compared to $650,000 the producers set aside for themselves and a $350,000 contingency fee in case anything went wrong. Baldwin was also slated to earn $150,000 as the lead actor, and his production company, El Dorado, was taking a $100,000 fee, while Hutchins was budgeted to earn $48,945. The independent movie had a modest overall budget of just $7,279,305, according to a draft of the production budget dated September 8, which was revealed by the Hollywood Reporter. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was fatally shot with a prop gun fired by actor Alec Baldwin on the movie set in New Mexico on October 21 Lane Luper, who served as the film's A-camera first assistant, has since spoken out about the unsafe working conditions on the set of the western FULL INTERVIEW: Former Rust first camera assistant Lane Luper speaks out about safety concern claims on the movie set. https://t.co/0czCkzo5Wu Good Morning America (@GMA) November 3, 2021 In the weeks since the shooting, several former crew members have spoken out about the unsafe environment on the set. Lane Luper, who served as the film's A-camera first assistant, said he quit one day before the fatal shooting because employees were being overworked, COVID-safety was not being enforced properly and gun safety was poor. 'I think with Rust, it was the perfect storm of the armorer, the assistant director, the culture that was on set, the rushing. It was everything,' he told Good Morning America about the events that led up to the fatal shooting. 'It wasnt just one individual. Everything had to fall into place for this one-in-a-trillion thing to happen.' He then disputed the producers' claim that safety was a top priority on set, saying, 'I only personally remember two safety meetings that involved the entire crew. Luper ultimately accused the film's production of breaking the cardinal rule of having guns on set, which he said was, 'There shall never be live rounds anywhere on a studio lot, or stage or set.' He also choked up when describing the late Halyna Hutchins, saying 'She genuinely was something special.' In his letter of resignation, Luper said there had been two accidental weapon discharges on set and one accidental sound-effects explosion that went off around the crew. 'There have been NO explanations as to what to expect for these shots. When anyone from production is asked we are usually met with the same answers about not having enough time to complete the day if we rehearse or that 'this is a 21 day shoot,' Luper wrote in the letter. He added that the crew grew exhausted of long commutes from the set to their lodging, which for some more than two hours away. 'In my 10 years as a camera assistant I've never worked on a show that cares so little for the safety of its crew,' Luper said. Luper also told Sky News he decided to speak out because he wanted to make clear that, in his opinion, Hutchins's death was caused by cutting costs and cutting corners. 'Halyna's death was so preventable by simply following industry safety rules that had been in place for literally decades,' he said, adding: 'I have never felt more unsafe on set or off set. 'I've never felt I was more in danger of dying on the set or on the drive home, I was so exhausted.' He said the production team put potential profit above the safety and welfare of the crew, noting: 'The crew themselves worked very hard, but I don't think they were necessarily respected by the producers. 'This set was unsafe simply because they didn't have the wherewithal to follow safety rules that we have in this industry.' Luper added that there 'were no rehearsals, there were no safety meetings to explain what the next shot was, which is also a requirement every time you use firearms.' In a statement to Sky News, a spokesperson for the producers hit back at his claims, saying: 'Mr. Luper's allegations around budget and safety are patently false, which is not surprising considering his job was to be a camera operator, and he had absolutely nothing to do with it or knowledge of safety protocols or budgets. 'As we continue to cooperate with all investigations, we are limited in what we can say,' the spokesperson continued. 'However, safety is always the number one priority in our films and it is truly awful to see someone using this tragedy for personal gain.' But Sky News also obtained a resignation letter sent by another crew member who quit the film, citing what he said was a disregard for safety around firearms by the film's assistant, Dave Halls. 'I also feel anxious on set,' the crew member, who Sky News did not name, wrote in an email to a production manager. 'I've seen first-hand our AD rush to get shots, and he skips over important protocols. 'I have tinnitus in my right ear, and he often rushes to shoot, I've had more than a few occasions where I have been close to the weapons being fired with no regard to my hearing. 'Sometimes he rushes so quickly that props hasn't even had the chance to bring earplugs and he rolls, and the actors fire anyway. 'I feel torn because I like the show and my team, but for many reasons I have to walk away for my own health and safety,' the crew member said. Alec Baldwin shared this post from costumer Terese Magpale Davis to hit back at the claims that the working conditions were unsafe Last week, Baldwin fired back at the claims that the working conditions on the set were unsafe, though, sharing a social media post from one crew member slamming her coworkers for painting a 'blatantly false' picture of the set as 'chaotic and unsafe'. Baldwin shared a screenshot of the post written by costume designer Terese Magpale Davis to his Instagram account with the caption: 'Read this.' 'I am so sick of this narrative,' Davis wrote in her post. 'I worked on this movie. The story being spun of us being overworked and surrounded by unsafe, chaotic conditions is bull***t.' Davis' post refuted many of the complaints of crew members - including that they routinely worked more than 12-hour days. 'We never worked more than a 12.5 hour shoot day. That was once,' Davis wrote. 'Most days were under 12. The day Halyna died we had come off of a 12 hour turnaround after an 11 hour shoot day. We had (including camera) gotten off by 6:30pm. Davis continued, sharing that the fatal shooting that occurred on set will haunt her for a long time. She notes that she is angry at Dave Hall, the assistant director who handed Baldwin the gun, but would not accuse him of not caring about safety. 'I am heartbroken and furious,' she wrote. 'I will never get the sound of that gunshot or my director's screams out of my head as a result.' 'My friend is dead. Am I angry at him? Yes. But I won't jump on the bandwagon and pretend that he was uncaring about our safety the whole way through.' Baldwin had remained silent about the incident on Rust prior to sharing the post. He issued a public statement the day after Hutchins' death in which he indicated that he was cooperating with authorities and offered his condolences to her family. He also held an impromptu press conference with his wife on Saturday. His silence was also reflected in his social media accounts, until Saturday when he appeared to return to some of his typical online behaviors. His sharing of Davis' post is the first publicly-made indication that he doesn't agree with the narrative crew members have created. A man was killed while a woman and two young children were left in the hospital after a car crashed into a tree in Bolton, Greater Manchester. The 32-year-old man, whose named has not yet been disclosed, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics after grey Audi collided with a tree by the side of Lever Park Avenue in Horwich. The killer crash took place just before 10pm last night, and also left a woman, 31, and two children aged eight and three with an assortment of injuries requiring medical treatment. The woman sustained injuries to her leg and arm, while the three-year-old child was taken to hospital with a shoulder injury. The eight-year-old sustained unspecified injuries and all three remain in hospital in a stable condition. A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson confirmed that an investigation into the crash had been launched, but that no arrests have yet been made. A 32-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics after grey Audi collided with a tree by the side of Lever Park Avenue in Horwich A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson confirmed that an investigation into the crash had been launched, but that no arrests have yet been made (pictured: a police car waits at the scene of the accident opposite a speed monitor) Police constable Andy Bennett, of GMP's Serious Collision Investigation Unit, gave his condolences to the man's family and appealed for the public to come forward with information. 'This is a tragic incident where a man has sadly lost his life. Our thoughts are with his family at this incredibly difficult time,' Bennett told Manchester Evening News. 'If anyone was in the area at the time and witnessed this collision, or has any dashcam footage of the car in the lead up to or during this collision, please get in touch with police as soon as possible.' The incident took place on Lever Park Avenue in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester. The road is lined on both sides by several large trees, one of which was damaged by the impact of the crash which killed one and injured a woman and two children. Anyone with information should contact the Serious Collision Investigation Unit on 0161 856 4741, quoting incident number 2979 of 06/11/21. Reports can also be made anonymously to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Investigations are ongoing. Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney turned up the temperature in the talks by threatening 'very serious' consequences if the Article 16 mechanism is triggered Britain was warned today that no-deal Brexit is back on the table if the Northern Ireland protocol is suspended. Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney turned up the temperature in the talks by threatening 'very serious' consequences if the Article 16 mechanism is triggered. Although he stressed Brussels could go a 'little further' to ease the implementation of the rules, Mr Coveney said the trade agreement was 'contingent' on the divorce terms being honoured. The sabre-rattling came after a meeting between Lord Frost and the EU's Maros Sefcovic failed to break the impasse last week. The pair are due to hold more talks in London later this week. The bloc says it has already 'bent over backwards' to make concessions on the implementation of the protocol, which was part of the Withdrawal Agreement. However, key disagreements remain, including over the role of the European Court of Justice in any disputes. The new arrangements have been blamed for fuelling sectarian tensions in Northern Ireland as loyalists demand it is scrapped altogether. Mr Coveney insisted the EU was in 'solutions mode' and wanted to do whatever it could to streamline checks required on goods moving from the British mainland to Northern Ireland. However, he told RTE Radio there was a limit to the EU's flexibility and criticised the UK's hard line, after Lord Frost insisted suspending the protocol is still 'on the table'. He complained that Britain was asking for a lot while offering nothing in return. Protests in Belfast last week, amid fears the protocol is fuelling sectarian tensions 'I believe that if the British government essentially refuses to implement the protocol, even with the extraordinary flexibilities that are now on offer, and instead looks to set it aside then I think the EU will respond in a very serious way to that,' Mr Coveney said. He said that did not mean the introduction of a hard border on the island of Ireland. The minister added: 'It means that the Trade and Co-operation Agreement that was agreed between the British government and the EU was contingent on the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement, which includes the protocol. 'One is contingent on the other. So if one is being set aside, there is a danger that the other will also be set aside by the EU.' Mr Coveney said he 'certainly hoped' the UK and EU were not doomed to have a trade war, but questioned whether ministers were acting in 'good faith'. 'The EU has shown remarkable flexibility within the confines of the protocol to try to respond to legitimate concerns that have been expressed in Northern Ireland and the response to those flexibilities and efforts towards agreeing compromise from the British government side has been to harden their position, and instead of focusing on solutions to constantly raise new problems.,' he said. 'You have to ask yourself the question, why are they doing that, if they're acting in good faith, and if they want solutions?' Mr Coveney said the UK essentially wanted to rewrite the protocol entirely. 'The negotiating tactic of the British government of the Prime Minister and of Lord Frost has been very consistent it has been to offer nothing and to continue to ask for more,' he said. The sabre-rattling came after a meeting between Lord Frost (left) and the EU's Maros Sefcovic (right) failed to break the impasse last week. The pair are due to hold more talks in London later this week 'In the short term that is a successful negotiating tactic because throughout this year each month that passes the EU has tried to provide new solutions, new answers, new compromises, more flexibility and so on. 'But, at some point, the EU says 'enough, we are not negotiating with a partner here that is acting in good faith'.' Meanwhile, Keir Starmer warned Labour will not back the government if it suspends the protocol. Sir Keir told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show: 'I don't think that triggering Article 16 will resolve the dispute in relation to the Protocol in Northern Ireland. 'That isn't in the interests of the communities in Northern Ireland or businesses in Northern Ireland. What is in their interests is resolving the issues. 'Because of the way the protocol was drafted, because of what the Prime Minister signed, it is perfectly true that there are checks from Great Britain to Northern Ireland we want to reduce those.' He added: 'What I am saying is don't rip up the protocol because that has that very important central purpose, which is to protect the no border in Northern Ireland.' A British national in Ireland has appeared in court charged with making threats to kill a female Labour MP - three days after Sir David Amess was stabbed to death in an unrelated case. Daniel Weavers, 41, who is originally from England but now resides in the Douglas area of Cork, was brought before a special sitting of Cork District Court on Sunday. Weavers was detained in Douglas on Saturday by police with armed support and has been charged with making a menacing message via phone on October 18 contrary to section 13 of Ireland's Post Office Act 1951, as amended in 2007. The court heard Weavers made no reply when the charge was put to him by gardai in custody. He was granted bail with a variety of conditions attached during Sunday's hearing. A British national has been charged in Ireland for allegedly making threats to kill a female Labour MP just three days after Sir David Amess was stabbed to death Bail conditions include a requirement to abstain from all intoxicants; to surrender his passport to gardai; to make no unwarranted communication to police authorities; that he be contactable on his Irish mobile phone; and that he sign on twice a week at a Garda station in Cork. The case will be heard again on January 12 when directions from the Director of Public Prosecutions will be given. A number of electronic devices were seized by police to be searched. The man was held at Bridewell garda station in Cork under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act where he could be held for 24 hours for questioning, The Irish Times reported. Up to 15 gardai were involved in the operation which led to the arrest outside the man's rented apartment at 7.30am. He was taken to the Bridwell Garda station (pictured) where he was detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act for up to 24 hours The suspect is alleged to have phoned the MP and made death threats on October 18, and gardai were alerted by British officers. In an unconnected case, the alleged terrorist accused of fatally stabbing Sir David Amess will enter pleas next month at the Old Bailey ahead of a potential trial in March next year. The alleged terrorist accused of fatally stabbing Sir David Amess will enter pleas next month at the Old Bailey ahead of a potential trial in March next year. Ali Harbi Ali is charged with murdering the Conservative MP for Southend West during a constituency surgery in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, on October 15. The 25-year-old British defendant, who is in custody, is also charged with preparing acts of terrorism between May 1, 2019 and September this year. Ali Harbi Ali, 25, is charged with murdering the Conservative MP for Southend West last month A draft indictment claims Ali engaged in reconnaissance of locations of targets to attack including addresses associated with MPs and the Houses of Parliament. He also allegedly did online research relating to targets to attack. Ali appeared on Friday morning at the Old Bailey for a preliminary hearing by videolink from HMP Belmarsh. Wearing a pale blue jumper, Ali spoke only to confirm his name. The judge Mr Justice Sweeney set a preparatory and plea hearing for December 21. A provisional trial date has already been identified for March 7 next year. Following the brief hearing, the defendant was remanded into custody. Ali appears via videolink from HMP Belmarsh for an Old Bailey hearing on October 22 Sir David with (from left) daughter Katie, wife Julia and other daughters Flo, Sarah and Alex at Flo's wedding in August. On October 15, the veteran MP was pronounced dead at the scene Ali is accused of travelling by train from his home in Kentish Town, North London, to attend 69-year-old Sir David's surgery at Belfairs Methodist Church. During the meeting, he was allegedly seen to use his mobile phone before standing up, and allegedly producing a large knife from his pocket and repeatedly stabbing Sir David. The veteran MP was pronounced dead at the scene at 1.10pm and a preliminary post-mortem report gave the cause of death as multiple stab wounds to the chest. Ali was arrested at the scene and later charged before appearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court. Forensic officers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Essex on October 15 People look at flowers left by the police cordon near Belfairs Methodist Church on October 17 On October 22, Ali appeared at the Old Bailey for the first time by videolink from high security Belmarsh prison in South East London. In that hearing, the defendant lifted up his face mask to confirm his name and date of birth and was not asked to enter pleas to the charges. Ali's barrister, Kevin Toomey, made no application for bail in that hearing and the defendant was remanded in custody. The Crown Prosecution Service alleges the murder has a terrorist connection because of its 'religious and ideological' motives. A hospital security guard could face a manslaughter charge after an inquest ruled a patient was unlawfully killed when he suffered a heart attack while being restrained in an NHS ward. Michael Thorley, 41, died after 'unreasonable' force was used to pin him to the floor while he was suffering a bout of severe delirium at Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester. The guard, who has not been named, continued to restrain him even after he had stopped moving, the inquest heard. Mr Thorley was being treated at for an infection in Christmas 2017, but later died following efforts to revive him on an acute medical unit. Despite the suspicious nature of how he sustained the injuries at 3am, health chiefs failed to alert the police until 8am - a delay of five hours that broke the hospital's own procedures. Mr Thorley's family were also not informed until later and, when they arrived at hospital, found detectives already searching for evidence at his bedside. Michael Thorley, pictured, died after suffering a heart attack while being restrained on the floor of Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester A general view of Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester, where Mr Thorley died after suffering a heart attack A jury at Manchester City Coroner's Court concluded that it was 'not necessary' for the security guard to restrain Mr Thorley. Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust was also criticised due to a failure by nursing staff to monitor his condition during restraint. The jury said the force used by the security guard was 'unreasonable, disproportionate and/or excessive', that the trust failed to make appropriate security arrangements and staff made errors in Mr Thorley's clinical management. The court heard that Mr Thorley, a warehouseman, was a 'gentle, caring person' and an avid Manchester United fan. He spent time caring for his mother, Lorraine, during her first diagnosis of breast cancer, but was admitted to Wythenshawe after attending A&E on December 19, 2017, with suspected pneumonia. The court heard Mr Thorley was complaining of shortness of breath and initial investigations indicated he may be suffering from an infection. He was subsequently referred to a bed in the Acute Medical Unit. Mr Thorley was also treated for a significantly increased heart rate and was given the sedative chlordiazepoxide. Initial indications appeared his condition was improving, but during the afternoon of December 21 he began to display behaviour consistent with delirium, the jury heard. Shortly after 11pm, he rang 999 and reported to police that he did not feel safe in the hospital. A nurse intervened and told the call hander all was well, but Mr Thorley told staff he did not know why he was there or what was happening, saying he wanted to go home. At around 1.23am, Mr Thorley pulled the emergency cord while using the toilet. The Royal Exchange building, currently home to Manchester Coroner's Court, where a jury found that Mr Thorley was unlawfully killed Staff attended and found he was having a seizure. Following this, he became very agitated and a decision was made to call for the assistance of security. Two security guards arrived and described Mr Thorley as appearing confused. The pair were later replaced by a single security guard who was deployed to carry out bed watch. While the security guard did so, Mr Thorley began to stand at the window and shouted 'help' towards a passer-by on the glass. The guard then restrained Mr Thorley to move him away from the window, despite a nurse telling him to leave the patient alone for fear that the physical altercation would make matters worse. Mr Thorley was freed, but continued to stare out the window and bang on the glass. The guard again used force to try and get him to sit down, but an altercation ensued and Mr Thorley was restrained onto the floor. The security guard noticed that the patient was becoming exhausted, but continued to pin him down. A nurse intervened after noticing that Mr Thorley was no longer moving and found that he was not breathing. He suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest and was pronounced dead following lengthy resuscitation attempts. The court heard that the hospital trust broke its own suspicious death investigation procedures by waiting five hours before staff referred the incident to the police. The family were not informed until the following morning. Wythenshawe Hospital. A security guard at Wythenshawe Hospital, Manchester could face a manslaughter charge after an inquest jury ruled a confused patient Mr Thorley was unlawfully killed Inquiries revealed that guards on bed watch require a licence similar to a bounced at a nightclub would need, a Level 2 Door Supervisor Security Industry Authority (SIA) License. However, the Trust specified no further training for guards to fulfil the role in a hospital setting. They also had no policy on dealing with the use of physical intervention or restraint. Mr Thorley's mother died in August last year following a long and hard fight for justice over her son's death. In a statement, the family said: 'December 22, 2017 is a day etched in our memories forever. 'It has been a long four years fighting for justice and for Michael's voice to be heard, driven by our Dad. The only comfort we have is that Michael is now with our late mum. 'We hope more than anything that things will change with restraint being undertaken by security guards on vulnerable patients in care settings. 'Comprehensive training should and must be undertaken. The family would like to thank our legal team for all their help in getting the right conclusion of unlawful killing. 'Michael is missed always and will never be forgotten. He was taken from us too soon.' A spokesman for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, which manages Wythenshawe Hospital, said: 'We wish to offer our deepest sympathies and condolences to the family of Michael Thorley. 'This incident occurred four years ago and in the time since, we have taken considerable steps in response to this incident, and we will be considering the Coroner's ruling carefully.' Morgue killer David Fuller has been 'linked' to the 1986 unsolved murder of a barmaid who was found dumped in wasteland just a mile from where he grew up. Detectives are investigating whether the warped killer could be responsible for the rape and murder of Linda Cook in Portsmouth 35 years ago. Fuller, 67, grew up in the city and lived as a convicted burglar just a mile from where the 24-year-old was found dumped in wasteland. The Cook case became known as the Cinderella Murder because of a distinctive footprint left imprinter on her body with the word 'Flash'. Fuller also left a bloody footprint at the scene of Wendy Knell's killing in 1987 - a year after Ms Cook's death, reports The Sun. Linda Cook was killed in Portsmouth in December 1986 in a case that became known as the Cinderella Murder David Fuller pleaded guilty to murdering Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, in two separate attacks in Tunbridge Wells Michael Shirley pictured leaving the High Court after his conviction for the murder of Linda Cook was overturned on July 3, 2003 The perverted killer pleaded guilty to the 1987 sexual assaults and murders of Ms Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, at Maidstone Crown Court this week. Fuller also admitted sexually abusing at least 100 corpses while working as an electrician at Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells. During a search of his home last year, police found hard drives, floppy discs and CDs with 14 million images of sex offences - including filming himself committing the heinous acts. Michael Shirley, then 18, was wrongly convicted of Ms Cook's murder and spent 15 years in prison before being cleared through DNA evidence in 2003. Fuller grew up in a terraced house in Angerstein Road, just a mile away from the scene of where she was found in Lake Road. He lived at the address when he was convicted of 26 counts of burglary in 1973. A local police officer is also said to have spotted Fuller's distinctive trainer marks as he walked past and noticed they matched prints found at one of the scenes. Detectives have said they are open to new information on Fuller after he admitted carrying out the Bedsit Murders. Kent Police has also set up a helpline for distraught relatives who believe their loved ones could have been violated. Fuller, 67, admitted killing Wendy Knell, 25, (left) and Caroline Pierce, 20, (right) in 1987 in what became known as the 'Bedsit Murders' one of Britain's longest unsolved murder cases A police source said: 'Police are linking Fuller with unsolved cases in his past and this is one of those. He has very strong links to that area. 'Theres a lot of clues which point in the right direction. 'They need to look at every corner because what Fuller has admitted is utterly abhorrent and his offending will not be limited to those two killings. There will be others.' Kent Police has formally identified 81 victims in the mortuary, but an investigation is still ongoing and anyone with information is urged to get in contact with the force. Fuller was still working for the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust when revolutionary DNA profiling techniques led detectives investigating the historic murders to his home in Heathfield, East Sussex, on December 3 last year. Ms Knell's bloodstained body was found in her flat on June 23, 1987, after Fuller a convicted burglar had climbed in through the window, before beating and strangling her to death. Ms Pierce was abducted from outside her home on November 24 the same year. Her body, naked apart from a pair of tights, was found in a water-filled dyke near Romney Marsh three weeks later. Sentencing was adjourned to a later date. John Lewis has been forced to drop plans to sell off land for the building of a dozen affordable homes after a backlash from local residents. The retail giant ditched the proposals after it said there was a 'significant level of opposition to the scheme' in a letter to the parish council. John Lewis had planned to sell the land in Longstock, near Andover, to Rural Homes England for the development, but locals feared the 12 new houses would bring an increase in traffic. Many young people in the area had hoped the plan would create affordable housing in an area they wanted to live in, the Sunday Telegraph reports. The average property in Longstock, where John Lewis also has a farm shop and a cafe, was 1million in 2020, an 8% increase in the past five years. A group of ageing homeowners in Longstock (pictured) has won a battle against retail giant John Lewis for control of their village as they stopped the building of a dozen cheap homes John Lewis already owns a cafe and a farm shop in the village of Longstock, where it had hoped to sell off land in order that Rural Homes England could build 12 affordable homes Almost half of Longstock's population are aged 40 to 69 out of a total 475 people, an average higher than in the rest of the borough. The company had planned to sell off the land to support the plans of the parish council and Rural England, although it was not going to develop them directly. A John Lewis spokesman said it was 'committed to finding a solution to deliver affordable housing' in the area and it was currently considering alternative sites. 'The decision not to progress with the Church Lane site is not one we took lightly. 'There was not a clear local majority in support of the development, which is a key measure for us and something we promised to adhere to given our heritage here and role within the village.' Even the Conservative MP for Romsey and Southampton North Caroline Nokes backed the plan in May. She said one of the main hardships for young and older people alike in the village was to have affordable housing available. The company has a large property portfolio in the neighbouring village of Leckford, Hampshire Although John Lewis cut its losses in the past year by a whopping 606million from 635million in September 2020 to 29million in the same month this year, the company remains in 1.7billion of debt. Much is resting on bumper Christmas sales after it posted a 29million loss in the first half of 2021. Their recent strife, caused by the pandemic sending retail plummeting, only cemented their vision to step back from the retail business in favour of real estate. New York City Mayor-elect Eric Adams said on Sunday he is keen to end the mask mandate in schools, so long as it can be done 'safely,' and declared himself a 'conservative' on serious crime. In an interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Adams said he wants to nix the mask mandate by the end of the school year. He said he fears masks are stopping students from making friends, and said he would like to end the mandate as soon as he takes office on January 1, the New York Post reports. 'If we can find a safe way to do it, I look forward to getting rid of the mask,' Adams said on CNN's State of the Union Sunday morning. 'Part of the socialization of a child is that smile,' he noted. 'Not being able to see the smiles of our children has a major impact. 'But it must be done with the science, so we don't go back to closing our city down.' Mayor-elect Eric Adams said in an interview with CNN on Sunday that he would like to eliminate the city's mask mandate for school children. He is seen here stopping for lunch to try a vegan sandwich by Plantega at Marinello's Gourmet Deli in Brooklyn on November 3 He said he fears masks are stopping students from making friends Adams also says he's keen to teach New York children about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, days after saying he'd take his first three months salary in Bitcoin, as he attempts to make the Big Apple the crypto capital of the world. The mayor-elect went on to share some advice for his fellow Democrats, following his win last Tuesday, as Democrats throughout the country lost their seats to Republican challengers. Adams said Democrats need to focus on practical goals to avoid further losses, and cited the passage of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill on Friday as an illustration of what Democrats can do to tackle problems, according to the New York Daily News. 'We should be known for what we did - the infrastructure bill,' he said, noting: 'Public safety is really a real problem,' and 'we need to get back to basics.' And speaking on NPR's Weekend Edition, the mayor-elect noted that he will be 'conservative' on crime. 'I think its imperative that as a city and a country, we understand that public safety and justice - they are the prerequisites to prosperity,' he said, noting that he identifies as a 'conservative' on public safety. 'I am conservative on public safety when you see 13-year-old children in our schools stabbed in libraries and a woman was shot while walking down the block with a baby in a carriage,' he said, referring to a 26-year-old woman who was struck by a stray bullet while pushing her 2-year-old daughter in a stroller in the Bronx on Thursday. 'When I use the term "conservative," I have zero tolerance for abusive and criminal and violent behavior,' Adams explained. 'I don't believe people who discharge guns on Monday should be out of jail on Tuesday, the next day - that's not acceptable. 'I know what we need to stop the abusiveness of law enforcement, but at the same time, get the safety we deserve.' The city's mask mandate has been in effect since last year City officials have said they are unsure when the mandate can be 'safely' removed Adams's appearance on the Sunday morning shows come less than one week since he was elected to lead the city's recovery following the COVID-19 pandemic, which has killed more than 34,000 residents and closed hundreds of thousands of businesses. As mayor for more than eight million people, he will also oversee America's largest municipal budget, crippled by the COVID-19 crisis, and its biggest police force and public school system. Since last year, the city has had a mask mandate in effect for all of its more than 1 million public school students, with students forced to wear them at all times unless they're eating or drinking. City officials have said they are not sure when the mandate can be removed, even as children ages five to 11 are now eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, following the Center for Disease Control's approval of it last week. Dr. Jay Varma, the mayor's top health advisor, added that city officials have not yet determined what percentage of students would need to be vaccinated against COVID in order to make the mandate no longer necessary. 'We're really not at a point right now to say that, at any given percentage of vaccinations, that all of our current mitigation measures could be removed,' he said at a news conference on Thursday. Outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio also conceded: 'I would say, as a general view, that out of an abundance of caution, I would keep the masks in place, at least in the short term, because they've really worked, because the kids have adapted to them well, the adults have adapted to them well. 'But I would also say, as an everyday person, I look forward to the day when we don't need them. 'We just need to make sure we're absolutely certain that's the right moment.' In a press briefing last week, outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio touted a small decrease in the murder rate as he claimed he has been successful in reducing crime Meanwhile, the city has been crippled by increasing crime. According to the NYPD's latest monthly numbers, overall crime was up 11.2 percent last month compared with October 2020. Robbery was up by 15.8 percent and felony assault rose by 13.8 percent. The outgoing mayor, however, touted a small decrease in the murder rate while ignoring an 11 percent jump in overall crime in a news conference last week, claiming he has been successful in reducing crime. De Blasio focused in the drop in murders last month to 37, compared with 41 in October 2020, saying the minor reduction of 9.8 percent 'says a lot.' However, both counts are higher than the number of citywide murders in October 2019 (29) and October 2018 (18). The spike in overall lawlessness comes as the city grapples with an increase in visible, violent crime, including horrific subway and street attacks that have left New Yorkers terrified. Last Monday at around 10pm, a man wearing a grinning mask inspired by the film The Purge attacked a stranger on the street with an ax. The 51-year-old victim was taken to a nearby hospital with a deep cut in his arm. And on October 30, a man threw a Molotov cocktail into a Brooklyn bodega after an argument with employees. The workers escaped as the arsonist was about to throw a second one, but he was stopped by a witness. NYPD released this photo of a man who randomly attacked a stranger with an ax while wearing a Purge Halloween mask last Monday night Surveillance footage shows a man throwing a Molotov cocktail into a Brooklyn deli on October 30 Despite the shocking scene, only one person was hurt with non-life-threatening injuries While murders and shootings were down in October, assaults, rape and robbery increased De Blasio also said shootings are down in Queens and Staten Island compared to last year, and emphasized the decline in shootings in Brooklyn, which are down 20 percent from last year. There have been 445 shootings in Brooklyn so far this year, down from 557 at this point in the year in 2020 but up significantly from 248 in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. 'This is crucial. This is a big story in Brooklyn. The reality bares witness that there have been amazing efforts made even in the toughest of times by the NYPD.' Shootings, however, continue to climb in other parts of the city. 'The Bronx is still a challenge - lots of resources being poured in to address Manhattan North as well,' the mayor admitted. De Blasio said shootings were down in other boroughs thanks to community and precision policing, which depend on deep ties with the community, according to the Manhattan Institute. 'We've got to get the public more involved. We need people at the community levels to join those "Build the Block" meetings to get involved. Every New Yorker has information they can offer to the police that can be helpful to them,' he said. An Amazon driver fired over a video showing a scantly-dressed woman sneaking out of his work van says he was delivering packages and 'making ends meet' in an innuendo-laden interview suggesting they had indeed been having sex. Tywan George said he did what any other man in America would do in his situation, which included spending time with his partner in the back of the company vehicle. When asked to elaborate about his behind-closed-doors activities, a smiling George replied: my job, and added his duties included delivering packages. Thats exactly what I was doing.' The Tampa, Florida, man was fired last month after being caught on camera letting a woman in a short black dress out of the back of his work van. Tywan George, the Amazon driver who lost his job after a video of a woman slipping out the backdoor of his delivery truck went viral last month The video, shot in June and posted to TikTok in October, shows an unidentified woman with her phone tucked into the neckline jumping out the back of the van as a delivery man dressed in his blue vest holds the door open for her. The woman appears to be barefoot. A company representative told TMZ that the driver's actions do not 'reflect the high standards we have for our Delivery Service Partners and their drivers.' An Amazon delivery driver (pictured wearing a blue vest) can be seen holding the backdoor open for a woman as she exits the back of the van. Amazon has said the man no longer works for the company In a newly posted video, an unidentified woman was seen leaving the back of an Amazon delivery driver's van in Tampa, Florida, in June 'Allowing unauthorized passengers to enter delivery vehicles is a violation of Amazon policy, and the driver is no longer delivering packages to Amazon customers,' the company said. George said in a TMZ video posted Sunday that the public had the wrong idea about the scene - and that he knew as soon as the TikTok video grew in popularity that his time with the online shopping giant was over. Everybody misconstrued the video, he told TMZ. Rent is high in town for everything. Its just hot. It was making ends meet, basically, if you get what Im saying. He said he expected to be axed after the video went viral because of Amazon's 'strict' behavior policies, and called the encounter a 'one-time incident.' Meanwhile, social media have thoroughly enjoyed the video, poking fun at Amazon's 'Prime' service and the current state of slow delivery times as the holidays approach. 'He was just giving her prime delivery!' one user wrote. Another poked fun at the slow delivery services lately, writing: 'So this is why my packages always end up being late.' Someone even made light of Amazon monopolizing several industries, which includes its grocery service Amazon Fresh and streaming platform Prime Video, among others. Social media users had a hay day joking about his 'prime delivery' and that her package was actually 'estimated to be delivered by 8-9 months' Amazon said they do not allow 'unauthorized passengers to enter delivery vehicles' 'Amazon is taking over every industry,' the user wrote. Most on Twitter jumped at the chance to mention that her 'real package' wouldn't arrive for eight to nine months. 'Her package is estimated to be delivered by 8-9 months,' one Twitter user wrote. The TikTok video, shot by Dylan Hook and posted by his brother Patrick, has racked in more than 11 million views. The President of Cambridge University's Union has apologised after a historian launched into a 'crass and deeply insensitive' impression of Adolf Hitler during a debate on 'good taste'. Guest speaker Andrew Graham-Dixon, 60, impersonated the German dictator as part of his argument against the motion 'this house believes there is no such thing as good taste.' The historian said his lengthy impression of Hitler, which included racial slurs and voiced antisemitic and racist views, was to 'show how offensive the Nazi leader was'. Cambridge Union President Keir Bradwell, who had said that it was the 'longest Hitler impression' the chamber had ever heard, has now issued an apology for his failure to intervene after the impersonation caused outrage amongst Cambridge University students and alumni. Bradwell had been filmed admitting he was 'quite drunk' during the debate, but later said he had two glasses of wine and denied it impacted his ability to chair the discussion. He said his failure to intervene was 'solely a question of lacking the the courage to stop someone in front of a room of 400'. Guest speaker Andrew Graham-Dixon, 60, impersonated the German dictator as part of his argument against the motion 'this house believes there is no such thing as good taste' As part of Graham-Dixon's impersonation, which has been called 'crass and deeply insensitive', he said: 'The romantic tradition of German art was rejected by this modern art. 'This modern, horrible art that was promoted by the Jews... and the modern art, it was cubist - inspired by the art of the ne***s. 'This tribal art, urgh, how horrible is that? We must expunge this from our Deutschland. 'We are the pure, Aryan people. Our genetics is pure, our hearts must be pure, our tastes must be pure.' Despite the offensive impersonation, Graham-Dixon's side against the motion won the debate on Thursday evening. Bradwell had been filmed admitting he was 'quite drunk' during the debate, but later said he had two glasses of wine and denied it impacted his ability to chair the discussion. He said his failure to intervene was 'solely a question of lacking the the courage to stop someone in front of a room of 400' Cambridge Union President Keir Bradwell, who admitted to being drunk at the debate and had said that it was the 'longest Hitler impression' the chamber had ever heard, has now issued an apology for his failure to intervene In an open letter, Bradwell wrote: 'I would like to offer my unreserved apology for the comments made by a speaker in our debate on Thursday night. 'Neither I nor the society condones the thoughtless and grotesque language used by the individual in question, and I am sorry for my failure to intervene at the time. 'The speaker in question employed a crass and deeply insensitive impression of Hitler to make the point in opposition that there is such a thing as bad taste [...] It was inexcusable, and I regret not intervening.' Bradwell, who had said he was 'quite drunk' during the debate, later said in the open letter that it did not affect his abilities to chair the talk. He said: 'I had two glasses of wine over dinner beforehand, as did our speakers, and I drew attention to that fact, prior to the speech in question, in order to add to what was at that stage still a convivial debate. 'I was not impeded in my ability to chair the debate; my failure to intervene was solely a question of lacking the the courage to stop someone in front of a room of 400.' The Union's Equalities officer, Zara Salaria, said that art historian Graham-Dixon's impression was 'absolutely unacceptable' and 'utterly horrifying' The Union's Equalities officer, Zara Salaria, said that art historian Graham-Dixon's impression was 'absolutely unacceptable' and 'utterly horrifying.' Former President of the Cambridge Union, Joel Rosen, tweeted that he felt 'physically sick' from what he saw at the event. Graham-Dixon also released a statement following the backlash and said: 'The intention of my speech was to underline the utterly evil nature of Hitler and his regime. 'He caricatured Jewish people and black people and homosexuals in all kinds of terrible ways and curated a huge art exhibition - called Degenerate Art - as propaganda for his poisonous views. 'In my speech I caricatured him, briefly, paraphrasing HIS crass and insensitive statements about art and race. I'd hoped this was crystal clear to all present. 'My point was that evil ideas in the sphere of art can have untold and even atrocious consequences in the rest of life. Those familiar with my work will know that I have always spoken out against racism or any form of discrimination. 'I apologise sincerely to anyone who found my debating tactics and use of Hitler's own language distressing; on reflection I can see that some of the words I used, even in quotation, are inherently offensive. It was not my intention to upset anybody, merely to persuade them that bad taste and bad morality often go hand in hand.' The president of Navajo Nation announced that smoking will be banned in enclosed public locations within the reservation, including at the tribe's four casinos. Jonathan Nez, president of the largest Native American Reservation in the United States, signed the legislation on Saturday. Smoking inside the tribe's four casinos had been temporarily banned due to COVID-19 safety measures, but has now been permanently outlawed. The permanent enactment yesterday 'is a fundamental right to protect our Navajo people's right to breathe clean air,' Nez said in a statement. Tobacco use in the tribe's private homes or for ceremonial purposes will still be allowed, as long as they don't function as childcare centers, adult care centers, or as business offices, ABC News reported. The permanent enactment yesterday 'is a fundamental right to protect our Navajo people's right to breathe clean air,' Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez said in a statement On Saturday, Nez signed the 'Nich Ei Bee Iina Air is Life Act' into law Smoking in public enclosed areas of the reservation - including its four casinos - is now banned. Above, Fire Rock Navajo Casino Meanwhile, some were critical of the ban - which also prohibits the use of smokeless commercial tobacco products - and argued that the measure will be detrimental for people in the tribe trying to quit smoking. 'Lumping smokeless tobacco in there is harmful to the Navajo people that are using them as a means of quitting smoking. Why would it be included?' Grove Michell wrote on Twitter. 'Leaving aside e-cigs, just not to be blamed to be biased, but a smoke-free act that includes smokeless tobacco products? Seems that these people didn't give this act too much thought. What were you guys smoking?' tweeted Marcello King. Nez said the act was a 'monumental achievement and bold step in the right direction to promote healthy living among our Navajo people.' Cigarettes, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes, and other commercial products in public were successfully banned from public buildings after tribal lawmakers approved the bill in October. Leaving aside e-cigs, just not to be blamed to be biased, but a smoke-free act that includes smokeless tobacco products? Seems that these people didn't give this act too much thought. What were you guys smoking? pic.twitter.com/Xq1gTbhUJa Marcello King (@mechage) November 7, 2021 Nez said the act was a 'monumental achievement and bold step in the right direction to promote healthy living among our Navajo people' Nez credited the Air is Life coalition for educating the public about the danger and risks of secondhand smoke for more than 13 years Nez then followed through with the bill by signing it into law before the Sunday deadline to act on it. Nez credited the Air is Life coalition for educating the public about the danger and risks of secondhand smoke for more than 13 years and said the 'Nich Ei Bee Iina Air is Life Act' was the result of the coalition's work. Previous attempts to ban smoking in the tribe's public indoor spaces had been unsuccessful. The tribal council had approved such an attempt in 2008 before it was vetoed by then-President Joe Shirley. Shirley cited concerns that the ban would affect the gambling revenue, - as do critics of Nez's current ban - as the reason he didn't support the bill more than a decade ago. Former president Ben Shelly similarly banned smoking in office buildings under his administration but allowed smoking in the casinos. While the act has mostly received widespread support from the public, some still worry about the effects the ban will have on revenue for the tribe's casinos - Fire Rock, Flowing Water, and Northern Edge in New Mexico and Twin Arrows in Arizona. Afghanistan has announced the start of a four-day nationwide polio vaccination campaign today aimed at inoculating children under five years old. For the past three years, the Taliban barred UN-organized vaccination teams from doing door-to-door campaigns in parts of the country under their control. The group apparently was suspicious the team members could be spies for the previous government or the West. Some 3.3 million children over the past three years have not been vaccinated. For the past three years, the Taliban barred UN-organized vaccination teams from doing door-to-door campaigns in parts of the country under their control Dr Qalandar Ebad, the Taliban's acting public health minister, said: 'Without any doubt polio is a disease that without treatment will either kill our children or cause them with permanent disability, so in this case the only way is to implement the vaccination.' Since 2010, the country has been carrying out regular inoculation campaigns in which workers go door-to-door, giving the vaccine to children. Most of the workers are women, since they can get better access to mothers and children. The four-day campaign will start on Monday and take place countrywide, Dr Ebad said. The estimated target population is Afghanistan's 10 million children under five years old, including the more than 3.3 million who could not be reached since 2018. The Taliban's reported endorsement of the campaign appeared aimed at showing the international community they are willing to cooperate with international agencies. The longtime militant insurgent force has been trying to win the world's recognition of its new government and re-open the door for international aid to rescue the crumbling economy. Nek Wali Shah Momin, a health ministry official in the polio eradication department, said: 'Vaccination of (children) less than five years of age in the country during the national immunization days is a gigantic task. 'It is not possible for the ministry of public health alone to complete this task successfully, so we need the support of all lined departments.' The estimated target population is Afghanistan's 10 million children under five years old, including the more than 3.3 million who could not be reached since 2018 The World Health Organization and the U.N. children's agency UNICEF in a joint statement last month said they welcomed the decision by the Taliban leadership supporting the resumption of house-to-house polio vaccinations across the country. Large sections of the country have been out of reach for vaccinations in recent years. In parts of the south, particularly, the ban by the Taliban was in effect. In other areas, door-to-door campaigns were impossible because of fighting between the government and insurgents, or because of fears of kidnappings or roadside bombs. In some places, hardline clerics spoke out against vaccinations, calling them un-Islamic or claiming they were part of a Western plot. Polio is a serious viral infection that used to be common in the UK and worldwide. It's rare nowadays because it can be prevented with vaccination. Most people with polio don't have any symptoms and won't know they're infected. But for some people, the polio virus causes temporary or permanent paralysis, which can be life threatening. Donald Trump claimed that President Joe Biden 'surrendered' to Afghanistan by withdrawing troops in the midst of the Taliban seizing the country in August and warned that China could now take the Bagram Air Base. 'What they did with the so-called withdrawal, which was really a surrender, what they did, it was the most embarrassing, horrible thing, and I don't know that we ever psychologically recover from that,' Trump told Fox News in an interview published in a Sunday report. The former president said that even though he was planning a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan during his presidency, he would have maintained a presence and hold at the Parwan Detention Facilitya military prison on the Bagram Air Base. He said doing so would have helped ensure that China did not take hold of the base and that prisoners did not escape. 'We would have kept Bagram because it is next to China,' Trump explained to Fox. 'And it is one hour away from their nuclear facility, and we gave that up too.' 'And now China's going to take over Bagram, in my opinion,' he continued. Trump said Biden's bungled withdrawal, which led to 13 U.S. troop deaths, thousands of stranded Americans and allies and a swift Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, is now being ignored. 'They don't talk about it anymore. They don't talk about it, purposely,'he said. 'It was so bad that it was killing him. Two, three days after it ended, they stopped even mentioning it.' Donald Trump called Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan a 'surrender' and warned removing a presence from Bagram Air Base could lead to China taking control Despite the disaster surrounding the withdrawal, which immediately led to the Taliban taking over the Afghan government and military, Biden's team has insinuated that they made no mistakes in their course of action. The president's team maintains that no one predicted the takeover would happen so swiftly without U.S. troops presence in the country. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN's Fareed Zakaria on Sunday that the administration believes the U.S. is in a better position being out of Afghanistan than it would have been in continuing the mission there. 'The fundamental decisions the decision to leave, the decision to continue the drawdown over the course of the summer, and the decision to ultimately execute on this contingency plan and run this evacuation up through August 31 the president has stood by those decisions,' Sullivan said. He added: 'We stand behind those decisions, and we believe that the United States' national interests are better secured by being out of Afghanistan today than if we were still in Afghanistan today.' Trump told Fox during his interview that he holds 'the generals responsible' for the bungled withdrawal and deaths of 13 U.S. military members 'because they should have never allowed that to happen.' 'They must have been able to talk [Biden] into reason,' Trump said. 'But you have to hold them responsible also for allowing that to happen.' Zakaria pointed out that the middle of the withdrawal in August was the point where Biden's poll numbers started to take a sharp decline. According to a presidential average approval rating from FiveThirtyEight, August 30 was the first time Biden's disapproval surpassed his approval rating with a margin of 47.5 per cent to 47.2 per cent. On October 20, Biden's disapproval surpassed 50 per cent. The Biden administration removed all U.S. forces from Bagram in July. The Pentagon announced in August that the Taliban had freed 'thousands' of ISIS-K prisoners from the prison on the base. Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN's Fareed Zakaria the administration feels its in U.S. national interest to be completely out of Afghanistan Trump brokered a deal with the Taliban during his administration for a troop withdrawal in May 2021. 'Don't forget, I'm the one that brought it down to 2,500 troops,' Trump said to Fox. 'I would have been out too, but we would have been out with strength. We would have come out with strength.' Trump said: 'It was time to get out, but the way he got out was such a disaster.' 'We would have gotten all the people out, we would have brought all of our equipment out, we wouldn't have had dead soldiers, we wouldn't have soldiers missing arms and legsbecause people don't even talk about thatwe lost 13, but we have many that have been gravely wounded,' Trump said in describing how a withdrawal under his leadership may have gone. 'None of that would have happened,' he said in reference to dead servicemembers and stranded Americans and allies as well as the Taliban takeover in the matter of days after the withdrawal. Advertisement Residents of a San Francisco condo building where units sell for $1million say theyre living in fear after an adjoining alleyway became the citys biggest homeless encampment. The massive tent city - occupied by a feces-hurling man and an assortment of other untoward characters - is paces away from The Artani, an eight-story Van Ness Avenue complex where residents say theyre being spooked by a growing number of vagrant neighbors. Condo resident Amber Lusko said the encampment, exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, has drawn rats, thieves, and mentally unstable adults who are turning their neighborhood into a state of bedlam. Its pretty consistently nerve-wracking, Lutsko told KPIX 5. This just seems to be a safe space for chop shops, drug trafficking. Complaints are being lodged as new data indicates that San Franciscos district attorney Chesa Boudin has charged people with theft in less than 50 percent of cases throughout his tenure. Footage by KPIX 5 shows an alleyway near the condo complex lined with tents Trash is seen strewn throughout the street, and tents dot the landscape The city reportedly conducted a sweep of the area, but the tents reemerged the next day Some Artani units have sold for more than $1million, KPIX 5 reported. Current listings for one-bedroom units run for 670,000. The building sits near Willow Street, between Van Ness Avenue and Polk Street, home to San Franciscos most heavily-concentrated homeless encampment, the outlet reported. Another resident named Shannon said police have done little to help curb the violence and seedy behavior. Ive seen people physically fighting, and I myself was leaving once and a man approached my car and yelling obscenities and threatening me, which was really scary, she told the station. There was a guy who passed out in front of our door with a needle hanging out of his arm all day long. And our children had to walk past that. Those living at Artani told the station about vagrants who throw feces, prop up the buildings garage with empty bottles, steal packages, and more. The city reportedly conducted a sweep of Willow Street in early October, but the tents returned the next day. In a statement issued to KPIX 5, the citys department of emergency management said it was working to improve the situation by providing resources and services to those without homes. It said it conducted encampment resolutions, on 24 days this year that helped house 161 people in safe sleep sites, hospitals, residential treatment programs, and shelters. An aerial view of a homeless encampment near San Francisco city hall shows the magnitude of the city's homelessness crisis A homeless woman is pictured on the streets of the Tenderloin district, San Francisco's most densely-populated homeless encampment The resolution included the removal of 377 tents that were either empty, abandoned, or their owners accepted placement in alternate shelters, the statement said. Businesses throughout San Francisco have reduced their hours or closed entirely because of the uptick in property theft, and district attorney Boudin has been lambasted by local critics for 'destroying the fabric of our city.' A Safeway grocery store became the most recent business to suffer from the rampant shoplifting, citing it as the reason for scaling back its round-the-clock service to just 6am to 9pm. Boudin ran for his position on the promise that he would take a new approach to crime by not prosecuting lower-level offenses. He has stuck to that promise, to the chagrin of many locals, by only charging people of theft in 46% of all cases since taking office. San Francisco's woke District Attorney Chesa Boudin has been charging people for theft in less than 50% of all cases throughout his tenure, new data reveals Overall, Boudin has charged people with crimes in 48% of all reported cases, while Gascon has a charging rate of 54% Boudin faces a likely recall as a petition launched last March has collected more than 83,000 signatures, far above the 51,000 needed to launch an election In comparison, his predecessor George Gascon has made such charges in 62% of all cases in 2018 and 2019, according to city data analyzed by the San Francisco Chronicle. Boudin now faces a likely recall just two years into his term as his critics launched a petition last March that has collected more than 83,000 signatures, far above the 51,000 needed to launch an election. Some who have joined the recall came from his own administration as 50 lawyers from his office quit or were fired since he took the reins in January 2020, representing roughly one-third of the department's prosecutors. 'He has vowed from the beginning to not prosecute quality of life crimes. Quality of life is ... the basis of a society, of our city. If you're not going to hold people responsible for that you're basically destroying the fabric of our city,' Richie Greenberg, a former Republican mayoral candidate and spokesperson for the Committee Supporting the Recall of DA Chesa Boudin, told the San Francisco Chronicle. A 24-hour Safeway store in the Castro area of San Francisco (pictured) has cut it's hours to now open from 6am to 9pm after it was targeted by 'off the charts' shoplifting Boudin has an even lower rate in petty crime and has only made charges in 35% of all cases, compared to Gascon's 58%. Boudin has also convicted far less people of both crimes than Gascon, only convicting thieves in 79% of thefts and 62% of petty thefts. Gascon has an 82% conviction rate for theft and a 77% conviction rate for petty theft. Overall, Boudin has charged people with crimes in 48% of all reported cases, while Gascon has a charging rate of 54%. San Franciscos overall crime rates were up 7.7 percent and larceny theft was up 12.5 percent for the week ending October 31. Assaults were up eight percent, according to the San Francisco Police Department. Californias homeless population spiked by 17 percent between 2017 and 2020, according to The National Alliance to End Homelessness. There were more than 160,000 homeless people living in the state in 2020, it said. President Joe Biden says he 'strongly condemns' a drone assassination attempt against Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi early Sunday, which left piles of rubble strewn across his home and doors blown off their hinges. The attack came after violent protests in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad over the results of a general election last month, in which pro-Iran Shiite militias lost around two-thirds of their seats amid record low turnout. 'I strongly condemn the terrorist attack targeting the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister al-Kadhimi,' Biden said in a written statement on Sunday. 'I am relieved the Prime Minister was not injured and commend the leadership he has shown in calling for calm, restraint, and dialogue to protect the institutions of the state and strengthen the democracy Iraqis so richly deserve,' Biden said, adding that he had instructed his national security team to offer appropriate assistance. An Iraqi security official said it was 'premature' to speculate about who may have carried out the attack. No group took immediate responsibility. Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi said he was unhurt and called for 'calm and restraint' today after an explosives-laden drone hit his home early Sunday Images from inside the house in Baghdad showed rubble scattered across the residence Doors were blown off their hinges in an attack on the home in the heavily-fortified Green Zone A damaged SUV vehicle parked in the garage of the Iraqi Prime Minister's home President Biden, above leaving church in Delaware on Sunday, says he 'strongly condemns' the attack and will offer Iraq offer appropriate assistance Images have emerged of the Iraqi Prime Minister's damaged home after explosive-laden drones were fired at his residence in Baghdad's heavily-fortified Green Zone. The photos show broken windows and pieces of concrete and a damaged SUV, which was parked in the prime minister's garage as officers stood guard. Remains of a small explosive-laden drone used in the attack were also retrieved by security forces to be investigated, a security official with knowledge of the attack said. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and United Nations chief Antonio Guterres also condemned the attack, which left seven members of Al-Kadhimi's personal protection injured. It came after protests in the Iraqi capital over the result of a general election last month turned violent. Al-Kadhimi wrote on Twitter: 'The rockets of treachery will not discourage the believers. The steadfastness and insistence of our heroic security forces will not falter as they work to preserve the security of the people, achieve justice and enforce the law. Images showed bricks and rubble strewn across the floor in the aftermath of the attack on the Iraqi PM's home which is under investigation Security sources said remains of a small explosive-laden drone used in the attack were also retrieved Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by heavy gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone 'I am fine, praise be to God, among my people, and I call for calm and restraint from everyone, for the sake of Iraq.' He later appeared on Iraqi television, seated behind a desk in a white shirt, looking calm and composed. 'Cowardly rocket and drone attacks don't build homelands and don't build a future,' he said. Johnson's spokesman said the British prime minister 'strongly condemned the attack on the prime minister's home in Baghdad and offered his sympathies to those injured'. 'He made clear that the UK stands by the Iraqi people and supports prime minister Khadimi's efforts to form a government following elections, which is vital for the long-term stability of Iraq,' the spokesman said. An Iraqi security official on condition of anonymity said: 'It's premature now to say who carried out the attack,' according to the BBC. 'We're checking our intelligence reports and waiting for initial investigation results to point the finger at perpetrators.' In a statement, the government said an explosives-laden drone tried to hit Al-Kadhimi's home. Three drones were used in the attack, including two that were intercepted and downed by security forces while a third drone hit the residence, according to state news agency INA, which quoted a spokesman for the interior ministry. An image released by the Iraqi Prime Minister's office shows the damage caused by the drone attack Bricks and pieces of wood lay strewn across the floor in the aftermath of the drone attack on Sunday Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by heavy gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and government offices. The statement released by state-run media said security forces were 'taking the necessary measures in connection with this failed attempt.' No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the Green Zone. It comes amid a stand-off between security forces and pro-Iran Shiite militias whose supporters have been camped outside the Green Zone for nearly a month after they rejected the results of Iraq's parliamentary elections in which they lost around two-thirds of their seats. On Friday, protests turned deadly when the demonstrators tried to enter the Green Zone and pelted police with stones, injuring several officers. The police responded with tear gas and live gunfire, killing at least one demonstrator, according to security and hospital sources in Baghdad. Independent analysts say the election results were a reflection of anger towards the Iran-backed armed groups, which are widely accused of involvement in the killing of nearly 600 protesters who took the street in separate, anti-government demonstrations in 2019. The elections suffered from a record low turnout of 41 percent, pointing to the public's lack of faith in the country's political process. Following the assassination attempt, the US strongly denounced the 'act of terrorism' which was 'directed at the heart of the Iraqi state.' The United States, which has around 2,500 troops in the country, said it was 'relieved to learn the Prime Minister was unharmed.' State Department spokesperson Ned Price said: 'This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state. 'We are in close touch with the Iraqi security forces charged with upholding Iraq's sovereignty and independence and have offered our assistance as they investigate this attack.' Al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt after his Baghdad home, pictured, was targeted by a drone laden with explosives Iraq's President Barham Salih, who holds a largely ceremonial role, said the attack 'requires a united position in confronting the evil actors trying to mess with this country's security and the safety of its people. 'We cannot accept dragging Iraq into chaos and to a coup against the constitutional system.' Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also condemned the assassination attempt. Writing on Facebook, he called on all sides in Iraq to 'calm down, renounce violence and join forces to preserve the country's stability.' And Saudi Arabia issued a statement of support for stability in Iraq and said it strongly condemned the 'cowardly terrorist attack that targeted Iraq's prime minister.' Riot poliec stands outside the Green Zone in Baghdad after Sunday's assassination attempt The area, above, houses foreign embassies and government offices and is highly protected Sunday's attack comes during a period of soaring tensions over the results of the October 10 elections, the fifth since the 2003 US-led invasion ousted dictator Saddam Hussein with the promise of bringing freedom and democracy. Hundreds of supporters of the pro-Iranian former paramilitary force Hashed-al-Shaabi clashed with police on Friday while protesting near the Green Zone to vent their fury over the preliminary result. One protester died of injuries in a hospital, according to a security source, while a Hashed source said two demonstrators were killed. Several hundred supporters of pro-Iranian groups returned to the edge of the Green Zone on Saturday to protest, and some burned a portrait of the prime minister, whom they called a 'criminal.' The pro-Hashed protests are aimed at strengthening its negotiating position during the coalition bargaining process, Iraqi political analyst Ihsan al-Shamari has said. Prime Minister al-Kadhimi was Iraq's former intelligence chief before becoming prime minister in May last year. He is considered by the militias to be close to the US, and has tried to balance between Iraq's alliances with both the US and Iran. Prior to the elections, he hosted several rounds of talks between regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad in a bid to ease regional tensions. Pub-goers and diners will now be able to pay off their meals in four instalments after Afterpay was launched across several major hospitality venues. Australian Venue Co. has become the first hospitality company to partner with the 'buy now, pay later' service. The company runs 160 restaurants, pubs and bars across the country including Bungalow 8 in Sydney, College Lawn Hotel in Melbourne and Riverland in Brisbane. Pub-goers and diners will now be able to pay off their meals in four instalments after Afterpay was launched across several major hospitality venues Australian Venue Co. has become the first hospitality company to partner with the 'buy now, pay later' service (pictured, an Afterpay poster inside one of the venues) Afterpay is currently available at the New South Wales venues and will launch across the rest of the states on November 15. Australian Venue Co. managing director Paul Waterson said the program was already off to a promising start. 'It's only early days, it's only been a week, but already uptake has been very strong,' he said. 'A lot of our patrons are millennials, they use Afterpay for budgeting purposes and they don't typically have credit cards.' Mr Waterson said he was excited to become the first hospitality company to partner with Afterpay. 'We're not afraid to go first,' he said. 'As a group, we seek out other industry leaders who we can work with to innovate on behalf of our customers.' 'Our customers have been clear,' he said. 'We know what they want, and we're happy to offer them more flexibility, especially as they shift away from credit cards.' Mr Waterson said he was excited to become the first hospitality company to partner with Afterpay RateCity research director Sally Tindall has warned diners to be wary of overspending. Afterpay collected almost $100million in late fees from diners last year alone. 'If you don't have enough money for a night out, think about going somewhere cheaper,' Ms Tindall told 9 News. Daily Mail Australia contacted Australian Venue Co. for comment. North Queensland is on coronavirus alert as authorities investigate potential exposure sites linked to a woman who flew from Cairns to Darwin and later tested positive for COVID-19. The 21-year-old woman, who was revealed as the source of the Northern Territory's COVID-19 cluster, had spent time in Melbourne, where NT Chief Minister Michael Gunner said she 'almost certainly' contracted the coronavirus before spending time in Adelaide and Cairns. Queensland Health on Sunday listed six contact-tracing alerts for a Jetstar flight from Adelaide to Cairns on October 25 and sites in Cairns and Mission Beach on October 25, 27 and 29, including the Cairns Domestic Airport and Cairns Central Shopping Centre. All are listed as casual or low-risk contacts. North Queensland is on coronavirus alert as authorities investigate potential exposure sites linked to a woman who flew from Cairns to Darwin and later tested positive for COVID-19 Queensland Health on Sunday listed six contact-tracing alerts for a Jetstar flight from Adelaide to Cairns on October 25 and sites in Cairns and Mission Beach on October 25, 27 and 29 The woman arrived in Darwin from Queensland on October 29. Mr Gunner said she had been fined for lying on her border entry form. The territory's three-person cluster sparked a three-day lockdown for the town of Katherine and restrictions for Greater Darwin. Health officials are also looking into another COVID-19 scare in the state's southeast, with Toowoomba Hospital 'keeping visitors to a minimum' as it probes a possible exposure linked to the recent Goondiwindi cluster. 'We ask all maternity and end-of-life care visitors to please speak to your treating team prior to your arrival at the hospital,' Darling Downs Health said in a Facebook post on Sunday. 'In some instances, support people can be accommodated on compassionate grounds, in the emergency department, maternity and pediatric services.' Four people have tested positive in Goondiwindi on the state border. They had recently visited the northern NSW town of Moree, which has been battling a COVID-19 outbreak. Queensland reported no locally acquired virus cases on Sunday. Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says Queensland is likely to have hit 80 per cent of its 16-plus population with at least their first COVID-19 vaccine dose by Tuesday. Millions of vulnerable patients are being put at risk because the chaotic coronavirus booster vaccine rollout has left many struggling to get appointments. The Government is on track to fall far short of its target of offering boosters to the 32million most vulnerable, including all over-50s, by Christmas Day. At the current rate, of about 300,000 doses a day, nearly ten million at-risk Britons will still be unprotected over the festive period. Ministers are under pressure to deliver 500,000 boosters a day to tackle waning immunity and stop a surge in hospital admissions. Mirela Fliorica gestures as Serena Ng, a NHS vaccinator, administers the Pfizer/BioNTech booster Covid-19 vaccine at a vaccination centre in north London Shambles: Patients slam the rollout of third doses Brian Bull and his partner Jennifer still have not received their boosters because of confusing instructions on the NHS website. Mr Bull, 83, has been due for his jab for nearly a month but has been turned away by a clinic near his home in Appleby, Cumbria, every time he goes to it. He added: The NHS website said there was a walk-in centre at Penrith. We drove the 14 miles only for the receptionist to say she knew nothing about it. They were directed to a rugby club but they werent holding sessions that day. He added: We see so many advertisements from the NHS telling us to get our boosters, but its very hard to actually do it. And the rollout has been a shambles, said a retired police officer forced to go in person to his West Yorkshire GP to book his booster. Keith Woodland, 74, who has an irregular heartbeat, was unable to book after he got an NHS text telling him to get a third jab. After calling 119 I tried again but the system was down. I was told the surgery might have the wrong details about me. He said: Its a shambles. All these senior politicians who say people arent booking jabs when we cant do it anyway. Advertisement Health chiefs have blamed the slow rollout on people failing to come forward, but in reality desperate patients say they are struggling to get jabs due to a shambolic system. Last night the Labour Party wrote to Health Secretary Sajid Javid warning he has allowed the wall of defence to crumble, risking another national lockdown. They are calling for urgent action to speed up booster and childrens jabs, such as recalling volunteers and retired healthcare workers and using more community pharmacies. Experts say ministers can turbocharge the rollout by using the same infrastructure that saw Britain lead the world in the initial rollout, when up to 844,000 jabs were delivered each day. The current pace of the booster rollout means some eligible elderly patients have been told their next available appointment is in December. Others report spending hours on the phone to their GP or the NHS booking service, with one woman only getting through on her 92nd call. Red tape is also hampering the rollout, with one 94-year-old blind woman turned away from a jab centre in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, as she arrived a day early. Patients are being encouraged to use the NHS walk-in finder for their nearest centre, supposed to be within ten miles. But some have been told they must travel tens of miles to get their vaccine as many GP surgeries and pharmacies do not offer top-up jabs. Pensioners on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent were advised by the NHS to go to Southend in Essex, a 128-mile round-trip, for their third dose as local centres do not have supply. MPs are being bombarded with requests for help from constituents. Labour shadow health minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan said: One lady in her 70s who has underlying health conditions went to her pharmacy and called 119 just to be told she wasnt eligible for a booster. She has now finally got one booked for December but had to rely on her daughter to book the appointment for her because she doesnt use the internet. The system simply isnt working. Brian Bull (left), 83, and Jennifer Hodgkinson (right), 79, still have not received their boosters because of confusing instructions on the NHS website The UK has passed ten million booster shots, with a record 371,000 delivered in England on Saturday. But about 30 per cent of over-80s and 40 per cent of eligible over-50s have not had their third dose. From today double-vaccinated people, who become eligible for a third dose six months after their second jab, can book their booster a month in advance. Cases have fallen to their lowest level in more than a month, with 62 deaths and 30,305 infections yesterday. Government data shows an average of 301,000 boosters delivered each day over the past week. To hit the target by Christmas Day this must rise to 460,000 a day. Keith Woodland (above), 74, who has an irregular heartbeat, was unable to book after he got an NHS text telling him to get a third jab Writing to Mr Javid, Labour shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said: Nobody wants to see any more Boris Johnson lockdowns so getting a grip of the stumbling vaccination programme is urgent for ministers. 'The booster campaign has been slow getting off the ground, the third doses for immunocompromised branded chaotic, and there are still pockets of the country with worrying below-average rates of second dose. 'Tory complacency has allowed the wall of defence to crumble. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: We are working at speed to get people boosted and our vaccination programme is making great progress. A married lesbian couple will today launch a landmark case against their NHS fertility clinic, claiming it discriminates against same-sex couples. Megan Bacon-Evans, 34, and her 33-year-old wife Whitney who are known as Wegan to their 210,000 followers across YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok are demanding equal fertility treatment. The couple, who are social media stars, said they have to pay tens of thousands of pounds to become eligible for NHS-funded IVF compared with heterosexual couples. Megan yesterday said they wanted to start a family after being together for 12 years but they were shocked to discover discrimination in place after embarking on our baby journey. Megan Bacon-Evans, 34, and her wife Whitney, 33, are demanding equal fertility treatment, said they were shocked to discover discrimination in place after embarking on our baby journey To become eligible for IVF treatment, patients must prove they are infertile. Heterosexual couples can qualify after trying to conceive naturally for two years. But their NHS clinical commissioning group (CCG), Frimley, requires female same-sex couples to self-fund 12 intra-uterine insemination treatments which involve inserting sperm into a womans womb costing around 30,000 or more. And CCGs in England are accused of a postcode lottery as the number of private insemination treatments required varies from three to 12 before they offer the same help given to heterosexual couples. Northern Ireland requires four, while Scotland and Wales impose no additional costs. Now Megan and Whitney have launched a 10,000 fundraiser to cover their legal fees. Lawyers will today apply for a judicial review on behalf of the couple who are from Windsor in Berkshire. They allege discrimination under the Equality Act and European Convention on Human Rights, in what could become a major test of NHS Englands treatment of LGBT+ families. If permission is granted, the case could be heard in January. The couple, who featured on the BBCs Britains Relationship Secrets documentary, have so far spent 8,000 on donor sperm and mandatory pre-insemination tests. Campaigners claimed the NHSs policies penalise LGBT+ individuals, forcing many into debt or dangerous, unregulated online deals with men, risking sexual assault, disease and custody battles, The Guardian reported. The couple, from Windsor in Berkshire, are known as Wegan to their 210,000 followers across YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok Former health secretary Matt Hancock said in 2019 that sexual orientation should not be a factor in access to IVF. Megan and Whitney yesterday said: It is time for discrimination to end and for there to be equal treatment with heterosexual couples in the healthcare system. They are backed by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, which says restrictions on funding IVF amount to a tax on LGBT+ families. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) the health regulator recommends three IVF cycles for patients under 40 if they have been trying for two years. The couple want all CCGs to abide by these rules for all patients, regardless of what kind of relationship they are in. Frimley, which serves 800,000 patients across Berkshire, Surrey and Hampshire, denies discrimination. It did not respond to a request for comment yesterday. The Department of Health said earlier this year that access to fertility services should be equal. A planned review of variations was pushed back due to the pandemic. On Saturday, in our first extract from Harry Hills uproarious new memoir, the funnyman told how his comedy career has been beset with disaster from meeting the Queen while drunk to his doomed attempt to launch a new musical. But as our concluding part today reveals, his life in the medical profession was even more hapless . . . Lets get one thing straight: I was never a neurosurgeon. Some joker put it on Wikipedia and, because I rather like the idea, Ive never bothered to change it. Not that I couldnt operate on your brain if you wanted me to. If you need a brain operation, Im happy to have a go. I just cant guarantee the results. It is true that I qualified as a doctor. Fundamentally, though, I wasnt cut out for life as a medic one of logic and reasoning. Im a dreamer at heart. I live in my head and Im always looking for new excitements, but it took me a while to work that out, and in the meantime, Im afraid my patients didnt always get a smooth ride. So why did I become one? My friends and I had enjoyed trying to make explosions after I was given a chemistry set for my birthday, and that early apparent interest in science somehow morphed into the idea of me becoming a doctor which Mum, in particular, was thrilled about. To be honest, though, I was conflicted. Inside, I knew I wanted to be a comedy writer or possibly a comedian, but I couldnt work out how on earth you became one. It is true that I qualified as a doctor. Fundamentally, though, I wasnt cut out for life as a medic one of logic and reasoning Id seen interviews with comics such as Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Tommy Cooper, and it seemed that the way theyd all got into it was through entertaining the troops in World War II. I became the only 16-year-old praying for World War III so I could be fast-tracked to stardom! Monty Python had got together at Cambridge University, but none of my teachers was suggesting I was smart enough for that. For my A-levels, I studied the sciences but as the exams approached, I was struggling in physics and chemistry. My physics teacher had shaken his head and told my parents that there was absolutely no chance of me getting a good enough grade to do medicine, and suggested I should consider chiropody instead. Im an awkward b*****d and dont like to take no for an answer. I was also quite certain that I didnt want to spend my days fiddling with other peoples feet. As soon as that teacher told me I couldnt make it as a doctor, I decided to make sure I would be one. You could say I became a doctor out of spite. Once Id passed my exams, though, and enrolled at St Georges Hospital Medical School in Tooting, I was keen to get involved with the drama society. Within a few months I was writing sketches, including one where a shark had somehow got into the operating theatre because it had smelt blood. So why did I become a doctor? My friends and I had enjoyed trying to make explosions after I was given a chemistry set for my birthday, and that early apparent interest in science somehow morphed into the idea of me becoming a doctor which Mum, in particular, was thrilled about The third year was when medical school got really interesting. Thats when we finally got to meet the patients. Back then, doctors were treated like gods. Before the internet, when people couldnt Google what was wrong with them, thered be a notable frisson when a doctor in a white coat walked into a room. The oracle had arrived! Suddenly, I found that people would take what I said completely at face value. I remember a visitor asked me if it was OK to smoke in the corridor. How many do you smoke a day? I demanded. Er, about 20? he said. Hmm, well, you need to cut down, I snapped. I need you to promise me youll have quit completely by the end of the year. Yes, Doctor! he said, almost jumping to attention. I was not as infallible as they thought. Within my first couple of days on a general hospital ward, I had diagnosed a heart attack in a perfectly normal woman, and was told off for daydreaming while observing an aortic aneurysm operation. It didnt help that the heart surgeon was trying to deal with a burst vein at the time. One patient, a Lebanese man, came to me for the repair of bilateral hernias lumps in the groin. I handed him a form to sign. Unusually, he took out his reading glasses and started to scrutinise it. Im sure its all fine, Doctor, he said, looking up. But just one thing. What is a bilateral orchidectomy? Removal of the testicles, I said. Castration, if you like . . . Hmm, so why am I having that, too? Eh? I said, snatching the consent form back off him. Sure enough, in addition to hernias he was down to have his balls off. Good job he spotted it, really. I was not as infallible as they thought. Within my first couple of days on a general hospital ward, I had diagnosed a heart attack in a perfectly normal woman, and was told off for daydreaming while observing an aortic aneurysm operation Then there was the inadvisability of having a cardiac arrest never a good idea, obviously, but especially on my shift. The medical senior house officer [SHO] on call (which is what I was) is automatically on the cardiac arrest response unit or in hospital slang, the crash team day and night. At 2am, the shriek of the crash team alarm makes you fall out of bed. You automatically start pulling your shoes on before youve even opened your eyes, and then you run. You run like your life depends on it, even though, in fact, someone elses does. As soon as a persons heart stops beating, their chances of survival fall off exponentially with the amount of time that passes. Minutes, seconds even, make a big difference. When St Georges was built, it was the largest teaching hospital in Europe, with a mile of corridors between the furthest points. When they opened the new wing, there was only one crash team on call for the whole hospital. If your arrest bleep went off while you were in the old wing and you were needed in the new wing, you really had to leg it if you didnt want your patient to peg it. I was on call once and dropped by the canteen. Id just loaded up my plate with Sausage Lyonnaise, one of their specialities, when my cardiac arrest bleep went off. I looked at the bleep . . . then I looked at the sausages . . . then I looked at the lady on the till. Poor you! she said. I sighed, grabbed a sausage, turned and ran. I dont know whether youve ever tried eating a sausage and running at the same time well, it turns out you cant. And it doesnt look good turning up to a cardiac arrest holding a warm sausage either. If you are called to a cardiac arrest during the day and you arent clutching a sausage, it can look terribly glamorous. Old ladies would swoon as I cantered down the corridor, stethoscope trailing behind me. Passers-by would shout encouragement: Go on, Doc! Sort him out! As the SHO, Id usually be the first on the scene. The responsibility doesnt get any greater than for a cardiac arrest what you do in those few minutes makes the difference between life, death and occasionally something in between. Cardiac resuscitation is basically a series of steps, a flow diagram if you like. You try the first step, and if that doesnt work, you go to the second one and so on. The first one, when I was doing it anyway, was the precordial thump a punch to the chest. However, that punch only works at the exact moment that the heart stops beating. At any other time, its just assault. Next, its CPR or chest compressions. Youve really got to lean on that chest, otherwise it doesnt compress the heart enough for it to be effective. My registrar at the time used to reckon that if you didnt break a couple of the patients ribs, you werent doing it right. Now for the fun bit. Its time to break out the Kerdunker! Youve all seen defibrillators on the telly they look like a couple of electric irons connected to a tape deck. You shout: Clear! Kerdunk! I knew I wanted to be a comedy writer or possibly a comedian, but I couldnt work out how on earth you became one If Im honest, I could count on the fingers of one foot the number of times the Kerdunker brought someone back. But now and then, much to my surprise, it did work and it was a fantastic feeling, because its like magic! One minute your patient (and its nearly always a man and usually a smoker) is lying blue and gurgling with his eyes rolled up into the top of his head. Then Kerdunk! hes sitting up asking for his cup of tea, completely oblivious to the peril he was in just moments before. Most of the time theyd never even thank me. It was really only ever the nurses who got the thank-yous and more importantly, the gifts: the boxes of Milk Tray and occasional bottles of sherry. So whenever I successfully resuscitated someone, I would lean over them and as their eyes focused on my face Id say: My name is Doctor Matthew Hall and Ive just saved your life! And it worked. The first time I tried it, I got a big box of crystallised fruit. Result! The main lesson I took home from my brief stint as a doctor was a simple one that everyone comes to realise eventually but not usually until they are faced with death. At the tender age of 23, I realised that life is short. After I qualified, I moved on to Ashford Hospital, in Surrey, which took patients from Heathrows Terminal 3 and, yes, our love of gallows humour meant there were a lot of terminal jokes. The main lesson I took home from my brief stint as a doctor was a simple one that everyone comes to realise eventually but not usually until they are faced with death. At the tender age of 23, I realised that life is short One day, a man was brought in mid-60s, probable heart attack. We tried to bring him back, but he wasnt having it. There was some confusion as to his identity, so I looked through his wallet. Sure enough I found his driving licence and name but I also found a receipt for Knickerbox, the lingerie outlet. Someone tracked down his wife and we broke the news to her. It turned out that theyd just come back from a holiday to celebrate his retirement. Hed clearly popped in to Knickerbox in the hope of livening things up. It was that detail that made it so heartbreaking for me. Hed been planning it for so long, sobbed his wife. We were so looking forward to his retirement, to spend some proper time together. A light-bulb moment. Lifes short. And I didnt want to spend it being a doctor. Probably what you need to do is get a GP practice in a village with a really strong amateur dramatics group, my mother said, vainly trying to look for a compromise. No good. Dr Matthew Hall had left the building. I sat at my desk and attempted to write jokes. I remember gigging with my old friend Sean Lock. He was going well, until out of the blue some bum up the back shouts: Youre not funny! Sean stops and pauses just for a beat, just long enough to establish whos boss, to let the guy know hes not hurt by it in any way. Not funny? he said. So all these people laughing . . . thats a coincidence, is it? Beautiful Harry Hills first gig was on September 23, 1990, at the Aztec Comedy Club, a Mexican restaurant in South Norwood. Thats not strictly true. I was Harry Hall back then. Michael Caine has a good line about why he changed his name: There was already a famous actor called Maurice Micklewhite. In my case, there was a cement business called Matthew Hall. No one buys a ticket to see a cement business. I changed it because I thought Harry Hall was more showbiz, and I liked the way it contained Ha-Ha, too. I also didnt want any of my friends or family turning up to my gigs and I certainly didnt want to see any of my old patients in the front row. But when I tried to join the actors union Equity, I was told there was already a female actor called Hari Hall. So I needed to ask her permission to use the name (with my spelling). She turned me down. I ummed and ahhed for a couple of weeks over alternatives Harry Hole, Harry Hell and even Harry Carnegie were all front runners (Carnegie Hall, geddit?). After finally settling on my stage name, I typed what I thought were my best gags onto pieces of A4 paper, joined them together and ended up with a scroll containing my five-minute act that was almost as tall as me. Youll be pleased to hear that I still have that scroll of paper. It appears that I started my set with Im not a lonely person but Im the only person I know . . . (pause) Im the only person I know. Handling hecklers Some comics are brilliant at dealing with hecklers. I remember gigging with my old friend Sean Lock. He was going well, until out of the blue some bum up the back shouts: Youre not funny! Sean stops and pauses just for a beat, just long enough to establish whos boss, to let the guy know hes not hurt by it in any way. Not funny? he said. So all these people laughing . . . thats a coincidence, is it? Beautiful. Advertisement The thought of hecklers made me nervous. The public, the Press, civilians, if you will, love the idea of hecklers. Whats the best heckle youve ever had? I bet youve got some great heckle put-down lines. The fact is, if the rest of the room is with you, it doesnt matter what you say youll get the laugh and the heckler will shut up. And if youre dying the room hates you . . . it doesnt matter what you say either, youre toast. Whats the worst heckle Ive ever had? Thats probably being chased down the road next to the Hackney Empire by a bloke wielding a broken bottle, threatening to kill me. I was on stage and struggling, and this bloke heckled me. I came back at him with a four-letter word, and to my surprise, it worked there was a bit of muttering, but he shut up. As I was walking to the car, he charged at me from nowhere waving an empty beer bottle. He smashed the end off it on the kerb and staggered towards me, waving it in my face. I sprinted for my car and drove off. I was right about you! I shouted out of the window: You are a ****! Actually, I made that last bit up its what I should have said, but honestly I was too scared to say anything. Id never been threatened with physical violence. It just didnt happen in my part of Kent. My on-stage look was pretty distinctive from the beginning, with the collar and glasses. I always thought it was important to have a look. I was never the jeans and T-shirt type. Id picked the glasses because I thought they made me look like Buddy Holly I can see now that really they made me look like a 1950s accountant. I bought a pair of brothel creepers in Carnaby Street just the sort of thing Id never have been allowed to get away with on the wards. I look back on those early months of freedom as being the rebellious teenage years I never had. For a few years in the Noughties, Hill's hit show TV Burp was on ITV on Saturday evenings, just before The X Factor A sparkly waistcoat from a charity shop joined my ensemble for a while until the stand-up comic Ian MacPherson took me to one side after a gig at the Red Rose. He congratulated me on my act which was a real thrill as I was such a fan of his and added with a wry smile: But I can see you dropping the waistcoat . . . I never wore it again. So I pulled the collar up to make it look big. When people started commenting on the big collar, I had a couple made with genuinely huge collars they were expensive and not the sort of thing Id ever bought before, but I saw it as an investment in the act. It paid off. I got more laughs. And I loved getting laughs. I always have, ever since that Cub Scout panto. Its only recently that Ive worked out what it was I so enjoyed about the experience. People were laughing because I was making them laugh. It gave me a feeling of power. Im a megalomaniac really. Bet youre glad Im not a doctor. Oxford University is facing fresh criticism for accepting 'tainted and dirty' money after taking 12million from the family fortune of fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley. Oxford, plus other institutions including Imperial College London and UCL, are being urged to return funds to the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust. The charity was controlled by Max Mosley, the controversial privacy campaigner and one-time supporter of his father's racist policies, who died in May aged 81. Jewish student groups have said it was 'inconsiderate and inappropriate' for Oxford and two of its constituent colleges, St Peter's and Lady Margaret Hall, to have taken money from the trust. The row comes amid accusations that the sector has lost its 'moral compass'. Yesterday Oxford don, Professor Lawrence Goldman, emeritus fellow in history at St Peter's, told Sky News that universities should not accept 'tainted and dirty money'. Oxford has faced multiple funding controversies in recent times, including a botched attempt to rename a physics professorship after Chinese firm Tencent after a donation. Meanwhile the graduate-only Linacre College wants to rename itself Thao College after being offered 155million by a Vietnamese budget airline tycoon. Oxford University is facing fresh criticism for accepting 'tainted and dirty' money after taking 12million from the family fortune of fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley (pictured) The university maintains that major donations are properly examined by its 'Committee to Review Donations', but there is little publicly available evidence of its work or examples of rejected donations. Imperial College London has also been under scrutiny over lucrative funding links with China, which critics say leave it at risk of intellectual property theft. Professor Goldman also said that there was a case for dramatic reform and possibly more state control of universities. He added: 'Oxford has lots of money and can continue to get money from other sources. I don't really buy the argument that because you can do some good in Oxford, you should just continue to hold on to what is essentially tainted and dirty money.' Max Mosley was a former student of Christ Church College. His son Alexander was an alumnus of St Peter's College (pictured) and died of a heroin overdose in 2009 Max Mosley was a former student of Christ Church College. His son Alexander was an alumnus of St Peter's College and died of a heroin overdose in 2009. Thanks to the money, there is an Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund but plans to name an accommodation block at St Peter's after him have been halted. Imperial College London said all gifts 'are subject to thorough due diligence'. In 2018 a Daily Mail investigation exposed Max Mosley's racist past after uncovering a bigoted election pamphlet from 1961. UCL was contacted for comment. The Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust could not be reached. Disgrace and hypocrisy of my alma mater: Jewish Chronicle editor STEPHEN POLLARD hits out after it emerged Oxford University accepted 'tainted' money from family fortune of fascist leader Oswald Mosley The day I graduated from Oxford more than 30 years ago was one of the proudest of my life. But when I look at my alma mater today, I feel a growing sense of shame. The revelation yesterday that the university and two of its colleges have accepted a 12 million bequest, derived from the fortune of the late British fascist Sir Oswald Mosley, should sicken any right-thinking person. But it is especially offensive to all of us in Britain's Jewish community. Mosley was a racist and Hitler-worshipper, rightly interned during the Second World War. Would Oxford be willing to take money from Stalin's heirs? From the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un? Or perhaps a new library endowed by Pol Pot? The new grants have been made from a trust set up a decade ago by Oswald's late son, the Formula 1 tycoon Max Mosley, himself a thoroughly questionable character and thanks to a seminal Daily Mail investigation a proven former racist. The new grants have been made from a trust set up a decade ago by Oswald's late son, the Formula 1 tycoon Max Mosley, himself a thoroughly questionable character and thanks to a seminal Daily Mail investigation a proven former racist Since the trust is founded on Max's bloated inheritance the tainted money of his fascist father it is Oxford's disgrace to have accepted it. Oswald Mosley's racist bigotry is well-known. He spent decades leading one crackpot far-Right sect after another: his pre-war British Union of Fascists became the so-called 'Union Movement' throughout the 1950s and 1960s. In their wisdom, the British people were largely repelled by him. But one particularly rotten apple did not fall very far from the tree. Max Mosley, who died earlier this year, was very much his father's son. His dubious sexual proclivities are not our concern here: suffice to say that sadomasochistic orgies, including whipping prostitutes dressed in striped pyjamas while counting in German, are not to everyone's taste. Max Mosley, who died earlier this year, was very much his father's son. His dubious sexual proclivities are not our concern here More important are his politics. And here, in his later years and like many genuine fascists, Max Mosley poured his fortune into trying to muzzle the free Press while also trying to obscure his racist past. In the end, not even he could hide the fact that, during the 1960s, he was an active supporter of his father's movement. On one march through a Jewish district of east London in 1962, Max Mosley went shoulder to shoulder with his father's acolytes as they chanted: 'Jews out!' He then fought Jewish protesters, some of whom were veterans of the Second World War. One, whom the Mail spoke to in the course of its investigation, had lost relatives in Auschwitz. In 2018, the Mail revealed the sordid details of Max Mosley's racist history, including a leaflet he produced for a Manchester by-election in 1961, claiming that 'coloured immigrants' were spreading tuberculosis, venereal disease and leprosy, and threatening children's health. To his dying day, he refused to apologise for this appalling tract. Today, Oxford University insists that it has taken 'legal, ethical and reputational issues into consideration' when accepting the donation from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, named after Max Mosley's son who died of a heroin overdose in 2009. But it cannot have done so with the necessary rigour. For one thing, the Mosley grant will be used to set up the Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund. I'll say it again: the Mosleys supported Hitler, who murdered six million Jews among them members of my own family. Now Jewish students at Oxford will be forced to see the Mosley name every day, woven into the fabric of the university. What are the 'ethics' of that? Yet perhaps even worse than taking the money and don't forget, Oxford and its colleges have a combined endowment of over 6billion, so they are hardly struggling is the context. For several long, exhausting years, Oxford has surrendered prostrate before the frenzied demands of a narrow band of woke students. Curriculums have been 'decolonised' amid tortured debates about tearing down statues of long-dead figures such as the Victorian mining magnate Cecil Rhodes. Peter Conrad, an internationally respected English don, bemoaned recently how 'the academic study of literature' has been 'reduced ... to an annexe of identity politics', while calls have been made for buildings associated however peripherally with the slave trade to be renamed. Oswald Mosley's racist bigotry is well-known. He spent decades leading one crackpot far-Right sect after another: his pre-war British Union of Fascists became the so-called 'Union Movement' throughout the 1950s and 1960s Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists and the Blackshirts, inspects the womens+ sections before a march on Victoria Embankment But unlike Rhodes and the Atlantic slave trade, Oswald and Max Mosley are not figures from a distant past. There are people alive today who bravely stood up to Oswald Mosley's blackshirts during the 1930s. I was a child at the time Max Mosley was viciously campaigning for his father's Jew- hating Union Movement. To their credit several leading Oxford academics have protested at the donation and are urging students to do the same. Indeed, where are those oh so woke students now, demanding that 'Mosley Must Fall'? Their hypocrisy and that of the university is staggering. And, of course, Oxford has form in this area. Only last week we read how one Oxford college has accepted an eye-watering 155million from a self-made Vietnamese billionairess airline tycoon, with alleged links to that country's tough communist regime, and who has been fined several times for using semi-naked stewardesses to promote her flights. The college, Linacre, is even renaming itself in her honour. Such double standards are nauseating. For years, I have made a monthly donation to my old college. With a heavy heart, I'm now going to think very carefully about whether I keep doing so. She's been filming in one of Scotland's grandest properties, but The Crown star Claire Foy wasn't exactly given accommodation fit for a queen. Instead of one of the plush bedrooms at Inveraray Castle, she was banished to a little holiday let. Owner the Duke of Argyll tells me: 'She was in one of our cottages with her family. Of course during lockdown, you weren't allowed to have anyone to stay with you, so she couldn't stay inside the castle.' Claire, 37, plays the Duke's step-grandmother Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, in the BBC's A Very British Scandal, which details her notorious 1963 divorce. She's been filming in one of Scotland's grandest properties, but The Crown star Claire Foy wasn't exactly given accommodation fit for a queen Instead of one of the plush bedrooms at Inveraray Castle (above), she was banished to a little holiday let. Owner the Duke of Argyll tells me: 'She was in one of our cottages with her family. Of course during lockdown, you weren't allowed to have anyone to stay... so she couldn't stay inside the castle' Claire, 37, plays the Duke's step-grandmother Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll, in the BBC's A Very British Scandal (above), which details her notorious 1963 divorce That controversy hasn't held back the Duke's son Archie, Marquess of Lorne. I ran into him at Tatler's Little Black Book party, where he lamented not making the elite list of singletons. 'It's because I'm 17,' he says. 'I want to be just like my dad he topped all these lists when he was my age.' Archie has the upper-crust credentials he was a Page of Honour for the Queen when he was ten. Comic Jack Whitehall's girlfriend Roxy Horner is buying a new dog to stave off more baby talk from their parents. Jack's mother Hilary repeatedly presents him with baby clothes to encourage the couple to start a family. Comic Jack Whitehall's girlfriend Roxy Horner is buying a new dog to stave off more baby talk from their parents But Roxy told me at last week's House of Creed x Sofitel St James Bar party: 'We don't want babies yet I want another dog for Christmas.' Roxy's mother is also pestering them to settle down, but Roxy says: 'I've told her she will just have to be a puppy grandma for now.' Mr Moany: Simon Le Bon I bet hotel staff run a mile when they see that Simon Le Bon has checked in. The Duran Duran frontman hates pretty much everything about hotels, including expensive room service and little packets of biscuits placed beside a kettle. But Simon, 63, who says that even Cliveden House needs to work on raising its standards even though rooms cost at least 545 a night saves his greatest ire for ironing boards tucked away in the wardrobe: 'Am I going to do my own ironing? Excuse me, really?' Sam Frost has reportedly split from her boyfriend Jay Bruno. The Home and Away actress, whose anti-vaccine stance has seen her temporarily written off the soap, and the Instant Hotel star had moved in together during lockdown in Sydney. But the negative publicity surrounding her stance 'drove a wedge' between Sam, 32, and her beau, according to Emerald City on Sunday. Over: Negative publicity surrounding Sam Frost's (pictured) vaccination stance 'drove a wedge' between Sam, 32, and boyfriend Jay Bruno, according to Emerald City on Sunday While Sam still follows Jay on Instagram, he does not follow her back. 'They are still close, Jay just lives in Melbourne and she is still in Sydney for work,' a spokesperson for Sam told the publication. However, the representative didn't elaborate on why Jay doesn't follow her online. Daily Mail Australia have contacted Sam Frost and Jay Bruno for further comment. On Saturday, Bruno's Instagram Stories revealed him with his arm around Network 10 executive assistant Eliza Crowder in Melbourne, though it's not believed they are anything more than friends. The former radio host has left Sydney and is back living in the Victorian capital, according to Emerald City. On the rocks: In September it was first reported that Jay (pictured), who hails from Melbourne, had moved into the Home And Away actress' townhouse in Sydney's inner west Ouch: While Sam still follows Jay on Instagram, he does not follow her back In September it was first reported that Jay, who hails from Melbourne, had moved into the Home And Away actress' townhouse in Sydney's inner west. According to the report, Sam has insisted the pair are 'just friends', however pals of the pair say 'their relationship has taken a romantic turn during lockdown'. Sam confirmed she was single in July during an appearance on Nova's Fitzy And Wippa, in which she joked about looking for an attractive male celebrity to join her 'singles bubble during lockdown'. Moving on? On Saturday, Bruno's Instagram Stories revealed him with his arm around Network 10 executive assistant Eliza Crowder (pictured) in Melbourne, though it's not believed they are anything more than friends Her previous relationship was with Dave Bashford. Meanwhile, Jay split from international model Leah Johnsen in late 2019. The news comes after Sam confirmed she would be temporarily written off Home and Away while she waited to get fully vaccinated against Covid-19. It follows a remarkable backdown from the reality TV star after initially maintaining she would not be getting the jab. The saga began when Sam shared a video to Instagram last month in which she tearfully admitted she was unvaccinated and was struggling with her mental health due to other people judging her. She said: 'I was really hesitant about doing a video or even speaking up about this sort of thing, but I feel like it's getting to a point now in the world where there's a lot of segregation.' Taking a break: The news comes after Sam confirmed she would be temporarily written off Home and Away while she waited to get fully vaccinated against Covid-19 Her video caused a great deal of controversy, mainly because of her use of the word 'segregation' when referring to the way society 'judges' unvaccinated people. Channel Seven last month announced a vaccine mandate across all shows. The network said it 'will only engage fully vaccinated presenters, cast and crew' from January 10, meaning Sam was essentially told: 'Get the jab or face the sack.' She confirmed on Tuesday she will be fully vaccinated by late February - about seven weeks after the vaccine mandate comes into effect. Her character, nurse Jasmine Delaney, will be 'written out temporarily' until she's double vaxxed. She's currently partnered with Brendan Cole for the next series of Dancing On Ice. And on Sunday, Vanessa, 25, took a break from ice skating practice as she stepped out to attend Family Gala screening of Disney's Encanto at Picturehouse Central in London. The skating pro stepped out in patchwork print skater skirt and silky black crop top for the event as she showcased her toned physique. The Block's Scott Cam has broken his silence on contestants' fiery calls to replace the judges on the renovation show. Ahead of the auction on Saturday, the host explained to News.com.au that there was no merit to talk of firing Shaynna Blaze, Neale Whitaker and Darren Palmer. 'The judges gave very constructive criticism,' Scotty told the publication, after some of the stars made the bold claims upon receiving harsh criticism for their rooms. Speculation: The Block's Scott Cam (right) broke his silence on fiery calls to replace the judges on the renovation show during an interview with News.com.au. (L) Shelley Craft Scott went on to say the judges were harsh as they wanted the teams to make money. 'The judges want them to make money, I want them to make money,' he added. 'The biggest thing that I would hate to see is somebody working that hard and not making a quid.' Staying: 'The judges want them to make money, I want them to make money,' Scott said. 'The biggest thing that I would hate to see is somebody working that hard and not making a quid.' Pictured: Neale Whittaker, Shaynna Blaze and Darren Palmer Scott went on to explain that a lot of egos get hurt during the judging process, before defending the judges' role. 'When the judges do go hard, they bruise some egos of the contestants, and they get upset and cranky at the judges and want them replaced, but at the end of the day the judges are right,' he said. The judges had a number of blow-ups with contestants this season - including with Josh and Luke Packham and Mitch and Mark. Not holding back! The judges had a number of blow-ups with contestants this season - including with Josh and Luke Packham and Mitch and Mark (pictured) In September, Mitch and Mark were left seething after criticism of their kitchen and pantry. After the design trio branded the layout 'really dumb' and 'insane' during the reveal with the pair opting for just a fridge and pantry 'drawers' for storage. Mitch stormed off the set and told them to 'go f**k yourselves' in an explosive piece to camera. Not impressed! Darren (right) agreed, describing the layout as 'dumb' for the kitchen, while Shaynna (centre) added 'it's insane' Judges Neale, Shaynna and Darren thought it was a glaring oversight to have gone without a designated pantry, and instead relied on a fridge and drawers for storage. 'I'm supposed to listen to them? Yeah go f**k yourselves. I'm not interested in the feedback,' Mitch quipped. Mitch added in a piece to camera that their comments are 'pretty stupid'. Style over substance? During their kitchen reveal, judges Neale Whitaker, Shaynna Blaze and Darren Palmer thought it was a glaring oversight to have gone without a designated pantry, and instead relied on a fridge and drawers for storage. Pictured: Mitch and Mark's kitchen 'I have no respect for the judges, so I shouldn't let somebody hurt me who I had no respect for in the first place,' he said. Luke and Josh Packham were also left fuming a number of times this year, including for their messy house. The Block grand finale will continue on Sunday, Nine, 7pm Phillip Schofield reunited with his wife Stephanie Lowe to attend Adele's first concert in four years at the London Palladium on Saturday night. The television presenter, 59, wore a grey suit with a navy blue checked pattern as he walked the red carpet with Stephanie, 57. This Morning host Phil wore a white shirt which he left unbuttoned at the collar and a pair of brown suede boots. Good friends: Phillip Schofield, 59, cut a dapper figure in a grey suit with wife Stephanie Lowe, 57, at Adele's first concert in four years at the London Palladium on Saturday night He could be seen smiling as he stood alongside Stephanie at the glitzy event, with his signature silver hair on display. Stephanie, who Phillip shares daughters Molly, 28, and Ruby, 25, with, looked chic in a black trouser suit. She could be seen teetering on a pair of high-heeled shoes in the same colour of her outfit while she accessorised with some delicate gold chains around her neck. In style: This Morning host Phil wore a white shirt which he left unbuttoned at the collar and a pair of brown suede boots while Stephanie dressed in black Adele's long-awaited return to the stage is being recorded as part of an ITV special, titled An Audience With Adele, which will be broadcast on Sunday November 21. The musician, who recently released new music for the first time in six years, was set to perform her record-breaking number one single Easy On Me at the gig, along with new tracks from her forthcoming album, 30 - in her first UK concert in four years. Phillip publicly came out as gay in February 2020, announcing the news in a heartfelt statement read out by his This Morning co-host Holly Willoughby on the show. Anticipated: Adele's long-awaited return to the stage is being recorded as part of an ITV special, titled An Audience With Adele, which will be broadcast on Sunday November 21 Broadcaster Phillip and Stephanie, who married at Ackergill Tower in Scotland on 29 March 1993, have remained friends since he came out, and have stated they have no plans to divorce. Late last year, the lost admitted he is 'not fixed in any way' and he still has to 'come to terms' with his life after publicly coming out as gay in February. Talking about his family on BBC Radio 5 Live, the Dancing On Ice star said: 'We love each other massively. We are a loving family, that hasn't changed... it's us four but different. Relationship: This Morning presenter Phil came out as gay last year after 27 years of marriage to Stephanie, however they have not divorced 'We are a work in progress. I've been very honest about all of this and there's no question, we have to pick our way through this daily as a family. 'And that's what we are doing. We are making our way through very unusual and unexpected waters.' When asked by hosts Scott Mills and Chris Stark how he was doing, Phillip added: 'I'm okay. I am still a work in progress. I still have to come to terms with my life and with me.' Still close: Phillip and Stephanie, who married at Ackergill Tower in Scotland on 29 March 1993, are parents to daughters Molly, 28, and Ruby, 25 The media personality also explained how a legal end to their marriage has not been brought up, telling Chris Evans on his How To Wow podcast: 'I'm still married to Steph. There is a great deal of talk of divorce - we have not discussed that at all. 'With divorce...that has not been discussed. We are picking our way through and however that works and it's a work in progress. I am a work in progress. Steph is a work in progress. 'It is not in my nature to hurt people and so I have to reconcile myself with the fact that I have done that. Indeed I have done that and I tried very hard not to. 'I also say, is it possible to come out and not hurt your wife? No of course it isn't. My greatest concern is that she is okay.' Emmerdale stars Matthew Wolfenden and Isabel Hodgins had an explosive row on set during filming for a dramatic stunt scene, according to a new report. The actor, 41, who plays David Metcalfe on the soap and the actress, 27, who plays his on-screen girlfriend Victoria Sugden clashed while shooting new scenes with Aaron Anthony, reports The Sun. The incident reportedly occurred while the group were filming dramatic waterfall scenes in Stockton-on-Tees for a special episode. Oh dear: Emmerdale stars Matthew Wolfenden (left) and Isabel Hodgins (right) had an explosive row on set during filming for a dramatic stunt scene, according to a new report A source told the publication: 'It left a lot of those present at the filming feeling uncomfortable. It was a very heated situation. 'Tempers were running very high. It was tense and bosses got to hear about what had gone on very quickly.' 'While they were on set a comment was made which unintentionally caused offence, and an argument broke out among some of the cast members.' The insider added that Emmerdale took the allegations seriously and that Matthew and Isabel did not film scenes while inquiries were made. The matter was then resolved and no further action was taken. The pair were then back on set last week. Incident: The incident reportedly occurred while the group were filming dramatic waterfall scenes in Stockton-on-Tees for a special episode Disruption: The insider added that Emmerdale took the allegations seriously and that Matthew (pictured) and Isabel did not film scenes while inquiries were made The on-screen couple reportedly took a break from filming at Tees Barrage water park in Stockton-on-Tees while bosses made inquiries. The stunt was to help mark ITV's Super Soap Week last month. An Emmerdale spokeswoman said: 'While we would never comment on individual cases, Emmerdale has robust policies in place to deal with any allegations brought to our attention and take the appropriate steps. Neither actor has been suspended from Emmerdale.' Representatives for the pair as well as ITV have been contacted by MailOnline for a comment. Stars: Matthew is married to fellow Emmerdale star Charley Webb who played the part of Debbie Dingle on the soap Matthew is married to fellow Emmerdale star Charley Webb who played the part of Debbie Dingle on the soap. It comes after earlier this year a source told The Sun that 'there are no current plans for Charley to return as Debbie at this time However the door is always open for her,' the source said. They reassured that: 'Debbies daughter and her family are in the village so its definitely not a permanent goodbye.' Charley's character Debbie promised her daughter Sarah that she was only taking a short visit to Scotland to find a manager for her business there. However, Charleys husband Matthew, 41, revealed on This Morning that she doesn't want to come back to the show while Covid-19 restrictions are in place. The father-of-two said: 'To be honest filming there at the moment with Covid regulations is tough.' 'Everyone's rallied round and made it what it is. But yeah, I think for her to go back now when all this is still happening is not what she wants to do.' 'I think she'll wait until all the restrictions have dropped,' he said. Actress: The matter was then resolved and no further action was taken. The pair were then back on set last week (Isabel is pictured in 2019) Charley recently told MailOnline about her interest in taking her career down the route of make-up, in collaboration with her sister Cassie Lomas who has professionally glammed up the likes of Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga and Little Mix. She teased: 'We've always talked about doing something as a duo because she's been a make-up artist for 25 years and has her own school and is very successful. 'I think the thing for me is I'm all about that natural make-up look so I'd want to go down that line and do something I like for me.' The actress recently teamed up with McDonald's in order to promote its Plan For Change, which explains what can be done to protect the planet while cutting through the jargon through The Climate Clarity Guide. Wow! It comes after Charley (right) told MailOnline about her interest in taking her career down the route of make-up, in collaboration with her sister Cassie Lomas (left) who has professionally glammed up the likes of Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga and Little Mix Charley said: 'The guide is about simplifying the complicated talk when it comes to climate change. There are words that aren't the sort we hear every day and you often forget what each one means. 'It's basically a breakdown with a small, tiny explanation of each word about biodiversity and climate resilience and things that you can explain to your children. 'When you understand something, it makes you want to change it but if you don't know what you're talking about or what it means, it can become very difficult to make a change.' Charley is working with McDonalds to launch The Climate Clarity Guide as part of its new Plan for Change. Download the new guide from mcdonalds.co.uk/climateclarity. Hollywood star Julia Roberts was pictured boarding a private jet to Hamilton Island on Saturday, after previously quarantining in a Sydney mansion. The 54-year-old actress is rumoured to be using the tropical locale as her base, while she shoots romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise alongside George Clooney in the Whitsundays. While their actual itinerary is not known, the A-list duo are likely to stay in either the Qualia luxury resort or the state-of-the-art Papillon house. A-list guests: Julia Roberts rumoured to be using Hamilton Island as her base while she shoots the romantic comedy Ticket to Paradise with George Clooney in the Whitsundays. The duo pictured in 2016 Set on Hamilton Island's northern-most tip, Qualia features luxury pavilions and is the first choice for celebrities staying on the island. Julia or George would likely stay at the resort's private north-facing Beach House which boasts private lap pool and secluded location. The Beach House features a main bedroom and en-suite bathroom, a spacious entertaining area, 10-person dining room and a 12-metre infinity edge private pool. Best of the best: Set on Hamilton Island's northern-most tip, Qualia features luxury pavilions and is the first choice for celebrities staying on the island Mod cons: Julia or George would likely stay at the resort's private north-facing Beach House which boasts private lap pool and secluded location It also features a well-appointed separate guesthouse for friends or family. Both Qualia resort and Whitsunday Island's Papillon house were designed by renowned architect, Chris Beckingham. Papillon features seven oversized bedrooms, perfect for a Hollywood star and their entourage. Room with a view: The Beach House features a main bedroom and en-suite bathroom, a spacious entertaining area, 10-person dining room and a 12-metre infinity edge private pool Designer: Both Qualia resort and Whitsunday Island's Papillon house were designed by renowned architect, Chris Beckingham The vast home is set on 2,661sqm of land - meaning guests can enjoy the ultimate in privacy and seclusion. Both residences are booked solid through the duo's filming dates, however it is not known if George and Julia will be staying at either location. Roberts has just spent two weeks at a $56.9million mansion in Vaucluse, one of Sydney's most exclusive suburbs. Room for entourage: It also features a well-appointed separate guesthouse for friends or family. Roomy: Papillon features seven oversized bedrooms, perfect for a Hollywood star It was the former rental home of Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch, the son and daughter-in-law of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Privacy arrangements were made for Julia's stay, with a large black screen being erected on the waterfront side of the home. The home was being patrolled by around-the-clock armed guards, while multiple chefs, waiters and housekeepers are staying with Julia as part of her travel bubble. Spaced out: The vast home is set on 2,661sqm of land - meaning guests can enjoy the ultimate in privacy and seclusion International visitors to Australia must spend two weeks in quarantine due to coronavirus restrictions. Roberts is in the country to film rom-com Ticket to Paradise with Clooney. The shoot is scheduled for two months from mid-November, with locations on the Gold Coast and Brisbane. Mystery: Both residences are booked solid through the duo's filming dates, however it is not known if George and Julia will be staying at either location The project received a $6.4million grant from the federal government's Location Incentive Program. George and Julia play a divorced couple who travel to Bali in a desperate bid to stop their daughter, played by Kaitlyn Dever, from getting married. The movie will be filmed entirely in Queensland, with the picturesque Whitsundays doubling for Bali. Mindy Kaling let her fans get a look at the final look she wore to celebrate Diwali, the biggest holiday in the Hindu festive season. In a new Instagram album she posted Saturday the 42-year-old was decked out in a striking saffron lehenga by the Bombay-based brand Ease Studio. She accentuated the look with jewelry by the brand Kallati, including a traditional headpiece known as a maang tikka. 'Thrilling': Mindy Kaling let her fans get a look at the final look she wore to celebrate Diwali, the biggest holiday in the Hindu festive season 'Ahhhhhh why does this have to be my final Diwali event? After literally wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt for Diwali 2020, it was THRILLING to turn out this year for the Festival of Lights,' she gushed in her caption. Mindy closed out her message by telling her six million followers: 'Thanks for all the kind comments and "Happy Diwali"'s, I love you guys!' Although Diwali fell on Thursday the Mindy Project star has been celebrating for days including with a star-studded fete on Wednesday. That day she helped host the Phenomenal x Live Tinted Diwali Dinner where she wore Falguni Shane Peacock, a brand known for its Indian bridal attire. Only the best: In a new Instagram album she posted Saturday the 42-year-old was decked out in a striking saffron lehenga by the Bombay-based brand Ease Studio Bringing it together: She accentuated the look with jewelry by the brand Kallati, including a traditional headpiece known as a maang tikka Wednesday to Saturday: Although Diwali fell on Thursday the Mindy Project star has been celebrating for days including with a star-studded fete on Wednesday Priyanka Chopra arrived in a lehenga by the Bombay designer Arpita Mehta while late-night hostess Lilly Singh threw on a sherwani style jacket. Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Radhika Jones modeled a soft pink salwar kameez for the event, where she was seated right next to Priyanka. As regards her own religious convictions Mindy wrote in her book Nothing Like I Imagined (Except for Sometimes) that she is 'a kind of Hindu.' She did note of her daughter Katherine, three: 'Even if I dont exactly care if my daughter is Hindu, I definitely dont want her to be some other religion.' Swanking about: That day she helped host the Phenomenal x Live Tinted Diwali Dinner where she wore Falguni Shane Peacock, a brand known for its Indian bridal attire Mindy joked: 'So, I looked down at my sleeping eight-month-old baby and I whispered: "You will not be a member of the Hillsong Church!"' Along with her daughter Mindy also has a son called Spencer, one, and she has been fiercely private about her children, not even revealing the father in either case. She recently explained that she does not show their faces on social media because she is waiting for them to reach the age when they can give her their permission. 'I have no judgment for people in the public eye who share photos and videos of their children,' she clarified to People magazine. There they are: Priyanka Chopra arrived in a lehenga by the Bombay designer Arpita Mehta while late-night hostess Lilly Singh threw on a sherwani style jacket 'My sense is that [my kids] have no real consent right now to do that.... I feel like I might as well wait until they get old enough so they can tell me if they want to be part of my social media or not,' Mindy shared. 'Sometimes it's just a safety thing. I don't want to be at the airport and have someone be like: "Spencer, Katherine," and have them look to the people as though they know them or they're friends. I think that could be really confusing as a kid.' She added: 'So that's the reason I'm doing it, but it's hard because they're such a huge part of my life. And I'm like any parent where I'm proud of the things they do. I think they're so cute, and of course, I want other people to see it!' Sid Owen has revealed that he and his fiancee Victoria Shores suffered a 'traumatic' miscarriage earlier this year. The Eastenders' star, 49, and his partner, 42, revealed that they were 'shell-shocked and numb' when Victoria miscarried eight months ago, and they feared they'd never fulfil their dream of starting a family. Calling on better care for women who have suffered miscarraiges, Sid added that he struggled to leave the house for several days after Victoria shared the heartbreaking news, but they are now stronger than ever after learning they're expecting again. Sad news: EastEnders star Sid Owen, 49, has revealed that he and his fiancee Victoria Shores suffered a 'traumatic' miscarriage earlier this year Speaking with The Sun on Sunday, Victoria said that she was worried after she discovered bleeding, and after being admitted to hospital was told she'd miscarried at nine weeks pregnant. She then went on to say that she felt 'numb' after the incident, and that the time after she was discharged she was lonely. Sid then said that Victoria had apologised to him because she felt as if it was her fault - but he didn't blame her at all. Rocky road: The Eastenders' star, 49, and his partner, 42, revealed that they were 'shell-shocked and numb' when Victoria miscarried eight months ago He said: 'Afterwards I remember Vic telling me, 'I'm sorry', because she felt guilty. Of course I didn't blame her at all we were both feeling emotional. 'I didn't know what to say or do. I could have done with some advice or someone to talk to. I felt empty and helpless. 'We were so excited and then suddenly it felt like we had lost everything.' Sid added that felt that going through the incident together solidified their relationship and that they wanted to have more babies together, and it was then he decided he wanted to marry Victoria. Victoria, who has two children, said she 'felt sorry' that this had happened in Sid's first experience with pregnancy, and that he was very caring towards her in the aftermath. Two months later, the pair shared the 'miracle' news that they'd fallen pregnant again, after originally planning to try IVF in their quest to start a family. Sid first announced his baby news back in September in an interview with the Sunday Mirror. He told the publication at the time: 'I never ever dreamt I would have kids. The older you get the more distant that idea seems. 'You give up hope sometimes, so it is a miracle it has happened. We'd spoken about it when we talked about marriage but I just didn't think it was going to happen. I was completely shocked and over the moon.' Expecting: Sid added that he struggled to leave the house for several days after Victoria shared the news, but they are now stronger than ever after learning they're expecting again He later took to Instagram to share a picture from the sonogram. The couple know the sex of the baby, but have chosen to keep it a secret for the time being. Sid and Victoria have also been shopping for baby clothes, and he has said that he worried he will spoil them. He has promised to try and keep his child grounded, after he revealed in his memoir From Rags To Riches that he had grown up in severe poverty after his father went to prison and his mother died when he was eight-years-old. If you have been affected by the subject of this story please call the Miscarriage Association Helpline on 01924 200799. They're one of the most famous families in show business. And David Beckham, 46, gave his Instagram followers an insight into an intimate moment with his loved ones as he shared a clip of daughter Harper, 10, enjoying a Guy Fawkes Night celebration on Saturday. Harper could be seen waving a sparkler through the air as she stood outside in a blue and white jacket while the family celebrated Bonfire Night. Family affair: David Beckham, 46, gave his Instagram followers an insight into family life as he shared a clip of daughter Harper, 10, enjoying a Guy Fawkes Night celebration on Saturday In the video, David could be heard saying: 'Nice, Harpey, happy fireworks night. Love ya,' to which she responded: 'Love you too.' David then chimed back: 'Love you more,' to which Harper replied: 'Impossible.' The sportsman hit back: 'Possible.' Magic moments: On her page, David's wife Victoria Beckham, 47, shared a picture of herself posing with David and Harper as well as Harper's brother Cruz, 16 On her page, David's wife Victoria Beckham, 47, shared a picture of herself posing with David and Harper as well as Harper's brother Cruz, 16. The fashion designer captioned the image: 'Happy fireworks night from us.' Former Spice Girl Victoria tagged her other two sons Brooklyn, 22, and Romeo, 19, who were absent, telling them she missed them. Loved up: The fashion designer captioned the image: 'Happy fireworks night from us', later telling her absent sons Brooklyn and Romeo that she missed them Cute: Harper looked adorable as she enjoyed lighting the sparklers with her family to celebrate Bonfire Night Earlier in the day, Romeo's girlfriend Mia Regan paid a cheeky tribute to Victoria as she promoted the star's beauty line by writing 'POSH' on her bikini-clad posterior. Posing in the sand, the 18-year-old model put her peachy bottom on display, with the word 'posh' written in blusher on it. Wearing a stringy pink thong bikini, she posted the cheeky snap to promote her boyfriend Romeo Beckham's mother's beauty line, Victoria Beckham Beauty. Cheeky! Romeo's girlfriend Mia Regan, 18, sent temperatures soaring when she posted a bikini snap of herself on Saturday, which showed off her peachy bottom Bold: Romeo was soon in the comments section of the snap to simply write a peach emoji Romeo was quickly visible in the comments section of the snap, leaving a playful peach emoji. Mia and Romeo began dating back in May 2019, and recently enjoyed some time in New York together. She shared a post of their time together in the city, and captioned the snaps: 'No shame being a stereotypical tourist in nyc :)' Getaway: The post comes after Mia shared a sweet gallery from her time in New York with Romeo on Thursday The series of shots captured several highlights from their city break, including loved-up embraces, selfies in a ceiling mirror and a stroll around Times Square. Mia, who models for Storm, showed off her quirky sense of fashion on the cover image, a range of hues incorporated into her jumper, skirt and beanie. The Beckham's second eldest looked utterly smitten with her in the slew of snaps, as he wrapped his arms around her adoringly. She shocked her fans by announcing that she and husband Bryan Greenberg had welcomed a set of twins late in October. And Jamie Chung shared her first photo of both babies together on Saturday as they had their first meeting with her parents. The 38-year-old reality starturnedactress also revealed that Bryan's parents had had their first in-person time with the babies earlier in the week. Family: Jamie Chung, 38, shared the first photo of her new baby twins together as they met her parents and older sister for the first time Jamie's cute photo showed the twins sleeping side-by-side on a large pillow bed and covered with a blanket while her parents and older sister stood watch over them. Her father pointed down at the tots and grinned ear-to-ear. 'It's been really sweet to have both sets of grandparents meet the babies this week,' the Lovecraft Country star captioned the snap. She previously shared a photo on October 26 of one of her twins resting on her chest as she cradled their tiny hand in her own. The more the merrier: Jamie revealed that the twins also got a visit from her husband Bryan Greenberg's parents earlier in the week; seen in January 2020 in Beverly HIlls So delicate: The Lovecraft Country star previously shared an adorable photo of her cradling one of the twins' tiny hands, which she captioned, 'x 2' 'x 2,' she playfully captioned the photo, though she didn't show both twins together until Saturday. Bryan initially broke the news that they had become parents on October 24 with a sweet video of himself holding the twins against his chest. Although the couple haven't shared any details about their recent pregnancy journey, Jamie revealed on Instagram in 2019 that she was then in the process of freezing her eggs. 'Here I am over a week ago at my doctors office getting an orientation/lesson on how to inject myself with growth hormones,' she captioned a photo of herself. 'One of the first major steps for egg retrieval.' She said the process was about 'buying time' and keeping her 'options' open. 'I did my research on facilities and then it all boiled down to these deciding factors; I want options. I'm buying time. I'm unsure and scared and hopeful,' she wrote. Baby reveal: The loving couple broke the news that they had become parents on October 24, when Bryan posted a clip of himself holding the newborns on his chest Jamie's supportive husband helped make all the difference. 'I have the best life partner a person can ask for and I know I want to one day raise a child with Bryan,' she continued. 'I'm just unsure when that will happen. And I realized that's ok.' Jamie and Bryan have been together since 2012, and they got engaged late in the following year. The San Franciscoborn Real World star married the How To Make It In America star in Santa Barbara in 2015 during a three-day ceremony around Halloween in which guests got to wear their costumes during one of the pre-wedding dinners. Angelina Jolie did not taper back her fashion sense for a lowkey grocery run in Hollywood on Friday evening. The 46-year-old Eternals star was seen in a sweeping black dress as she did a little shopping at a Gelson's market, accompanied by daughter Vivienne, 13. The duo spent about 40 minutes in the store browsing the aisles and bagged their own groceries before heading out with a bounty of provisions in each hand. Grocery run: The 46-year-old Eternals actress looked super stylish as she and daughter Vivienne, 13, made a stop at a Gelson's market in Hollywood on Friday evening Angelina modeled a chic black frock and a pair of black stilettos with a cozy-looking knit cardigan that fell past her knees. Vivienne on the other hand seemed more appropriately dressed for a last minute grocery run as she emerged ahead of her mom in grey sweats and a T-shirt with Nike sneakers. As the duo shopped in the store they were seen being quite affectionate as they wrapped their arms around each other while perusing the freezer section. Vivienne was seen pushing the grocery cart through the aisles while the Maleficent star put items such as pretzel Goldfish, Pirate's Booty, oranges, vegetables and juice into the cart. Taking their time: The duo spent about 40 minutes in the store browsing the aisles and bagged their own groceries before heading out with a bounty of provisions Stocking up: Vivienne was seen pushing the shopping cart through the aisles while the Maleficent star put items such as pretzel Goldfish, Pirate's Booty, oranges, vegetables and juice into the cart As her household is filled with six growing children: Maddox, 19, Pax, 17, Zahara, 16, Shiloh, 15, and Vivienne and Knox, 13, Angelina made sure to get a variety of items that her whole brood would enjoy. Jolie's outing comes after she criticized several Gulf Nations including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar for refusing to screen her latest Marvel film Eternals based on the depiction of a homosexual relationship. In the film, Bryan Tyree Henry (Phastos) shares a kiss with Haaz Sleiman (Ben) marking the first ever same sex kiss in the Marvel franchise, causing Angelina to speak out on the nations' decision to censor the film all together. 'I'm sad for [those audiences]. I'm proud of Marvel for refusing to cut those scenes out,' she told Australian outlet news.com.au 'I still don't understand how we live in a world today where there's still [people who] would not see the family Phastos has and the beauty of that relationship and that love. How anybody is angry about it, threatened by it, doesn't approve or appreciate it is ignorant.' Grant Denyer furiously lashed out at false claims he was being unfaithful to his wife Chezzi with his Dancing with the Stars partner Lily Cornish last month. And on Saturday, the 44-year-old took to Instagram to share two defiant photos of the couple enjoying a dinner date with the dancer and their baby daughter Sunday. Alongside the images - which saw everyone beaming at the camera while Lily held on to little Sunday - Grant posted a lengthy caption saying just how much Lily had come to mean to the pair in recent weeks. Defiant: Grant Denyer (L), his wife Chezzi (centre), daughter Sunday (second right) and dance partner Lily Cornish (right) enjoyed a cute lunch date over the weekend - weeks after the couple were forced to deny false claims Grant was having an affair with her 'So much respect and love for this legend!' He wrote. 'Amazing to catch up with this dancing superstar @lilycornish over lunch. 'After dancing for up to 10 hours a day for a few months you build a strong bond, share a lot of laughs and cause each other a fair share of injuries. 'Between Chez & Lilz I didn't get a bloody word in, but I live in a house full of girls so I'm used to it!' Although he made no mention of the false accusations, Grant continued: 'Lily is the best in the biz and worked so damn hard to make my DWTS experience so insanely hard, wonderfully rewarding but incredibly fun. I'm very very grateful. Pals: Chezzi posted a sweet comment of her own, adding: 'We are SO lucky she actually agreed to come teach you how to dance - we knew it wouldn't be easy... but what she was able to teach you were INCREDIBLE' 'Man, do we have some absolutely hectic performances ready to blow your television up - so get ready in the next few months!!' He continued: 'A huge thanks to Lilz. She packed up her life in sunny & warm Brisbane to come to cold Bathurst in winter to dance all day and study for Uni all night. Mega effort. 'Her choreography is off the charts and through all my fears and insecurities about returning to the dance floor after 15 years, she did a brilliant job balancing the role of teacher, psychologist and most fierce supporter.' Friends: He then sweetly added that the 'whole Denyer clan loves you Lilz,' before saying: 'You took me to a whole new level of performance with your professionalism, patience and talent and we pulled off things I didn't even think were possible' He then sweetly added that the 'whole Denyer clan loves you Lilz,' before saying: 'You took me to a whole new level of performance with your professionalism, patience and talent and we pulled off things I didn't even think were possible. 'Enjoy having your life back. You've certainly earned it. Now go get that Uni degree and go and save the planet. My kids are counting on you. 'Ps thanks for not calling HR when I dropped you on your head. Several times.' Chezzi posted a sweet comment of her own, adding: 'We are SO lucky she actually agreed to come teach you how to dance - we knew it wouldn't be easy.. but what she was able to teach you was INCREDIBLE. 'You both worked so bloody hard and it really did pay off. Your dances are SENSATIONAL and nothing short of miraculous. 'No offence Gidlet, you gave it your heart and soul and I love you to pieces but Lilz is a master choreographer and to watch her at work was mind blowing!!!! Bring on DWTS next year. I am SOOOO excited for this.' 'What the actual hell is this front-page crap': Chezzi posted screenshots of the article - which falsely suggested her husband was having an affair with a woman half his age - on Instagram and blasted the magazine for fabricating such a 'gross and mean' story New Idea published a front-page story on October 18 falsely implying Grant was having an affair with dancer Lily Cornish. While the photos were accompanied by the headline 'Grant Denyer Caught Out', the full set of images has since been released, offering a more complete picture of what happened. The original article falsely implied Denyer and Cornish were cheating on their respective partners - a claim Denyer and his wife Chezzi have strongly denied - but the photos themselves actually suggest a platonic relationship. Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting any infidelity took place. The image used for the cover appears to show him patting the young dancer's leg in a fatherly manner, which is what he maintains happened. There were other moments when they acted like ordinary friends and colleagues. Shots of them looking chummy at the boat party and linking arms outside were seemingly cropped to make it appear as if they were alone. In reality, they were surrounded by their co-stars, including the likes of former Bachelorette Angie Kent and The Morning Show host Kylie Gillies. Denyer later admitted he had 'embarrassed' his family after he was pictured with his hand on Cornish's thigh in between rehearsals for the new season of DWTS: All Stars. Pals: He explained to 2Day FM's The Morning Crew with Hughesy, Ed & Erin the pictures actually showed him consoling Lily after she had received some sad personal news. 'It's not up to me to divulge what it [the personal issue] is but I was just giving her a bit of a pep talk and fatherly advice,' he added He explained to 2Day FM's The Morning Crew with Hughesy, Ed & Erin the pictures actually showed him consoling his friend after she had received some sad personal news. The images, he said, were taken by a paparazzo just moments after he and Cornish had finished speaking to his wife Chezzi over FaceTime. 'It's such a horrible, made-up story that's embarrassing for everyone,' he said. 'It's not up to me to divulge what it [the personal issue] is but I was just giving her a bit of a pep talk and fatherly advice,' he added. 'I just gave her a tap on the leg and she sort of leaned in for a bit of a hug after a chat and that's the photo on the [New Idea] front page.' 'Killing it with kindness': Cornish also addressed the New Idea story, sharing a post to Instagram thanking her fans for being so understanding. 'I really appreciate the amount of love that has come out of this yucky / disrespectful situation' Cornish also addressed the New Idea story, sharing a post to Instagram thanking her fans for being so understanding. 'Thanks everyone for the kind words and messages. I really appreciate the amount of love that has come out of this yucky / disrespectful situation. Killing it with kindness,' she wrote. Denyer and his wife categorically denied the New Idea report in a series of social media posts. Chezzi posted screenshots of the article - which falsely suggested her husband was having an affair with a woman half his age - on Instagram and blasted the magazine for fabricating such a 'gross and mean' story. 'What the actual hell is this front-page crap, New Idea,' she wrote, adding that the images had been completely taken out of context. 'Lilz [Cornish] is like our adopted daughter. We grew extremely close during her month long stay with us here in Bathurst. We absolutely adore her! United: The Denyer's have categorically denied the New Idea report in a series of social media posts 'Poor Lilz doesn't deserve this defamation of character New Idea, you should be ashamed.' Grant later issued his own blistering statement, calling the article a 'brutal' attack on a '22-year-old kid' and a 'dad of three girls'. 'My wife and I are used to fabricated stories from these type of magazine, we've had a life of it but for Lily, she's a 22 yo kid!!' he wrote on Instagram. Calling out: Grant later issued his own blistering statement, calling the article a 'brutal' attack on a '22-year-old kid' and a 'dad of three girls' 'This kind of treatment is brutally unfair and disgusting. 'I'm a Dad of 3 girls. And if any friend is having a bad day or a tough time in their life, I'm going to be there for them. End of story.' While the magazine remained on newsstands for an entire week, the online version was promptly taken down following the Denyers' complaints. Katie Holmes is hard at work on her latest film project, Rare Objects. The 42-year-old Hollywood vet is embarking on her third directorial pursuit with the film based off the book of the same name by Kathleen Tessaro. On Saturday she was seen in a long, green, double breasted coat while heading to her on-set trailer in New York City. Working woman: Saturday Katie Holmes was seen in a long, green, double breasted coat while heading to her trailer on the set of her new movie in New York City It was nighttime as she plugged away on the feature, which is coming to fruition via her production company Lafayette Pictures. Holmes wore yellow plaid pants and white sneakers. Underneath her outerwear a crewneck white shirt was visible. She wore a black face mask over the lower half of her visage, pulling it down below her chin at some moments. Wearing her director hat: The 42-year-old Hollywood vet is embarking on her third directorial pursuit with the film Rare Objects In character: The Dawson's Creek star's brunette hair was partially pulled back and secured with a white ribbon The Dawson's Creek star's brunette hair was partially pulled back and secured with a white ribbon. The remaining portion that was left out flowed freely over her shoulders in a loose curl pattern. The actress picked up her pace as she was seen running through the Big Apple at one point. For her part in the film she had on unusually splashy eye makeup. Film fashion: Holmes wore yellow plaid pants and white sneakers. Underneath her outerwear a crewneck white shirt was visible On Friday night Katie made a rare appearance on Instagram as she showed her 2.3 million followers a look at her work. In two images posted via Instagram Stories the mom-of-one shared a behind-the-scenes perspective from the set. 'It's a party,' she wrote over the first snapshot and tagged stylist Brie Welch and creative producer Jesse Korman. Tom Cruise's ex-wife wore a netted covering over a spaghetti strap white dress as she and Welch clutched balloons in a purple-lit room. A festive scene was being shot and the next outtake showed a cameraman operating film equipment in the middle of the take. 'It's a party': On Friday night Katie made a rare appearance on Instagram as she showed her 2.3 million followers a look at her work He was surrounded by actors who danced and held drinks as they carried out the sequence. The set was dimly lit and there was a shiny party streamer nearby in the frame. '#bts,' the entertainer wrote above the image, adding the names 'Julia Mayorga' and 'David Alexander Flinn.' Katie co-wrote her silver screen take on the 2016 novel with Phaedon Papadopoulos. 'Rare Objects has been in the making for four or five years,' Holmes told InStyle in 2020. 'It's about the journey of this girl who has had quite a bit of hardship and tragedy. It hits on things that are very relevant - immigration, female issues.' Bindi Irwin and her husband Chandler Powell have been sharing private family snaps during their time away in Tasmania. And Bindi shared yet another photo of Grace on Sunday, as mother and daughter hit the waves together on the picturesque island. Taking to Instagram, Bindi showed herself in the waves as she and Grace soaked-up the sun in the water. Baby beach day! Bindi Irwin shared an adorable photo of Grace Warrior (both pictured) as the pair enjoy the shallows of the beach together in picturesque Tasmania on Sunday Bindi had rolled-up jeans and a t-shirt on, while Grace had a sun-smart swimmer and a large wide-brim hat on. 'Our little sunshine absolutely loved beach day,' she captioned the post. Family time: The Irwin clan have headed off for a Tasmanian getaway, sharing images from their vacation to Instagram on Friday. Chandler Powell, Bindi Irwin and baby Grace pictured It comes after a series of photos were shared from their getaway on Instagram on Friday. Robert Irwin, 17, and her mother Terri Irwin, 57, joined the young family as they enjoyed the sights of Cradle Mountain. Bindi and Chandler brought along their friends Luke and Mitch. Bindi wrote in her caption: 'I'm tremendously grateful that we were able to share the wild beauty of Tasmania with Grace. She had the best time hiking with us and exploring Cradle Mountain National Park' In the photos, the family posed with stunning vistas in the background including a vast mountain range. They also took some cheerful selfies alongside a lake, as well as on wooden walkways along the route. The new mother was delighted to share her baby daughter's first hiking trip to the mountains. Pals: Bindi and Chandler brought their friends Luke and Mitch, and all posed by a lake Bindi wrote in her caption: 'I'm tremendously grateful that we were able to share the wild beauty of Tasmania with Grace. 'She had the best time hiking with us and exploring Cradle Mountain National Park.' The Wildlife Warrior added: 'Thank you @cradlemountainlodge for making our stay extra special.' Moments: Grandmother Terri bonded with little Grace during the hike Bindi and Chandler welcomed their daughter on March 25, which coincidentally was their one-year wedding anniversary. Grace's middle name Warrior is a tribute to her late grandfather Steve Irwin, who coined the term 'Wildlife Warrior' to promote wildlife conservation. The couple announced they were expecting their first child together in August last year. Olivia Wilde oozed modern elegance as she arrived to LACMA's tenth annual Art+Film Gala held at the renown art museum in Los Angeles on Saturday. The 37-year-old actress/director modeled a dazzling black sequin gown that flowed down to the floor and boasted a high neckline. This years gala is set to honor artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, as well as Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Elegance: Olivia Wilde oozed modern elegance as she arrived to LACMA's tenth annual Art+Film Gala held at the renown art museum in Los Angeles Wilde's demure dress had a vibrant fuchsia butterfly and a variety of silver squiggles embroidered on the front of it. The House alum's lightened brunette hair cascaded down her chest in voluminous curls and she accentuated her icy blue peepers with pitch black eyeliner. She kept accessories to a minimum but rocking a myriad of silver rings on her fingers. Olivia walked the gala's star-studded red carpet solo, despite being romantically linked to 27-year-old musician Harry Styles. Dazzling: The 37-year-old actress/director modeled a dazzling black sequin gown that flowed down to the floor and boasted a high neckline The LACMA Art+Film Gala returned as an in-person occasion on Saturday after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety precautions that went along with it. Some of the nights attendees included Miley Cyrus, Eva Longoria, Elle Fanning and, of course, honoree Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw. Gucci continued its partnership with the beloved Los Angeles art museum by returning as this years sponsor. It comes amid the luxury brands 100th Anniversary. Audi also lent support to the annual event. Decal: Wilde's demure dress had a vibrant fuchsia butterfly and a variety of silver squiggles embroidered on the front of it It's back! The LACMA Art+Film Gala returned as an in-person occasion on Saturday after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety precautions that went along with it According to LACMA, all of the proceeds garnered from the gala go toward underwriting LACMAs initiative to make film more central to the museums curatorial programming, while also funding LACMAs broader mission. This mission includes exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming, in addition to screenings that explore the intersection of art and film. Since its inception, the Art+Film Gala has honored the likes of directors Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, and Clint Eastwood, as well as the likes of artists Betye Saar, Catherine Opie, and John Baldessari. Jodie Turner-Smith made a memorable entrance at the star-studded Art+Film Gala at LACMA in Los Angeles on Saturday night. The actress, 35, looked like a glamorous Barbie doll in a pink color-blocked gown doused in countless sequins and jewels. Jodie accessorized with a set of furry hot pink arm bands and styled her raven tresses in a dramatic updo. Memorable: Jodie Turner-Smith made a memorable entrance at the star-studded Art+Film Gala at LACMA in Los Angeles on Saturday night Her dazzling gown featured silver lining down the front and across the waist. She was able to showcase her lengthy legs through a slit in the front of her dress, while putting her impressive bust on display with its plunging neckline. She added another aspect of shine with a pair of beautiful diamond earrings. The Queen & Slim star posed for several photos next to fellow actress Salma Hayek, who stunned in a strapless black and pink gown. The Frida star completed her striking look with a beautiful diamond necklace and a purple clutch. Barbie girl: The actress, 35, looked like a glamorous Barbie doll in a pink color-blocked gown doused in countless sequins and jewels Funky: Jodie accessorized with a set of furry hot pink arm bands and styled her raven tresses in a dramatic updo; seen with Salma Hayek The LACMA Art+Film Gala returned as an in-person occasion on Saturday after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety precautions that went along with it. This years gala is set to honor artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, as well as Academy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Some of the nights attendees included Miley Cyrus, Eva Longoria, Elle Fanning and, of course, honoree Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw. Gucci continued its partnership with the beloved Los Angeles art museum by returning as this years sponsor. It comes amid the luxury brands 100th Anniversary. Bringing the bling: Turner-Smith wore a pair of large diamond earrings to the event Audi also lent support to the annual event. According to LACMA, all of the proceeds garnered from the gala go toward underwriting LACMAs initiative to make film more central to the museums curatorial programming, while also funding LACMAs broader mission. This mission includes exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming, in addition to screenings that explore the intersection of art and film. Since its inception, the Art+Film Gala has honored the likes of directors Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, and Clint Eastwood, as well as the likes of artists Betye Saar, Catherine Opie, and John Baldessari. Instagram model Natasha Oakley and her boyfriend Theo Chambers celebrated their three-year anniversary with a belated lunch at Icebergs in Sydney on Saturday. The 31-year-old looked sensational as she was pictured leaving the Bondi hotspot in a nude bandeau dress with a thigh split that accentuated her enviably toned curves. Her businessman beau cut a smart casual figure in a blue button-up shirt, teamed with white jeans, pristine white sneakers and stylish sunglasses. Celebrations: Natasha Oakley, 31, showed off her enviably toned curves in a nude bandeau dress with thigh split, as she celebrated her three-year anniversary with boyfriend Theo Chambers at Bondi Icebergs in Sydney on Saturday Natasha, who ranked 71 out of 100 on the Financial Review Young Rich list last week, added a gold quilted Chanel handbag with its price only available on request. She boosted her height with nude open-toe heels and accessorised further with delicate gold earrings and statement rings on her fingers. Her blonde locks were styled sleek and straight, and her makeup was elegant. Leaving in style: Her businessman beau cut a smart casual figure in a blue button-up shirt, teamed with white jeans, pristine white sneakers and stylish sunglasses Beauty: The bikini entrepreneur boosted her height with nude open-toe heels and styled her blonde locks out and straight, framing an elegant makeup palette Natasha took to her Instagram Stories on Saturday to show off her anniversary ensemble, and told fans in the caption that the celebration was 'belated'. She also showed off her gorgeous designer handbag as she soaked in the views from her oceanside table at Bondi Icebergs. On Friday, Natasha paid tribute to Theo for their anniversary, sharing a series of photos of the pair throughout their relationship. 'Three years of love, fun and adventure with my best friend. Love you BM @theochambers,' she captioned the post. Party mood: Natasha also took to her Instagram Stories on Saturday to show off her anniversary ensemble, and told fans in the caption that it was a 'belated lunch' Luxe item: The blonde beauty also showed off her gorgeous gold quilted Chanel handbag, with its price only available on request, as she soaked in the views from her oceanside table at Bondi Icebergs Last week, Natasha ranked 71 out of 100 on the Financial Review Young Rich list, with the list recognising the 'best and brightest next generation of entrepreneurs, aged 40 and younger'. The blonde beauty is estimated to be worth $63million, and ranked just ahead of Margot Robbie, who is estimated to be worth $62million. In addition to boasting 2.5 million followers on Instagram, Natasha also established a swimwear label, Monday Swimwear, with her friend, Devin Brugman in 2014. Heartfelt: On Friday, Natasha paid tribute to Theo in a sweet Instagram post as they celebrated their anniversary Three years: The Instagram model shared a series of gorgeous photos of the pair throughout their relationship She's also launched an at-home Pilates program, The Pilates Class, and has endorsement deals with Lancome, American Express and Pantene. 'If I worked at a retail store, I was watching the way they manage the employees, I was watching the sales goals, I was watching the commissions, I was seeing the way that they were operating payroll,' she told the Financial Review last week. 'I was paying attention, I wasn't just showing up to the job to get my hours done and walk out, I was genuinely interested in how the business was being run.' She added: 'I knew owning companies on my own was something that I was going to be good at because I genuinely took such a strong interest in how things work, how things operate.' Eva Longoria looked effortlessly elegant as she graced the red carpet at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's tenth annual Art+Film Gala on Saturday evening. The 46-year-old Desperate Housewives star glittered in a stunning black single-shoulder dress covered in sequins. The gala was returning as an in-person occasion on Saturday after being canceled last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic, though new safety precautions were now in effect. Back in black: Eva Longoria, 46, looked glamorous in a black sequined dress as she walked the red carpet for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's tenth annual Art+Film Gala on Saturday Eva put on a busty display in the plunging outfit, which featured a slim spaghetti strap covered by her long hair. She went for a glamorous look and styled her brunette locks in luscious thick curls over her shoulder and down her back. The dress, which was slightly ruched around her midriff, exposed her back. Her outfit reached down to the ground and nearly swallowed up her black platform heels. Classic style: Eva put on a busty display in the plunging outfit, which featured a slim spaghetti strap covered by her long hair. She went for a glamorous look and styled her brunette locks in luscious thick curls over her shoulder and down her back The Overboard actress complemented her lustrous sequined dress with an impeccable smoky eye. Eva appeared not to have bothered with a handbag or other accessories, though her glittering jewelry complemented the sequined dress. She had on thick square-cut diamond earrings, and she also sported several large bands on her fingers, along with silver nails that shone against her dress. She was joining the other stars at this years gala to honor artists Amy Sherald and Kehinde Wiley, as well as iconic filmmaker Steven Spielberg. Elegant: The dress, which was slightly ruched around her midriff, exposed her back. Her outfit reached down to the ground and nearly swallowed up her black platform heels Other attendees included Miley Cyrus, Elle Fanning and, of course, Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw. Gucci continued its partnership with the beloved Los Angeles art museum by returning as this years sponsor, while the gala coincides with the luxury brand's 100th anniversary. According to LACMA, all of the proceeds garnered from the gala go toward underwriting LACMAs initiative to make film more central to the museums curatorial programming, while also funding LACMAs broader mission. This mission includes exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming, in addition to screenings that explore the intersection of art and film. Since its inception, the Art+Film Gala has honored legendary directors including Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick and Clint Eastwood, as well as artists Betye Saar, Catherine Opie and John Baldessari. Sienna Miller ensured she was not overshadowed on Saturday evening as she attended LACMA's star-studded 10th annual Art+Film Gala. The British actress, 39, looked typically elegant in a glittering emerald green minidress with a distinctive off-the-shoulder detail as she arrived at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art ahead of the event. Drawing attention to her slender physique, the fitted dress was a red carpet highlight on a night dominated by designer gowns. Here she comes: Sienna Miller ensured she was not overshadowed on Saturday evening as she attended LACMA's star-studded 10th annual Art+Film Gala Sienna added to her look with a pair of strappy black heels, while a notable lack of accessories ensured the outfit took centre stage as she posed for photos. Evidently delighted to be back on the red carpet, the actress beamed as she greeted photographers before making her way inside. Artists Amy Sherland and Kehinde Wiley as well as legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg were given special honors on Saturday evening, with LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio co-chairing for the tenth consecutive year. Stylish: The British actress, 39, looked typically elegant in an emerald green minidress with a distinctive off-the-shoulder detail as she arrived at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Hard to miss: Drawing attention to her slender physique, the fitted dress was a red carpet highlight on a night dominated by designer gowns Finishing touches: Sienna added to her look with a pair of strappy black heels, while a notable lack of accessories ensured the outfit took centre stage as she posed for photos Other celebrity guests included Miley Cyrus, Hailey Bieber, Jared Leto, Dakota Johnson and Elle Fanning. The LACMA Art+Film Gala returned as an in-person occasion after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety precautions that went along with it. Gucci continued its partnership with the beloved Los Angeles art museum by returning as this years sponsor. It comes amid the luxury brands 100th Anniversary, with Audi also lending support to the annual event. Say cheese: Sienna beamed during a brief photo- call ahead of the returning annual event According to LACMA, all of the proceeds garnered from the gala 'go toward underwriting LACMAs initiative to make film more central to the museums curatorial programming, while also funding LACMAs broader mission. This mission includes exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming, in addition to screenings that explore the intersection of art and film. Since its inception, the Art+Film Gala has honored the likes of directors Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, and Clint Eastwood, as well as the likes of artists Betye Saar, Catherine Opie, and John Baldessari. She's a self-professed fashion chameleon, often sporting outrageous outfits no other celebrity would dare to try. And Friday night was no different for Imogen Anthony, 30, who turned heads in a racy dress as she celebrated Day of the Dead at Sinaloa in Sydney's Double Bay. Imogen's dress featured revealing cut-outs that showed off her cleavage and her belly button. Turning heads: Imogen Anthony showed off her sensational curves as she donned a body-hugging frock with daring cut-outs to celebrate Day of the Dead in Sydney on Friday The long-sleeved gown clung to the star's slender curves, and she covered up in a leather and camel-toned trench coat. The Celebrity Big Brother contestant added a pair of black boots and wore her hair in an elaborate half-up do. She was joined by Australian actors Clare McCann and Suzan Mutesi, who were on hand to celebrate the event hosted by Jarritos and Patron tequila. Racy: Imogen's dress featured revealing cut-outs that showed off her cleavage and her belly button Company: The influencer-turned-reality star was joined by Australian actors Clare McCann (right) and Suzan Mutesi (left) and a male friend Clare, 28, set pulses racing dressed in a white blazer which she wore with black and grey pants. The Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday traditionally celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of November to honour the memory of your loved one by celebrating their life. The celebration involves dressing up, dancing, singing, and preparing foods that the celebrated person loved. Event: The Day of the Dead is a Mexican holiday traditionally celebrated on the 1st and 2nd of November to honour the memory of your loved one by celebrating their life It comes just days after Imogen talked about her high profile split from Kyle Sandilands on Big Brother VIP. Speaking to fellow housemate Jessika Power, the 30-year-old model revealed she'd had a dream about Kyle the previous night, which had left her feeling unsettled. Imogen split from the 50-year-old radio shock jock in mid-2019 after just over eight years together. Revealing all: Imogen Anthony (pictured) spoke candidly about her highly publicised split from Kyle Sandilands on Wednesday's episode of Big Brother VIP 'He was just working so much. It was just work, work, work, work, work. You know, and I want to have kids and we just kind of grew apart...' she said. 'I just didn't expect everything to happen the way it did afterwards, and he's confused, and he doesn't know what he wants.' Calling her into the diary room, Big Brother then asked Imogen 'what was missing' in her relationship with Kyle. On her mind: Speaking to fellow housemate Jessika Power, the 30-year-old model revealed she'd had a dream about Kyle the previous night, which had left her feeling unsettled 'I wanted things that he couldn't give me. You know, money and fame isn't the be-all and end-all of life,' she admitted. 'You know, it's nice for a little while, but I want to have children that can run around with their father and not be put behind work. I want someone's time.' Imogen confessed she stuck around for longer then she should have because she'd already invested so much time in their relationship. Big Brother VIP continues on Channel Seven at 7.30pm on Monday Benedict Cumberbatch cut a dapper figure as he and his wife Sophie Hunter attended LACMA's 10th annual Art+Film Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday. The actor, 45, looked suave in a white blazer which he paired with a matching shirt and black trousers. The film star also sported a black bow tie as he walked the green carpet alongside his partner, 43, who he married in 2015. Couple: Benedict Cumberbatch cut a dapper figure as he and his wife Sophie Hunter attended LACMA's 10th annual Art+Film Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday Sophie looked radiant in a red short-sleeved dress with a pleated detail and a matching belt strap. The theatre director added height to her frame with a pair of gold heels while she let her brunette locks fall loose down her shoulders. Benedict and Sophie are parents to sons Christopher 'Kit', six, Hal, four, and Finn, two. The actor will next be seen in Jane Campion's upcoming film The Power Of The Dog. Looking good: The actor, 45, looked suave in a white blazer which he paired with a matching shirt and black trousers The Academy Award nominee stars with Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee in a new trailer for the Netflix Western, which dropped on Thursday. Other celebrity guests at the LACMA event included Miley Cyrus, Hailey Bieber, Jared Leto, Dakota Johnson and Elle Fanning. The LACMA Art+Film Gala returned as an in-person occasion on Saturday after being canceled last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety precautions that went along with it. Event: The film star also sported a black bow tie as he walked the green carpet alongside his partner, 43, who he married in 2015 Outfit: Sophie looked radiant in a red short-sleeved dress with a pleated detail Gucci continued its partnership with the beloved Los Angeles art museum by returning as this years sponsor. It comes amid the luxury brands 100th Anniversary, with Audi also lending support to the annual event. According to LACMA, all of the proceeds garnered from the gala 'go toward underwriting LACMAs initiative to make film more central to the museum's curatorial programming, while also funding LACMAs broader mission.' This mission includes 'exhibitions, acquisitions, and educational programming, in addition to screenings that explore the intersection of art and film.' Since its inception, the Art+Film Gala has honored the likes of directors Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, and Clint Eastwood, as well as the likes of artists Betye Saar, Catherine Opie, and John Baldessari. The Block is set to return to television for its eighteenth season next year. During Sunday night's finale, Channel Nine promised viewers that the 2022 season will be 'bigger than ever' in a two-minute teaser for the upcoming season. In a country-themed promo, host Scott Cam is seen riding a horse before he plants a flagpole labelled 'House 1' on a field. Coming soon: Channel Nine have promised fans that the 2022 season of The Block will be 'bigger than ever' in a teaser trailer which aired during Sunday night's finale. Pictured: Host Scott Cam The upcoming series will see the contestants each take on 10 acres as the show relocates from Melbourne to the Macedon Ranges. The voiceover then teased that the upcoming series will see host Scott Cam, 58, renovate his own house on the show. 'We will have it all. Tractors. Excavators. And even these buggy things, you know, this just really feels like a gratuitous plug for next year's show,' the voice-over says. That's different! In a country-themed promo, host Scott Cam is seen riding a horse before he plants a flagpole labelled 'House 1' on a field Good luck! The upcoming series will see the contestants take on 10 acres each as the show relocates from Melbourne to the Macedon Ranges Wow! The voiceover then teased that the upcoming series will see host Scott Cam, 58, renovate his own house on the show The Block just wrapped its seventeenth season and has proved to be a ratings success for Nine this year. The series had a slow start throughout August due to stiff competition from The Voice on Channel Seven, but later found its footing and began to draw impressive metro ratings from Sunday to Wednesday. It has since become Nine's best-performing show for September and October. A winner: The Block just finished its seventeenth season. Pictured, the 2021 cast The Block is also Nine's most profitable prime-time program due to its myriad commercial deals. Next year's season will be heading to the country, specifically to the regional town of Kyneton, which is 89km northwest of Melbourne. It's the first time in the show's 18-year history the setting will be in a rural location. He has a slew of modelling stints under his belt. And Brooklyn Beckham's career has upped a notch as he becomes the face of Superdry after signing a 1million deal with the fashion label. The eldest son of David and Victoria, 22, has been photographed topless for the streetwear brand's latest campaign, flaunting his abs and tattooed torso. Big news: Brooklyn Beckham becomes the face of Superdry after bagging a 1million deal with the fashion label Next week, the model-come-photographer will celebrate sustainable style and the opening of the chain's new flagship store on Oxford Street. A source told The Sun: 'This is a huge opportunity for Brooklyn and will cement him as a real name in the mens fashion world. 'Its a great gig for him to land and has given him focus. Hes really keen on sustainability too, so hes excited to get stuck in.' Fashion: Brooklyn's modelling career kickstarted in 2014 and he has a slew of modelling stints under his belt (pictured with fiancee Nicola Peltz at the Givenchy Womenswear Spring/Summer 2022 show in October) Brooklyn and his fiancee Nicola Peltz have already made names for themselves in the fashion world, with them following in the footsteps of Posh and Becks. They have recently embarked on a joint venture together, representing Pepe Jeans. Spice Girl Victoria is a famed fashion designer and launched her eponymous label in September 2008. Passion: As well as modelling, the star is a keen photographer and his debut book of photography, entitled what i see was, published in June 2017 Icon: Spice Girl Victoria is a famed fashion designer and launched her eponymous label in September 2008 Elsewhere in the Beckham clan, Brooklyn's younger brother Romeo fronted a Christmas campaign for Burberry when he was just 12 years old. Brooklyn's modelling career kickstarted in 2014 and has appeared on the covers of publications such as Vogue China. As well as modelling, the star is a keen photographer and his debut book of photography, entitled what i see was, published in June 2017. The Block's Josh and Luke Packham struggled to find the right words on Sunday's finale episode when they addressed their father Kevin's terminal cancer diagnosis. In a piece to camera, Luke was understandably emotional as he revealed how their father - who suffers from mesothelioma that arises after exposure to asbestos - was one of the motivating factors for 'getting them through' the challenges of the show. Josh then broke down in tears as he spoke about the life expectancy following a diagnosis that is around two to five years. Heartbreaking: The Block's Josh (pictured) and Luke Packham broke down and struggled to find the right words on Sunday's episode as they revealed their father's terminal cancer diagnosis - with the life expectancy 'two to five years max' 'One of our motivating factors and something that got us through is obviously with our dad. He hasn't been well recently. The average life expectancy when you've been diagnosed with mesothelioma is about two years to max five,' Luke said. Footage then saw the twins playing boardgames with their mum and dad at home. Struggling to find the right words, Josh broke down in tears as he revealed his father's diagnosis is 'hard to process'. Emotional: In a piece to camera, Luke (pictured) was understandably emotional as he revealed how their father - who suffers from mesothelioma that arises after exposure to asbestos - was one of the motivating factors for 'getting them through' the challenges of the show Breaking down in tears: 'It's hard to talk about sometimes. We don't really bring it up. We try to stay as positive as we can about it, but you don't like thinking about these situations... the way it can go. It is hard to process,' Josh said as he struggled to find the right words 'It's hard to talk about sometimes. We don't really bring it up. We try to stay as positive as we can about it, but you don't like thinking about these situations... the way it can go. It is hard to process,' he said. Viewers at home were overcome with emotion, sharing their thoughts on Twitter. 'Regardless of everything else, I do feel for the twins. They love their dad,' one wrote. Family: Footage then saw the twins playing boardgames with their mum and dad at home. Pictured is their father Kevin Another added: 'Every time Josh and Luke talk about their dad. Truly can't handle.' One also said: 'I am so happy for Josh & Luke!! Made their sick dad proud as punch. Well done boys!' On an episode in September prior to their kitchen reveal, Luke said they wanted to make their time on the show 'worth it' as they're 'losing that bit of time' with their father. Online: Viewers at home were overcome with emotion, sharing their thoughts on Twitter. 'Regardless of everything else, I do feel for the twins. They love their dad,' one wrote Sad news: On an episode of The Block in September, Josh and Luke first revealed their father's terminal cancer diagnosis Prior to their parents' arrival on the show, Josh said in a piece to camera how they 'always look to impress' them. 'This is the biggest thing we've ever done in our lives and we'd love nothing more for them to really enjoy every room and space we've been building together. So that would be massive for us to gain their approval and for them to be proud,' he said. Josh revealed how their parents are 'very honest' and if they found fault in the design or styling, they would 'have to think about having major change'. Close family: Showing their parents (pictured) around the space prior to their kitchen reveal, Luke said they want to make their time on the show 'worth it' as they're 'losing that bit of time' with their father Luke went on to explain just how much they want to succeed on The Block, particularly when they're spending precious time away from their sick father. 'Dad's got mesothelioma. It's one of those cancers that you can never recover from. It will always re-grow. The average life expectancy when you've been diagnosed with mesothelioma is about two years to max five. 'So us going away, we're losing that bit of time with our father. So we want to make it worth it,' he said. According to the Cancer Council, Mesothelioma is a rare type of cancer that arises after exposure to asbestos, and can take 'between 20 and 60 years' for the condition to develop. Heartfelt: Josh revealed in a piece to camera how they 'always look to impress' their parents, saying: 'This is the biggest thing we've ever done in our lives and we'd love nothing more for them to really enjoy every room and space we've been building together' It usually affects the lungs, but can also affect the stomach, heart and other organs. Symptoms can include shortness of breath, chest pain, loss of appetite or weight loss, excessive sweating, a persistent cough and low energy. It's estimated 868 new cases of mesothelioma will be diagnosed in Australia in 2021. Josh and Luke would no doubt have made their father proud, having placed second on auction day. The boys had a new reserve of $3.4million on auction day, down from $3.5million, and sold their property for $3,930,000 with a $530,000.00 profit. Placing second: Josh and Luke would no doubt have made their father proud, having placed second on auction day. The boys had a new reserve of $3.4million on auction day, down from $3.5million, and sold their property for $3,930,000 with a $530,000.00 profit Real Housewives of Melbourne star Jackie Gillies and her rockstar husband Ben welcomed their baby twins after undergoing IVF last month. But during Sunday's episode of the reality series, the 41-year-old left the other housewives stunned after one X-rated dinner party confession. Sitting alongside her fellow co-stars Janet Roche, Kyla Kirkpatrick and Gamble Breaux, Jackie was talking about the pros and cons of her pregnancy when she revealed that she and husband Ben haven't lost their attraction for each other. Come again? Real Housewives of Melbourne star Jackie Gillies, 41, (pictured) left her co-stars stunned after she revealed that she could have sex 'up to five times per day' during Sunday's episode 'I dont know whats going on! Im already very, very active,' she said of her sex life, before adding, 'but now I could probably go five times a day.' A concerned Gamble replied: 'Your babies may end up with head injuries,' before the conversation moved topics. It comes just weeks after Jackie revealed that one of the hardest things about being a new mother is breastfeeding. Not impressed: Sitting alongside her fellow co-stars, Jackie was talking about the pros and cons of her pregnancy when she revealed that she and husband Ben haven't lost their attraction for each other. Pictured: Janet Roche and Kyla Kirkpatrick Shocked! A concerned Gamble Breaux (pictured) replied: 'Your babies may end up with head injuries,' before the conversation moved topics Speaking on her podcast, Shine It Up, Jackie explained: 'Breastfeeding is one of the hardest things ever.' Jackie also revealed she finds it difficult to shower and move around after having a C-section, and needs her husband to help her. She also spoke of her 'unconditional love' for her two babies, who have brought her so much joy. Challenges: Speaking on her podcast, Shine It Up, Jackie recently revealed that one of the hardest things about being a new mother is breastfeeding Parents: Jackie and husband Ben Gillies (left), the former drummer for rock band Silverchair, married in 2010 and announced they were expecting in May 'I just kept thinking these babies are so cute,' she said. 'Are they actually mine?' The psychic said she'd freaked out with anxiety the night before going to hospital. 'All these thoughts were running through my mind,' she said. 'I was thinking, "This is it? How is this going to impact our lives?"' The Real Housewives of Melbourne airs Sundays at 8:30pm on Foxtels Arena Hayley Love has reached 37 weeks into her pregnancy - and she is starting to get impatient for the birth. On Sunday, the 26-year-old shared an Instagram video of her huge baby bump as she posed in a mirror. Wearing a tight, all black outfit, it was clear that the reality star is heavily pregnant. Baby love: Hayley Love (pictured) has reached 37 weeks into her pregnancy - and she is starting to get impatient for the birth. On Sunday, the 26-year-old shared an Instagram video of her huge baby bump as she posed in a mirror She wrote in her caption: '37 weeks and the last week of work. Getting overdue vibes though'. Hayley is expecting a child with farmer Will Dwyer, her Farmer Wants A Wife co-star. She admitted she's been struggling with a 'rollercoaster' third trimester and often cries when she puts on clothes and feels 'incompetent' heading into motherhood. Ready: Wearing a tight, all black outfit, it was clear that the reality star is heavily pregnant She wrote in her caption: '37 weeks and the last week of work. Getting overdue vibes though' 'I wish I shared more of my pregnancy but I've been feeling negative and didn't want to sugar coat anything,' she began. 'I put on clothes and feel like a whale. I usually have a cry about it. My ankles swell up. I'm out of breath putting shoes on. I feel incompetent and I find it hard to process at 26 years old.' She concluded by saying she can't wait to meet her baby and doesn't mind if her unborn child comes a little early. Struggles: Hayley recently showed off her bump and admitted she feels 'incompetent' and 'cries' often during her 'rollercoaster' third trimester Hayley was originally matched with farmer Matt Trewin on the Channel Seven show, but he broke up with her shortly before the finale. She went on to briefly date Will and became pregnant with his child, but they broke up after she told him she was expecting. Will, 39, recently released a statement addressing Hayley's pregnancy news. In it, he vowed to be 'the best dad I can be... when the time comes'. Matthew Wolfenden has broken his social media silence after news of his explosive row with Isabel Hodgins on the set of Emmerdale. The actor, 41, who plays David Metcalfe on the soap, and the actress, 27, who plays his on-screen girlfriend Victoria Sugden, reportedly clashed while shooting new scenes with Aaron Anthony, while the cast were filming dramatic waterfall scenes in Stockton-on-Tees for a special episode. And Matthew put any bad blood aside for the time being as he cooked eggs for a family breakfast on Sunday, sharing a clip of himself in the kitchen on Instagram. Back on the scene: Matthew Wolfenden, 41, has broken his social media silence after news of his explosive row with Isabel Hodgins, 27, on the set of Emmerdale He could be seen standing over the hob as he nursed an egg in the pan while his wife and Emmerdale co-star Charley Webb, 33, filmed him. Matthew and Isabel are said to have fallen out while filming a soap scene which involved a dramatic stunt. A source told The Sun: 'It left a lot of those present at the filming feeling uncomfortable. It was a very heated situation. Awkward moment: The actor, who plays David Metcalfe on the soap, and the actress, who plays his on-screen girlfriend Victoria Sugden, reportedly clashed while shooting the soap Family man: Matthew put any bad blood aside for the time being as he cooked eggs for a family breakfast on Sunday, sharing a clip of himself in the kitchen on Instagram Master chef: He could be seen standing over the hob as he nursed an egg in the pan while his wife and Emmerdale co-star Charley Webb, 33, filmed him 'Tempers were running very high. It was tense and bosses got to hear about what had gone on very quickly.' 'While they were on set a comment was made which unintentionally caused offence, and an argument broke out among some of the cast members.' The insider added that Emmerdale took the allegations seriously and that Matthew and Isabel did not film scenes while inquiries were made. Incident: The incident reportedly occurred while the group were filming dramatic waterfall scenes in Stockton-on-Tees for a special episode Disruption: An insider told The Sun that Emmerdale took the allegations seriously and that Matthew (pictured) and Isabel did not film scenes while inquiries were made The matter was then resolved and no further action was taken. The pair were then back on set last week. The on-screen couple reportedly took a break from filming at Tees Barrage water park in Stockton-on-Tees while bosses made inquiries. The stunt was to help mark ITV's Super Soap Week last month. An Emmerdale spokeswoman said: 'While we would never comment on individual cases, Emmerdale has robust policies in place to deal with any allegations brought to our attention and take the appropriate steps. Neither actor has been suspended from Emmerdale.' Representatives for the pair as well as ITV were contacted by MailOnline for a comment. Stars: Matthew is married to fellow Emmerdale star Charley Webb who played the part of Debbie Dingle on the soap It comes after Charley told MailOnline about her interest in taking her career down the route of make-up, in collaboration with her sister Cassie Lomas who has professionally glammed up the likes of Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga and Little Mix. She teased: 'We've always talked about doing something as a duo because she's been a make-up artist for 25 years and has her own school and is very successful. 'I think the thing for me is I'm all about that natural make-up look so I'd want to go down that line and do something I like for me.' The actress recently teamed up with McDonald's in order to promote its Plan For Change, which explains what can be done to protect the planet while cutting through the jargon through The Climate Clarity Guide. Wow! It comes after Charley (right) told MailOnline about her interest in taking her career down the route of make-up, in collaboration with her sister Cassie Lomas (left) who has professionally glammed up the likes of Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga and Little Mix Charley said: 'The guide is about simplifying the complicated talk when it comes to climate change. There are words that aren't the sort we hear every day and you often forget what each one means. 'It's basically a breakdown with a small, tiny explanation of each word about biodiversity and climate resilience and things that you can explain to your children. 'When you understand something, it makes you want to change it but if you don't know what you're talking about or what it means, it can become very difficult to make a change.' Charley is working with McDonalds to launch The Climate Clarity Guide as part of its new Plan for Change. Download the new guide from mcdonalds.co.uk/climateclarity. Ulrika Jonsson has revealed she enjoyed a boozy night out with her daughter Bo on Saturday night that resulted in her being kicked out of a club and waking up to find two male strangers asleep in her home. The star, 54, took to Instagram on Sunday to share details of her raucous night on the town, showing off a 'bruised, swollen, sore wrist' and admitting: 'There's so much I don't remember'. Ulrika also posted snaps of her fun evening out and added: 'I have a sore a**e from falling over.' Night out: Ulrika Jonsson, 54, has revealed on Instagram that she enjoyed a boozy night out with her daughter Bo on Saturday night that resulted in her being kicked out of a club Ouch: The presenter added that she has woken up to find two male strangers asleep in her home and her wrist was 'bruised, swollen and sore' Addressing her fans from the comfort of her front room, Ulrika said: 'About last night. There's just so much I don't remember. 'I've come home with a bruised, swollen, sore wrist, with scratches on it. I also have a really sore a**e from falling over.' She explained: 'Bo and I went for a drink and bumped into a group of girls I've never met, and hi-jacked their evening, [I] apologise. 'And then [we] drank and danced, and then I fell over three times. I got barged out by security and I'm barred I think.' Confession: Ulrika joked that her body was struggling to recover and admitted: 'There's so much I don't remember' Snaps: Ulrika also posted snaps of her fun evening out and added: 'Met a wicked group of girls. Fell on my a**e three times' Ulrika added: 'I'm thinking this is a good result for a 54-year-old. It shows I've still got a bit of life in me. Also I think we got a McDonalds on the way back home, and there are two men sleeping upstairs.' It comes after she enjoyed a quieter weekend with her children last week. Seven days earlier, Ulrika posted a gorgeous snap of her children Cameron, 27, Bo, 21, Martha, 17 and Malcolm, 13. Ulrika added: 'I'm thinking this is a good result for a 54-year-old. It shows I've still got a bit of life in me' She went on: 'Also I think we got a McDonalds on the way back home, and there are two men sleeping upstairs' 'Here's four I made earlier,' she captioned the sweet post, showing off all four of her children's stunning resemblance to their mum. The father of Ulrika's son Cameron is John Turnbull, who she was married to between 1990-1995. She shares daughter Bo with Markus Kempen, who she split from shortly after Bo was born in 2000. Family unit: It comes after Ulrika posted a cute snap of her children, Malcolm, 13, Martha, 17, Cameron, 27, and Bo, 21, as they enjoyed a family lunch a week earlier The father of Ulrika's son Cameron is John Turnbull, who she was married to between 1990-1995. She then wed Brian Monet in 2008 and they share son Malcolm. In 2014, Brian also adopted her daughter Bo from the presenter's relationship with German hotel boss Markus Kempen. The 2017 Celebrity MasterChef finalist also gave fans a glimpse of life as matriarch in the Jonsson household. She uploaded a set of mouth watering pictures of an impressive roast dinner she had made for her family. She served up a delicious-looking rack of lamb with all the trimmings as her rarely-seen kids gathered around the table. Sarah Jessica Parker has responded to critics of her and her fellow cast members' aging looks in the upcoming Sex and the City reboot. The 56-year-old actress appeared on the cover of the December 2021 issue of Vogue and gave an accompanying interview in which she addressed negative social media remarks about the characters' older appearances. 'There's so much misogynist chatter in response to us that would never. Happen. About. A. Man,' Sarah said, emphasizing each word with a clap. Hitting back: Sarah Jessica Parker has responded to critics of her and her fellow cast members' aging looks in the upcoming Sex and the City reboot In July, the star was photographed rocking her natural silver-streaked blonde locks while enjoying lunch with her friend Andy Cohen, 53, during a break from shooting scenes for the revival series. '''Gray hair gray hair gray hair. Does she have gray hair?'' Sarah continued, 'I'm sitting with Andy Cohen, and he has a full head of gray hair, and he's exquisite. Why is it okay for him?' 'I don't know what to tell you people! Especially on social media. Everyone has something to say. 'She has too many wrinkles, she doesn't have enough wrinkles.'' Criticism: In July, Sarah was pictured rocking her silver-streaked locks while having lunch with her friend Andy Cohen during a break from shooting the series, leading to online critics to weigh in on her natural hair She went on to say, 'It almost feels as if people don't want us to be perfectly okay with where we are, as if they almost enjoy us being pained by who we are today, whether we choose to age naturally and not look perfect, or whether you do something if that makes you feel better.' 'I know what I look like. I have no choice. What am I going to do about it? Stop aging? Disappear?' And Just Like That... represents a new chapter of Sex and the City, following Carrie (Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), 55, and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), 56, as they continue their friendship from their 30s to, 'the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s.' Speaking out: Sarah appeared on the cover of the December 2021 issue of Vogue and gave an accompanying interview in which she addressed negative social media remarks about the characters' older appearances Revival: And Just Like That... represents a new chapter of Sex and the City, following Carrie (Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), 55, and Charlotte (Kristin Davis), 56, as they continue their friendship from their 30s to, 'the even more complicated reality of life and friendship in their 50s' In the Vogue interview, executive producer Michael Patrick King also weighed in on fans' reaction to the cast's age. 'When we announced And Just Like That... there were a lot of positive reactions, but one bitchy response online was people sharing pictures of the Golden Girls. 'And I was like, 'Wow, so it's either you're 35, or you're retired and living in Florida. There's a missing chapter here.' Cynthia explained, 'I like that we're not trying to youthify the show. We're not including, like, a 21-year-old niece.' New staff writer Samantha Irby told the magazine, 'I think it's revolutionary to do a show about middle-aged women, with their aging lady bodies.' Weighing in: Cynthia Nixon said, 'I like that we're not trying to youthify the show. We're not including, like, a 21-year-old niece' Sarah also briefly discussed the absence of Kim Cattrell's Samantha Jones. Kim, 65, chose not to return for the revival series after years of feuding with Sarah. 'We have some new people, and we have some people who aren't back anymore,' Sarah said. And Just Like That...added several new cast members of color including Nicole Ari Parker, Sara Ramirez, Sarita Choudhury and Karen Pittman. The original show has been criticized by some for lacking diversity. Sarah, who is also an executive producer on the show, said it was important to both her and King to diversify the cast. 'In no way were we interested in tokenism,' she explained. 'You can't bring people on the show and not let the camera be with them! These characters are all gifts to us.' Not coming back: Kim Cattrall opted not to return for the revival series after years of feuding with Sarah. Seen in 1998 New cast: And Just Like That...added several new characters of color including Nicole Ari Parker (pictured) who will play Carrie's best friend When the interview was conducted in September, Sarah was processing the news that Willie Garson, who played Carrie's best friend Stanford Blatch on SATC and AJLT, had passed away. The actress had lost her business partner in her SJP shoe line, George Malkemus, to cancer just days before. 'All I can say right now is that it's as if a scoop has been taken out of me this week, and I don't expect it to be filled,' Sarah told Vogue. 'In time, my body will grow accustomed to this new architecture, but now I feel truly blue. It's such a loss, and I think about how I'll miss the joy of these relationships. I think about and the show and how much we laughed. Sad: When the interview was conducted in September, Sarah was just learning of the passing of Willie Garson, who played Carrie's best friend Stanford Blatch. Seen in 2019 'And I guess despite everything, that's the headline: There's so much good in the world, and we were all so lucky to be together, doing something we loved.' A portion of the interview took place on a rebuilt set of Carrie's beloved one-bedroom apartment from the original series. Sarah announced on her Instagram that Airbnb had also recreated Carrie's apartment and that she and the company had partnered to host overnights guests. She added a photo in which she was seen posing in Carrie's iconic closet with the caption: 'And just like that...@airbnb has recreated Carrie Bradshaw's Sex and the City apartment. And I'm partnering with them to host lucky guests for an overnight stay. 'You can request to book your stay starting Monday, November 8th at 12pm EST.' Exciting! Starting on November 8, fans can stay in Carrie's iconic SATC one-bedroom apartment Partnership: Sarah partnered with Airbnb to host overnight guests in the replica of her apartment And on Sunday, Sarah was back at work on the series. She was spotted filming scenes along with Bobby Lee in New York City. The star looked stylish as ever in a semi-transparent linen midi-dress that had a pleated collar and a button-up bodice. She donned a long cream-colored coat over her dress and sported black and silver pointed-toe heels. Busy: And on Sunday, Sarah was back at work on the series Staying warm: She bundled up in a black down jacket ahead of filming Prep work: A hairstylist attended to Sarah's hair during a break from filming Stylish: The star looked chic in a semi-sheer off-white linen dress Chic: Sarah donned a long cream-colored coat over her dress and sported black and silver heels Sarah carried a black leather handbag decorated with silver mirrors and wore her long locks down in loose waves. The Ohio native bundled up a thick black down jacket ahead of her scenes. A hairstylist was spotted touching up Sarah's hair during a break from filming. The beauty smiled as she crossed a street with co-star Bobby Lee while shooting a scene. Bobby was clad in a colorful ensemble that included a bright blue and red graphic t-shirt under a black and white swirl-patterned button down shirt that was embellished with tropical flowers. The comedian completed his eye-catching outfit with an orange beanie, bright blue Addidas track pants and white sneakers. Co-stars: Sarah was spotted shooting scenes with comedian Bobby Lee Fun on set: The two actors beamed at each other as they crossed the street in Manhattan Steve Coogan's eerie transformation into paedophile presenter Jimmy Savile appeared complete on Sunday when the actor, 56, wore a long blond wig and chunky gold ring to film scenes on a Welsh beach. He wore a fur coat as he filmed alongside actress Gemma Jones, 78, who plays Agnes, Savile's mother, who died in 1972. Coogan was filming the latest scenes for the new BBC drama about disgraced presenter Savile's rise to fame and posthumous notoriety as a predatory sex offender. Eerie: Steve Coogan's, 56, eerie transformation into paedophile presenter Jimmy Savile appeared complete on Sunday Filming: The actor wore a long blond wig and chunky gold ring to film scenes on a Welsh beach (L-Coogan filming on Sunday, R-Savile in 1970) The pair ate fish and chips on the seafront by a light green camper van. Make-up artists and various crew members were seen tending to both actors throughout the shoot. That same day, Coogan filmed distressing scenes as Savile for the drama, in which he got into a physical altercation with a young woman. Outfit: Coogan wore a fur coat as he perched on a fold-out chair while filming the latest scenes for the new BBC drama Co-star: Coogan filmed alongside actress Gemma Jones, 78, who plays Agnes, Savile's mother, who died in 1972 Lunch: The pair ate fish and chips on the seafront by a light green camper van Chatting away: The actors appeared deep in conversation and chatted away as cameras rolled Tucking in: Coogan tucked into a portion of chips wrapped in a newspaper Cutlery: Jones used a small white plastic fork to prod at chips, while Coogan opted to use his fingers Keeping warm: Coogan kept warm on set with a hot water bottle tucked into a striped sleeve The actor's resemblance to paedophile Savile was again uncanny. Coogan was dressed in a burgundy tracksuit and bleach blonde wig as he filmed the physical scenes with the young actress, who appeared to scream for help as Coogan shook her. After breaking free from Coogan's grasp, the actress exchanged heated words with the actor in the dramatic scene - believed to depict an attempted sex attack on a Scarborough beach in 1962 - before picking up her blue rucksack and walking away. Slacks: Coogan also donned beige slacks and wore a white turtleneck beneath his heavy fur coat Windy: A member of the series' make-up department tended to Coogan as he sat on the blustery seafront Heeled: Coogan wore purple socks and polished, slightly heeled shoes Tense: Coogan pulled a series of tense expressions Crew: Make-up artists and various crew members were seen tending to both actors throughout the shoot Green: The actors filmed in front of a parked campervan Attentive: As Coogan stood in front of the water, an attentive member of the crew handed him a hot water bottle Distressing: That same day, Coogan filmed distressing scenes as Savile for the drama, in which he got into a physical altercation with a young woman Altercation: Coogan filmed physical scenes with the young actress, who appeared to scream for help during the dramatic scene as Coogan's Savile shook her Coogan's Savile was seen shouting after the young woman and was seen looking over his shoulder to check there were no witnesses. Crew members were positioned around the two actors wearing face masks. The setting also echoes a 1975 incident in which two teenage girls reported Savile for indecent assault after he lured them into his car near a holiday park in Scarborough, North Yorkshire. Old times: Savile photographed next to an artist's impression of the female form in 1973. He would later be exposed as a serial sex offender with his crimes spanning decades Uncanny: The actor's resemblance to Savile was uncanny, with Coogan dressed in a burgundy tracksuit and bleach blonde wig New drama: Coogan was filming The Reckoning, a new BBC drama about the disgraced presenter's rise to fame and posthumous notoriety as a predatory sex offender Storyline: The setting echoes a 1975 incident in which two teenage girls reported Savile for indecent assault after he lured them into his car near a holiday park in Scarborough Horrifying: The scene took place on a beach and is believed to depict an attempted sex attack in 1962 in Scarborough - a place which Savile had many links to According to The Express, the two 15-year-olds were staying with their parents at a seaside resort near Savile's second home. Savile 'spotted them wandering around arcades on the seafront while cruising Scarborough's Golden Mile in his Rolls-Royce' and after luring them into his vehicle, 'drove away from the seafront and indecently assaulted both girls'. After telling their parents what happened, the two girls were escorted to Scarborough police station to report the incident, however were told to 'toddle off home', according to the paper. Crew: Crew members were positioned around the two actors wearing face masks Terrifying: Steve and the actress threw themselves into the dramatic scenes for filming Battle: The actress was seen wrestling with Coogan during the horrifying scene Shouting: Coogan's Savile wa seen to shout after the young woman and was seen looking over his shoulder to check there were no witnesses The decision to chronicle Savile's life has come under fire from many, however BBC has stated that they worked with his victims and will portray a story 'with sensitivity and respect'. Coogan, who famously portrays fictional comedic character Alan Partridge, previously explained in a statement the decision to play Savile was not one 'I took lightly'. He added: 'Neil McKay has written an intelligent script tackling sensitively a horrific story which, however harrowing, needs to be told.' Breaking free: After breaking free from Coogan's grasp, the actress exchanged heated words with the actor before picking up her blue rucksack and walking away Horror: Steve was seen taking direction from the crew ahead of filming Shocking:The actress was seen carrying a bag as she walked off the beach Under fire: The decision to chronicle Savile's life has come under fire from many, however BBC has stated that they worked with his victims and will portray a story 'with sensitivity and respect' Explanation: Coogan previously explained in a statement the decision to play Savile was not one 'I took lightly' Savile, who rose from a humble working-class upbringing to become one of British television's biggest stars, passed away aged 84 in 2011. In his final years, he fought to quell growing speculation about his illegal exploits throughout his illustrious career with the BBC - with victim testimony expected to be brought to life in the new drama. A BBC-led inquiry into his actions found he had molested at least 72 children, some as young as eight, over a four decade campaign of sexual abuse with his first victim in 1959 and his last in 2006. He added: 'Neil McKay has written an intelligent script tackling sensitively a horrific story which, however harrowing, needs to be told' Death: Savile, who rose from a humble working-class upbringing to become one of British television's biggest stars, passed away aged 84 in 2011 Final years: In his final years, he fought to quell growing speculation about his illegal exploits throughout his illustrious career with the BBC Brought to life: Victim testimony expected to be brought to life in the new BBC drama His horrific reign of abuse could be charted 'in the corridors, canteens, staircases and dressing rooms of every BBC premises', their 2016 report found. Executive producer, Jeff Pope, said: 'I think this is a story that has to be told. We must understand why a man like Jimmy Savile seemed to remain immune for so long to proper scrutiny and criminal investigation. 'Steve has a unique ability to inhabit complex characters and will approach this role with the greatest care and integrity.' The glory days: Savile was awarded the OBE at Buckingham Palace in 1972 (pictured) He became a British institution thanks to his appearances on Top Of The Pops and Jim'll Fix It and would not be exposed as a dangerous predator until after his death in 2011 The BBC also says it will draw on 'extensive and wide-ranging research sources' or the project, examining the lasting impact of Savile's crimes and the 'powerlessness' his victims felt. Piers Wenger Controller, of BBC Drama, added: 'The story of Jimmy Savile is one of the most emotive and troubling of our times. We do not intend to sensationalise these crimes but to give voice to his victims. 'We will work with survivors to ensure their stories are told with sensitivity and respect and to examine the institutions which Jimmy Savile was associated with and the circumstances in which these crimes took place. 'Drama has the ability to tackle sensitive real life subjects and consider the impact of a crime on its survivors and what lessons can be learnt to stop this ever happening again.' A release date has yet to be announced with filming for the series expected to continue taking place in Manchester over the coming months. For confidential support for adults who suffered any type of abuse in childhood call NAPAC on 0808 801 0331, free from landlines and mobiles, or click here for details. Vile: A BBC-led inquiry into Savile's actions found he had molested at least 72 children, some as young as eight, over a four decade campaign of sexual abuse Molly-Mae Hague looked incredible as she posed for a slew of snaps in a black ski suit on Sunday. The Love Island star - who is in in the Italian Alps for a secret work project- looked effortlessly stylish in her ski wear. The beauty, 22, shared the stunning snaps with her 6.2 million Instagram followers. Wow! Molly-Mae Hague looked incredible as she posed for a slew of snaps in a black ski suit on Sunday She captioned the post: 'The Alps was special' and her fans flocked to the stars comments to share their love. Molly-Mae wowed in the stylish Prada ski suit which was cinched at the waist. She accessorised with sunglasses which were used to sweep her blonde wavy locks back. She completed her look with a slew of silver cuff earrings as she posed in the snow outside a cabin. Stunning: The Love Island star, 22, -who is in in the Italian Alps for a secret work project- looked effortlessly stylish in her skiwear Moving on: She put the 800k burglary at her Manchester flat behind her as she took to the slopes last week She put the 800k burglary at her Manchester flat behind her as she took to the slopes last week. Molly-Mae sped down the slope as snow fell around her and captioned the Instagram video: 'Blizzard'. In another clip the YouTuber filmed her picturesque surroundings while staying at a luxurious log cabin. Ahead of her flight, Molly-Mae had boarded a train to London in a 1,300 Prada jumper, accompanied by a security guard. Taking to the slopes: Molly-Mae sped down the slope as snow fell around her and captioned the Instagram video: 'Blizzard' Molly-Mae's trip abroad comes after 800,000 worth of designer goods and jewellery were stolen from her flat which she shares with boyfriend Tommy Fury, 22. Sources revealed to MailOnline that the couple will 'never return' to the property after being left 'extremely shaken up' by the crime. A source told MailOnline: 'Molly's taking no chances - she's hired 24/7 Confidentiality Protection as well as her other security. She has completely moved out of her apartment now and will never return...' Wow factor: In another clip the YouTuber filmed her picturesque surroundings while staying at a luxurious log cabin Designer garb: Ahead of her flight, Molly-Mae had boarded a train to London in a 1,300 Prada jumper, accompanied by a security guard The insider said: 'They will never return back to their apartment again unfortunately they feel they have been targeted and don't feel safe there any more. They really loved living there its a shame they have been forced out of their home.' While Molly Mae and Tommy partied in London, the gang descended on their block of flats, in which there are five other properties. An insider detailed: 'It seems to be an experienced gang who know what theyre doing as they have had machinery and waited for Molly and Tommy to be away... 'They have approached the property from the rear and smashed through their balcony windows and doors to gain access to their apartment. There is five apartments in the block but other neighbours were out too... 'They have stolen approx 800k worth of belongings leaving them with nothing left other than what they had on them in their suitcases in London on the night of event.. 'Molly was pictured that night when the robbery happened at her Beauty Works x Molly Mae event in London. They seemed to have got scared off and departed quickly possible across the park at the back. Its called Halecroft Park.' In the wake of the incident, a representative for Molly told MailOnline: 'Molly is doing well considering the circumstances. It has been a very distressing time but she is trying to be as positive as possible'. A representative for Greater Manchester Police told MailOnline: 'On Friday 22 October 2021 police received a report of a burglary at a property in the Hale Barns area... During the burglary a number of items were taken, including jewellery. Enquiries are ongoing and no arrests have been made.' After a slew of Tamil and Malayalam films, Mirnaa is now trying to create a splash in Tollywood. In her debut Telugu film, which is a Phani-Krishna directorial, she is paired opposite Aadi Saikumar. Ive been waiting for my Tollywood debut for a long time, and I am glad Im finally making a foray, says Mirnaa, adding that her role and the films script had her hooked. Apparently, the films producer K.K. Radha Mohan decided to cast the actress after watching her performance in her Kalavani Mappillai and Big Brother. And she got on board the films casting after she had a narration over a zoom call. While telling us that the film is a love story and that shes looking forward to commencing the shoot, Mirnaa also states that she has started picking up Telugu for her part. Learning a language gives me a high and I believe dubbing gives life to a character on the screen. Id learnt Tamil so I could dub for my parts in the last two Tamil films I did and hopefully, Ill be dubbing for my lines in this Telugu film too, explains the actress. Moreover, I have some Tollywood friends including actresses and music composers, who speak to me in Telugu so I can hone my language skills. Incidentally, the actress had quit her IT job to pursue her childhood dream of becoming an actress. The regular job was not motivating enough. When I finally got the call to do films, I jumped into it and have not since looked back, she signs off. The book starts with a murder and ends with the reader finding out who did it, but its not a whodunit. It is, instead, the story of a prison and its prisoners and what happens when they leave it. It follows a structure of its own, weaving the stories of many people and their quirks into a novel that becomes a very unusual read. The prison is an old and scabrous tenement, grandiosely named Obrigado Mansions, in a Mumbai suburb called Orlem. Its owner and occupants are mostly staunch Goan Catholics, some of whom even look down on similar Catholics from Mangalore. Its aging owner, the widowed Francisco Fernandez, who has inherited the building from his father, is tied down by age, habit, and inertia, and cares for nothing but the rent, due on the third of every month, payable in cash, since he distrusts banks. His middle-aged daughter-in-law, Dulcine, widowed a year after her marriage, lives with him for lack of any choice, and stashes the monthly collection of precious notes under a pile of clothes in a steel cupboard in her room. The tenants, all with their own quirks, come to the place for its low rent, and, for the most part, stay on because there isnt a cheaper place available, and because the place seems to drain them of hope. Theres Jude Sequiera, a factory worker alcoholic, like most of the men in the building who beats his wife Brigette and daughter when he has his thrice-a-week quota of Officers Choice whisky. His daughter, Philomena, cutely plump as a baby and obese after, body shamed and clumsy, who, from the age of fourteen, knows that she wants to marry another Orlem but not Obrigado inhabitant, Kenneth DMello. Theres Peter Vaz, who lost his job in the Gulf, and lives on his meagre savings, deserted by his wife Gracie and grown-up son Gavin. He spends his days watching porn tapes and his evenings in a cheap bar which is as much of a prison as Obrigado, because it's so cheap. And theres Bella Quadros, also aging, a widow getting along on her savings, looking for a painless death and a place in heaven, but barricading her door because she thinks Peter Vaz tries to peep at her. There are the DSouzas, Gilbert and Angelina, evangelists. Angelina has been drawn into her work by Gilbert, and continues with it knowing of his affairs and his hypocrisy. Gilbert, well into his fifties, beds Joeann Nunes, a relatively young widow, but the affair itself speaks of the same lack of choice that characterises the other inhabitants. And then there are the DCostas, Joslyn and Mary, and their daughter, Michelle, who falls in love with and marries much to the horror of her parents and neighbours a Hindu boy, Ramesh. Finally, theres a haunted room in the building, whose human occupants never stay long, but whose ghost is Jesus. Its transient occupants include the DSilvas, who have taken a room there because its cheap and people there are good Catholics. The initial welcome wears off very quickly because they already have a ticket out: they plan to stay in Obrigado for only as long as it takes their own place to be completed. Once the others come to know of their good fortune, their time is up. Others who occupy that room besides the ghost, of course include, in sequence, Ricardo, whose occupation no one knows, Lucian Gomes, a local thug, and Perpetual Lobo, a woman railway worker. And, outside Obrigado, in Orlem, are, besides the widow Joeann and the desirable Kenneth, a priest, Father Lawrence Gonsalves, and Kayden DMello, Kenneths son. And in the midst of all this is the one Christmas party that residents have seen in the building. The owner couldnt care less, and no one remembers how it came about, but someone thought it up and the money arrived in little dollops, and music and food and liquor, and, of course, the gossip and the talk that almost brought little frictions up to the surface. Weaving all these diverse stories together is quite a task, but the author has some strengths. He has an ear for the language and intimacy with the attitudes of Goan Catholics, even the gossipy old ladies. Their food, their way of celebrating, their urgent desire to live in the present, all these come through very well indeed. So do other bits of their attitude: their tendency to look down upon sorpotel and music from Mangalore, for instance, and their attitude to followers of other faiths, which comes through when Michelle DCosta marries her Ramesh. But its the individual stories that constitute the strength of the book. Theyre told honestly, without undue sentiment, without holding back, the voices strong and clear. Put together, the stories are uncompromising but never cynical. Two flaws weaken the telling, though. The first, and smaller flaw, is that the money seems to be from another age altogether. When could you rent any kind of place anywhere near Mumbai for Rs.125 a month, or get bhurjee-pav for five rupees? The second is confusion in chronology, some of it arising from the list of major characters and their ages at the beginning of the book. Since the stories cover decades, theres this question: at what point in time were these ages taken? Peter Vazs son Gavin, for instance, is listed as being eighteen, which seems a little unlikely since Gavins most prominent role in the story is his no-show at his fathers place with his fiancee. Despite these, though, its an easy read. Pereira uses the language fluently and simply. His women are as convincing as his men, right down to Jude Sequeiras widow making a saint out of her alcoholic wife-beating husband after his death. Its a promising first novel, and I shall look out for more from Pereira. Shashi Warrier has written fairy tales, thrillers, a semi-fictional biography, satires, and a love story. Besides writing, he teaches strategic communication at a business school. Gods and Ends By Lindsay Pereira Penguin Vintage pp. 206, Rs.599 HYDERABAD: The arrest of well-connected city businessman Aravind Agarwal, key accused in a gambling case, came as a surprise to many, especially his neighbours in Motilalnagar, Begumpet. He is believed to have links with the rich and famous, including a city-based minister. Given that, few could explain his arrest. Besides, the Begumpet police seized Agarwals mobile phone after his arrest and verified the data. The police, who refused to reply to questions on the issue, allegedly found contact numbers of political leaders and police officials saved on the mobile phone. Sources said that around 11.30 pm on November 5, dozens of luxury cars were parked along the road leading to Maruthi Basera Apartments, where Agarwal stays, from the Begumpet main road. Parties with powerful people including a city-based minister were common enough, but this time there was an unusual rush of high-profile visitors to Agarwals flat on the fifth floor and the terrace. "We were bursting crackers in front of our apartment. Suddenly, more than 10 police vehicles arrived at Maruthi Basera Apartments. We thought a VVIP had arrived to attend the function," said Sivanna, watchman of an adjacent apartment. The Maruthi Basera watchman immediately locked the main gate, sources said. At least three policemen jumped the compound wall, caught hold of the watchman and another person, snatched the keys and opened the lock. Policemen from the Task Force and law and order units went to the terrace and allegedly found more than 100 guests gambling and drinking. Though the police were tight-lipped, locals said the police allegedly seized huge cash and costly liquor. One Srinu, who works at an independent house at Motilalnagar, said he saw police taking custody of a number of persons. Hours after the incident, Agarwal returned home. It was alleged that Agarwals proximity to a city-based minister, a regular at his parties, helped secure his early release. "Political leaders, police officials, a city-based minister are regular visitors at Agarwals home," Srinu said. A senior police officer, previously with the law and order unit, alleged that he had heard of Agarwal being a famous gambling organiser. However, no case has been registered against the shady businessman in the city limits. After his arrest, the police made an FIR on five persons including Aravind Agarwal, 52, Jaffar Yousuf, 61, Siddharat Agarwal, 35, Bhageria Suryakanth, 53, and Abdul Ali Gilani, 69. Two recent sensational cases of gambling reported from two different locations- Narsingi under Cyberabad police commissionerate and Begumpet under Hyderabad commissionerate. (DC file photo) HYDERABAD: Though two recent sensational cases of gambling reported from two different locations- Narsingi under Cyberabad police commissionerate and Begumpet under Hyderabad commissionerate - are similar, the way the investigations are progressing is totally different. Both the police officials registered cases under 9 (1) of TS Gaming Act against the accused. As many as three Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) MLAs and an MLC reportedly took part in the gambling activity at Begumpet, but managed to get away effortlessly allegedly due to the influence of a city-based minister. While the Narsingi police intensified the probe in the case in which the key accused G. Suman Kumar organised gaming activity on private premises, the Begumpet police, who registered cases on businessman Arvind Agarwal under the similar section, washed their hands by giving station bail to the accused. In a joint operation, the Special Operation Team (SOT) sleuths and Narsingi police conducted raids on a farmhouse where more than 30 persons were indulged in gambling activity on the pretext of celebrating a birthday party. The police arrested 30 persons including businessmen along with Suman Kumar for organising gambling. The police produced all the 30 accused before the court and sent them to judicial remand. Later, the investigation officer (IO) of the case filed a petition before the court seeking police custody of the main accused Suman Kumar. Based on court directions, the police took Sumar Kumar into police custody and grilled him in connection with illegal gambling activities. "In this case, we grilled Suman Kumar for two days and produced him before the court. Later, he was shifted to judicial remand and is now lodged in a jail. We obtained leads in connection with the case and a comprehensive charge sheet will be filed before the court for getting him conviction," said Narsingi inspector V. Shiva Kumar. Similarly, the Begumpet police and North Zone Task Force sleuths conducted raids on Maruthi Basera Apartment where more than 100 persons including women allegedly indulged in poker during the Diwali festival. The police managed to make an FIR on five persons including Arvind Agarwal. Hours after the police had made an FIR on the accused stating that they only found five persons on the terrace of Maruthi Basera, the investigation officer let off all five accused on station bail. The investigation officer in the case seized only the mobile phone of the accused and cash. The Begumpet police said that the investigation into the case was ongoing. The additional inspector Domata Debora, who is the investigation officer in Arvind Agarwal's gambling case, told this newspaper that she was investigating the case and there was no progress. "I will tell you tomorrow in connection with the case," she replied. CHRONOLOGY: Narsingi case October 30: Police conduct raids on a farmhouse in Manchirevula under Narsingi police limits and arrest30 persons including Suman Kumar, key accused November 1: Police produce the accused before the court; shift them to judicial remand. Police file a petition seeking police custody of Suman Kumar November 2: The court grants police custody of Suman Kumar for questioning November 3: Police take custody of Suman Kumar and grill him in connection with the case and investigation is on. Begumpet case: November 4 night: Police conduct raids on Maruthi Basera Apartment where high-profile persons indulged in poker. November 5: The police take five persons including key accused Arvind Agarwal to the police station and register FIR. November 5: Police let off all the five accused including Arvind Agarwal; no progress in the case since then. VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh is hopeful about resolution of issues, including Neradi Barrage across River Vamsadhara, Polavaram irrigation project and Kotia villages on AP-Odisha border, when Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy meets his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. The AP CM had written a letter to Naveen Patnaik on April 17 this year seeking Odishas cooperation in resolving water-related issues, including construction of Neradi Barrage across Vamsadhara, which has been pending since 1969 after the neighbouring state raised objections. The Vamsadhara Water Disputes Tribunal had permitted Andhra Pradesh to go ahead with construction of this Barrage after AP government agreed to pay compensation for submerged lands and rehabilitation of displaced people in Odisha. But Odisha government is yet to respond to this proposal. The project is expected to submerge over 106 acres of land in Rayagada and Gajapati districts of Odisha. Addressing a press conference in Srikakulam on Sunday, former minister and Srikakulam MLA Dharmana Prasada Rao said Vamsadhara has remained a dream for people of Srikakulam district during past 60 years owing to interstate discord. The Chief Minister wants to put an end to the dispute. He has thus taken initiative to hold talks with the Odisha CM, the MLA told reporters. Stating that Vamsadhara project did not belong to a single state, he pointed out that as per the tribunal award, it will benefit both AP and Odisha. While AP will be entitled to draw 57 TMC of water, AP will not have any objection if Odisha builds projects to draw its share of water from Vamsadhara. The issue of Kotia villages too has been simmering for long and creating tensions in the border villages frequently. Locals of 16 Kotia villages are willing to live under the administrative jurisdiction of Andhra Pradesh. But Odisha government is claiming its legitimate rights over the villages. Attempts of AP medical and health officials to administer vaccines to people of disputed villages had been thwarted by Odisha police and revenue officials. The two Chief Ministers are expected to discuss this issue to find a possible resolution. Further, Odisha government has filed a petition in Supreme Court against construction of Polavaram project, claiming AP is violating the Bachawat Tribunal Award in the process. The two CMs will discuss this long-pending issue too towards finding an amicable solution. The meeting of the two chief ministers is scheduled to be held from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the residence of Odisha CM on Tuesday. Hyderabad: In his most combative political outburst in years, an emotionally surcharged Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday evening reiterated his state governments policy directive to farmers, asking ryots in Telangana not to make the mistake of sowing paddy because the Narendra Modi-led Central government was no longer going to procure rice. Castigating the power-seeking politics of state BJP led by its silly president Bandi Sanjay, Mr Chandrashekar Rao warned farmers not to fall for the false promises and self-serving instigations of the saffron party that it will ensure purchase of every single grain of paddy grown in the state. The BJP was speaking on the issue of farmers welfare with a forked tongue, Mr Rao thundered during his over an hour-long monologue at the hurriedly called presser Sunday evening at Pragati Bhavan. Brandishing copies of various letters from the Food Corporation of India, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution CM Chandrashekar Rao said the Centre had made it amply clear that it will not purchase any parboiled rice from Telangana this Yasangi (Rabi) crop season. We were forced to write a letter that we will not give parboiled rice from the Yasangi season. We had to do so the Centre accepts offtake of an already existing 20 lakh tonnes of parboiled rice from existing stocks, which is in addition to the 24.75 lakh tonnes it originally agreed to purchase from the 2020-21 season. After forcing us to commit in writing that we will not give any more parboiled rice, now the Centre is saying it cannot procure rice from Telangana, he said. Elaborating further, Chief Minister Rao said that if farmers in the state plant paddy this Yasangi season, then there will be no one to purchase the crop. The state BJP president Bandi Sanjay says he will bend our necks and force us to buy every grain of paddy grown. He is calling on farmers to plant paddy this season. This will be disastrous for farmers. While we are working to ensure farmers do not suffer, the BJP, for political gains, is calling on them to plant paddy, he said. The Constitution of India vests responsibility of ensuring food security of the nation and people with the Centre. The Food Corporation of India (FCI) was born out of this commitment, he narrated. Only the FCI has scientifically designed godowns for long-term storage of grains, said Rao, adding that no state owns such capability. Blaming the Centres refusal to buy parboiled rice, the state was forced to convert the Yasangi paddy crop, because of climatic conditions, to other crops, he said. Chandrashekar Rao, however, added a rider, saying, if Bandi Sanjay can get a letter from the Centre assuring it will purchase paddy grown in Telangana, then the TRS government will make it possible for farmers to sow paddy. There is time till the end of December for Yasangi but it wont happen. Farmers should not get swayed by false promises of the BJP. But in absence of such an assurance in writing, farmers, if they plant paddy, will be putting themselves in danger, the Chief Minister warned. Calling the cut in excise duties on petrol and diesel to the tune of Rs 5 and Rs 10 per litre by the Modi government a mere eyewash, Mr Rao refused to consider any cut in the state share of Value Added Tax on fuel. He announced that Telangana would not reduce VAT it collects on petrol and diesel, despite the Centres call on states to reduce locally levied taxes. Calling the Centres call to the states arrogant, Chandrashekar Rao said since 2014, we have not increased a single paisa on VAT. The Centre, since 2014, raised the price of petrol from Rs 77 a litre to Rs 114 now, and diesel from Rs 68 to Rs 107 a litre now. The cuts it announced, of Rs 5 on petrol and Rs 10 on diesel, is an eyewash, done with an eye on four states that will be going to polls soon. It raised prices sky high and is now reducing them a tiny bit. Hyderabad: In scathing remarks against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telangana Chief Minister and TRS supremo on Sunday, alleging that India was losing land at the Arunachal borders to China every day, said, India was getting beaten black and blue at its northern borders by China, which was setting up villages inside India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unable to protect Indias borders. Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao, in a vitriolic attack on the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre, said, China is setting up villages in Arunachal Pradesh. The BJP government is unable to do anything on this front. All it does whenever it faces a crisis, is to raise the bogey of enemies at the countrys borders. Purportedly referring to the terrorist attacks on India and surgical strikes by the Indian forces, KCR said, it is your inefficiency, your inability. Whenever India faces a crisis, you try to distract attention by raising the bogey of national security. Modi is a liar who has not kept his promises, he said, adding, where are the Rs 15 lakh in peoples accounts, where are the two crore jobs each year? Why are you privatising profit-making Public Sector Enterprises, like LIC? Rao, addressing a press conference on Sunday, demanded that the Central government withdraw the cesses it collects on every litre of petrol and diesel sold. We are announcing our demand today that the Centre withdraw all cesses it collects on petrol and diesel. Our campaign will continue till our demand is met. We will be organizing protests. Clearly upset by the state BJPs increasing attacks on his government over a posse of farmers issue, Chandrashekar Rao countered strongly, saying his party was throwing its lot with agitating farmers in north India. The Centre is driving farmers into a corporate stranglehold. Can a small farmer sell his crop in some distant market? This is not something the TRS will watch silently, he warned. Rao further said, if need be, we will protest in Delhi the entire Cabinet, MLAs, MLCs and MPs will sit in protest in Delhi for farmers and demanding repeal of farm laws. We will fight till the Centre purchases food grains grown in Telangana. If you can buy food grains from Punjab, why not from Telangana? The Telangana Chief Minister, who lit into the BJP government at the Centre, dared Narendra Modi to register cases against him or arrest him on corruption charges. The BJP keeps saying it will arrest me? Come on do it. Do you have guts? Why dont you conduct investigations? The success of Tesla has pushed nearly all automakers to go all-electric in 2021, and the COP26 climate conference has provided a booster dose to initiate strategies for the supply of batteries, electric motors, power electronics and other components for a green future. With Renault in June, Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis in July, to name a few, 2021 has become the year when mainstream automakers solidified their intent to become "all-electric" and transition further towards electrification. According to market research firm Strategy Analytics, there will be a step-change in the supply of batteries, electric motors, power electronics and other components associated with electrified powertrains, especially battery electric. Also read: Why Elon Musk is his worst enemy "To secure component supply and leading-edge technologies, the mainstream automakers have recently partnered with battery cell vendors, electric motor developers and semiconductor vendors. As well as raising production capacity, automakers seek battery cells with more energy density and faster charging capability," said Kevin Mak, principal analyst in the Global Automotive Practice (GAP). The pace towards electrification has quickened because of tightening mandates (which could become even tighter following COP26) and in their attempts to catch-up on Tesla. "Some have resorted to the use of common platforms, from the likes of Foxconn and REE, to leverage the necessary economies of scale and ensure that their product offerings are affordable," Mak mentioned in a report. Also read: Musk asks Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock Another result of this step-change in OEM (original equipment manufacturer) strategy is that the demand for hybrid powertrains will become more temporary, tapering-off in the long-term, as countries and states begin to impose a sales ban on new combustion engine-powered light vehicles. "Demand for combustion engines could now peak in China, Europe and North America as soon as the mid-2020s timeframe as automakers prepare for an electric future," the report noted. As pressure mounts for urgent climate action, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a global roadmap to achieve a radical transformation of energy access and transition by 2030, while also contributing to net zero emissions by 2050. Close on the heels of state governments decision to reopen pre-primary schools (LKG/UKG), the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on Saturday permitted reopening of play homes and nursery homes for two hours in a day starting from Monday. The decision is largely expected to benefit working couples who have started to work from office spaces. In a detailed circular to all the zonal officials, BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta issued a separate set of guidelines keeping in mind the health and safety of toddlers attending the play homes. The circular directed the schools to recreate a festive mood to welcome the kids besides complete sanitisation of the premises as per the government guidelines and with a mandatory consent letter from the parents. Also Read | Karnataka government lifts night curfew All the staffers and attendees at the schools should have completed two doses of vaccination. Gupta has Instructed the officials that no child is sent back and all the kids, especially the migrant workers children, are admitted and provided with nutritious food. The circular directed the schools to make seating arrangements with a minimum of one meter distance between two kids. All materials, learning equipment, mats, chairs and artefacts have to be thoroughly sanitised on daily basis. If there are more kids at these centres they should be allowed to visit schools on alternative days with prior intimation. Schools have been strictly told to discourage visitors and specially instructed to keep sanitizer and disinfectant bottles out of Children reach preventing any further tragedy. Check out the latest DH videos: Global streaming giant Netflix is considering giving an additional reward to the Korean producers of 'Squid Game', the platform's biggest-ever original show, a senior official of the company was quoted as saying. Dean Garfield, vice-president of public policy at Netflix, said his company is in talks with 'Squid Game' production crews, including director Hwang Dong-hyuk, over special bonuses, Representative Kim Yeung-shik told reporters. The Netflix official made the remark during a meeting with Rep. Kim while visiting Seoul for meetings with South Korean officials from the information service authorities and national assembly, including Kim Hyun, who's the vice-chairperson of the Korea Communications Commission. It was the first comment by a Netflix official on the controversial issue, reports Yonhap News Agency. Also read: From BTS to Squid Game: How South Korea became a cultural juggernaut Netflix came into the spotlight since the phenomenal success of 'Squid Game' spiked a controversy in South Korea over the streamer's monopoly of the entire intellectual property of Korean-language shows the company invests in with no additional reward to local creators. Korean-language thriller 'Squid Game', released in September, became the most popular Netflix original show in any language, attracting more than 140 million households over the first four weeks of release. According to US news outlets, Netflix spent $21 million on 'Squid Game', but enjoyed an estimated $900 million in profit from an increase in subscribers and rise in stock prices. But director Hwang and crew members, who had reportedly agreed to a fixed 10 per cent margin to the total production cost, have had no additional income and incentives in accordance with the show's global success. Read more: 'Squid Game' characters drawn from director's life Garfield also said that Netflix is seeking other alternative ways to iron out disputes with South Korean telecommunications companies and regulators over the cost of using the local network. The streamer, which refused to pay for the use of the network, lost a lawsuit against local internet service provider SK Broadband Co. in June. The South Korean government has been increasing pressure on Netflix to pay the network usage fees. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said last month that global platforms should meet their responsibilities commensurate with their size and ordered the government to review the dispute involving Netflix. As the Taliban attempts to transform from an insurgency into a government, its contingent of trained suicide bombers remains central to its military and political strategy, experts say, RFE/RL reported. In a victory parade after retaking power, the Taliban displayed its suicide bombers and arsenal of explosives-laden suicide vests. The parade triggered outrage among many Afghans who said Taliban suicide attacks had killed hundreds of civilians over the years. The militants also announced the formation of a new "martyrdom brigade" made up of suicide bombers, in a move that experts say is an attempt to rebrand its suicide bombers as elite fighters ready to protect the new government, the report said. Read more: Online Afghan humour: Laughter as resistance against Taliban "The current Taliban leadership seeks to retroactively take ownership of suicide bombing in all its forms and to give it a new meaning that will help it transform a decentralized insurgency into a unified government," says David Edwards, a professor of anthropology at Williams College, as per the report. He says the new suicide bomber brigade is intended to "confer legitimacy on the Taliban leadership as it attempts to turn itself into a semblance of a government with regular troops under its command and not just covert agents of violence". Edwards also noted that the Taliban's would-be suicide bombers were "members of elite cadres who parade in regimental order wearing colourful uniforms that showcase the different types of suicide bomber and their function", the report said. In October, the Taliban announced that it was deploying its "martyrdom brigade" along the border with Tajikistan. The move came amid tensions between the Taliban-led government and Dushanbe, which accused the group of monopolising power. The Taliban's acting interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, held a gathering for the families of suicide bombers at a luxury hotel in Kabul last month. During the gathering, he lauded suicide bombers for their "sacrifice" and promised their families land and money, the report said. Haqqani is head of the notorious Haqqani network, the lethal arm of the Taliban. The network is a US-designated terrorist organisation and Haqqani is among the FBI's most-wanted fugitives. Sami Yousafzai, a veteran journalist who has reported on the Taliban since its emergence in the 1990s, says by praising suicide bombers, the Taliban is alienating both the Afghans it hopes to rule and the international community it needs to fend off an economic and humanitarian crisis, the report said. "Instead of trying to unite Afghans with a narrative of peace after claiming to have won the war, they want to bask in what they view as their glory and celebrate tactics such as suicide bombings that killed and maimed many Afghan civilians," he says. Check out the latest DH videos: COP26's first week saw keynote pledges to end deforestation, phase out coal, and mobilise trillions for green investment. But observers say there is a gulf between host Britain's proclamations and the emissions cuts that must be achieved. Mohamed Adow, director of the Nairobi-based climate think tank Power Shift Africa, told AFP that there had been "two realities" at the global climate conference in Glasgow. "One is the world of press releases by the UK Government announcing a host of initiatives such as 'an end to coal', which suggest all is well and we've as good as cracked the climate crisis," he said. Also Read | COP26: New $345 mn program to transform food systems in 27 nations "The other reality is outside this PR bubble. The climate deals in cold hard facts." The conference aims to implement the Paris Agreement -- including the goal of limiting temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. British organisers are pushing to solidify 1.5C as the summit's unequivocal temperature target. They have also pushed for their much-repeated priorities -- "coal, cars, cash and trees" -- shorthand for actions to phase out polluting fuels and internal combustion vehicles, provide money to help the world decarbonise, and protect forests. There was movement toward that end at COP26 this week. A COP26 spokesman said there had been "real momentum for climate action" including "commitments on ending our reliance on coal, increasing climate finance, tackling deforestation and plans to cut emissions." Also Read | At CoP26, Chinas cop-out on Xis drivers seat ambition But experts say there is actually a glaring disconnect between what some called "inflated, rehashed pledges" and genuine progress on reducing fossil fuel emissions. On Wednesday, for instance, COP26 president Alok Sharma announced: "A 190-strong coalition has today agreed to phase out coal power". Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng tweeted: "The end of coal is in sight." The end of coal is in sight Spearheaded by the UK, a coalition of 190 countries and orgs have followed our example by agreeing to phase out coal power With the cost of clean energy dropping, moving away from coal is the obvious choice#COP26 https://t.co/RyYUggo3P4 Kwasi Kwarteng (@KwasiKwarteng) November 4, 2021 The 190 figure was given to the media under embargo on Tuesday night, but a list of signatories was not released until the following day. It contained only 77 new signatories, including 46 countries, on top of others that had already signed on to a previous alliance to end coal. Out of these, COP26 organisers said 23 countries had issued new pledges to phase out coal during the summit, including major users South Korea and Vietnam. But in the list of countries with new commitments obtained by AFP, 10 nations use no coal at all in their energy mix, according to data from the Ember climate think tank. All told, national signatories to the COP26 coal pledge account for around 13 percent of global output. Also Read | 'Capitalism is killing the planet': Protesters rally in Glasgow's COP26 On Monday, Downing Street said that countries representing 85 percent of global rainforests had signed an "unprecedented" pledge to end deforestation by 2030. But it was similar to the 2014 New York Declaration on Forests, signed by 40 countries and more than 150 organisations and indigenous groups, to strive to end deforestation, also by 2030. An assessment this year on the declaration's progress found that out of the 32 biggest forest nations, only India had translated the pledge into concrete action. Damian Fleming, deputy lead at WWF's Global Forest Practice, said the COP26 deforestation pledge was "unprecedented in scale... but not in ambition." "We have been here before. Yet since (the New York declaration) a forested area greater than the size of France has been deforested," he said. "The pledges are coming fast and furious. But they all seem to be just business-as-usual wearing a green cloak of trees," Doreen Stabinsky, Professor of Global Environmental Politics at the College of the Atlantic, told AFP. "There aren't enough trees on the planet to just keep blindly carrying on emitting." Finance is a crunch issue at COP26, with developing nations demanding rich emitters make good on decade-old promises to provide $100 billion a year to help them cope. That figure is a drop in the ocean compared to the estimated $4 trillion needed annually to decarbonise the economy by 2050. On Wednesday, former Bank of England governor Mark Carney said that a net-zero alliance made up of hundreds of lenders with assets totalling $130 trillion on their collective portfolios was ready to help the global transition to carbon neutrality. "The money is here if the world wants to use it," said Carney. But observers noted that fund investors only needed to allocate a small percentage of capital to green projects to qualify as net-zero lenders, nor were they restricted from investing in fossil fuels. That means only a fraction of the $130 trillion actually goes to green projects. Experts say an accord by more than 100 nations to slash methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 could have a real impact on short-term heating. And India, the fourth biggest emitter, announced its intention to ramp up renewables and reach net-zero by 2070. International Energy Agency head Fatih Birol said this week that the pledges announced at COP26 -- if fully implemented -- could see warming limited to 1.8C. He stressed however that this required "governments to turn their pledges into clear and credible policy actions and strategies today". British sources are already trailing the 1.8C figure as a possible COP26 achievement. But scientists say it is based on vague net-zero plans with few or no short-term emissions targets. A senior diplomat told AFP that "most of the net-zero pledges are void of content". Countries such as Australia and Saudi Arabia announced net-zero goals with "no plans to implement them and emissions going massively in the wrong direction," Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London and the University of Leeds, told AFP. "It's logical to take all pledges and convert them into a best estimate," he said. "But you've got to take it with a huge pinch of salt and an enormous banner saying: Warning! This is unlikely to happen." The UN says that the latest round of net-zero commitments will see emissions rise 13.7 percent by 2030. To be 1.5C compliant, they must fall 45 percent by then. Daniel Willis, from Global Justice Now, said COP26 had "failed to adequately address the climate crisis". He said the summit had instead produced "inflated reporting of financial sums, rehashed spending pledges spun as new, and bizarre claims that leaders have managed to limit warming to 1.8C based only on pledges without action." Check out the latest videos from DH: As Covid-19 ravaged Hungary in April, Budapest resident Akos Sipos received his second vaccine dose, believing he was doing the right thing for his own health and to help end the pandemic. But Sipos, 46, soon discovered that the vaccine he received, Russia's Sputnik V, disqualified him from traveling to a number of other countries where it hadn't been approved. The nations include the United States, which is pushing forward with a new air travel policy that will make Sipos and many like him ineligible to enter. I thought it's better to get Sputnik today than a Western vaccine at some uncertain future time," Sipos, who works as a search engine optimization specialist, said of his initial decision to receive the jab. "But I couldn't have known at that time that I wouldn't be able to travel with Sputnik. Also Read | High-profile breakthrough Covid-19 cases trigger vaccine misinformation in US Starting Monday, the United States plans to reopen to foreign travelers who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. But there's a catch: non-immigrant adults need to have received vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or which received an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization. That leaves many hopeful travelers across the globe who taken full courses of vaccines widely used in other parts of the world Sputnik V and the China-produced CanSino jab, in particular scrambling to get reinoculated with shots approved by US authorities. Two other Chinese vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been approved by the WHO and will thus be accepted for travel into the US Mexico received nearly 12 million doses of CanSino and almost 20 million of Sputnik V after shipments began earlier this year. Residents who got the required two shots of those vaccines now are looking to top up with shots of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines, hoping that will make them eligible to cross the border. They screwed those of us who got this vaccine, said Rosenda Ruiz, 52, a public relations manager in Mexico City who received Sputnik V. There are lots of Mexicans who want to travel, but we can't. I am thinking of getting whatever other vaccine I can get. While Sputnik V is used in around 70 countries worldwide, it has still not been approved by either the FDA or the UN health agency. Nearly 1 million people have received the vaccine in Hungary, a Central European country of around 10 million. Also Read | Airlines gear up for travel surge as US reopens Hungary was one of only two countries in the 27-member European Union to roll out the Russian vaccine. Fewer than 20,000 people received it in Slovakia. Judit Molnar, president of the Association of Hungarian Travel Agencies, says so many Hungarians being unable to travel to the United States or even to some countries in the EU which don't accept the jab has had an effect on her industry. We see that in the last few months, travelers are increasingly asking us when they can travel to America," said Molnar, who is also president of the OTP Travel agency. "These travelers are saying they really hope the situation will change and that the United States will accept the Sputnik vaccine. There are many people who would like to travel and in Hungary, many people were vaccinated with Sputnik, she said. Citizens of Russia, where use of Sputnik V is most widespread, also are seeking Western-approved shots so they can travel abroad. Faced with the prospect of being turned away from flights, Russians have booked tours to Serbia, which has authorized use of the Pfizer-BioNTech, China's Sinopharm and the AstraZeneca vaccines in addition to Sputnik V. Russia, which unveiled Sputnik V with much fanfare as the world's first registered vaccine in August 2020, criticized US plans to leave the vaccine off its list of approved shots. There are exactly zero reasons for such decisions," Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Russian Duma, or lower house of parliament. "The effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine has been proven not only by specialists, but also by its practical application. But the World Health Organization still is reviewing the vaccine, and months of holdups make it unclear when Sputnik V might receive an emergency use listing. Hungary's government has made bilateral agreements with 24 countries including Russia, Serbia, Mongolia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan on mutually recognizing proof of vaccination, regardless of vaccine type. Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Associated Press that it is open to a similar agreement with the United States, but currently there is no ongoing negotiation." Sipos, the search engine specialist, said that while he was confident in Sputnik V's efficacy, he recently sought a Western-approved booster shot, Moderna, so he could travel where he wants. I felt deceived because they accept Sputnik in more than 60 countries in the world, but in tons of other countries they don't, he said. Silvia Morales, 38, a public high school teacher in Monterrey, Mexico, said she recently received a Moderna shot after hearing that the US government wouldn't recognize her CanSino vaccine. She said she needed to have peace of mind about her level of protection against the virus. But I also love traveling to the United States," she said. Check out DH's latest videos: Thousands of people gathered in cities across Poland on Saturday to protest against strict abortion laws after a pregnant woman's death reignited public debate on the issue in one of Europe's most devoutly Catholic countries. A ruling by Poland's Constitutional Tribunal that abortion on the grounds of foetal defects contravened the constitution came into effect in January, triggering a near total ban on pregnancy terminations and widespread protests. People holding candles and carrying banners saying 'not one more' and 'indifference is complicity', marched through dozens of towns and cities on Saturday, according to organisers, including Pszczyna, southern Poland, where the woman lived. Activists say the death of Izabela, a 30-year-old woman in the 22nd week of pregnancy whose family said died of septic shock, was a result of the ruling. Izabela went to hospital in Pszczyna in September after her waters broke, her family said. Scans had previously shown numerous defects in the foetus. But doctors refused to terminate the pregnancy while the foetus still had a heartbeat. When a scan showed the foetus was dead, doctors decided to perform a Caesarean. The family's lawyer, Jolanta Budzowska, said Izabela's heart stopped on the way to the operating theatre and she died despite efforts to resuscitate her. 'Her heart was beating too' read slogans on banners and in information shared by protest organisers. "...the anti-abortion law in Poland kills Polish women. It is cruel, it is terrifying," a woman attending a protest in Pszczyna said in a comment aired by a private broadcaster TVN24. "It is inhuman and I hope that this situation will contribute in some way, so that Polish women will not have to die," she added. On Saturday, the news website Onet.pl published an interview with a husband of another woman who he claimed died in June in similar circumstances. The government says the court ruling was not to blame for Izabela's death, rather an error by doctors. Poland's health minister Adam Niedzielski pledged to issue guidelines to make it clear when terminations were legal. "I asked the National Consultant for Gynecology and Obstetrics to issue such guidelines...that will be unambiguous about the fact that the safety of a woman, in such a case as happened, is a reason to terminate the pregnancy," he told private radio RMF FM. Poland's president proposed changing the law last year to make abortions possible in cases where the foetus was not viable. In September a draft bill introducing a total ban on abortion was submitted to parliament by a group of citizens. "...let's finally change the law that kills women, deprives families of mothers, wives and sisters," Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bak, a left-wing lawmaker, was quoted as saying ahead of protests by news agency PAP. Check out latest DH videos here North Korea has conducted an artillery fire competition to boost the country's defence capabilities as set forth by the "militant policy" of the ruling Workers' Party, state media reported on Sunday. The competition was held Saturday to inspect "how the mechanised troops of the KPA have conducted drills in order to increase their mobile artillery combat capabilities", according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KPA stands for the Korean People's Army, reports Yonhap News Agency. Pak Jong-chon, a member of the Presidium of the Politburo of the ruling party, guided the competition. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not attend the event. Also read: Chinese city to expand border facilities with North Korea "As soon as the firing orders were given by the commanders of the combined units, gun barrels to annihilate the enemy competitively shelled the target to accurately hit it," the KCNA said. The unit that won the first place received a "master gunner certificate, medal and badge", and Pak was "greatly satisfied with the competition results", the report said. It's unusual for the North to unveil an artillery fire competition that was not presided over by leader Kim. The competition took place as Pyongyang has called on South Korea and the US to drop "double standards", criticising Seoul and Washington for defining its military activities as "provocations" while justifying their own as deterrence. Qatar's General Tax Authority does not intend to introduce an income tax, the state news agency reported on Sunday, citing the authority's head. A value-added tax is still in the legislative process, the agency said. Check out DH's latest videos: A fortnight after Dasara, Covid-19s R value, which signifies the epidemics ability to spread, has once again risen tantalisingly close to the threshold value of one in several states and metro cities including Karnataka and Bengaluru, opening up the possibility of a spurt in cases again. Other places where R logs a value higher than one are West Bengal and Kolkata that witnessed Durga Puja celebrations, Kerala, where it went past the threshold value after a gap of four weeks and Himachal Pradesh that now has Indias highest R value (1.22). Reproduction number signals an epidemics ability to spread. For instance, an R value of 1.5 would mean that 10 Covid-19 positive persons can spread the infections to 15 others. For the epidemic to subside, the value of R should stay below one. DH Toon | This festive season, beware of new variants while shopping Indias situation is somewhat worse as R is quite close to one. Kerala has again gone above one in recent times whereas West Bengal continues to be above one. So also is Himachal Pradesh. Among big cities, Kolkata, Delhi and Bengaluru have R more than one, Sitabhra Sinha, a scientist at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, who has been successfully tracking the epidemic with his model since the beginning, told DH. Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are the two other states where R stands above one whereas in Assam and Tamil Nadu it was close to one. The fresh concerns on the Covid-19 front arrive in the middle of the festive season. While Dasara and Diwali have ended, Chhath widely celebrated in densely populated eastern India is just round the corner. Sinhas model has data up to October 31, capturing the trend post-Dasara. Till about six weeks ago, Indias R value stood comfortably lower than the threshold indicating a shrinking epidemic. The number began to rise post Dasara-Durga puja where social distancing norms were thrown to the winds and mask compliance was poor. Indias vaccination coverage crossed 108 crore with 74 crore getting the first dose and 34 crore two doses. Check out latest DH videos here The Congress on Sunday blamed the Narendra Modi-led Central government for the death of 9.5 lakh people in 7 years who allegedly committed suicide, saying it came to power with the promise of 'Acche Din' but did nothing to achieve this. The party cited recent the National Crime Record Bureau Report on "Suicides &; Accidental Deaths in India", which says 9,58,275 Indians ended their lives by committing suicide between 2014-2020. Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala, in a statement, said: "The report, with its figures regarding suicide, underlines the unprecedented tragedy that is ruining India. Hapless citizens, being ground under extreme apathy and insensivity of the government, are losing the last hope and taking their own lives. Be it 'annadata' (farmers), toiling labourers, daily wagers, housewives or unemployed educated youth, it is a saga of unending hopelessness all across. Opportunities for the aspiring have been converted into cesspools of suicidal depression." The Congress also alleged that in an attempt to mask its "anti-people" policies, the government is "nakedly resorting to perpetuating divisiveness, negativity, hopelessness amongst the people". It said that there was an increase of 55 per cent in the number of students committing suicide, 58 per cent among the unemployed and a whopping 139.37 per cent rise increase amongst farmers, labourers and daily wagers. Overall the number of suicides across categories increased by 16.24 per cent. Surjewala alleged that farmers being forced into committing suicide and in the past 7 years due to the "crony capitalist friendly and anti-farmer" policies of the Modi government, 78,303 farmers committed suicide of which 35,122 were farm labourers. "There was an increase of 19 per cent in the number of suicides from the year 2019 to 2020. The government literally forced the farmers into committing suicide," he claimed, citing the rising input costs, absence of MSP, and the crop insurance scheme "which benefited the insurers more", and finally the three "black" farm laws as the main reasons. "Even as students and unemployed are forced into committing suicide, India's future is nothing but dark. During the Modi government's tenure from 2014 to 2020, 69,407 students were forced to end their lives," he added. Check out DH's latest videos: Thousands of protesters set off from a Glasgow park Saturday to march through the city hosting the UN climate conference and demanded bolder global action. Students, activists, and climate-concerned citizens bundled up against the damp cold, linking arms as they moved west from the city's Kelvingrove Park toward the central George Square. Read More The BJP on Sunday alleged that a party member was lynched by TMC supporters in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district, an accusation rubbished by the ruling side. The body of Sambhu Maity was found with multiple stab wounds from the bank of Keleghai river near a college in Bhagabanpur area, police said. A case has registered and the matter is being investigated from all angles, they said. Goons allegedly sheltered by the TMC asked Sambhu out of his home in Muhammadpur village around midnight, and lynched him, Bhagabanpur BJP MLA Rabindranath Maity claimed. "Even after eight-nine months of the election, BJP workers are being murdered in cold blood by Trinamool Congress, which does not believe in giving free space to opponents as it believes in the politics of murder and bloodshed," he said. Also read: Tripura violence: NHRC seeks action taken report from government after TMC complaint If police do not nab the culprits, the BJP will start an agitation, he added. Local TMC leaders claimed that Sambhu was a victim of infighting within the BJP. The BJP is trying to disrupt prevailing peace in the area, they alleged. The BJP has alleged that at least 30 party workers were killed in violence following the assembly elections in West Bengal, inviting sharp criticism from the TMC which has maintained that the opposition party was trying to gain political mileage by misrepresenting incidents of family feuds and local disputes. Check out latest videos from DH: The southern metropolis of Chennai was swamped on Sunday as unprecedented rains, categorised as heavy to very heavy rainfall, continued to lash the city since Saturday evening, bringing back the scary memories of the 2015 floods. The city received nearly 21 cm of rainfall in just about 24 hours, inundating several low-lying areas and residential localities across Chennai, with a few of them being rescued in boats and residents in localities like Velachery parking their vehicles on flyovers, fearing flooding. Several subways and major intersections were flooded with water even as reservoirs across the state were fast filling up to reach Full Reservoir Level (FRL). This is the first time that the city received over 20 cm of rainfall since 2015, when heavy rains and the unregulated release of water from reservoirs that supply drinking water to Chennai, led to large-scale flooding. The citys woes are far from over as the MeT department has predicted heavy rains till November 11. Chembarambakkam and Poondi reservoirs, both lifelines of Chennai, were filling up fast and excess water was being released from the two lakes on Sunday, prompting authorities to issue a flood warning to those living on the banks of the Adyar river. Also Read | Heavy rain, cyclonic winds predicted in Tamil Nadu for next few days Wearing a raincoat, Chief Minister M K Stalin hit the ground by visiting over a dozen flooded localities in the city and inspected the relief work. He also interacted with residents in areas where flooding was severe and assured them of immediate steps to drain the water. Stalin, who was accompanied by Chief Secretary V Irai Anbu and his ministerial colleagues, also distributed food and relief materials to the needy. Stalin, who also visited the Control Room set up to monitor the situation, announced a holiday for schools and colleges in Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kanchipuram, and Chengalpattu districts on November 8 and 9. He also announced a holiday on Monday for all government offices except those providing essential services and requested private companies to either provide holiday or allow employees to work from home. As rains continued, Prime Minister Narendra Modi dialled Stalin and extended all help to the state. Spoke to Tamil Nadu CM, Thiru @mkstalin and discussed the situation in the wake of heavy rainfall in parts of the state. Assured all possible support from the Centre in rescue and relief work. I pray for everyones well-being and safety, Modi tweeted. As the northeast monsoon (NEM) picked up momentum, Chennai continued to bear the brunt with many areas going under the water. As the city went under water, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) swung into action by opening 44 relief centres in the city to accommodate people who are to be evacuated from low-lying areas and distributing over 50,000 food packets. Also Read | Kamal Haasan requests fans to extend help amid Chennai flood alert as his 'birthday gift' The GCC has also placed 500 advanced equipment across the city to pump out rain water from underpasses and other water-stagnated areas. Though the GCC was proactive in pumping out water and providing relief, the civic body also came under criticism for not learning lessons from the 2015 fiasco when the city was cut-off from the rest of the country due to flooding. Pictures of people wading through knee-deep water dotted social media, especially Twitter, as several subways and roads were closed for vehicular traffic due to severe flooding. In Chennai, several areas, including Velachery, Perambur, Valasaravakkam, and Vadapalani, were flooded even as traffic snarls were reported from across the city. The rainfall received over the last 24 hours is much higher than the 162 mm (16.2 cm) that the city got in 2020 when Cyclone Nivar hit the Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts on November 25, 2020. While Mylapore recorded 226 mm (22.6 cm) rainfall, Ambattur 20.5 cm), and Nungambakkam (20.7 cm). Knee-deep water was reported from several localities in north Chennai where electricity supply was also suspended as a precautionary measure. Check out latest DH videos here The government has taken serious note of the killing of an Indian fisherman in unprovoked firing by Pakistani maritime security personnel off the coast of Gujarat on Saturday, sources in New Delhi said. New Delhi will take up the issue with the Pakistan Government through diplomatic channels, said the sources. Sridhar Ramesh Chamre, 32, was killed when the personnel of the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) opened fire on a fishing boat, Jalpari, which had sailed from Okha in Gujarat. Chamre lived in Thane in Maharashtra. Another fisherman on the boat was also injured in firing by the PMSA personnel, said the sources. Also Read | Indian fisherman killed by Pak Navy hailed from Palghar Islamabad, however, claimed that the Indian fishing boat had illegally transgressed into Pakistani territorial waters. The PMSA personnel had attempted to warn the boat and asked it to change the course to return to the territorial waters of India. The boat however had not changed the course and the PMSA personnel had to open fire, according to a statement issued from Islamabad. Pakistan claimed that its personnel had arrested six other Indians, who were onboard the boat. New Delhi, however, had not confirmed any Indian being arrested by the maritime security agency of Pakistan. We have taken serious note of this incident. We are going to take up this issue diplomatically with the Pakistan side. The matter is under investigation and further details will be shared in due course, a source in New Delhi said. Check out DH's latest videos: National Security Advisor Ajit Doval will host his counterparts from Russia, Iran and the Central Asian nations for consultation on the situation in Afghanistan, where the Taliban recently returned to power taking advantage of the withdrawal of the United States and its allies. New Delhi also extended an invitation to Dovals Pakistani and Chinese counterparts to attend the meet, but has not yet received any formal response from Islamabad and Beijing. Pakistans National Security Advisor, Moeed Yusuf, however, said in Islamabad on November 2 last that he would not visit New Delhi as India had been a spoiler in Afghanistan. Read more: Suicide bombers remain central to Taliban strategy A source in New Delhi said that India was keen to use the forthcoming regional security dialogue with Iran, Russia and the Central Asian nations to once again underline the need to make Taliban prevent use of the territory of Afghanistan for exporting terror to its neighbourhood and beyond. Doval would emphasize on the need to enhance 'joint fight' against the nexus of radicalization, terrorism and the smuggling of drugs and arms in the region, in view of the Talibans return to power in Afghanistan, added the source. New Delhi had sent two senior diplomats to attend a meeting hosted by the Government of Russia in Moscow on October 20. It had also been attended by the representatives of China, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, apart from a delegation of the interim government set up by the Taliban in Afghanistan. It was stated in the meeting that further practical engagement with Afghanistan needed to take into account the new reality, that is the Taliban coming to power in the country, irrespective of the official recognition of the new Afghan Government by the international community, according to the document the Russian Government had released as a joint statement after the meeting. The document had caused unease in New Delhi as it had almost granted legitimacy to the interim government set up by the Taliban in Kabul. Its wordings were not in sync with the position India took on the new dispensation in Afghanistan. The Taliban on September 8 announced an interim government for Afghanistan with no representation of women and the ethnic minorities of the country. New Delhi called out the Taliban dispensation in Kabul for lack of inclusivity with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, himself, on September 17 urging the global community to tread cautiously on recognizing it. New Delhi had some back-channel engagements with the Taliban before the militant organization took over power in Kabul on August 15. The Modi Government on August 31 for the first time publicly acknowledged its engagement with the Taliban as New Delhis envoy to Doha had a meeting with Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the head of the militant organizations political office in the capital of Qatar. Check out the latest DH videos: The mental health of a person cannot be compressed into a ''one size fits all' approach, the Supreme Court has said while setting aside an order of the Karnataka High Court which quashed criminal proceedings against a government official in a case of abetment of suicide. A bench of justices D Y Chandrachud and B V Nagarathna said the observation of the high court that there is no material to corroborate the allegations made in the suicide note is erroneous. "The Single Judge, other than deciding on the merits of the case while exercising the power under Section 482 of the CrPC, has also made observations diminishing the importance of mental health. The mental health of a person cannot be compressed into a one size fits all approach," the bench said. Read more: How to cope with post-lockdown anxiety The apex court said it is not a consideration for the high court while exercising its power under Section 482 of the CrPC, particularly in view of the fact that the trial has not begun. The top court said the Single Judge of the high court has termed a person who decided to commit suicide a 'weakling' and has also made observations on how the behavior of the deceased before he committed suicide was not that of a person who is depressed and suffering from mental health issues. "Behavioural scientists have initiated the discourse on the heterogeneity of every individual and have challenged the traditional notion of 'all humans behave alike'. Individual personality differences manifest as a variation in the behavior of people. "Therefore, how an individual copes up with a threat- both physical and emotional, expressing (or refraining to express) love, loss, sorrow and happiness, varies greatly in view of the multi-faceted nature of the human mind and emotions. Thus, the observations describing the manner in which a depressed person ought to have behaved deeply diminishes the gravity of mental health issues," the bench in its recent judgement said. The top court's judgement came on an appeal filed by Karnataka against the high court decision to quash a case of abetment of suicide against a government officer. The government officer's driver died by suicide and left a note in which referred to the illegal activities of the accused in amassing wealth in excess of Rs 100 crores, converting black money into white and transferring funds from the bank account of the deceased through his mobile to the accounts of the relatives of the accused. The bench said that the high court by its order has prevented the completion of the investigation in the complaint pending on the file of the IInd Additional Civil Judge (Junior Division) and JMFC Court, Maddur, Mandya District. "The alleged suicide is of a person who was working as a driver of a Special Land Acquisition Officer, who is a public servant and against whom serious and grave allegations of amassing wealth disproportionate to the known sources of income were made by the deceased. "The suicide note contains a detailed account of the role of the accused in the events which led to the deceased committing suicide. These are matters of investigation and possibly trial," the apex court said. The top court said the high court stalled the investigation by granting an interim order of stay. If the investigation had been allowed to proceed, there would have been a revelation of material facts which would aid in the trial against the accused, the bench said. BJP has set its sights on Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Odisha states where it is yet to taste power with Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking party workers to become a bridge of faith with the common man. At the day-long BJP National Executive Committee meeting, party chief J P Nadda lauded PM Modi for leading the nation efficiently during the pandemic and for achieving the 100-crore mark in Covid-19 vaccination. The best is yet to come (utkarsh aana baki hai), Nadda told the meeting, urging leaders to double up efforts in poll-bound states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur, as well as states where the BJP is yet to emerge as a political alternative. In the valedictory address, Modi asked party workers to become the bridge of faith between the party and the common man and expressed the hope that the BJP will win the trust of the people in the upcoming assembly elections. Read more: Why Centre not giving clarity on Arunachal: Congress BJP has remained connected to the common man since its early days. This is the reason why BJP occupies the position at the Centre, Modi said. The meeting, held at the NDMC Convention Centre, was attended by 124 leaders in person, while other members of the National Executive, veterans L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, participated virtually. Earlier, Nadda asked party workers to strengthen the party in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Odisha where the BJP was yet to emerge as a political power. Briefing reporters about the deliberations, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Nadda directed party leaders to set up booth committees in each of the 10.40 lakh polling booths across the country. Pradhan said the BJP has booth committees on 85 per cent of the polling booths and the remaining 15 per cent will be covered by December 25 this year. In a bid to expand the party to every nook and corner of the country, Nadda also asked party workers to set up page (panna) committees in every booth by April 6 next year and institutionalise public listening of Mann ki Baat, Prime Minister Narendra Modis monthly radio address, in every booth. With leaders deserting the BJP in West Bengal after the loss to Trinamool Congress in assembly elections, Nadda reached out to every BJP activist facing the brunt of political violence. The party will stand like a rock with the state unit and will fight back democratically and give a fitting reply to the forces of anarchy in West Bengal, the BJP chief told the gathering. Faced with a tough election in Punjab, Nadda listed out the initiatives taken by the Modi government for the Sikh community such as reducing the FCRA hassles for receiving donations, exempting langar service at Gurdwaras from GST and the inauguration of the Kartarpur Corridor to visit Nankhana Sahib in Pakistan. At the meeting, the Prime Minister was felicitated by Nadda and former BJP chiefs Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh and Nitin Gadkari, along with Union Minister Piyush Goyal for leading the party efficiently during the pandemic. Even leaders in developed countries look up to Prime Minister Modi for management of Covid-19, Nadda said. Check out the latest DH videos: Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Sunday hit out at the Congress for allegedly quoting a foreign media report to question the "credibility" of the government on the India-China border issue. He also once again posted a short video of then defence minister AK Antony's purported remarks on China in Lok Sabha. "Dear Congress members, listen to Congress government's defence minister before speaking on China border issue," the minister said in a tweet in Hindi. The Congress had on Saturday sought an apology from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and asked him to "withdraw" his "clean chit" to China that no one has entered into Indian territory while citing a Pentagon report that claims China has entered 4.5 km into Arunachal Pradesh. Also read: Congress targets Modi government over Pentagon report on China In a series of tweets, Rijiju claimed that "some mischievous media" wrote in bold that China has built a village inside Arunachal' "and then slightly mentioned 'at the area occupied by China in 1959'. What's your purpose?" And these people deliberately don't believe Indian Army but quickly quoted a foreign story to create a misleading headline to question the credibility of our Govt and strength of our Army with a malicious motive to demoralize the nation. https://t.co/8z2GrZwjJq Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) November 7, 2021 Rijiju said that "these people" deliberately don't believe the Indian Army but quickly quoted a foreign story to "create a misleading headline to question the credibility of our government and strength of our army with a malicious motive to demoralise the nation". In a September 6, 2013, clip, Antony told the House that independent India had a policy for many years that the best defence is not to develop the border. "Undeveloped border is safer than developed border," the then defence minister said, adding that China on the other had improved its infrastructure on the border. Check out latest videos from DH: Political symbolism was at full display at the BJP national executive meet, the first such meeting of the ruling party after the Covid-19 outbreak, months before the crucial state polls in 2022. The party made it amply clear in the course of deliberations at the meet that it will bank on Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a front to beat the anti-incumbency and people's anger against the alleged mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic in states, even as CM Yogi Adityanth will have an important role in UP. BJP is in power in four of the five states (UP, Uttarakhand, Goa, Manipur and Punjab) going to polls in February-March next year. Read | BJP doesn't revolve around a family: PM Modi Modi to party workers The political resolution passed at the meeting hailed how "India's image has emerged as a strong nation under the leadership of Modi at the international fora" and the country "created history by achieving the milestone of 100 crore vaccination in just 278 days" reaffirming Modi's "firm resolve and strong leadership". The first 15 of the 22-paras political resolution of the party refer to Modi's 20 years of public life as Gujarat Chief Minister and then Prime Minister. Meanwhile party chief J P Nadda, hailed him as the "world's most popular public leader" and said, "the nation has hailed the programme and policies of Modi ji and the ideology of the BJP and has given their blessing." Before the meeting began, the Prime Minister had a brief interaction with women in traditional Chhath attire. Also Read | From 'bua-babua', UP poll narrative shifts to 'baba-babua' Chhath is a popular festival in the entire Hindi belt and has instant connect with Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Modi himself is an MP from Varanasi in Eastern UP, the region where the BJP hopes to do much better in the coming polls than in the Jat-land of Western UP where farmer agitation seems to have created problems for it. BJP's main rival Samajwadi Party has an alliance with the Jat party RLD. Indicating its keenness to put up a united face in the crucial Hindi state Uttar Pradesh, which sends 80 Lok Sabha members to Parliament, the party made Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath place the political resolution at the meeting to capitalise on the Modi-Yogi combo brand, which fetched it nearly 50 per cent votes in the last Lok Sabha polls. While the BJP builds up the "kabristan versus Hindu temples" narrative in UP and has launched a huge attack on SP chief Akhilesh Yadav for his remarks on Jinnah, BJP national executive saw Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan citing the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and lauding Modi for his foresight of enacting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which aims at providing citizenship to minorities in neighbouring countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Clearly the polarised campaign will continue. Also Read | Jinnah remark: Adityanath attacks Akhilesh, calls him 'cultureless' The meeting also indicated that BJP, being battered by the Opposition over the handling of the pandemic, will take on the rival campaign head on. Nadda said 10 lakh volunteers of BJP will participate in "Ab Har Ghar Dastak" programme to ensure 100 per cent vaccination. The party also decided to distribute booklets on Modi's initiatives during the pandemic. While the Opposition made a huge campaign around the pictures of bodies floating in Ganga in UP to browbeat the Yogi government, party-ruled Uttarakhand has seen three Chief Ministers in a year after the reins were finally given to Pushkar Singh Dhami, relatively still a political greenhorn . BJP, which for the first time in the last 25 years, will go to polls in Punjab minus its oldest ally Shiromani Akali Dal, made a conscious attempt to reach out to Sikh voters with Nadda talking at length about Modi government's actions like expediting action against the 1984 riots accused, facilitating foreign grants to gurudwaras and keeping langars outside the purview of GST. The BJP-SAD alliance was a stitching together a Hindu-Sikh front and the saffron party has so far contested very few seats there. This time it has announced to contest alone on all 117 seats. Clearly the odds are many and the BJP meet did make a pep talk to cadres telling them how BJP improved its performance even in West Bengal where Trinamool Congress scored a hattrick victory. More than 30 cops and several prisoners were injured after violence erupted in Farrukhabad district jail in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday following the death of an inmate. According to sources, the violence erupted after one of the inmates, identified Sandeep Yadav, who had contracted dengue, died at a hospital at Saifai in the neighbouring Etawah district on Saturday night. Prisoners attacked jail officials and guards with bricks and sticks after getting the news of Sandeep's death, sources said, adding that the jailor and some other senior officials were injured in the violence. Inmates alleged that Sandeep, who was facing trial in a murder case, was not provided treatment on time, a charge jail officials have denied. Prisoners reportedly torched the barracks, forcing authorities to call the fire brigade. Some reports also said that the cops had resorted to firing inside the jail but the officials in Farrukhabad denied the same. Security personnel in strength had been rushed to the jail premises to control the situation, officials said. ''The situation is returning to normal....there was no firing inside the jail...we are trying to identify the prisoners, who started the violence,'' said a senior police official in Farrukhabad. The district jail had about one thousand prisoners currently. Watch the latest DH Videos here: The Anti Terrorist Squad of the Uttar Pradesh police on Sunday said it has arrested one more accused in connection with the illegal religious conversion case, taking the number of arrests in the matter to 16. The latest arrest is that of a Delhi-based man, who was held from Noida on Saturday, after it was found that he was in contact with others involved in the conversion syndicate, the Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) said. Accused Abdullah Umar Gautam, who lived in Jamia Nagar area of Delhi, was constantly in touch with the people who have been arrested in the past in connection with the conversion case. He would distribute the funds received from foreign countries among the converted people, the ATS said in a statement. He was connected to other accused, including Jahangir Alam, Kausar Alam, Faraz Shah, and looked after the work of Al-Farukhi Madrasa and Mosque and running of the Islamic Dawah Centre in Delhi, both of which were managed by his father cleric Umar Gautam, the agency said. So far, 16 people, including key accused clerics Umar Gautam, Kaleem Siddiqui, have been arrested by the Uttar Pradesh police in connection with the case lodged at the ATS Police Station in Lucknow, officials said. Around half a dozen accused are from Maharashtra network of the syndicate, they added. According to the ATS, bank account details of Abdullah Umar Gautam showed receipt of money from the same foreign sources as did the accounts of his father Umar Gautam. An amount of Rs 75 lakh was credited to Abdullah's accounts from various sources so far, of which Rs 17 lakh came from foreign locations. This fund was used by him, his father and other associates to distribute among converted people, the ATS said. The illegal religious conversion syndicate being probed by the UP police has links in multiple states, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi, the officials said. Funding for the syndicate has been received from foreign locations, including the US, the UK and Gulf countries through hawala and other illegal channels, the officials added. Check out DH's latest videos: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted heavy rain in several districts of Tamil Nadu on Sunday and for the next few days. Heavy rain is expected to lash Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu, Ranipet, Vellore, Tirupattur, Krishnagiri, Villupuram, Cuddalore, Nilgiris, Salem, Erode, Namakkal, Kallakuruchi, Tiruvannamalai, and Tiruchy. The IMD has predicted that a low-pressure area is likely to move towards north Tamil Nadu in the next two days and rains will continue to increase in the state's north coastal region on November 11 and 12. Also Read | Overnight rains lash Chennai; many localities under water Officials said that heavy to very heavy rain is expected in Chennai and surrounding areas from November 10. Chennai is already reeling under heavy rains for the past few days and people are being shifted from low-lying areas of the city including Anna Nagar. However, weather predicting radars at Karaikal and Chennai have gone offline following some technical snags, giving a blow to the weather prediction. Also Read | Heavy rains inundate road, inconvenience public in Hassan Sources in the IMD told IANS that until the Karaikal radar is cleared of its technical snag, the stretch of area from Puducherry to Thoothukudi is in a 'blind spot' and this has to be rectified immediately. S. Balachandran, Deputy Director-General of Meteorology, told media persons that a team has already arrived to repair the Karaikal radar and the snag would be rectified soon. However, the senior scientist said that this would not affect weather forecasting as there are satellite images, balloon data, and other tools to provide exact and accurate forecasts. The IMD is depending presently on the radar at the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT). However, there is scepticism among the scientific community and weather forecasters that this is an X-band radar, with a maximum range of only 150 km to 200 km. Chief Minister M.K. Stalin is likely to visit the inundated areas of Chennai on Sunday and has directed officials to monitor the storage levels of dams closely. Watch the latest DH Videos here: Kerala on Sunday decided to freeze the order permitting Tamil Nadu to cut 15 trees near the Mullaperiyar dam site for strengthening the nearby baby dam. Interestingly, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was said to have come across the controversial order issued by the Kerala forest department on Friday only after Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin thanked Vijayan on Saturday for the order. Kerala Forest Minister A K Saseendran said that the order was issued by officials without the knowledge of the Chief Minister or ministers concerned even as it was a sensitive matter. Hence action would be taken against the officials for the serious lapses. Also Read | Row over Kerala forest department's order in favour of Tamil Nadu on Mullaperiyar dam The CPM-led Left Democratic Front government's swift moves to freeze the controversial order came as it triggered strong protest from the opposition Congress-led United Democratic Front. The opposition demanded a detailed probe into the matter. The order allowing Tamil Nadu to cut the trees triggered a row in Kerala as it was against Kerala's demand for decommissioning the over-a-century-old Mullaperiyar dam. Tamil Nadu, which manages the dam situated in Idukki district in Kerala, wanted to strengthen the baby dam to increase the water level of Mullaperiyar dam to 152 feet from the present level of close to 140 feet, which was opposed by Kerala. Also Read | Opposition attacks Kerala's ruling Left over Mullaperiyar, CM rejects charges Kerala fears that if the dam collapses, six districts would be badly affected. A recent report of the United Nations University, Institute for Water, Environment and Health also did not rule out the chances of the dam breaking due to structural issues. The dam also reportedly developed some cracks following tremors. The Kerala forest department issued the controversial order allowing Tamil Nadu to cut trees on Friday, close on the heels of a visit from Tamil Nadu ministers' delegation. Tamil Nadu water resources minister Durai Murugan had also stated that once the baby dam was strengthened, the water level of Mullaperiyar could be raised to 152 feet. Chief Wildlife Warden of Kerala issued the order as per the decision taken at a meeting convened by Water Resources additional chief secretary on November 1. Watch the latest DH Videos here: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao has threatened BJP leaders that he would cut their tongues if they dont refrain from using bad language to criticise him. Hitting out at Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay, Rao on Sunday in a press conference said the saffron party leader is resorting to cheap talk and looking for political gain out of farmers. The chief minister alleged that it was the Centre which refused to buy paddy from farmers though the state is setting up centres to buy the commodity from peasants. "TRS is the largest party with the highest number of representatives in the state. So far we have tolerated your comments as dog barking. Henceforth if you indulge in loose talk, utter nonsensical words we will take legal action against you and question you on roads. If you continue to talk nonsense we will slice your tongues, be careful," Rao warned. The ruling TRS and opposition BJP are indulging in a war of words on paddy procurement making allegations against each other. Daring the BJP leader to get an order from the Centre on procuring paddy from Telangana, the chief minister said his party is extending issue-based cooperation to the centre. "The same BJP leader resorted to cheap talk against me. He even said they have a strategy to send KCR to prison. He publicly made such comments. Can you send me to prison?...Can you even touch KCR? You touch me and see...," Rao said. Rao further alleged that the BJP will try to rake up communal sentiments or international border issues at every opportunity. Reacting to the CM's comments, Bandi Sanjay on Monday in a press conference said there are letters from the Centre that it would procure paddy from farmers. The BJP leader also alleged that the chief minister blatantly lied that the state government has never increased VAT on petrol and diesel in the past seven years though it issued orders enhancing the tax in 2015. Narrating the various central funds to the state, Sanjay demanded to know what Rao did for farmers. He further claimed it was Telangana which opposed bringing of petroleum products under GST purview. Check out the latest DH videos: To boost film tourism in Mumbai and across India, the Centre is organising a symposium on Film Tourism at Mumbai's Taj Lands End on Monday aimed at furthering the governments goal of establishing domestic spots as preferred filming destinations. The governments hope that this will create jobs and boost the economy of the respective destinations. Several destinations where popular domestic and international cinemas have been shot have gained in terms of tourist influx, and cinema has in recent years emerged as a powerful tool for the development and promotion of destinations. Recognising the potential of films in promoting tourism, the symposium seeks to reach out to the tourism industry in terms of the opportunities available in the states for conducting film shootings. Ministry of Tourisms Secretary Arvind Singh, Ministry of I&Bs Secretary Apurva Chandra, Additional Director General, Ministry of Tourism Rupinder Brarm and Head, Film Facilitation Office, National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) Vikramjit Roy will address the gathering. States including Maharashtra, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu will make brief presentations. Producer associations will provide inputs on the factors that will encourage filmmakers to shoot in various locations in the country. This will be followed by an interactive session among states, industry associations and the Union Secretaries of Tourism and I&B, officials said. Producer trade associations and film chambers of commerce from across the country will be taking part in the symposium. Check out DH's latest videos Shridhar Chamare, the fisherman who died in the firing by Pakistan's Maritime Security Agency, hailed from the Vadrai village in Palghar district, nearly 100 km from Mumbai. A pall of gloom descended in the Vadrai village after they heard the shocking news of Chamare's death. "It's very sad. It's a violation of UNCLOS. Firing on a traditional fishing boat is not acceptable," said peace activist, author and journalist Jatin Desai, who has been fighting for the cause of fisherfolk for decades. Arrangements are being made to bring Chamare's body to his native place for the final rites. Chamare had been working on the boat Jalpari, owned by one Jayanti Bokhama for the past more than three months, Chairman of Vadrai Fishermen's Cooperative Society Maninder Arekar said in a statement. Chamare and other fishermen had gone fishing into the Arabian Sea on Saturday morning. The Okha Marine Police Station has registered a case and is making further investigation. Check out DH's latest videos NCP chief spokesperson and Maharashtra minority affairs minister Nawab Malik will address a press conference on Sunday, four days after stirring another controversy in the state. "I will address a live press conference tomorrow, Sunday 7th November 2021, at 10 am. Venue-Noor Manzil, LBS Marg, Kurla, Mumbai," the NCP spokesperson tweeted on Saturday. Nawab Malik (@nawabmalikncp) November 7, 2021 Earlier, Malik gave out an indication of revealing 'many secrets' in a tweet. He had said, Happy Diwali. May all of you have a very happy Diwali. There are many secrets inside hotel The Lalit Will see you all on Sunday." Also Read | Nawab Malik, frontline firefighter of Maha Vikas Aghadi Leader of opposition in Assembly Devendra Fadnavis too said that he would expose Maliks underworld links after Diwali. The developments come days after BJP seemed to distance itself from NCBs controversial and high-profile Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, who has been under a barrage of attacks from Malik. Malik, whose son-in-law was arrested in a drugs case, has been spearheading the attack on Wankhede, an IRS officer, and the BJP. A day after Mohit Bharatiya, former president of Mumbai BJP's youth wing, alleged that Dhule-based Sunil Patil was the mastermind of the cruise drug bust episode, the latter on Sunday denied the allegation. Patil claimed that the tip-off about the cruise drugs party was given to Manish Bhanushali, an NCB witness in the case, by Bhopal-based Neeraj Yadav, who is a BJP worker in Madhya Pradesh. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had on October 2 conducted a raid, led by its zonal director Sameer Wankhede, on a cruise ship off Mumbai coast, from which drugs were allegedly seized. Aryan Khan, son of actor Shah Rukh Khan, was arrested in the case along with 19 others, and was later granted bail by the Bombay High Court. Patil claimed that Manish Bhanushali, NCB's witness in the cruise drugs case, had sent him a list of persons who were going to board the cruise ship, but the names of Aryan Khan and Arbaaz Merchant were not there in the list, although it contained the name of Munmun Dhamecha. Merchant and Dhamecha were arrested with Aryan Khan and were later released on bail. In an interview to a news channel, Patil said, "I neither gave any tip-off about the cruise drugs party, nor I am the mastermind. The tip-off was given to Manish Bhanushali by Bhopal-based man Neeraj Yadav, a BJP worker in MP." Patil said that on October 1, a day before the NCB raid, he, Bhanushali and K P Gosavi, another witness in the case who has been arrested in a cheating case now, were staying in a hotel in Ahmedabad. "That day, Dhawal Bhanushali, a close friend of Manish Bhanushali, rang me and said that one big drug party would be held on a cruise in Mumbai and asked me whether I would like part of the raid on it, but I refused. But I knew one Sam D'Souza, who had good relations with the agency, and got him connected to them," he said. "Days after the raid, when I was in Ahmedabad, Manish Bhanushali and others asked me to come to Delhi to video-record my statement regarding the case as per their directions. I went to Delhi, but when I refused to video-record any statement, they beat me up," he alleged. On Saturday, Bharatiya had alleged that Patil, whose name surfaced during an investigation into corruption allegations against NCB officials, is closely associated with several NCP leaders, including former home minister Anil Deshmukh. He had also said that Patil was the mastermind of the whole conspiracy of the cruise drugs case and is among the founder members of the NCP besides being closely associated with several NCP leaders for the past 20 years. Patil said that although he was associated with the NCP from 1999 to 2016, later he distanced himself from the party. He also said that he has never met NCP minister Nawab Malik, who has levelled several allegations against Wankhede. You can call it the rise of regional parties as the momentum gradually builds up for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls through the just concluded bye-elections and the upcoming Assembly polls in seven states next year. Despite the oft-repeated talks of the country gradually moving towards a two party system and the ruling BJP scaling up its numbers to acquire the position what Congress used to in the 1980s and before, the regional parties have time and again proved they are in for a long haul. While the Dravidian politics in Tamil Nadu has ensured elections there to be a bilateral affair between DMK and AIADMK with both major national parties-Congress and BJP remaining marginal players, other state parties such as the TDP in Andhra Pradesh, TRS in Telangana, TMC in West Bengal, Shiv Sena and NCP in Maharashtra, BJD in Odisha, SP and BSP in UP, RJD and JD(U) in Bihar and AAP in Delhi are here to stay. While Congress is piggy riding RJD in Bihar, Shiv Sena-NCP in Maharashtra and DMK in Tamil Nadu, BJP is dependent on Jananayak Janata Party for its government in Haryana and also has to be content with the Chief Ministership of Nitish Kumar from JD(U) in the alliance government in Bihar, despite having more number of seats in Assembly than the JD(U). Also Read | Congress in dilemma as regional parties train guns That both the national parties have to be cognizant of this reality of the existence of the regional parties space, is something that rings loud after the results of the recent Assembly and Lok Sabha bypolls in which Congress, BJP and Shiv Sena won one each of the three Lok Sabha seats. Among the Assembly seats, while regional parties YSRCP, INLD, JD(U) managed to retain their seats in Andhra Pradesh Haryana and Bihar, respectively, BJP ally NPP wrested two seats from Congress in Meghalaya, and MNF won two in Mizoram contesting against another regional party Zoram Peoples Movement. The upcoming assembly elections to UP, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur early next year, could attest further to the growing clout of regional parties. Delhis ruling party AAP, which has made both the national parties BJP and Congress almost irrelevant in the national capitals electoral outcomes, is trying to expand its footprint far and beyond, pitching big in Punjab and Uttarakhand as well as far off Goa. Initial indications suggest AAP is on firm footing in Punjab and could repeat the 2014 Lok Sabha poll performance when it had won five Lok Sabha seats there. The confidence of the Samajwadi Party to say no to alliance with bigger parties in UP even as Priyanka Gandhi is leading the Congress campaign there (the two had allied in 2017 Assembly polls), stems from the realisation that alliance with smaller regional parties is more fruitful. Hence, SP leader Akhilesh Yadav chose to tie up with Rashtriya Lok Dal, Om Prakash Rajbhars SBSP and Shivpal Yadavs Pragatisheel Samajwadi Party (Lohia). After a number of leaders from Congress, BSP and also BJP joined his party, Akhilesh asserted that induction of leaders from other parties will continue. It shows that people are seeing the SP as an alternative to the BJP. Congs strike rate In Bihar, RJD chief Lalu Prasad strongly defended his decision not to allot to Congress any seat in the bypoll saying Congress could have lost deposit there. After failing to come to power in the 2020 state polls in alliance with Congress, whose strike rate was low, RJD is now inching closer to Chirag Paswan-led LJP faction and seems preferring the SP route for future elections. Congress had fought 70 assembly seats then but had won less than 20 seats, which led the RJD to accuse it of arm-twisting and spoiling victory chances of the Mahagathbandhan. Also Read | Do regional parties come together? TMCs Mamata Banerjee, who made a hat-trick of winning state polls this year is emerging a prime challenger to Narendra Modi-led BJP and is seeking to go beyond West Bengal, pitching big for Goa and Tripura, having inducted leaders from Congress like Luizino Falerio (former Goa CM) and Sushmita Dev (former Congress MP and daughter of former Union Minister Santosh Mohan Dev). TMC has been repeatedly taking a dig at Rahul Gandhi, the most recent being reminding the party of Gandhis defeat in Amethi in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Her party won all four assembly seats in the bypoll, snatching two from the BJP. What was more significant was over 75% of the total votes it secured. Congress veteran late Kamalapati Tripathis grandson and great-grandson also recently joined the TMC in UP. Those who label the TMC as a regional party should keep in mind that every party has a place of origin, she said, reminding that the Tripathis are from UP. TMC national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee has asserted Banerjee is the only vaccine for BJP virus. The tussle with Congress is evident with former Union Minister P Chidambaram dismissing the foray of TMC and AAP in Goa as marginal players while BJP dismissed their visits as political tourism. However, the regional aspirations have a reason and a resonance with kind of a fatigue setting among the electorates against both the parties, who have ruled these states alternatively. With the BJP behemoth tottering and Congress on decline due to loss of local leaders and internal fight at the top, the rise of regional parties could be a warning signal. In Haryana, BJP is now dependent upon a breakaway faction of the Om Prakash Chautalas party led by Dushyant Chautala and renamed JJP, for the survival of its government. In Punjab, former NDA ally SAD has tied up with another regional party BSP, which has influence area mainly in UP but hopes to be a game changer in Punjab as well with the state having a Dalit population of around 33%. In Maharashtra, regional party Shiv Sena is leading an alliance government in which the national party Congress is a junior ally with another regional party NCP having more numbers than it. Interestingly, in states where regional parties have formed government, both the BJP and the Congress have found difficult to come back - be it Tamil Nadu where there was no Congress government since 1987, Uttar Pradesh, where the last Congress CM was in 1988 and BJP had to take a 26-year break between 1991 and 2017 with SP and BSP alternating to power, Bihar where the last Congress government was in 1989 and BJP could never have a CM despite NDA ruling the state with Chief Ministership alternating RJD and JD(U). BJP has been out of power in Delhi since 1998 and Congress since 2013 after Arvind Kerjiwal became Chief Minister. Check out latest DH videos here Chorus demanding 'Padma Shri' award posthumously to Kannada film star Puneeth Rajkumar, who died recently, seems to be growing, as two Ministers of the Karnataka government on Sunday urged the Chief Minister to make a recommendation to the Centre in this connection. Considered the Kannada cinema's reigning star, Puneeth, youngest of five children of thespian and matinee idol Dr Rajkumar, had died of a cardiac arrest on October 29 at the age of 46. Agriculture Minister B C Patil said, Puneeth Rajkumar should have been given Padma Shri when he was alive for his achievements, but unfortunately as he is no longer with us physically, it has to be given to him posthumously . "As a fan, I too join other fans (in their demand). Being part of the government, I urge the Chief Minister to recommend the same to the Centre. Puneeth is qualified for it not only as an actor, but also for his service to the society," the actor-turned- politician said, adding that if the matter comes before the cabinet it will get unanimous consent. Also Read | Basavashree Award for Puneeth Rajkumar posthumously Minister for Tourism Anand Singh too in Haveri said, "Puneeth Rajkumar is a person who had a mentality to serve mankind, he had joined us in several campaigns of public good like pulse polio campaign, when I was into social service... I extend my support to the demand seeking Padma Shri to him." Kannada Actor Prem, too wished that Puneeth Rajkumar be given the Padma Shri award at the earliest. Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the state, Siddaramaiah had recently urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to award Padma Shri posthumously to Puneeth. "The love and affection Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar has gained is bigger than any title or award. I urge the Prime Minister of India to award Padma Shri posthumously to Puneeth Rajkumar. His acting and contribution to society deserves even more accolades," he had tweeted. Recently Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, responding to a question by the media on such a demand, said, "There are rules on when and people from which sectors should be recommended for Padma awards, it will be in a way unanimous recommendation for Puneeth Rajkumar. As a government considering everything, we will take a decision." He said the entire state and the government has love and respect for Puneeth Rajkumar. Padma Shri is one of the highest civilian honours of India announced annually on the eve of Republic Day, for distinguished service. Puneeth, popularly known as 'Appu' and 'Powerstar', by his fans, made debut on screen when he was just six-months-old and went on to win a national award as a child artist for the film Bettada Hoovu. He then re-emerge as a lead actor in 2002 and went on to star in 29 films, delivering some big hits. Check out DH's latest videos: The Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) in Karnataka on Saturday sought protection for Ramana Rao, the family doctor of late Kannada superstar Puneeth Rajkumar, following protests and complaints against him by Puneeth's fans. Puneeth had consulted Ramana Rao at his clinic the day before he succumbed to a massive heart attack on October 29. "PHANA is deeply concerned with the way healthcare is being portrayed in the media and public following the death of Puneeth Rajkumar. While we share the grief and shock of losing an young and popular actor, the turn of events post this are sad and calls for your immediate attention," PHANA president Prasanna HM urged Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai. "We strongly oppose the attempts by the public to point fingers at the treating physicians, especially Ramana Rao who did his best. After all, we know that medical profession has its limitations and saving lives is not always possible. Else, no one would be dying," he said. Also Read | Puneeth's gift of sight stirs a movement in Karnataka Prasanna also urged Bommai to make a public statement to boost the morale of the medical fraternity. "Kindly provide police protection to safeguard Ramana Rao and the medical professionals involved in the treatment of Puneeth Rajkumar," he pleaded. Prasanna further said that visual and social media platforms are carrying narratives blaming lack of care by the medical professionals for the untimely demise of the popular actor. "This kind of judgemental and hyper critical media frenzy is creating distrust in the society besides risking the lives of the medical professionals who served the deceased," he stated. Attempts by fans and well-wishers to discuss the medical condition of the deceased person is gross violation of the healthcare policy and this can't be encouraged, he added. Check out latest DH videos here The World Health Organisation recognises that cancer is a leading cause of death globally, accounting for 10 million deaths in 2020. In a report, the WHO further suggests 70% of these deaths occur in low and middle-income countries. Tobacco use, obesity, alcohol use, low fruit and vegetable intake and a sedentary lifestyle have been identified as the key risk factors driving the high burden, accounting for about 33% of all deaths due to cancer. Infections such as hepatitis and human papillomavirus (HPV) are also important causes of cancer in developing countries. A report published by the National Cancer Registry Programme Report 2020, suggests that cancer affected about 13.9 lakh people in India in 2020, the most common sites being breast, lung, mouth, cervix, uteri and tongue. This number is expected to rise by 12% to about 15.6 lakh by 2025. Burden in young adults Although the risk of cancer increases with progressing age, certain cancers such as colorectal cancer and breast cancer have become increasingly common among young adults in the age group of 18 and 49 years of age during the last 10 years, accounting for about 10.2% of the total cancer cases reported globally. In India, the prevalence of cancer in young adults has been reported to account for about 6.26%-26.6% of total cancer cases in different studies. One study also suggests a steady rise in the number of cases from 1997 to 2006 in this population and females to be at two times higher risk as compared to their male counterparts. When compared to cancer in older patients, cancer in younger patients is associated with significantly higher loss in productive years and economic burden. It is also associated with a higher risk of long-term effects such as sexual dysfunction, infertility, future risk of cancers and heart problems. Cancer in this age group is also likely to experience a delay in diagnosis due to lack of awareness and failure to seek early care. Impact of pandemic on cancer care The fear of contracting Covid-19 infection, travel bans, financial crisis due to lost jobs and disruptions or delays in cancer services have resulted in a large gap in treatment among most cancer patients globally. For example, a study in the United Kingdom suggested a 20% increase in cancer-related deaths during the ongoing pandemic. Similarly, another report suggests a drop of about 50% in consultations of new cancer cases in India. In many cases, delayed or postponed surgeries resulted in tumours progressing to advanced stages, more aggressive treatment and many to a palliative stage where no cure is possible. This adversely affected survival and the patients quality of life. For example, early breast cancer is usually managed with breast conservation therapy, however, cancer that has metastasised would require aggressive chemotherapy in addition to mastectomy. There has been a rapid increase in Stage 3 and Stage 4 breast, colon and head and neck cancer cases as compared to the pre-Covid-19 era. In most cases, failure to seek early medical care has led to cancers that have increased in size and spread to other parts of the body requiring more aggressive treatment. A delay in diagnosis and treatment not only reduces treatment options but also impacts the survival and quality of life of cancer patients. A failure to follow-up in cancer patients can delay diagnosis of recurrence and also assess treatment response. Need for early care In the early phase of the pandemic, many cancer surgeries and treatments were delayed owing to fear of increased susceptibility to the infection in cancer patients. Though short-term delays of about 1 or 2 months in initiating treatment do not have a major impact on outcomes, any delay more than that can impact survival and outcomes in such patients. In the light of the same, most international cancer guideline bodies recommended the use of telecommunication even in the early phase of the pandemic to seek professional advice from oncologists regarding treatment decisions in both Covid-19 infected and non-infected patients to understand the risks and benefits of treatment required in a particular case in the given pandemic setting. Mounting evidence suggests that about 30-50% of cancer risk can be cut down by controlling risk factors and through effective screening at an early stage. Many cancers have a high rate of a cure if diagnosed and treated early. For example, breast cancer diagnosed at the early stage has a five-year survival rate of greater than 90% as compared to metastatic breast cancer (28%). Similarly, localised prostate cancer has a five-year survival rate of about 100% as compared to 30% with metastatic prostate cancer. In the current pandemic situation, cancer patients should not lose any more time in seeking medical care to avoid further complications as most hospitals are following stringent protocols to provide safe consultation and treatment to cancer patients. (The author is a Bengaluru-based consultant in medical oncology.) A new report has suggested navigational issues contributed to a crash which resulted in the deaths of the R116 crew in 2017. Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, winchman Ciaran Smith and winch operator Paul Ormsby tragically died after their helicopter impacted with Blackrock Island off County Mayo during a rescue operation on March 14 2017. The report, which was compiled by Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU), detailed twelve contributory factors to the cause of the accident with forty two safety recommendations. One of the contributory factors is that Black Rock was not identified on radar, the EGPWS databases or the 1:250,000 Aeronautical Chart as Euronav imagery "did not extend as far as Black Rock". The R116 crew had initially planned to re-fuel in Sligo, but changed course to Blacksod after learning that R118 (another craft participating in the rescue operation) reported conditions there as good. Neither of the Flight Crew members had operated into Blacksod recently. Several probable causes are noted in the report: The helicopter was manoeuvring at 200 ft, 9 NM from the intended landing point, at night, in poor weather while the crew was unaware that a 282 ft obstacle was on the flight path. The family of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick released a statement today following publication of the report, with one family member calling the report "utterly harrowing". Their statement cites "failings" by Operator CHC Ireland which they believe contributed to the accident. This includes "not raining the crew on all the specific approaches on simulators", and providing the crew with "a low-level approach chart that started right above a fatal hazard". Captain Fitzpatrick's family are now calling for necessary changes highlighted in the report to be "urgently" implemented by those responsible, and that feedback from flight crews regarding potential hazards and inadequacies are prioritised in future. Her body and the body of Captain Mark Duffy were recovered, however Ciaran Smith and Paul Ormsby remain lost at sea. A local Dundalk TD has raised concerns in the Dail about the rising costs of insurance for businesses, saying that one Dundalk business will be forced to close next month as it cannot get insurance. Independent TD for Louth, Peter Fitzpatrick, raised the issue of rising insurance costs for businesses during Leaders Questions in the Dail on Wednesday, November 3rd. Speaking in the Dail chamber, Deputy Fitzpatrick said that insurance costs have increased by 15% in the past year, according to a report by the Alliance for Insurance Reform, despite the amount of claims awards reducing by 40% compared to 2020 in a Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) report. This is wrong and needs to be addressed. Why is the insurance industry not passing on these reductions to their customers? said Deputy Fitzpatrick. The Deputy said that he has received complaints from businesses in Dundalk about insurance costs, and said that some had approached him with double their previous costs. This has the potential to put many businesses on the brink. In particular, he mentioned Air Bound trampoline park, saying that the business will be closed on December 12th as it cannot get an insurance underwriter to offer it insurance. At this point in time, no insurance underwriter will offer it insurance. It has no outstanding claims. It is being told the insurance company that deals specifically with activities and leisure parks is pulling out of Ireland due to the ever-increasing red tape being introduced by the Central Bank. If this is the case, the Government must act now. In response, Taoiseach Micheal Martin said that the Government is aware of the difficulties facing businesses with insurance, but that there are no silver bullets here. The Taoiseach said that the Government has taken action on insurance reform, and that he agreed with Deputy Fitzpatrick on the need for a reduction in premiums. The Deputy is correct that the PIAB report on what has happened since has shown a substantial reduction in the amount of awards issued, said the Taoiseach. We want to see this followed through in reduced premiums from companies. The insurance industry needs to come up to the plate and respond to the changes the Government has made in terms of insurance. In response, Deputy Fitzpatrick said that the businesses needs urgent help, saying that it has worked with autistic children and children with other disabilities and that it shouldnt be forced to close. What will I tell the parents contacting me who have autistic children and children with disabilities? I am pleading with the Taoiseach. This is only the start of it. The Taoiseach commended the work of Air Bound for their work with children with disabilities and special needs, but said that the Government cannot set insurance premiums due to EU legislation. He did however, seek to hear more details from Deputy Fitzpatrick and said that he would contact Minister of State Sean Fleming, who is currently working on insurance reform to see if there are any actions that can be taken. CLOVIS A Clovis man was arrested Wednesday in connection with a Tuesday night shooting that left a 17-year-old dead. Theodore Avalos, 21, was in the Curry County Adult Detention Center with no bond this weekend on charges of involuntary manslaughter, tampering with evidence and two counts each of giving alcoholic beverages to a minor and negligent use of a deadly weapon. Hes accused in connection with the death of Malik Martinez-Daniels of Clovis. Avalos made his first appearance Friday afternoon in Curry County Magistrate Court. He was released on a recognizance bond, with a preliminary examination scheduled for Dec. 5 in magistrate court. Avalos case was assigned to the public defenders office, but no specific attorney was assigned the case in court records. According to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in the magistrate court: At 8:02 p.m. Tuesday, police received a pair of 911 calls referencing a juvenile male who sustained a gunshot wound to his head in a residence on the 800 block of East Seventh Street. Officers arrived to find Martinez-Daniels, who was transported to Plains Regional Medical Center, where he later died from his injuries. The East Seventh residence belongs to Avalos, who was not present when officers arrived on the scene. A person who was at the residence at the time of the shooting said Avalos had purchased a firearm that day, and he and Martinez-Daniels were cleaning it and posing for pictures with it. The witness referenced hearing a gunshot, then seeing Martinez-Daniels fall to the floor. The witness said Avalos left the residence with the gun. Avalos referenced as a person of interest in a Tuesday evening CPD news release in which police asked for help in locating him came to the police department Wednesday with a 9mm pistol that was wrapped in a plastic bag. He said he had purchased the pistol recently and fired the weapon in his back yard. That corresponded to reports the department had received Tuesday of shots fired in the area. He also said he had purchased alcoholic beverages from a nearby convenience store, and that two people who were at the house with him also had shots of the beverages. Avalos told police that when Martinez-Daniels came by later, he asked to fire the gun and Avalos rebuffed his request. Avalos said he was intoxicated, and the group was dancing and making videos. He told police he pulled back the slide of the firearm while the magazine was still in it, and he believed the gun was empty. He pointed the gun at Martinez-Daniels and expected to hear a click, but the gun went off and Martinez-Daniels fell to the ground. After Martinez-Daniels fell, Avalos said he searched for his cell phone to call 911, then began banging on a neighbors door for help. He said a family member showed up, and called 911 after realizing what had happened. Avalos said he panicked and hid the gun under a trash bin, but later retrieved it before spending the night in a hotel. Parishes throughout the Diocese of Cork and Ross are being asked to implement new guidance which will see the ministry for bereaved families at the time of a funeral provided by members of a parish team rather than just the clergy alone. The change forms part of a new policy for funerals which has been published by the Diocese. The Bishop of Cork and Ross, Fintan Gavin has asked parishes across the diocese to establish a Parish Funeral Ministry Team composed of the local clergy, including priests and deacons. Bishop Fintan Gavin and Larry O'Sullivan of Pat O'Sullivan and Sons Funeral Directors, at the parish centre, Clonakilty, for the publication of new pastoral guidelines and resources for funerals in the parishes of the Diocese of Cork and Ross. Picture: Tom Hayes Each team will have at least one priest and four other members women and men. Speaking to the Echo, Fr Tom Hayes, parish priest in Enniskeane and spokesperson for the Diocese said that it is intended that the change will help to recover the sense of the ministry to the bereaved as belonging to all of us. He explained: When I was younger, a lot of the prayers at funerals were led by the neighbours and by extended family members and so on. It's true that in recent decades, we got into the pattern of the priest doing most of it. "What the Bishop is principally asking us to do is to recover that sense of the ministry to the bereaved as belonging to all of us- that it is not just something that the priest does. Now, there are certain elements of it that can only be done by the priest, obviously, the priests can only say the mass, but all the other parts can actually have lay people involved. Fr Hayes said that funeral teams were trained and introduced in many parishes a number of years ago and noted that hundreds of people across the Diocese have already undertaken training in this area and are involved in providing ministry to families who are bereaved. At the Cathedral Visitor Centre, Cork, for the publication of new pastoral guidelines and resources for funerals in the parishes of the Diocese of Cork and Ross. Included are Bishop Fintan Gavin, Funeral Directors serving Cork City and suburbs and representatives of the diocesan working group who drafted the guidelines. It's all voluntary, and there's a very significant commitment by a whole range of people to deliver the training, but also to be involved in the ministry. It's a really wonderful thing for people to do. For the people that have been involved in addition to parishes. They're all finding a very rewarding and very fulfilling thing to do. Around half of the parishes in the Diocese already have teams in place and it is anticipated that the remainder will have teams in place within the coming months. The guidance follows a review of how funerals are conducted in the diocese by a group of lay people and priests. A new policy document on funerals entitled Ministry to the Bereaved: A Mission for us all has also been published and Bishop Fintan Gavin says that each parish is asked to have the same approach to funerals. Amongst the other guidance in the document is that funeral masses in the Diocese are not to be celebrated on a Sunday, that use of recordings of songs should not be part of a funeral liturgy as it is a breach of copyright, and that the church should not be used as an alternative to a funeral home. Drones are apparently turning into assassination tools. According to CBS News and Reuters, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi says he survived a drone-based assassination attempt today (November 7th) at his home in Baghdad's highly secure Green Zone. The country's Interior Ministry said the attack involved three drones, including at least one bomb-laden vehicle. Six bodyguards were injured during the incident, and an official speaking talking to Reuters claimed security forces obtained the remnants of a small drone at the scene. While the Iraqi government publicly said it was "premature" to identify culprits, CBS sources suspected the perpetrators belonged to pro-Iranian militias that have used similar tactics against Erbil International Airport and the US Embassy. The militias directly blamed al-Kadhimi for casualties in a fight between Iraqi security forces and pro-militia protesters who objected to their side's losses in an October 10th parliamentary vote. Iraq, the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran have publicly condemned the attack. Militia leaders, however, suggested the drone attack might have been faked to distract from protesters' reported deaths. Drone-based terrorism isn't a completely novel concept. ISIS, for instance, modified off-the-shelf drones to drop explosives. Attacks against political leaders are still very rare, though. If accurate, the reported Iraqi plot suggests drone terrorism is entering a new phase extremists are using robotic fliers to hit major targets too dangerous to strike using conventional methods. Uber might compensate for driver shortages by reviving an old feature. The New York Post reports Uber has lobbied the chief of New York City's Taxi and Limousine Commission on the "potential" of dispatching the area's legendary yellow taxis. The details of the lobbying weren't revealed in the public disclosure, but the description suggested you would hail a taxi from the Uber app like you could in the company's earlier days. We've asked Uber for comment, although it declined to speak to The Post. A TLC spokesperson shied away from discussing details, saying only that the Commission "meets frequently" with licensees to explore ideas and that it was focused on relief efforts for drivers struggling with taxi medallion debt. Yellow cab hailing might seem an unusual choice for a company that has routinely clashed with the taxi industry and is frequently blamed for gutting NYC's cab demand. Uber would likely have to rethink its commissions to compensate taxi drivers who pay steep costs to operate in the city, and it could still face political opposition given its history. Even so, it's easy to see why Uber might consider offering NYC taxis. The revival would increase the chances of passengers scoring some kind of ride through the Uber app, even if there aren't enough ridesharing drivers to go around. That could keep New Yorkers using the Uber app and increase the chances they'll use the company's more familiar options. Beetles exported with help from cryptocurrency A Colombian company which exports long-horned beetles, a popular pet for Japanese children, has expanded its offerings to include its own cryptocurrency to avoid high commissions on international sales. Police in Houston, Texas, opened a criminal investigation into the deaths at the Astroworld festival on Friday night. At least eight people were killed in a crush when fans surged toward the stage during the opening night of the music festival. Wall Street wants CPS Energy financially damaged by the pandemic and astronomical costs stemming from Februarys winter blast to raise rates on customers as soon as possible. Any delays or reductions in planned rate increases would have a direct impact on the utilitys financial profile and would likely put downward pressure on its rating, analysts at Fitch Ratings said in a Nov. 1 report on CPS. Their wording was dry but the message blunt: If the utility doesnt win approval for a rate hike soon, or if its deemed too small an increase, credit rating agencies Fitch, S&P Global and Moodys Investors Service could downgrade CPS bonds. That would result in millions of dollars in extra interest expense every year for the utility. CPS officials dont want that additional burden. Maintaining a strong credit rating allows us to borrow affordably, said Cory Kuchinsky, the utilitys chief financial officer. If were both buying the same car, and Ive got a good credit rating, then less interest for me. So Im getting the same value at a lower cost. CPS is already under financial pressure from hundreds of millions of dollars in customers unpaid bills and expenses left over from Februarys winter storm, and its senior executive ranks are in disarray. But CPS, which carried long-term debt of $6.3 billion as of July 31, doesnt just answer to bond investors. The city-owned utility also has ratepayers to worry about, many of whom are still catching up on their bills. Some lost their jobs in the downturn induced by COVID-19. Others got sick and are still trying to get back on their feet. Its a tough time to seek a substantial rate hike, even though it has been more than seven years since CPS last raised rates. That increase was 4.25 percent. Many ratepayers have soured on CPS since February, when prolonged power outages left hundreds of thousands without electricity for long periods during the storm. The outages resulted from a combination of mandates from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, intended to shore up the states power grid, and weather-related glitches at CPS generation plants. A Bexar Facts poll of 602 Bexar County residents in late September found that 52 percent disapproved of the utilitys job performance. CPS is in a tight spot, looking to balance the competing demands of bondholders and its customers. CPS officials had planned to ask the utilitys five-member board of trustees and the City Council this fall to approve a rate increase of about 10 percent. But CEO Paula Gold-Williams recent decision to step down in January after the departures of four senior executives at the utility this year, including Chief Operating Officer Fred Bonewell and General Counsel Carolyn Shellman has thrown that timing into question. Its not clear whether a majority of council members would support a rate increase at the moment. One of the utilitys trustees, Janie Gonzalez, said last month that CPS had to work to regain the publics trust before she would consider a rate hike. On Oct. 25, within five days of Gold-Williams resignation announcement, Kuchinsky told CPS trustees that staff had trimmed the proposed rate increase to 8 percent and suggested it could go even lower. The number is going to keep changing, and hopefully in the right direction, he said during the meeting. Gold-Williams impending exit, he added, didnt change the fact that CPS needs a rate increase. The numbers dont lie. Theres a need, Kuchinsky said. The squeeze Josie Norris / San Antonio Express-News As the utility and its customers recover from the downturn, CPS is trying to keep up with the areas population growth. Bexar Countys population increased nearly 17 percent between 2010 and mid-2019 to 2 million people, according to the census. The utility currently has more than 840,000 customers for electricity and about 353,000 for natural gas. One of CPS main reasons for looking to raise rates is to bring in additional revenue to connect more households to the power grid and meet the increasing demand for electricity. But the more pressing problem is the ongoing fallout from the pandemic and the winter storm. CPS customers owed $135 million in past-due bills as of Oct. 25. The debts piled up after the utility stopped disconnections in March 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. It resumed disconnections in October. In an Oct. 22 report on CPS debt, S&P analysts said the sizable amount of delinquent payments could constrain cash flow absent timely recovery. At the same time, the utility is dealing with the financial hit it took in February when it was forced to pay exorbitant prices for natural gas and electricity on the Texas spot market. The bills totaled more than $1 billion. CPS has paid $418 million of the charges, packaging that amount into a so-called regulatory asset. Thats debt that ratepayers will be paying off with small increases in their monthly bills over the next 25 years. CPS is contesting about $600 million of the storm tab in lawsuits against 17 gas suppliers. The utility has accused the companies of taking advantage of the weather emergency to charge extortionate prices. If the utility loses in court or negotiates lower amounts with the companies, ratepayers will be on the hook for the balance, in addition to the bills CPS didnt contest. In other words, theyll have more debt to pay off. Debt allows management to amortize storm costs over many years to temper retail rate increases, S&P analysts said in their report. Though the magnitude of rate increase is uncertain, we expect the city council to approve one before the end of fiscal 2022 (ending Jan. 31) to preserve healthy financial metrics. Hard to take A rate increase would be difficult for Adelita Flores, 69, a South Side native who was hospitalized for 11 days with COVID-19 this year. Shes already behind on her utility bills. Flores, who is disabled and lives on a fixed income, sat in the Normoyle Community Centers gymnasium Wednesday night waiting to apply for financial assistance from CPS and the San Antonio Water System for her late utility bills. Its pretty sad, Flores said of the potential rate hike. Its hard for us on Social Security. Im fending for myself. Lucy Macias-Basaldu, 62, was also at the South Side community center seeking help with her past-due bills. She left her job at the nonprofit Family Services Association three years ago because of health problems. Since then, she has had no income. Her husband and adult son were laid off early in the pandemic, and the family has gotten behind on bills. She said she hopes the federal or city governments can offer more utility assistance to offset CPS potential rate increase. Weve never been a family to rely on handouts or assistance programs, but its gotten to that point, Macias-Basaldu said. Its very humbling. The only good news for ratepayers like her is that CPS will pursue a rate increase lower than the 10 percent it had been considering. Days after Kuchinsky estimated that CPS rate increase would raise monthly bills by 8 percent, instead of 10 percent, Mayor Ron Nirenberg one of CPS trustees said in a television interview that he expected the final rate increase would be even lower. The utilitys finance department is re-examining the potential rate hike. Kuchinsky said implementing a series of smaller rate increases over a few years is one option. The bond rating agencies are watching closely. Only Fitch cut its rating on CPS debt by one notch, to a still-solid AA-minus in the aftermath of the February storm. Moodys and S&P ratings on the utilitys senior debt remain strong at Aa1 and AA-minus, respectively. But all three agencies have a negatives outlook on CPS, as they do for most Texas utilities. That means that CPS and the other power providers have financial problems that their executives need to address; if they fail to do so in ways that satisfy the ratings agencies, the next step is a downgrade. On ExpressNews.com: CPS Energy trustees pick executive Rudy Garza as interim CEO High finance, high stakes Credit rating agencies tell investors how risky CPS bonds are to buy. CPS sells bonds to investors and then uses the cash to pay for power plants and improvements to its system. In exchange for investors loaning the utility their cash, CPS pays them interest every year. The only way to not have bondholders is to not issue debt, Kuchinsky said. If you dont issue debt, then all the items we pay for have to be cash paid upfront, and thats too expensive. Bond investors want to get paid more when they take on more risk. So Fitch, Moodys and S&P measure CPS financial health, which determines the interest rate the utility pays on its debt. The higher its credit rating, the lower the interest CPS has to pay. When CPS gets downgraded a notch, that generally means it has to pay an additional 1 percentage point on its interest rate for debt. From 2018 through 2020, CPS paid an average of $200 million in interest and debt expenses annually. If you end up paying more because you have a higher interest rate, youre not getting anything for that, Kuchinsky said. On ExpressNews.com: 1,000 SAWS customers have had water disconnected so far As CPS works out the rate hike, Kuchinsky said, the utility is trying to balance the priorities of San Antonians and the utilitys bond investors. The city is our owner, but our bondholders and investors do own our debt, so there are certain obligations we have to both stakeholders, he said. We have to be respectful of the obligations that we have to both. diego.mendoza-moyers@express-news.net ROME (AP) A German humanitarian ship with more than 800 rescued migrants, including 15 very young children, steamed into a Sicilian port on Sunday after being granted permission by Italian authorities following days of waiting in the Mediterranean Sea. The charity group Sea-Eye said the vessel Sea-Eye 4 was assigned to the port of Trapani, in western Sicily, on Saturday evening. Most of the adults were to be transferred to other ships for preventative quarantine against COVID-19, while some 160 minors, including babies and other children younger than 4, were to be taken to shelters on land. Many of the passengers came from countries in West Africa, Egypt or Morocco, said Giovanna di Benedetto, an official from Save the Children in Italy. Shouts of joy from those aboard Sea-Eye 4 could be heard on Trapani's dock as the vessel drew near, SkyTG24 TV reported. About half of the migrants were rescued from a sinking wooden boat on Nov. 4, while the other passengers had been plucked to safety from the sea in separate operations. Sea-Eye officials lamented that Malta, a European Union island nation in the central Mediterranean, hadnt responded to the wooden boats distress signal in its own search area. Meanwhile, another charity ship, Ocean Viking, with 306 migrants aboard, many of them feeling ill in rough seas, was still awaiting assignment of a port near Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island south of Sicily, said the humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee, which operates the ship. Earlier Sunday, in waters off Lampedusa, an Italian Coast Guard boat pulled up alongside Ocean Viking to evacuate two brothers, both minors, whose health conditions had worsened, SOS Mediterranee tweeted. Four others were evacuated on Saturday. On Saturday, Sea-Eye 4 received a delivery of food and blankets while it waited to learn where the migrants could land. Doctors aboard Sea-Eye 4 had treated 25 people for hypothermia, sea sickness and high blood pressure, along with injuries consistent with torture. U.N. refugee agencies have long denounced the practice of torture in detention camps in Libya, where the migrants live, often for weeks or months, until human traffickers arrange their passage aboard flimsy boats. The number of migrants crossing the dangerous central Mediterranean has surged this year to more than 54,000. Still, the numbers are dramatically below those of 2014-2017, when 120,000-180,000 people reached Italy each year, often in rickety smugglers boats. ___ Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration 21 Pro Video A 30-year-old man was found dead in a yard on the South Side around 1:00 a.m. Sunday, the San Antonio Police Department said. When officers arrived at a home near the intersection of West Mitchell St. and King Rogers St., they found a man with significant injuries to his chest in the front yard, and a trail of blood leading to the driveway of a nearby house. From start to finish, the Texas Legislatures redistricting process was rushed, secretive and undemocratic. In a matter of weeks, partisan legislators jammed through gerrymandered maps drawn to protect the politicians in power and silence voters voices, especially those of Black and brown Texans. The new district maps were drawn almost entirely behind closed doors and approved in the middle of the night with hardly any input from the public. Texans deserve better. Its time to give serious consideration to redistricting reform, including an independent commission that transfers power from the politicians to the people. From the beginning, this years redistricting cycle was set up to fail. In September, Gov. Greg Abbott tacked redistricting on to a list of policy priorities to be addressed in a third special session set to end Oct. 20. As a result, the Legislature decided the fate of our elections for the next 10 years in just under 30 days. Not only was redistricting hastily scheduled, there was hardly any effort to encourage the public to participate in the process. Instead, legislators created barriers to keep voters from having a say. For the few public hearings that were scheduled, legislators gave voters just 24 hours notice of meetings, which were held during traditional working hours and required the public to register the day before the hearing to submit any comments. The hearings were so secretive even some state legislators didn't know a meeting was scheduled. Its no surprise that a process without any trace of fairness or transparency resulted in extremely gerrymandered maps that deny fair representation to the voters. Following the 2020 census count, Texas was the only state in the country to gain two additional members of Congress because of our states explosive population growth. More than 95 percent of that growth was driven by communities of color. Yet, none of the new maps reflect our states changing demographics. Rather, the new maps were designed to erase voters of colors representation and voting power and thats exactly what Abbott and partisan legislators wanted. Instead of consolidating Latino communities into one majority-minority district, Republican legislators split heavily Latino neighborhoods in Dallas and eastern Irving into four congressional districts. By cracking Latinos into multiple districts, making them a small minority in each, state legislators denied this community a substantive say in their futures for the next decade. Additionally, the maps protect the politicians in office now from having to lift a finger to earn our votes in the future. The maps were drawn to keep their seats safe from competition from other candidates. In fact, the same congressional district elections that experts described as toss-ups in 2020 now have double-digit margins. Its no coincidence that as Latinos, Blacks and Asian Americans emerge as a powerful voting bloc, this Legislature designed maps that deny them participation in our democracy; or that the politicians in power drew maps that would support their political ambitions instead of our communities needs. Its why only 39 percent of our state legislators come from communities of color, despite composing a majority of the Texas population since 2004. Its why the state has been sued over gerrymandered maps that discriminate against voters of color every redistricting cycle for the last five decades. This years process and these maps were approved against our will. In more than 10 hours of testimony on congressional plans, not a single Texan spoke in favor of the draft maps. Without reform, were bound to repeat this flawed process in another 10 years. Its time to put an end to a process that allows the politicians to choose which Texans they want to represent. Anthony Gutierrez is executive director of Common Cause Texas, a nonpartisan grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. Re: Abandoned kids lived without power, got food from neighbors, Metro, Oct. 26, and Fired cop ranked in most of any city employee, Front Page, Oct. 26: I cant decide which article made me sadder or angrier. On the front page, Brian Chasnoffs article is about a police officer who was fired seven times, repeatedly won back his job and retired in February 2020. Now, he faces charges that include aggravated kidnapping and attempted murder in Tennessee. In the Metro section, the other article is about children, abandoned by parents, living with the corpse of their sibling. They were off the radar of anyone who could or would help. I just want to go back to bed. Christine M. Crowley Summit a photo op It is very hard to take seriously anything that has been said at the global summit in Glasgow on climate change. How much carbon was put in the air by 400 private jets, and countless limousines and SUVs, all running 24/7, just in case one of the important people must leave in a hurry? Climate summits are nothing more than photo ops for politicians and celebrities. President Joe Biden felt the need to take 85 limos for his oversized entourage to Rome before the summit, and then he appeared to fall asleep in Glasgow while another person was giving a speech. Cant blame Biden these speeches are boring. Sabine Maytum, Universal City Ignorance reigns Re: How dumb can one nation get and still survive? Other Views, Oct. 14: Syndicated columnist Eugene Robinson soundly criticizes both our political leaders and citizens for their severe lack of intelligence. Our broken educational system contributes to this deficiency, and declining literacy has taken its toll. One area that suffers is our awareness and understanding of history. It is the least interesting subject among students but should be among the most vibrant. President Harry S. Truman was a lifelong student of history, and his effectiveness in leadership was a testament to its ethical and moral guidance. He said, My debt to history is one which cannot be calculated. Our leaders would find that many of the problems they face today have been solved before by capable leaders. It is obvious from many publications that our country has a wealth of very bright and enlightened people in many areas. However, they refrain from entering the dark world of politics, creating a vacuum that allows the bottom rung of our citizenry, the least qualified, to ascend to positions of power. George Farias Include vax data Re: Charting the third surge, Metro, Oct. 27: Thank you for your consistent reports on the status of COVID-19. We are well-informed that 80 percent or more of those currently hospitalized with COVID-19 have not been vaccinated and the number of COVID-19 patients is going down. It would be helpful and positive to include another graph showing the growth in COVID-19 vaccinations. Maybe that would inform and help people to sign up for a vaccination to not only protect themselves but others in their community. Mike Horridge Stop book-ban train Re: State rep. probing schools libraries, Front Page, Oct. 27: If Bob does not want his child to read book X, when his kid brings it home, Bob can take it away. Its Bobs right. However, Bob does not have the right to prevent Megs child from having the opportunity to read book X at school. Bob can keep his own child ignorant of the larger world of ideas, but he is not allowed to do the same to Megs child. The states effort to control educational content and library books is not only ignorant, but also dangerous. The people who support this want our country to solely reflect their vision, not that of our pluralistic society. Lets stop this train right now before it rolls off the tracks into an inferno of burning books. Deborah McNabb Dont forget the Bible Rep. Matt Krause, a Republican, and others apparently want to clear the school libraries of dangerous books that might teach children the truth about Texas or U.S. history. Or even maybe about the human body. I would like to recommend one book that teaches the horrors of humanity and all its evils, the Bible yes, the Bible. It has murder, rape, incest, genocide and sex, and it speaks of temptations all the things Republicans are against. Krause seems to be another Republican who is only interested in attention. I have another book they might think about banning, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It has lying and ways on how to cheat. What other classics shall be banned? Fred M. Vasquez Then theres politics Rep. Matt Krause, thank you for your concern regarding books in Texas schools that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress. Im sure our students would appreciate not having to be exposed to books about snakes, spiders, insects or even, dare I say, history or politics. Joseph Bonilla City Council members and the mayor of San Marcos now will be subjected to term limits, thanks to two charter amendment propositions that passed in Tuesdays election. The limits on consecutive terms in office will keep council members to three and the mayor to four. They cant run again for two years after their final term. The sitting mayor, Jane Hughson, said it was these changes emerging from Election Day that might have the most profound impact on the face of San Marcos government. She said she was 100 percent against the propositions because they will take away choices. The vote was decisive, with 81 percent and 82 percent, respectively, backing the council and mayoral changes. All the same, if an office holder wants to run and cant, thats taking away the publics choice of being able to vote for that person, Hughson said. John Thomaides chairman of the citys charter review commission, which made recommendations to the City Council for all 13 propositions disagreed. And he said the healthy margin by which each amendment passed speaks volumes. Its clearly what the citizens wanted, he said. We felt like term limits would give an opportunity for fresh ideas and new blood. A challenger has an uphill climb unseating the incumbent in a community like ours simply because of name recognition and the infrastructure every time you choose to run for re-election, he said. Of the 13 propositions on the ballot, term limits accounted for two of the 11 that passed. Voters also backed two new City Council members Jude Prather and Mark Gleason. Failing to pass muster were Proposition J, which would have removed the requirement for the citys presiding municipal judge to live in city limits, and Proposition K, which would have allowed the city attorney to appoint assistant city attorneys without City Councils approval. Of the four people that City Council hires and fires the city manager, city clerk, city municipal judge and city attorney only the city attorney did not get the OK from voters to appoint an assistant without council approval. The city manager proposition barely passed. Maybe thats a reflection of the communitys opinions of those appointees, or trust in those appointees, Thomaides said. I dont know, but it seems strange that the community would support two fairly easily, and the other two one barely passed, and one didnt pass at all. Hughson said she was surprised that Propositions J and K failed, but she was glad nonetheless that voters appeared to take the ballot seriously. Charter amendments are usually pretty boring, but theyre important, and I was happy that people really did vote for them, Hughson said. Because of the different percentages, people clearly read them and they voted on things that were important to them. Below is a list of all 13 propositions, which ones passed and failed, and what that means for San Marcos: Proposition A 2,820 (77%) For 850 (23%) Against The amendment of Section 1.03 of the City Charter (Statement of Goals) to replace the current section with a new statement of goals of city government that is organized by the categories of people, place, environment, economy, and public services. This amendment simply changes wording in the city charter. Proposition B 3,073 (81%) For 739 (19%) Against The amendment of Section 3.01(c) of the City Charter (City Council -- Number, Selection, and Term) to establish term limits for council members by providing that a council member elected at the regular election held in November of 2022 or at any regular election held thereafter shall be ineligible to run for any city council position, other than mayor, for two years after serving three consecutive terms of office. Starting in November of next year, all six City Council members will be allowed to serve just three consecutive terms, for a total of 12 years, and wont be allowed to run again for another two years after their final term. Proposition C 3,110 (82%) For 705 (18%) Against The amendment of Section 3.01(c) of the City Charter (City Council -- Number, Selection and Term) to establish term limits for the position of mayor by providing that a person elected as mayor at the regular election held in November of 2024 or at any regular election held thereafter shall be ineligible to run again for mayor for a period of two years after serving four consecutive terms in that position. Starting in November 2024, the citys mayor will be allowed to serve only four consecutive terms, or 16 years, and then must wait two years before running again. Proposition D 3,447 (90%) For 374 (10%) Against The amendment of Section 3.09 (Meetings of the City Council) to require all regular city council meeting agendas to include "Citizen Comment Period" and "Question and Answer Session with Press and Public" as agenda items. The city has already had a citizen comment period and question and answer session at its regular meetings since 2019, when it was first required by the state of Texas; this proposition codifies it in the city charter. The charter review commission had originally wanted the proposition to include a citizen comment period at all meetings, including work sessions, non-regular and non-voting meetings, but the city council declined that suggestion. Proposition E 2,079 (56%) For 1,658 (44%) Against The amendment of Section 4.01(b) of the City Charter (City Manager -- Term and Salary) to allow the removal of city manager by a vote of four members of the entire city council instead of five members, as currently required. This amendment still requires a majority of the seven-member council (mayor included) to vote to terminate a sitting city manager, but reduces the required number of votes from five to four. It currently takes four votes to hire a city manager, and the charter review commission wanted it to take the same amount to fire a manager as well. Proposition F 1,845 (50.05%) For 1,841 (49.95%) Against The amendment of Section 4.01(c)(2) of the City Charter (City Manager -- Duties of the City Manager) to remove the requirement for city council approval of the city manager's appointment of assistant city managers. The City Council doesnt typically vet the appointees for assistant city managers, attorneys and clerks, but relies on the department head to vet the candidate and make the decision. Up until now, appointing the assistant position has been a formality for the council. This amendment, which barely passed, allows the city manager to appoint assistant city managers without approval by council. Proposition G 1,978 (54%) For 1,700 (46%) Against The amendment of Section 4.02 of the City Charter (City Clerk) to remove the requirement for city council approval of the city clerk's appointment of assistant city clerks. Similar to Propositions F and I (which passed) and K (which failed), this amendment allows for assistant city clerks to be appointed without having to go through the council approval process. Proposition H 2,249 (60%) For 1,482 (40%) Against The amendment of Section 4.02 of the City Charter (City Clerk) to change the residency requirement for the position of city clerk to allow the person appointed to that position to reside in either the city limits, as currently required, or within Hays County or within the city's extraterritorial jurisdiction. The city clerk no longer has to live strictly within the city limits of San Marcos, but can live anywhere in Hays County. Proposition I 1,866 (51%) For 1,778 (49%) Against The amendment of Section 4.03(b) of the City Charter (Municipal Court) to remove the requirement for city council approval of the presiding judge's appointment of a municipal court clerk and assistant clerks. Similar to Propositions F and G (which passed) and K (which failed), this amendment allows for court clerks to be appointed without having to go through the council approval process. Proposition J 1,175 (32%) For 2,527 (68%) Against The amendment of Section 4.03(b) of the City Charter (Municipal Court) to remove the residency requirement for appointment of the presiding judge. The citys judge still will have to live within the city limits of San Marcos. Proposition K 1,709 (47%) For 1,939 (53%) Against The amendment of Section 4.04 of the City Charter (City Attorney) to remove the requirement for city council approval of the city attorney's appointment of assistant city attorneys. Unlike the city clerk, manager and judge, the city attorney will continue to need council approval for the appointment of his or her assistant attorneys. Proposition L 2,946 (80%) For 743 (20%) Against The amendment of Section 7.01(a) of the City Charter (Planning and Zoning Commission) to add a provision stating that no action of the planning and zoning commission shall have any force or effect unless it is adopted by a vote of five or more of its members. This amendment changes the voting requirements for the planning and zoning commission. Proposition M 3,333 (91%) For 324 (9%) Against The amendment of Section 12.12(a)(4) of the City Charter (Charter Review Commission) to require the charter review commission to make a final report of its recommendations and require that the chair or a designated member of the commission present the report to the city council. The charter review commission, which is responsible for several of the propositions that were on the Nov. 2 ballot, must give a full presentation and report about its recommendations to the City Council. At past meetings, the city attorney had presented the report to the council. Annie Blanks writes for the Express-News through Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. ReportforAmerica.org. annie.blanks@express-news.net. TRIP REPORT Route: Frankfurt Airport - Nikola Tesla Airport Trip taken: September 2021 Scheduled Time: 1 hour 50 minutes Flying from Frankfurt to Belgrade with JU335 was the logical return flight after getting to Germany with JU334 . This roundtrip with Air Serbia is well timed to return to Belgrade in the evening, leaving passengers like myself the entire day in Frankfurt. Contrary to the arrival flight, Air Serbia allowed the bearers of Serbian passports to complete the online check-in procedure - it is now important to hold a passport of the destination to be able to check-in via the website. I was automatically assigned an aisle seat, in the forward part of the cabin. Leaving the downtown very early for what used to be one of the busiest European airports proved to be an unnecessary decision. Terminal 2, used mainly for non-EU flights, was literally deserted. Arriving two hours before the scheduled departure, I found the check-in counter still closed. Being the first in line to perform check-in, I expected a smooth and quick process. However, it took almost 15 minutes for the ground staff to realize their printer was not working so they could not issue me a boarding pass. Instead, they suggested using the electronic version I received after the online check-in. The staff also said it is not possible to be assigned a window seat without extra charge. Covid measures at the waiting hall before gate E5 Everyone boarded through the priority lane. Boarding of this half-full flight was completed ten minutes ahead of scheduled departure. However, the plane spent another 45 minutes attached to the airport building. The flight attendant notified the passengers that the delay is caused by the ground staff not appearing on time to confirm the departure of the flight to Belgrade, so the departure was delayed for an entire hour. Sign of wear and tear on Air Serbia's aircraft. Free offering on Air Serbias Airbus A319. After being served a tiny bottle of water and small pack of chips, I asked the flight attendant if they had any hand sanitizer on board. Though you might expect something like this in the Covid era, the answer was a plain no. Then I asked if they could offer any wet wipes, previously not offered in Economy Class despite being grounded for an extra hour in Frankfurt. I was soon handed two. We made up some time en route, as JU 335 arrived at Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport at 22.50, instead of the planned 22.15. The process on the ground was extremely fast - passport control was easy and quick, and the luggage was already delivered at the time I reached the baggage hall. Afterwards, every passenger was instructed by the customs officers to put their large bags through the scanner, which slowed down the procedure a bit. Share your travel experience by submitting a trip report to exyu@exyuaviation.com Instead of just one, I was handed a dozen of promotional Air Serbia leaflets together with the luggage sticker.After being the only passenger at passport control, I proceeded to the departure gates hall, only to find most of the shops closed.Even the coffee shops were not open, late afternoon local time.My electronic boarding ticket caused the system at the gate to go red and the information on the screen was that it was not valid. It was then a pleasant surprise to find out the ground staff managed to print out my boarding pass and hand it to me at the gate.The seat was changed to a window one, at no cost.After patiently waiting for almost an hour, we began to taxi. Lights were turned off in the cabin, so it was possible to catch some of the airports and citys lights. Jae C. Hong/AP NEW YORK (AP) Tesla CEO Elon Musk is asking on Twitter whether he should sell 10% of his stock in the electric-vehicle company amid pressure in Washington to increase taxes on billionaires like him. Some Democrats have been pushing for billionaires to pay taxes when the price of the stocks they hold goes up, even if they don't sell any shares. It's a concept called unrealized gains, and Musk is sitting on a lot of them with a net worth of roughly $300 billion. Winter is a beautiful time in the Helena Valley, but along with the winter season comes an increase in outdoor air pollution. This is mostly due to the use of wood-burning devices. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, local officials began receiving complaints about the high levels of wood smoke in the air, and doctors were seeing more patients with respiratory problems. In response to these complaints, Lewis and Clark County adopted the Clean Outdoor Air Ordinance to protect and improve the air quality in the Helena Valley. Now, the County Health Departments Environmental Division monitors the air quality in the Helena Valley year-round from a monitoring station located at Rossiter School in Helena. The official regulatory air quality seasons runs from Nov. 1 through March 1. During this time, air quality is categorized as good, watch or poor air days, based on a 24-hour average particulate level and weather forecasts. The countys Clean Air Ordinance, which is in effect during this time, prohibits the use of any wood-burning device that are not EPA-Certified, or open burning on a poor air day. The easiest way know the air quality status is by calling the health departments 24-hour hotline at 406-447-1644. On poor days, use an alternative heating source, stay inside as much as possible, and refrain from strenuous activities, said Valerie Stacey, environmental health specialist for the Environmental Division at Lewis and Clark Public Health. Particulate matter is composed of dust, soot, and other compounds. Small-sized particulates can enter the lungs when inhaled through the mouth and contribute to respiratory illness, Stacey noted. Children are particularly affected by poor air quality because they are more likely to breathe through their mouths, preventing the cilia in their noses to filter particulates. A poor air day occurs when particulate levels rise above 60 micrograms per cubic meter, with little or no dispersion of stagnant air. A watch day occurs when particulate levels surpass 40 micrograms per cubic meter with moderate to poor dispersion of stagnant air. Because of the topography of the Helena Valley, we are more susceptible to air inversions. When an inversion occurs, pollution is trapped close to the surface. This means that what we put out is what we breathe in. When inversions occur, we each need to take an active role in reducing the amount of pollution we are putting into the air, Stacey said. To help citizens understand their role in keeping the air quality in good shape, Stacey recommended the following tips for proper burning in wood stoves: Use dry, well-seasoned, medium-sized wood; Start a fire with small, dry kindling to establish a hot flame; Do not put too many logs in the stove; Keep air intakes and dampers open enough to maintain a clean, hot fire; Clean your chimney regularly; and Call the health departments 24-hour hotline at 406-447-1644 for air quality conditions. When the air quality is classified as poor, the use of any wood-burning device is prohibited, unless it is an EPA-Certified stove. Tickets are issued for violations unless an exemption has been granted by the health department. The only two reasons for an exemption are low income or a temporarily inoperable heating system. To qualify for the low-income exemption, people must show proof of participation in one of the following programs: Low Income Energy Assistance Program, public assistance, or Supplemental Security Income. To qualify for the inoperable heating system exemption, people must show proof from a licensed heating specialist that explains why their heating system isnt working and the estimated length of time that it will be inoperable. For more information about the Clean Air Ordinance, please call the health departments Environmental Division at 406-457-8891. For air quality conditions, call the hotline at 406-447-1644. The Center for Virtual Learning at Ferris State University will be the home to multiple academic programs, along with the School of Education and the Extended and International Operations office. The state-funded facility is expected to be operational in 2023. Ferris trustee George Heartwell, Education student Danae Lokers of Rockford, President David Eisler, SOE Director Liza Ing, and trustees Rupesh Srivastava and Ron Snead were among the honorees at the CVL groundbreaking ceremony. The Center for Virtual Learning at Ferris State University will be the home to multiple academic programs, along with the School of Education and the Extended and International Operations office. The state-funded facility is expected to be operational in 2023. Ferris trustee George Heartwell, Education student Danae Lokers of Rockford, President David Eisler, SOE Director Liza Ing, and trustees Rupesh Srivastava and Ron Snead were among the honorees at the CVL groundbreaking ceremony. As the open ground begins to shift at the former Vandercook Hall site, planning continues for programs moving to Ferris State Universitys future Center for Virtual Learning. The state-funded facility is expected to be completed and operational by early 2023. Ferris School of Education became a College of Arts, Sciences and Education department in 2020. However, offices and staff remain in Bishop Hall until the Center for Virtual Learning space is ready. Education Professor and Department Director Liza Ing said they are joining the College of Business School of Digital Media in the Center for Virtual Learning. Joining them are the Information Security and Intelligence program and the burgeoning Esports operation. We have always been a partner in the CVL discussions, though the Early Childhood Center will not be in that facility, Ing said. With interactive boards as part of remotely-sourced instruction, our School of Education students need to be exposed to and embrace technology as it applies to their instructional efforts now and hereafter. Ing said exciting collaborative opportunities with other Center for Virtual Learning programs include working with Digital Animation and Game Design specialists and the Information and Security Intelligence students and faculty. I expect the challenge rooms for ISIN cyber-competitions and Esports competitive space might provide our students very useful exposure to unique methods to consider and present their instructional materials, Ing said. There is real potential to bring about a wide number of integrative methodologies, as we all gather and make use of the Center for Virtual Learnings attributes. Our students are just beginning to understand that this new direction for our school will greatly benefit their learning and instructional efforts once they leave Ferris. Ing summed up her thoughts on the Center for Virtual Learning by acknowledging its potential as a recruitment tool for those adolescent and high school-age students considering careers in education. I think prospective students should be made aware of all the attributes that are planned for the Center for Virtual Learning so they can identify their opportunity to be exposed to many new tools and opportunities to master that technology, Ing said. The pandemic has demonstrated the need to be an adaptable professional in how we approach and teach our children. The Center for Virtual Learning should give them a great chance to excel in that effort. The concept of fostering technology in the universitys instructional process is key to the Extended and International Operations office, a facet of Academic Affairs and Office of the Provost. Coordinator of Instructional Technology Andrew Peterson said 80 percent of Ferris classes currently employ a digital component as part of the learning process. We have professors with decades of knowledge and experience, who are now learning themselves how to present that great content in a format that students can access wherever they are for their benefit, Peterson said. The facilities that the Center for Virtual Learning will provide, the technology, all of this will greatly enhance our ability to train instructors to pursue and achieve excellence in their teaching. Peterson said even the most traditional faculty members recognized the need to adjust when the COVID-19 pandemic required them to adapt course content and delivery method to continue interactions with students. It is exciting and daunting to help our great group of instructors become more capable and available to support student learning, whether it through use of Canvas or wholly virtual coursework, Peterson said. Extended and International Operations has been front and center in presenting the opportunity to remove physical barriers and make the world our classroom. This is an important and necessary process to allow more students to have flexibility and access, so they can continue their learning and complete their degrees. Finally, the prospects for collaboration with other programs in the Center are most encouraging for Peterson and the Extended and International Operations staff. The Esports facility will lend itself to capture the flag activities that Information Security and Intelligence students compete in, along with the game jams that Digital Animation and Game Design students enter, Peterson said. The ability to stream all digital competitions is just a natural fit, certainly a way to promote the center and university programs to an ever-widening and interested student audience. External Affairs staff in the Mountain-Prairie Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service provides support to the regional office and field stations to communicate and facilitate information about the Service's programs to the public, media, Congress, Tribes, partners, and other stakeholders in the 8-state region. Providing leadership in the conservation of migratory bird habitat through partnerships, grants, and outreach for present and future generations. The Migratory Bird Program is responsible for maintaining healthy migratory bird populations for the benefit of the American people. The Mountain-Prairie Region's Office of Ecological Services (ES) works to restore and protect healthy populations of fish, wildlife, and plants and the environments upon which they depend. Using the best available science, ES personnel work with Federal, State, Tribal, local, and non-profit stakeholders, as well as private land owners, to avoid, minimize, and mitigate threats to our Nation's natural resources. Created in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt, today's National Wildlife Refuge System protects habitats and wildlife across the country, from the Alaskan tundra to subtropical wetlands. Managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Refuge System's 560-plus refuges cover more than 150 million acres and protect nearly 1,400 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. While national wildlife refuges were created to protect wildlife, they are for people too. Refuges are ideal places for people of all ages to explore and connect with the natural world. We invite you to learn more about and visit the national wildlife refuges and wetland management districts in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a long tradition of scientific excellence and always uses the best-available science to inform its work to conserve fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitat for the benefit of the American public. News Release Interagency Team Steps Up Efforts to Protect Grizzly Bear #399 Successful collaring enables better monitoring to reduce chance of human-bear conflicts For Immediate Release November 7, 2021 DENVER - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the National Park Service (NPS), and other agencies at the request of USFWS have partnered in an intensive effort to ensure the safety of grizzly bear #399 and her four yearlings and to mitigate further human-bear conflict. USFWS also thanks the Teton County Sheriffs office for their support with public safety efforts. Take the Pledge to Keep Bears Wild Late yesterday, an interagency team successfully radio-collared two yearlings of grizzly bear #399 in order to better monitor the bears location and take steps to mitigate human-bear conflicts. After collaring, the two yearlings, along with a third that was not collared, were released together in the presence of #399 and the remaining yearling. These steps, including the use of hazing when appropriate, are being taken to prevent the need for further management actions to ensure the safety of the bears and to mitigate further human-bear conflict. In recent days there has been a significant increase in the frequency of the five bears lingering near human residences and accessing human sources of food, including apiculture beehives, unsecured animal feed, and garbage. The most common human-bear conflicts result from unsecured attractants and surprise encounters. The Service recognizes the high level of interest in grizzly bear #399, and we thank all of our partners for coming together to do what we can to ensure both the safety of the public as well as the safety of #399 and her yearlings from growing risks of human-bear conflict, said Acting USFWS Regional Director Matt Hogan. This preventive step will help us mitigate further conflicts to protect grizzly bear #399, her yearlings, and the public. Grizzly bears in the lower-48 states are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Management authority for grizzlies in Wyoming rests with the USFWS, working closely with NPS, Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and U.S. Forest Service. Each conflict situation is unique and requires input from staff on the ground, a thorough history of bear interactions and behavior, and close coordination with other federal, Tribal, state, and local agencies. Even with this intensive interagency effort, residents and visitors have the ability to prevent conflicts and food conditioning from occurring. It is important that bears do not feel comfortable near human-occupied dwellings. If grizzly bear #399, or any other bears, are in a residential area, people can make loud noises, such as yelling or banging pots and pans, to make bears feel uncomfortable and help move them along. The public can make a difference in a bears life by doing its part to ensure bears never obtain food rewards, whether you call the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) home or are just passing through. Residents of local communities are encouraged to secure attractants around their homes and store all garbage within bear-resistant containers. Attractants include items with a scent, such as trash, livestock feed, compost, or beehives. Ensure bird feeders are at least ten feet up, and four feet out from any building. Avoid planting fruit trees. Help your neighbors create a bear-wise community to protect wildlife. It may be cliche; however, more often than not, a fed bear is a dead bear. Please do your part to protect bears like #399 and her yearlings, as well as the public. For more information about keeping yourself and bears safe in bear country, please visit the Wyoming Bear Wise program, Grand Teton NP Staying Safe in Bear County, USFWS bear safety, or the Interagency Grizzly Bear Safety page. The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen in the West, visit our website, or connect with us through any of these social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and Instagram. FWS Carl Gottlieb Wilhelm Botticher was born at Nordhausen, near Erfurt, in 1806. In 1827 he entered the Bauakademie in Berlin, concentrating his studies on ornamentation particularly textiles. During the next fifteen years he taught these subjects at several technical schools, and from 1839 he taught at the Bauakademie in Berlin where, in 1844, he was appointed professor of architecture. In 1852 he was appointed a lecturer in archaeology at the Konigliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Berlin and in 1868 he was appointed director of the department of sculpture at the Neue Museum at Berlin. Eight years later he resigned from all his teaching positions. He died in 1899. Heinrich Hubsch was born in 1795 in Weinheim, near Mannheim. In 1813 he entered the Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg as a student of philosophy and mathematics but moved to Karlsruhe two years later to study architecture at Friedrich Weinbrenners private school. In 1817 Hubsch traveled to Rome where he stayed for the next four years. From Rome he visited Greece and Constantinople. He returned to Germany in 1821 and in 1824 he was appointed teacher at the Stadelsches Kunstinstitut at Frankfurt. Following Weinbrenners death in 1826, he was called to Karlsruhe to assume the post of principal government architect and in 1832 he was appointed director of the architectural department of the newly formed Polytechnische Hochschule. He died in Karlsruhe in 1863. Carl Albert Rosenthal was born in 1801 in Sudenburg, near Magdeburg. In 1819 he enrolled at the Bauakademie in Berlin and in 1823 he entered government service where he remained until his retirement fifty years later; by that time he had reached the rank of privy government councillor. Rudolf Wiegmann was born in 1804 at Anderson, near Hannover. After completing his education, he moved to Darmstadt to study architecture under Georg Moller. He completed his studies in Italy before settling in Dusseldorf. He received commissions to build several private houses, among them one for Wilhelm von Schadow, the director of the Konigliche Kunstakademie. That same year Wiegmann was appointed professor at the Kunstakademie, teaching architecture and perspective. He taught at the Kunstakademie for almost thirty years and died in 1865. Johann Heinrich Wolff was born in 1792, probably in Kassel. In 1814 he went to Paris to study architecture under Charles Percier at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He lived in Rome from 1816 through 1818. After his return to Kassel, Wolff worked as an assistant to the court architect, Johann Konrad Bromeis. He began teaching at the Akademie der Kunste in 1821 and was appointed professor of architecture in 1832. Wolff died in 1869. Wolfgang Herrmann was born in Berlin in 1899. He studied philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universitat Freiburg and art history at the Konigliche Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Berlin (Adolf Goldschmidt), Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich (Heinrich Wolfflin), and the Universitat Leipzig (Wilhelm Pindar). He worked at the Berlin Kunstgewerbemuseum and Staatliche Kunstbibliothek. In 1933, however, he was dismissed for being politically unreliable, that is, for being of Jewish descent. After emigrating to England, Herrmann entered into private business for nearly thirty years before retiring and again devoting himself to the history of architecture. Washington, Nov. 06, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman released the following statement on the Presidents signing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal: Small businesses drive economic growth and create jobs, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal will provide opportunities for them to better compete, grow, and build resilience. Our small businesses rely on strong infrastructure investing in our roads, bridges, public transit and rail will help them transport goods swiftly and affordably, as well as reach more customers. With unprecedented investments in broadband and cyber infrastructure, small businesses in every corner of our nation will be able to meet customers where they are: online. The plan will also open the door to contracting opportunities for our small businesses opportunities that will help rebuild our infrastructure, grow their companies, and create jobs in local communities. In addition, it will position American businesses and innovators to compete in the expanding industries solving climate change, and to grow clean-energy supply chains that will help expand global exporting. With historic investments in climate change solutions, the plan will help reduce the negative impacts of climate change that hit our small businesses disproportionately. President Biden promised to work across the aisle and deliver results and that is exactly what he has done for our small businesses, our workers, and the American people. ### About the U.S. Small Business Administration LONDON, Nov. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- More than 1,500 Brazilian orange growers are celebrating today (Friday) after law firm PGMBM secured a High Court judgment that will result in a multi-billionaire Brazilian orange juice magnate facing trial over his participation in an illegal cartel. Jose Luis Cutrale, and his son, Jose Luis Cutrale Jr, were part of an operation that substantially impacted the global market for the sale of orange juice. The growers are seeking damages which could run into the billions of pounds as the cartel suppressed the prices growers could sell oranges at forcing thousands out of business and thousands more into financial ruin. PGMBM, the law firm acting for the orange growers, successfully argued that the case against the Cutrales should proceed in England because of Jose Luis Cutrale Snrs extensive connections to the UK, including an exclusive London residence, and there being no realistic chance of litigation in England interfering with cases in the Brazilian courts which have been hopelessly delayed for years. Now the orange juice magnates domination of the global market, and anti-competitive rates could be laid bare through a disclosure application made by the claimants. Pedro Martins, partner at PGMBM said: This historic is a step closer to justice for our clients. The impact of the Cutrale cartel has been devastating for them and we are committed to seeking full redress. We represent clients who have been suicidal, depressed and who have taken drastic steps to escape this cartel and we simply cannot ignore that. We are determined to help the victims of the Cutrales and whilst the Cutrales attempted to persuade the High Court in London not to hear the case, they have failed. We will hold them accountable for the financial losses they have caused and for the social impact of the illegal cartel they operated. Known in Brazil as the Orange King, Jose Luis Cutrale Sr owns and runs Cutrale, one of the worlds largest processors and distributors of concentrated orange juice, with his family, including son Jose Luis Cutrale Jr, co-defendant in this case. In 2016, the Cutrales admitted engaging in illegal, anti-competitive practices between 1999 and 2006 and paid an administrative fine of more than 70 million. In addition, alleged co-conspirators Louis Dreyfus, Cargill and Citrosuco also confessed to cartel practices. According to the evidence the Cartel were also known to have a written agreement known as the Garden Agreement and conducted audits of the operation which subjected the farmers to the cartels price conditions. None of the victims of the cartel were, however, compensated and after fruitlessly attempting to seek redress in Brazil, representatives of victims of the Cutrale contacted PGMBM to discuss litigating in England. PGMBM Managing Partner Tom Goodhead said: Jose Luis Cutrale Sr should not be protected from consequences by borders, and this decision is a great step towards justice and redress for the claimants. We believe that this is the first ever private enforcement of Brazilian competition law in the English courts and is testament to London being the worlds leading dispute resolution centre. The cartel had a devastating impact upon our clients and the communities they live in. A report into the impact of the cartel found terrified farmers with one who admitted: I had to tear down all the trees to automatically terminate a contract I had to burn 70,000 trees to get out of the contract I could only break the contract after I destroyed all my produce. For more information, or interview requests, please contact press@pgmbm.com Contact: Alison Jackson-Carter PGMBM ajackson-carter@pgmbm.com CHICAGO, Nov. 07, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Autism Community Ventures ("ACV"), a public benefit corporation with a global network of partner organizations and a mission to drive social, economic, and financial inclusion among neurodiverse jobseekers, is pleased to announce that its founder and neurodiversity expert, Dr. Maureen Dunne, is slated to participate in the 2021 Stanford Neurodiversity Summit (the "Summit") as a panel member and moderator, from November 7 - 9. Autism Angels Group's Microgrant and ACV's Transition2Success Project will also be discussed, with multiple Transition2Success Support Scholarship recipients and family members scheduled to present at the event. Dr. Dunne serves on the Organizing Committee for the Summit. More details may be found here. The Summit is entirely virtual. At present, approximately 5,000 participants have signed up. Registration is free and open to the public. All sessions will be recorded and made available to the public approximately one month after the conference has concluded. Dr. Dunne is directly involved in the following sessions at the Summit: Nov 7: Speaker, Introductory Presentation launching The Neurodiverse Entrepreneur Program (Apply Here): "March to the Beat of Your Own Drum: How Entrepreneurship can be a Viable Pathway for the Neurodivergent Job Seeker". 6:30 p.m. PST. Nov 7: Moderator, "Neurodiverse Entrepreneurship Panel: The Value of Entrepreneurship as an Employment Option". 6:30-7:30 p.m. PST. Details here. Nov 9: Moderator, Neurodiversity Career Panel (Entrepreneurship). 1-2 p.m. PST. Details here. Nov 9: Moderator, Mental Health Panel 3: "Innovative Community Support Models and Novel Interventions". 3-4 p.m. PST. Details here. In addition, an autistic student awardee of the Transition2Success Project's Support Scholarship is scheduled to give a presentation at the Summit on November 7 to talk about a personally transformative journey. And the parent of a neurodiverse teen who was also awarded a Transition2Success Support Scholarship is scheduled to present on the importance of the Transition2Success Project from a parent's perspective during the Mental Health Panel on November 9, with Dr. Dunne serving as moderator for the discussion. Please visit HERE to register for the Stanford Neurodiversity Summit Today! About the 2021 Stanford Neurodiversity Summit The 2021 Stanford Neurodiversity Summit is a unique conference bringing together neurodiverse / neurodivergent individuals, employers, service agencies, educators and students, parents, and professionals from all areas of the field. Confirmed keynote speakers include Dr. Temple Grandin from Colorado, Representative Jessica Benham of Pennsylvania, Dr. Rhonda Moore from the National Institute of Mental Health, Professor Yong Zhao of University of Kansas, and Professor Anand Prahlad of University of Missouri. An estimated 70 - 90 speakers are scheduled to present at this year's Summit. About Autism Community Ventures Autism Community Ventures is a public benefit corporation with a global network of partner organizations and a mission to drive social, economic, and financial inclusion among neurodiverse jobseekers. PR/Media contact: Elaine Marshall Elaine@Altalunas.com 949-466-6303 mobile/text Related Images Image 1: Dr. Maureen Dunne This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. Attachment Mercedes will start from the front row in the Mexican Grand Prix. Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez will do everything possible to get past them from the second row, so according to Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff, title rivals Hamilton and Verstappen have to be careful. "If those two drive next to each other through the first or second corner, there could already be a touch", the Mercedes team boss fears in an interview with Sky Germany. According to Wolff, Valtteri Bottas should mainly do his thing from pole position without thinking about Hamilton in the process. "They race at the start without getting in each other's way. If Valtteri is in the lead, then he is in the lead. Then we start thinking about how to maximise the points for Lewis over the course of the race." "We've looked at all the starts from the last few seasons. Quite difficult to analyse what is right. Are you giving each other slipstream? Or are you trying to make yourself wide? I think everything will turn out differently in the race anyway." Wolff confirms new rule Some say the front row of the grid is not the optimal position in Mexico, and Hamilton may not get away as well on the dusty section. "Very difficult to say. I don't know if it was Austin or Turkey, but they also said that side was worse and that was absolutely okay", Wolff responded. One thing is certain according to the team boss: pushing to the left, as Sebastian Vettel did against Hamilton in 2019, will not be allowed this time. "That was discussed before the race with Masi and the sport directors. Such a push on the straight is not only dangerous, but would also result in a penalty today", Wolff confirmed. Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes had a party on Saturday when they locked out the front row of the grid, but the Brit and Valtteri Bottas failed to create a successful plan to keep Max Verstappen behind at the first corner. Verstappen went around the outside and braked later to storm into the lead. From there, Verstappen created a significant gap and Hamilton was unable to challenge for the rest of the race. The Dutchman's lead grows to 19 points with just four races remaining in Brazil, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. Hamilton knows all he can do is to keep pushing and see where he ends up in December. "Started second and finish second. So, I can't complain. Got a really good start and I feel like a maximised everything I had but just their pace was unbelievable today. Nothing I could do to battle that. We have four races to go and we just have to keep pushing. If they have this performance I don't know where this performance has come from today but they were half a second quicker than us on a lap, which is what we saw earlier this week," Hamilton said in an interview on Sky Sports. "All I can do is keep squeezing everything out of this car. They clearly have the stronger car so I think all I can do is make sure that we don't leave any stone unturned and maximise what we have and give it my all." In a similar style to Hamilton chase on Verstappen in the United States, Perez hunted down the seven-time World Champion. Checo got within DRS range but couldn't make the overtake work in front of his home fans. Hamilton notes this. "When you have Checo on your tail then you know the car is quick. I think they just made a mistake in qualifying to be honest because we didn't get any faster. They just messed it up with the tyres or something," Hamilton added. NEW HAVEN Several Ivy League universities including Cornell and Columbia posted on social media Sunday that authorities are investigating bomb threats. The threats come two days after a bomb threat was reported at multiple Yale University buildings. The threat reported at Yale on Friday led to the evacuation of several buildings for hours, officials said. The city later sent an alert around 6:36 p.m. saying all buildings were safe, and downtown businesses and streets were back open. The threats remain under investigation. On Sunday, a tweet from Cornell Universitys Ithaca campus said to avoid central campus and evacuate areas in or nearby the Law School, Goldwin Smith, Upson Hall and Kennedy Hall following threats that bombs had been placed there. The tweet also said not to call the Cornell police unless there is an emergency. Additionally, a Columbia University tweet Sunday that its public safety issued a campus-wide emergency alert after receiving bomb threats at University buildings. The New York Police Department is investigating, the university said on Twitter. The public is asked to avoid the area until further notice. Additionally, the Brown Daily Herald, a student-run newspaper, reported that Brown University sent out an alert that university and Providence, R.I., police were investigating bomb threats on campus. There is no other information available at this time Let's be honest here, Google's Pixel phones are sort of infamous for experiencing issues. It's actually become a bit of a meme within the industry and a self-fulfilling prophecy in recent years, though definitely for good reasons. The shiny new Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are no exception either. It didn't take long after their launch for the first reports of green screen tint, flickering and punch hole weirdness to start pouring in. Now in a fairly new and still very much developing situation some users have been reporting that their Pixel phones are randomly placing calls to people in the contacts list. You can read some of the first-hand recounts in this Reddit thread. We've been combing through a few sources of info on the matter and will try our best to summarize the situation, though some reports are still scattered and a bit confusing. Most sources seem to agree that the calls themselves are actually being placed by the Google Assistant. It falsely believes that the user has issued a "call somebody" style voice command. Some users have reported this happening while there was chatter in a language the Google Assistant is unfamiliar with around the phone, which is an issue, but also understandable. However, most of the prominent reports describe a silent environment, even the middle of the night while the user is sleeping. Some affected users with Google Activity history enabled on their accounts have even gone into the archive to listed back to the recordings that the Assistant says triggered the calls and found that it sounded nothing like a command to call someone. Even the "Hey Google" hot word wasn't uttered. So, that is clearly part of the problem right there. Our colleagues over at 9to5Google have been experiencing some of the weirdness themselves and potentially shed further light on the matter with a certain Assistant behavior they have managed to recreate. As you can see in the above video, the Assistant sometimes has trouble interpreting the first command it is given after you unlock the phone. It takes a long time to process and very often "defaults" to a call command, with a random name from your contacts list. Interestingly enough, a reboot of the device sometimes temporarily fixes the issue and some other users have speculated that it is due to historical data or cache, messing up the Google Assistant. Likely data from a previous device backup. Assistant response on lock screen setting The final little bit of the puzzle further explains why this was happening to locked Pixel phones in a quiet room. That apparently has to do with the option to have "Assistant responses on lock screen", meaning that the phone would always be listening for the "Hey Google" trigger, mistakenly detect it and then the whole "first use after unlock bug" explained above would play out. A temporary fix for part of the problems is to just disable "Assistant responses on lock screen". But the room was silent and there was no "Hey Google", you might shrewdly remark. Well, some of the reports we read have claimed that the bug occurred even when the phone's microphone was turned off from the privacy toggle in the notification shade. Which means that either the bug does not actually require a microphone input or that Google is ignoring its own privacy switch? Either way - not great. Here, I just fired up Assistant and said nothing. After a few sec, it wanted to Call James and even asked me "mobile" or "work." If there was only one number, it'd have called James by now. This is it. Something triggers Assistant, then it decides to call someone on its own. pic.twitter.com/mpc50rpBeg Artem Russakovskii (@ArtemR) November 5, 2021 In any case, at least unlike many of the other issues, this one does not appear to be hardware related and is hence a bit less worrying in the long run. In fact, we even read some reports of older Pixel 3a and 4a devices also experiencing the bug. Also, Google is apparently already "aware of this issue" and "working on an immediate fix". So that's good to hear. Source | Via 1 | Via 2 Haiti - FLASH : Due to lack of fuel, the Bernard Mevs hospital is no longer welcoming new patients Seriously affected by the persistent shortage of fuel, the managers of the Bernard Mevs hospital, one of the most important hospitals in the metropolitan area, located on Boulevard Toussaint Louverture at the entrance of the Solidarite Village, in the Municipality of Delmas, announced Friday, November 5, 2021, that they will no longer be able to receive new patients until further notice. Faced with increasing difficulties in obtaining diesel fuel to power its generators so that they can operate at full capacity, the hospital is forced to limit its use. Patients already hospitalized will continue to be cared for in good conditions until their discharge ticket; Bernard Mevs Hospital is not short of drugs or staff according to our sources. See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35182-haiti-news-zapping.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-35148-icihaiti-crisis-unicef-delivers-6-000-gallons-of-fuel-to-3-hospitals.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35110-haiti-news-zapping.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35086-haiti-flash-deprived-of-fuel-by-gangs-the-country-at-the-gates-of-hell.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-35011-haiti-news-zapping.html SL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - Environment : Ecovert-Haiti condemns the inaction and irresponsibility of the Government The environmental activist Anel Dorlean, Development Engineer, Research Coordinator of "Ecovert-Haiti" is alarmed, denounces and condemns the inaction and irresponsibility of the Government "which dares to participate in the COP26", while it does not take no measure to declare "the climate emergency" or "the ecological emergency" and does nothing to prevent the collapse of biodiversity and environmental degradation in Haiti https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30967-haiti-environment-call-to-declare-the-state-of-ecological-emergency.html Excerpts from Alel Dorlean's speech : "[...] If the COP 26 which opened on Monday 1st November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland is an opportunity for States to present the efforts made to fight against climate change, for Haiti it is alarming to note that the country risks plunging into climate chaos since the Haitian State, 29 years after the signing of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in force since March 21, 1994, still does not arrive not to implement the recommendations of Agenda 21 relating, among other things, to the management of the sea, forests, mountains, water resources and waste. A simple observation on the state of sources, rivers, gullies, sewers, coastal and marine ecosystems and watersheds indicates that the country is in crisis and that we find ourselves in an impasse. Despite the cry of alarm launched by the organization Ecovert-Haiti concerning the degradation of three of the five nuclei of Protected areas of the First Reserve of Biosphere La Selle (Pine Forest and Park) rich in biodiversity which is home to animal species and plants endemic to the Republic and their roles in carbon absorption, the Haitian State [...] has not been able to stop the degradation of forest resources [] today, only about 12,000 of the 32,000 hectares of land remain. the Pine Forest and 600 of the 2,000 hectares of La Visite National Park. Even the two wetlands of this biosphere reserve, namely Trou Caiman Pond and Lake Azuei, which together with the wetlands of Lake Enriquillo constitute an exceptional biological value are not subject to any control. This situation is the same for the largest natural park in the Caribbean, namely Macaya Park, which has been left to its own devices since the end of the project financed by the Inter-American Development Bank which made it possible to recruit agents to secure this high place of biodiversity, however very threatened by human activities. The coastal zone of this biosphere reserve is not subject to any control measure despite the strong presence of mangroves https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12469-haiti-environment-extremely-worrying-situation-of-mangroves.html which help store blue carbons. In terms of water management. The Haitian State has taken no measures to enforce the decree of October 8, 1992 declaring fifteen water sources that supply the metropolitan area with drinking water to be of public utility. Most of the streets of Haiti's big cities are transformed into open-air waste dump centers https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24489-haiti-flash-ranking-of-the-shame-port-au-prince-the-dirtiest-city-in-the-world.html which are often burned on the spot, endangering the health of passers-by as well as the residents of these neighborhoods. Haiti's biodiversity continues to collapse despite various appeals by Haitian ecological organizations asking the state to declare an ecological emergency in Haitian forests. One wonders how such irresponsible leaders can have the courage to respond to international climate invitations when they take no action to declare a climate emergency in Haiti. [...]" See also : https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-33284-haiti-environment-the-haitian-mountains-a-heritage-in-danger.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-30967-haiti-environment-call-to-declare-the-state-of-ecological-emergency.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-28027-haiti-grand-anse-one-of-the-regions-most-affected-by-land-degradation-and-deforestation.html https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-27853-icihaiti-environment-haiti-poorly-ranked-174-out-of-180-countries.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25956-haiti-environment-donation-of-equipment-for-monitoring-and-measuring-pollution.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24744-haiti-environment-desertification-gnaws-the-country.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24489-haiti-flash-ranking-of-the-shame-port-au-prince-the-dirtiest-city-in-the-world.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-17656-haiti-environment-un-urges-haiti-to-good-environmental-and-agricultural-practices.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-12469-haiti-environment-extremely-worrying-situation-of-mangroves.html https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-11333-haiti-environment-survival-of-the-macaya-park-is-both-political-and-civic.html HL/ HaitiLibre Haiti - News : Zapping... Denial of the Prime Minister Office The Prime Minister Office categorically denies the false information circulating on social networks, according to which the residence of Prime Minister Ariel Henry was the victim of an armed attack. It's just intoxication. Gangs : 3,000 to 4,000 armed men at PAP A senior State Department official told CBS News that there are probably between 3,000 and 4,000 gang members in Port-au-Prince, and that the gangs are in "loose coalition with each other and have ties of some type to political figures.. False kidnapping, real arrests Two people were arrested by the Haitian National Police on the side of Jacquet Thybill (Delmas 83) accused of faking a kidnapping followed by a ransom demand. Anse-a-Pitres : The municipal police are preventing the passage of Dominicans Friday the Specialized Land Border Security Corps (CESFRONT) informed that the Haitian Municipal Police was preventing the passage of Dominican nationals to Anse-a-Pitres for an unknown reason. USA : Todd Robinson expected in Haiti Todd Robinson the Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs will carry out a 3-day mission to Haiti starting Tuesday, November 8 for a security assessment in Haiti and to see how best to help the Haitian authorities and the Haitian National Police (PNH) and formulate recommendations on the form that American aid could take. Covid : Delta variant dominates The highly contagious Delta variant, which has become dominant in Haiti, is responsible for 68% of Covid-19 cases. However, according to our sources, the fuel shortage affects the capacity of laboratories to do all screening tests, which considerably reduces surveillance activities for cases which would in fact be much higher than the published figures. HL/ HaitiLibre Syrian government forces and its affiliated groups from a side, and mercenaries of "Al-Fateh Al-Mubin" affiliated with Turkey on the other side, bombed southern areas in Jabal Al-Zawiya in southern countryside of Idlib, with mutual targeting by heavy weapons along with rocket-propelled grenades, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Yesterday, mercenaries affiliated to the Turkish occupation targeted with artillery and missiles areas held by the Syrian government forces and their affiliated groups in the surrounding area of Jurin district in the Al-Ghab Plain, northwest of Hama, while the Syrian government forces bombed the village of Al-Ankawi in the Al-Ghab Plain by artillery. L..A ANHA Flat Rock invites input on comprehensive land-use plan The Flat Rock Planning Board will hold a public meeting at Pinecrest Presbyterian Church, 1790 Greenville Highway, for Flat Rock residents and property owners from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on Nov. 18 to gather input from the community as the advisory board and Village Council refine the current Comprehensive Land Use Plan, adopted in 2013 and amended in March and August 2020. Required for all jurisdictions by the North Carolina Legislature, a Comprehensive Land Use Plan outlines an areas vision, intention, goals, objectives and strategies for future land use, economic development, environmental preservation, housing, infrastructure, transportation, parks and recreation, agriculture and more. The comp plan paints a picture of the aspirations and needs the community has in terms of growth and development in the years ahead for the place they call home. In order to accurately represent citizens interests and be useful for decision-making, input from village residents is vital. The public meeting is the opportunity for the Flat Rock community to influence the content and direction of the Village Plan for the foreseeable future. While it is not a zoning or regulatory document, the plan lays out the guiding principles upon which land use decisions are based and contains policies that elected and appointed officials and village staff will follow to guide development and determine the use of required village resources. A copy of the current Comprehensive Land Use Plan is available for the public to read during normal business hours at the Flat Rock Village Hall, 110 Village Center Drive, or on line here. Comments will be collected at the public meeting. Written comments can be sent via email to martha.o@villageofflatrock.org and should include the commenter's name, street address, and phone number, or they may also be dropped off in person at the Village Hall. For questions or further information, contact Planning Board member Ron Redmon at Redmon17@aol.com. Legal liabilities will reach into the hundreds of millions of dollars for the producers, promoters, performers and subcontractors including security firms of the Astroworld Festival following the deaths of eight people and injuries of at least two dozen others, legal experts predicted Saturday. Lawsuits against the music festivals promoter, Live Nation, private security officials and operators of NRG Park, where the festival was held, will likely be hit with lawsuits as early as Sunday or Monday, according to prominent lawyers who specialize in personal injury, wrongful death and premises liability. Lawyers said rapper Travis Scott, who was performing on stage as the crowd-surging tragedy was taking place in front of him, will almost certainly face lawsuits. Litigation will be filed by the end of the Monday or sooner because lawyers representing the victims need to move quickly to secure the evidence at the scene and to make sure evidence is not destroyed or tampered with, said Houston attorney Randy Sorrels, who is past president of the State Bar of Texas. The insurance companies for the defendants are either already on the scene or are on their way, Sorrels said. There will be multiple investigations. OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) could investigate if any workers at the festival injured. Efforts to contact officials at Live Nation or lawyers who have represented Live Nation in previous litigation, were unsuccessful. On HoustonChronicle.com: Astroworld promoters oversaw other events where concertgoers burst through a barricade, trampled fellow fans In a statement on Instagram, Scott wrote that his prayers are for the victims and he will cooperate fully with a Houston police investigation. There are multiple parties responsible for the environment at the festival and under Texas law, those parties have a duty to keep it safe, said Houston lawyer Derek Potts. Clearly, they failed, as this was a huge catastrophe. Every party involved also certainly has insurance coverage. Houston attorney C.J. Baker said he believes that Harris County and the Harris County Attorneys Office will conduct a thorough and extensive investigation about what happened and who is responsible. A major part of the investigation and litigation to come will focus on video coverage posted online by those who attended the festival. The thing that has shocked me the most is that there are social media posts of gates and entrances and barriers being torn down hours and hours before the main tragedy that killed the people took place, Baker said. The question is, Could Live Nation, the largest concert provider and promoter in the U.S. have foreseen this kind of thing happening? If the answer is yes, then the damages the company is facing will be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. A key issue in the future litigation in the Astroworld Festival tragedy will focus on the cause of death and injuries, according to Houston trial lawyer Rusty Hardin. If the evidence shows that people were not trampled to death but instead died or injured because of pressure against them leaving them unable to breathe, then I think the producers will face even greater liability, Hardin said.. These were (thousands of) people pushing to be as close to the stage and storming in to be as close to Travis Scott as they could be and people were being squeezed. Was the crowds reaction and the potential danger foreseeable? Hardin said. The problem is, can you manage or control that number of people when you know they are going to storm the stage when Travis Scott is performing? On HoustonChronicle.com: How the tragedy at Astroworld unfolded Hardin said focusing on the security guards for responsibility is misplaced. But Hardin and other legal experts say Scott could be facing significant liability. If the performer could tell there was a problem or if the performer agitated or incited the crowd, then the performer will have legal liability, Baker said. There is going to be a lot of video to review and we are going to know who said what and who did what. Live Nation, based in California, was also the promoter and producer of the 2017 event at MGMs Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas in which a Nevada man opened fire and killed 58 people and injured hundreds more. The victims and their families sued MGM and Live Nation. Those lawsuits were settled for an undisclosed amount. We dont know all the facts yet, but the producer, Live Nation, obviously has the most exposure, said Richard Mithoff, a prominent Houston lawyer. These guys do concerts like this regularly and they have the expertise to know about safety and security and whether there are enough escape routes. For a longer version of this article, please visit TexasLawbook.net. Nov. 7 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 7, at Thats My Dog, 22635 Morton Ranch Road, Katy, TX 77449. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. Nov. 8 City Council The Katy City Council is scheduled to meet at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, in Council Chambers at Katy City Hall, 910 Avenue C. For more information go to www.cityofkaty.com. Nov. 9 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 9, at 1000 Degrees Pizzeria, 24600 Katy Freeway, Suite 800, Katy, TX 77494. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. Nov. 10 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 10, at Chuckwagon BBQ & Burgers, 4031 FM 1463, Suite 50, Katy, TX 77494. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. Nov. 11 Wild West Brew Fest The Wild West Brew Fest sponsored by Katy Rotary is scheduled for Thursday-Saturday at Katy Mills Mall, 5000 Katy Mills Circle Drive. Thursday is the KTown Throw Down from 6 to 9 p.m. There will be no cover and $5 beer. There will be live music and food trucks. All proceeds support Katy ISD, including scholarship commitments, extracurricular organizations, campus clubs (band/dance team/FFA/student council/etc.); Katy Christian Ministries; the annual Rotary Katy Toy Drive; Camp Hope; YMCA; and local food pantries. No management fees taken from profits. For tickets or more information go to www.wildwestbrewfest.com. Nov. 12 Wild West Brew Fest The Wild West Brew Fest sponsored by Katy Rotary is scheduled for Thursday-Saturday at Katy Mills Mall, 5000 Katy Mills Circle Drive. Friday is the Wild West Brewfest 2021 Launch Party from 7 to 10 p.m. All proceeds support Katy ISD, including scholarship commitments, extracurricular organizations, campus clubs (band/dance team/FFA/student council/etc.); Katy Christian Ministries; the annual Rotary Katy Toy Drive; Camp Hope; YMCA; and local food pantries. No management fees taken from profits. A limited number of tickets will be sold. For tickets or more information go to www.wildwestbrewfest.com. Nov. 13 Wild West Brew Fest The Wild West Brew Fest sponsored by Katy Rotary is scheduled for Thursday-Saturday at Katy Mills Mall, 5000 Katy Mills Circle Drive. Saturday is the Brewfest from 3 to 9 p.m. More than 80 brewers are expected to be serving. All proceeds support Katy ISD, including scholarship commitments, extracurricular organizations, campus clubs (band/dance team/FFA/student council/etc.); Katy Christian Ministries; the annual Rotary Katy Toy Drive; Camp Hope; YMCA; and local food pantries. No management fees taken from profits. A limited number of tickets will be sold. For tickets or more information go to www.wildwestbrewfest.com. Nov. 14 Heart For Hope Art Gala The Heart For Hope Art Gala is scheduled for 2-5 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 14, at LaCenterra at 23501 Cinco Ranch Blvd. in Katy. The event is presented by non-profit Hope Impacts. Although this is a family-friendly event, children will need to be accompanied by a parent/guardian at all times. For tickets or more information go to https://tinyurl.com/75xhapze. Farmers market The Farmers Market at La Centerra is presented the second and fourth Sunday of every month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 23501 Cinco Ranch Blvd. in Katy. There will be local vendors and artisans at Heritage Square selling honey, cheese, fresh eggs, seasonal vegetables and more. To become a vendor email customer@yourneighborhoodfarmersmarket.com. Nov. 15 Board of Trustees The Katy ISD Board of Trustees is scheduled to meet at 5 p.m. Monday, Nov. 15, in the Board Room of the Katy ISD Education Support Complex, 6301 South Stadium Lane, Katy. For more information go to www.katyisd.org. Nov. 16 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 6 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 16, at Block House Coffee, 9910 Gaston Road, Suite 170, Katy, TX 77494. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. Nov. 17 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 7 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 17, at The Toasted Yolk, 98 West Grand Parkway, Suite 100, Katy, TX 77494. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. Nov. 19 Tree lighting ceremony The annual Tree Lighting at LaCenterra holiday event is back with title sponsor Texas Childrens Hospital. The event will take place 6-9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 19, at LaCenterra at 23501 Cinco Ranch Blvd. in Katy. For more information go to https://tinyurl.com/jnptavf8. Nov. 22 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 22, at Pappa Gyros, 23255 Kingsland Blvd., Katy, TX 77494. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. Nov. 25 YMCA Turkey Dash The 19th Annual YMCA Turkey Dash is scheduled for 6:30-11 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 25, at Monty Ballard YMCA, 22807 Westheimer Parkway in Katy. There will be a One-Mile Walk/Run, One-Mile Kids Run, 5k or 10k race. Medals will be awarded for the Kids One-Mile Run, 5k Run/walk, and 10k Run. All proceeds from the Katy Area YMCAs Turkey Dash benefit the community by funding food distribution sites, access to child care for essential workers, outreach to teens and seniors to prevent isolation and support mental health, as well as scholarships to after school care and YMCA membership. To register go to https://tinyurl.com/ydyky32m. Nov. 28 Farmers market The Farmers Market at La Centerra is presented the second and fourth Sunday of every month from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 23501 Cinco Ranch Blvd. in Katy. There will be local vendors and artisans at Heritage Square selling honey, cheese, fresh eggs, seasonal vegetables and more. To become a vendor email customer@yourneighborhoodfarmersmarket.com. Nov. 29 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 6 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday, Nov. 29, at Chick-fil-A restaurants located at 369 Mason Road, Katy, TX 77450; 23860 Westheimer Parkway, Katy, TX 77494; and 19303 Katy Freeway, Houston, TX 77094. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. Nov. 30 Giving Tuesday Katy Eats A Giving Tuesday Katy Eats event is scheduled for 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 30, at Pablos Mexican Kitchen, 9711 Mason Road, Suite 130, Richmond, TX 77407. Giving Tuesday Katy Eats benefits The Arc of Katy. For more information go to www.thearcofkaty.org. April 23, 2022 Katy Area Safety Fest The 2021 Katy Area Safety Fest is scheduled for 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 23, 2022, at Katy Mills Mall, 5000 Katy Mills Circle. The Katy Area Safety Fest is a free, family-friendly festival featuring personnel, equipment and activities from emergency response agencies serving the greater Katy community. For more information go to https://katyareasafetyfest.org. BALTIMORE (AP) Maryland failed to reach a federal benchmark early this fall for distributing COVID-19 relief funds it received for rent to tenants in danger of eviction, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. Gov. Larry Hogan's office dismissed any threat of losing money and said payments are moving at a good clip. The department wrote U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., late last month that Maryland was among the states that could lose some funding because it failed to spend 30% of the money by Sept. 30, The Baltimore Sun reported. The state may be subject to reallocation because it is below the 30% expenditure ratio, the Oct. 26 email said. After sharing a few laughs while in line, the young Astroworld Festival goers started chatting. They looked out for each other while waiting to buy merchandise and, before going their separate ways, exchanged contact information to potentially meet later Friday. In the evening, Jacob Jurinek, who had introduced himself as a junior in college from Chicago, texted one of the girls, Mylan DeLeon. Hey, where are you? DeLeon recalled him asking. DeLeon typed they were getting water. Poor cell reception halted the delivery of the message. DeLeon and Kailyn Thomas, 23, never heard from Jurinek again, the last victim identified. In the aftermath of one of the deadliest concert festivals in American history, it soon became clear they never would. Jurinek and his best friend, Franco Patino, were among the eight victims who died Friday, according to family and friends. DeLeon and Thomas on Sunday were among a stream of people who stopped by a growing memorial outside of a lost and found area set up at NRG. On white candles, they each wrote the names of the two friends they had met less than two days prior and placed them among a bank of candles in front of dozens of bouquets. We just met him so we dont feel like we dont want to overstep our boundaries making it seem like we were best friends with him, Thomas said. But, you know, it was crazy we spent their last moments here with them. Melissa Phillip/Staff photographer FESTIVAL CHAOS: For 37 minutes after officials declared a 'mass casualty' at Astroworld, Travis Scott played on. For hours, people who visited the memorial lit tiny wax candles and brought flowers. Some wrote messages on a poster for one victim while others placed cards wishing those who died rest in peace. Embracing each other, some silently wept. Melissa Phillip/Staff photographer Yet others struggled to make sense of what had occurred not 48 hours before, when minutes for some felt like an eternity amid the chaos. Derek Hernandez Vargas, 16, stopped with his father. Standing in front of the memorial, he recounted how his buddy told him We gotta get out, we gotta get out around the beginning of Travis Scotts set. After those first few seconds of marvel, however, Vargas, his friends and everyone near them fell down as the crowd tried to rush toward the stage. All Vargas, who fell on his back, could hear was people screaming, crying and yelling for help, he said. He tried to stay calm. One guy fell on top of him and would not move. Please, yo, get off me, get off me, he remembered yelling. Then he felt a crushing pain in his leg, as if it were about to break. He saw someone leaning on it to stand up. Am I going to die here? he said he thought. Am I really going to die? He did not die. Vargas did not recall how but he eventually saw the face of a friend who lifted him back up. Going through that was crazy, he said. Not being able to breathe is like being in water. Its like, I dont even know how to describe it. You literally cant even move. Meanwhile, other attendees who said they visited the site out of respect for the deceased raised more questions about the security and safety of the festival. Brian Romero, who drove about 16 hours with two friends from Arizona for the show, recalled thinking What are they doing here? when he saw 10- and 11-year-olds waiting in the admissions line next to him. He also saw people who later wore concert personnel attire. He and a friend, Edwin Vasquez, said it appeared some volunteers had no medical experience and some were fans of Scott who wanted to get into the show. Romero said he saw one of those individuals, who appeared to be working the event, crowdsurfing. He also heard others asking the crowd if anyone knew CPR in between the screams of fans mixed with the screams of those fearing for their lives. The crowd surge would not stop. Just imagine water, Romero said. But with a bunch of humans. DeLeon said she spent the majority of roughly five hours waiting in a merchandise line with Jurinek, who looked through the available merchandise on his phone and picked her brain about what he should purchase. What shirt should I get? he would ask her as they waited, loading images on his phone. Which shirt looks better on me? He bought two shirts and a hoodie. As Scott was about to start his set, she received the message from him. Sunday, the response she wrote was still undelivered. alejandro.serrano@chron.com Kylie Jenner says she and Houston rapper Travis Scott "weren't aware" of how serious the situation was at the Astroworld Festival in Houston until after the show. The social media superstar posted a statement Sunday morning to her Instagram Stories that takes a clear stand on how aware she and Scott were about the unfolding horror. instagram.com/stories/kyliejenner "Travis and I are broken and devastated. My thoughts and prayers are with all who lost their lives, were injured or affected in any way by yesterday's events. And also for Travis who I know cares deeply for his fans and the Houston community," she wrote. Eight people including a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old died and two dozen others were hospitalized after the mayhem Friday night. "I want to make it clear we weren't aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing. I am sending my deepest condolences to all the families during this difficult time and will be praying for the healing of everyone who has been impacted," Jenner continued. Elizabeth Conley/Staff photographer Jenner, who is pregnant with Scott's second child, has been criticized for posting videos of Scott's closing performance as emergency vehicles push through the crowd. She has since deleted the clips. She and sister Kendall Jenner were in Houston in the week leading up to the festival. Scott has also been slammed for continuing to perform for 37 minutes after Houston police and firefighters responded to a "mass casualty" event at the sold-out festival where attendees were crushed against the stage Friday evening. In an emotional video on his own Instagram, the rapper touched on his unique relationship with his fans. "My fans really mean the world to me, and I always just really wanna leave them with a positive experience," Scott wrote. "And anytime I can make out anything that's going on, I stop the show and help them get the help they need, you know? I could never just imagine the severity of the situation." Lawsuits against Scott and concert promoter Live Nation are expected in the coming days. Regarding Editorial: In America, we dont ban ideas - we challenge them. Even in Texas, (Nov. 4): With the divide separating alternate realities as stark as it is now, there is more urgency than ever in convincing people to listen to opposing points of view so that if they must argue, they can do so civilly. I was thinking about this when I walked into my classroom. I was struck by all of the books I keep in the room. Its always been my goal to entice students to borrow my books. There are, this year, very few books out on loan. I have two new copies of Dune theyre both out. And other books? They seem lonely as they sit unused, unopened, on their shelves. I know: Books do not really feel much of anything. But I grew up thinking of books as some of my best friends. I once spent a sleepless night arguing with a friend over who the third most important Hobbit is in The Lord of the Rings. I said it was Sam Gamgee; he held out for Merry Brandybuck. There was no resolution, but it was a fun fight, because we shared common ground. That debate was ages ago; perhaps it could still happen, but and this is a source of indescribable grief to me it isnt likely to happen among my students. Today, we have fights over who is silencing whom, or which side is indoctrinating the other. David Newman, Odessa From 13 years experience teaching in seven Texas school districts including substituting from pre-K to AP classes I can give these assurances in my 82nd year. No teacher, principal or school librarian is going to put into your childs hands a book you have expressed you dont want provided to your child. Any assignment can have an alternate substituted for it. Most school personnel are also parents and want all parental rights maintained. I stopped my own high school classes from translating a Harry Potter book from Spanish to English one time because one teenager claimed it was against his religion. I immediately substituted an Isabel Allende novel in Spanish with equal educational value (but not equal enjoyment by my students sorry, Mrs. Allende). With the assistance of the school librarian, I also provided an alternate assignment for a student whose atheist parent objected to any cultural information involving the mention of religion during coverage of Dia de los Muertos. The book budget for most Texas schools is not so lavish they can afford to buy and provide books a large proportion of parents do not want made available. But if you want to ensure your child finds some way to get ahold of and read something about things you dont want them knowing exist, just make a big fuss about said book. Marie Lewis, Conroe Note to Rev. Jesse Jackson: Sorry, Jesse. Youre wrong. So began the first chapter of the book I had just picked up in the Sams Club aisle at the impressionable age of 14 while shopping with my mom one summer. It was the summer of 2002. She raised her eyebrows upon noticing the title: The OReilly Factor, by former Fox News commentator Bill OReilly, but didnt say anything at first. Racism gets all the ink, he writes, but the heart of Americas somewhat unfair social setup is class, not race. My parents were tried and true Democrats, Black children of the late 50s and 1960s whod met at law school and filled our middle class home full of books for my two sisters and me. We lived in white neighborhoods in Spring and The Woodlands and, except for our progressive Unitarian Universalist church, spent much of our time around white moderates and conservatives. My teenage self had become skeptical of affirmative action and other efforts to address the effects of institutional racism. This sounds fascinating, I said after reading one of OReillys sentences aloud. Well, son, read it, and then lets talk about it, she replied, not for the first time, as I tossed the book in the shopping cart. I read a lot of conservative thought when I was in high school, mostly by Black writers. And even though my parents regarded Clarence Thomas as a dismal replacement for Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, I could still talk to them about Thomas biography and his drastic pivot on affirmative action from beneficiary to ardent opponent over the course of his life. My parents insisted only that my sisters and I engage deeply with our history, that we think critically about whatever we read. And while they were there to guide us in that process, they trusted us to reach our own conclusions and amble toward our own ideological destinations, however rambling the path. That approach seemed wise back then, and its even more impressive now, as I watch Texas elected officials, activists and some parents pressure schools to pull books and ban ideas that might make kids or themselves, more likely feel uncomfortable. NEWSLETTERS Join the conversation with HouWeAre We want to foster conversation and highlight the intersection of race, identity and culture in one of America's most diverse cities. Sign up for the HouWeAre newsletter here. The current push to challenge books because they center the experiences of LGBTQ folks, or talk honestly about racism, or help young people understand their bodies is dangerous. Nationwide, and in the Houston area, school board candidates won races by raising the specter of critical race theory and arguing that classroom discussions on race should be censored and prevented from stumbling upon the apparently threatening revelation that long-term racist policies in America had long-term institutional effects. Texas state Rep. Matt Krause, Republican candidate for attorney general and chairman of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, sent a letter to school districts asking them to report if they have books in their campus libraries that could, in the words of recent legislation, make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex. We dont have to wonder whose discomfort Krause is concerned with in his exploits. Discomfort, guilt, anguish and distress were all things I felt in high school as a Black teen in mostly white schools where classroom discussions werent often centered around my experiences, or those of Americans who looked like me. But I suspect Krause isnt so worried for young folks who are in the same spot today. Id be every bit as opposed to a liberal push to remove conservative thought from our libraries. Theres room enough on our school shelves for George W. Bushs Out of Many, One: Portraits of Americas Immigrants, anthologies of speeches by Americas foremost conservative women, and also for Barack Obamas Dreams from My Father and James Baldwins Giovannis Room. We need that aspiring lawyer hunched over a copy of Clarence Thomas My Grandfathers Son in her high school library. We need our teachers to expertly walk high school students through Toni Morrisons Beloved and Laura Esquivels Like Water for Chocolate. We need our preteens laughing and thinking while sifting through Jerry Crafts New Kid. We need our school libraries to carry books that acknowledge that LGBTQ folks exist and love and struggle. Over time, I came to sharply disagree with Bill OReillys opening statement that Americas dividing line is about only class and not race. Why not both? Im grateful that I had parents and teachers who encouraged me to sit with texts and read things that they themselves might struggle with or even outright find abhorrent. I learned I can push back against ideas and fight for what I think is right without demonizing those who disagree. In 2008, as a University of Missouri student, I joined student demonstrations against changing the Missouri state constitution to ban affirmative action. Holding up a sign and chanting with fellow students that day wasnt a knee-jerk reaction. Because Id read Shelby Steele and Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell, I showed up to that demonstration, and to discussions with friends and classmates, equipped with a fuller understanding of the issue from Black conservatives objections to proponents on the left who persuaded me that considering race in some instances was useful in a society that still used race to stymie opportunity. After one of the protests, I called my mom to fill her in on the days events. Well, son, lets talk about it, she said, not for the last time. Wiley is an editorial writer for the Houston Chronicle. As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content. When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to. After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS! OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those. Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print. Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition. If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create. EUvsDisinfo has been regularly monitoring how the illegitimate Lukashenka regime abuses its legal system and the security apparatus to shut down the very few remaining independent voices. The targets include journalists, regional outlets, Telegram channels and their followers and readers. The crackdown began after the rigged elections in August 2020, and there are so many cases and examples thereof that naming all of them would require hundreds of pages. Below we summarise the steps taken by the Lukashenka regime in the last six months. A more thorough picture is offered by Justice for Journalists(opens in a new tab). In 2020 this London-based NGO collected more than 1,500 documented cases of attacks(opens in a new tab) or threats against journalists in Belarus. Additionally, the Belarusian Association of Journalists has collecting similar data covering the period of January-September 2021(opens in a new tab). May One of the largest regional newspapers, Intex-Press, ran an interview with Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. The local prosecutor summoned the editor and turned to the court, which found the interview extremist. The editor was fined and the newspaper received an official warning. State-owned and private distribution networks subsequently refused to sell the newspaper(opens in a new tab) fearing a backlash from the authorities. GUBOPiK (The Main Directorate for Combating Organised Crime and Corruption) published(opens in a new tab) a list of 40 extremist Telegram channels. This means that people who reposted content from these channels risk committing an administrative offence. This means that these people face threats of violence and revenge if they refuse to repent on camera and they are guaranteed a prison term under squalid conditions for up to several months. Central and regional offices of the largest independent media outlet TUT.BY(opens in a new tab) were searched, as well as the homes of editor in chief Maryna Zolotova and several journalists. The authorities accused the leadership of financial manipulation and a criminal investigation was launched. Zolotova, journalists, and other personnel were imprisoned and the website was blocked in Belarus. In a matter of days some of the journalists regrouped in exile and created a new website, zerkalo.io(opens in a new tab). After the forced diversion of a Ryanair flight to capture journalist Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega, forced video confessions were broadcast on state TV and used as advertisements on YouTube to promote Telegram channel Zhioltyye Slivy, believed to be controlled by security services. June According to a report by The International Strategic Action Network for Security, Belarusian commentators are in a minority on weekly news(opens in a new tab) programmes on three Belarusian state-owned TV channels. Instead, pro-Kremlin propagandists of Russian and Ukrainian origin prevail as guest commentators. They use their on-air time to spread a set of recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives concerning Belarus, the Baltic states and Poland, Ukraine, and the West as a whole while Belarusian journalists are fired for their views. The Ministry of Justice began an examination(opens in a new tab) of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), demanding that BAJ present thousands of documents within a few days. The Ministry of Interior designated the most popular independent media outlet, TUT.BY, and all its social media accounts as extremist. The motivation behind this step was to close down TUT.BYs Telegram channel that had at the time almost 600,000 subscribers. Yellow Plums (Zhioltyye Slivy), the key disinformation-spreading Telegram channel controlled by the Belarusian security services, announced the creation of an initiative group of pro-governmental bloggers(opens in a new tab). However, the Telegram and YouTube channels and Instagram accounts mentioned were not popular, as the largest Telegram channel on the list had only 8,000 subscribers and the most popular YouTube account 21,000. Belarusian investigative journalist Dzianis Ivashyn, detained in March 2021 on dubious charges, had a heart attack(opens in a new tab) in prison. Ivashyn is 42 and had not had heart problems earlier. July The government terminated the accreditation of a correspondent office of the European Radio for Belarus (Euroradio) in Minsk. Sports journalist and author of the popular Youtube channel ChestnOK(opens in a new tab) (72,300 followers) Alexander Ivulin was arrested. A well-known journalist and media manager, Andrei Alexandrov, was charged(opens in a new tab) with high treason which is punishable by up to 15 years of imprisonment. The editor of Nasha Niva, Yahor Martsinovich, and three other employees were detained on criminal charges. Martsinovich was beaten during detention and Nasha Nivas website was blocked. Following the crackdown on TUT.BY and the closure of its website, Onliner became the largest independent media website. Unsurprisingly, the apartment of Onliner journalist Nastasya Zanko was searched. By early 2021 there were around twenty independent media outlets left in regions of Belarus outside of Minsk. Around half of them were attacked by security services on 8-9 July 2021. In Brest region, searches of editorial offices and apartments of journalists targeted all the remaining six independent media outlets. As for other regions, the apartments of about ten workers of Strong News(opens in a new tab) were searched and equipment was seized. Orsha regional portal(opens in a new tab) was targeted, its editor Igor Kazmerchak was detained on criminal charges. The Telegram channel of Hrodna.Life(opens in a new tab) was declared extremist. An apartment belonging to a journalist working for bobr.by(opens in a new tab) website was searched. By 12 July, over 30 journalists were imprisoned in Belarus. A number of well-known Belarusian journalists, concerned about their safety in the light of the massive crackdown, relocated from Belarus. August After widely covering repression against athletes, the popular sport website Tribuna and its social media accounts were classified as extremist. The website of regional independent media Ex-press.by was blocked at the request of the Ministry of Information. A photographer of Novy Chas newspaper was sentenced to 15 days of prison and the newspaper was denied its printing services. Popular blogger Vadim Yermashuk, whose Instagram account has over 45,000 subscribers, was detained for unknown reasons. The largest independent news agency, BelaPAN, and associated news internet portal Naviny.by were searched for the second time since January 2021. The court declared all publications of the largest media portal TUT.BY and an associated website, Zerkalo.io, as extremist. TUT.BYs publications are de facto the largest electronic archive of modern Belarusian history. Declaring it as extremist means the regime wishes to destroy it and rewrite history using repressive means. TUT.BYs chief editor, several top managers and a few journalists remained behind bars. Raman Pratasevich, the journalist captured in May after the forced landing of a Ryanair plane, gave an interview to pro-Kremlin RT and mentioned plans to launch a new media outlet. Sofia Sapega, Pratasevichs girlfriend, who was also arrested, was interviewed by one of the well-known Belarus 1 TV propagandists. Sapega said that she cannot rule out that the Ryanair incident was staged by Ramans colleagues and that the KGB was not on board. Excerpts from an earlier interview with Pratasevich were also shown, where he claims that the Ryanair incident was likely a provocation staged by his former colleague(opens in a new tab). Access to the news website Reform.by(opens in a new tab) was blocked following a decision of the Ministry of Information. This came after TUT.BY, Naviny.by and others were shut down by the authorities raising the popularity of Reform.by, which offered regular political reporting. Onliner.bys Editor-in-Chief Nikolai Kozlovich resigned without explanation. Onliner.by(opens in a new tab) is a large Belarusian media outlet that largely stopped reporting on socio-political issues to avoid repression. By the end of August all the largest independent media outlets were either banned by the state authorities, or largely stopped their political reporting. 27 journalists and bloggers remain imprisoned. The Supreme Court approved a Ministry of Justice request to liquidate the Belarusian Association of Journalists. September The Belarusian authorities declared more than 200 Telegram channels as extremist. The number of Belarus-related Telegram channels spreading disinformation, many with direct and indirect links to the Belarusian authorities, exceeded 150. The 80 largest, along with toxic disinformation pages on other social media, can be found here(opens in a new tab). The Ministry of Information blocked access to belaruspartisan.by, freesmi.by, and 6tv.by. All popular and (formerly) independent news websites in Belarus were blocked for people inside Belarus. In some cases, the domain names were also taken offline. The exception was Onliner.by(opens in a new tab), which toned down its reporting and was still allowed to function. Homes of by.tribuna.com(opens in a new tab)s chair Maksim Beresinsky and former tribuna.by journalist Andrei Maslovsky were searched. The editor of the Green Portal, a Belarusian environmental NGO, was detained for three days after her home was searched. The website of Media-Polesye(opens in a new tab), one of the largest remaining regional independent media based in the Brest region, was blocked. Radio Racyja, a Poland-based media outlet broadcasting in the Belarusian language, was blocked. The website August2020(opens in a new tab), which published stories of people tortured by the state security forces and police following the elections, was blocked. A criminal case was opened against Andrei Kukharchik, chief editor of another regional media outlet in the Brest region, Virtual Brest(opens in a new tab). The Brest region in the south-west of Belarus, right on the border with Poland, had the largest number of independent regional media outlets. All of them have now been repressed by the state authorities. The Ministry of Information published tenders for scientific papers concerning the methods of increasing trust in state-owned media. These services are estimated at around 40.000 euros. October After Gennady Mozheiko published a short article about IT specialist Andrei Zeltser, who was killed by security forces(opens in a new tab) after he opened fire and killed a KGB agent during a raid, the journalist was detained and now faces two criminal charges. The newspaper he was working for, Komsomolskaya Pravda v Belarusi, announced the closure of its office in Belarus. The Belarusian Investigative Committee launched a criminal case against the remaining employees of the largest independent media TUT.BY and other individuals. The criminal case concerns incitement of hatred committed by a group of people. The case is probably related to the coverage of the shooting of IT specialist Andrei Zeltser and KGB agent Dzmitry Fedasiuk in Minsk, although the coverage seemed to be neutral. More than 200 people were detained and 136 of them taken into custody(opens in a new tab) for publishing comments on the internet in connection with the deaths. According to human rights defenders, their prison conditions amount to torture(opens in a new tab). The Ministry of Interior announced that 327 Telegram channels(opens in a new tab) and chats were recognised as extremist. This list also included Sviatlana Tsikhanouskayas Telegram(opens in a new tab) channel with 107,000 followers. The Ministry also introduced a new legal term, extremist formations. In contrast to merely extremist, the extremist formation means that followers of a Telegram channel can be criminally charged. The number of extremist formations online recently reached double digits, including Nexta and Belsat. Dze.chat(opens in a new tab), a website uniting over a hundred local Telegram chats, was declared to be an extremist formation. A man was detained by police who seized and inspected his phone. He was detained for 15 days(opens in a new tab) for sharing the Belsat webpage (Belsat is a Polish free-to-air satellite television channel aimed at Belarus) in his Instagram private chat. This example highlights the lengths to which the regime will go to in order to muzzle freedom of expression and even private communication in Belarus. It also proves that after demolishing independent media, persecuting journalists, blacklisting social media channels and creating legislation unheard of in the free world, the authorities have started going after individuals. With Belarus-based independent media pretty much outlawed, the state is trying to replace such voices with propaganda and disinformation. However, calling Deutsche Welle extremist and blocking it shows that new targets include also foreign media that cover events in Belarus on a more or less regular basis. All of these actions aim to make people afraid of any information that does not come from the state. And it shows that the few remaining independent Belarusian journalists have incredible courage: they risk everything to offer their readers and followers factual information. Source: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/treason-extremism-and-beatings-how-independent-media-risks-everything-in-belarus/ Update: President Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act into law on November 15, 2021. On Saturday, President Biden praised Congress's passage of the $1 trillion infrastructure bill, which paves the way for the single largest public works deal since the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. It's also the single largest investment made to address climate change in U.S. history. In a statement, Biden called the bipartisan bill, dubbed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, "a once-in-a-generation investment that's going to create millions of jobs modernizing our infrastructure -- our roads, our bridges, our broadband, a whole range of things -- to turn the climate crisis into an opportunity." In August, the Senate passed the bill, which calls for $550 billion in new spending above and beyond existing authorized funding over five years. The House approved the measure just before midnight on Friday. Thirteen Republican members of the House voted in favor of the deal, despite House GOP leaders pressing their members to oppose the pro-business legislation. Nineteen Republican senators voted to approve the bill when it passed on August 10, 2021, and, when he was president, Donald Trump had often called on congress to approve a plan for shoring up the nation's crumbling infrastructure. With its passage, the infrastructure deal stands to benefit small businesses ranging from construction firms to energy and telecommunications-industry consultancies. Appropriations include $17 billion for shoring up port infrastructure and $25 billion for airports to address repair and maintenance backlogs. There's $65 billion for broadband infrastructure and $7.5 billion for building out a network of electric vehicle chargers along highways and in rural and disadvantaged communities. There's also $110 billion for rebuilding roads, bridges, and connected surface transportation projects. The bill, which the President says he'll sign imminently, will also provide funding for energy efficiency upgrades and manufacturing modernization, along with grants for workforce training, which small businesses will be able to access. Companies and business groups from Ford Motor to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce praised the bill as a means for modernization and job creation. "The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will help connect 14 million Americans to broadband, provide clean drinking water for 10 million families, upgrade our energy grid, and create millions of jobs," Suzanne Clark, the Chamber's president and CEO said in a statement. Advertisements NEW YORK, Nov. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Kyndryl (NYSE: KD), the new, independent company listing on the New York Stock Exchange today announced that Automated Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS), a global leader in commercial lending to top-tier financial institutions, is working with Kyndryl to containerize their commercial lending software to allow customers to run it anywhere. Kyndryl is focused on delivering the most advanced business solutions for customers across more than 60 countries. Kyndryl is investing in new partnerships with the world's premier technology organizations and cloud hyperscalers. The joint solutions developed from these partnerships, in areas such as AI, 5G, edge computing, hybrid cloud, and security, are enabling customers to tackle their most pressing business objectives in modern ways. As many financial industry customers make the move to cloud-based platforms, AFS turned to Kyndryl to tap RedHat's OpenShift to containerize AFSVision so that it can run on multiple cloud environments. This move will grant customers more options of where they would like to run the software - from private or public cloud environments, no matter the vendor. With the increased options for accessing AFSVision, AFS is extending their U.S. customer base as well as tapping new global markets with the benefit of multiple cloud delivery options. "AFS innovates, on a daily basis, to keep customers in touch with the latest functionality and analysis," said John Dubil, Chief Technology Officer, AFS. "Our average client has been with us for more than 20 years and trusts us to evolve with them era to era. Kyndryl has been an amazing partner to us for more than a decade helping our business advance to offer the best-performing, most stable, and most secure products." "As financial services businesses increasingly move to cloud, we know it's essential that these migrations deliver operational stability, security, scalability, and reduced costs all within the context of regulatory compliance," said Harish Grama, Cloud Practice Leader, Kyndryl. "Kyndryl's technology, global reach, and industry expertise can assist these businesses along their digital transformation journey, no matter what stage they're in." Headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, AFS is a leader in lending and risk management solutions. Their AFSVision software provides two thirds of the top 25 U.S. banks with real-time, fully integrated, full-service loan processing capabilities, 24 hours a day. About AFS AFS is the global leader in providing digital, real-time, end-to-end lending solutions to the world's top-tier institutions. Solely dedicated to the financial industry, AFS is uniquely positioned to support our client's business and technology objectives, evidenced by our solutions processing more than $2.5 trillion in small business, commercial, CRE, wealth management, and syndicated loans daily. AFS clients have achieved measurable results in customer expansion, revenue increases and efficiency gains that outpace their competition. AFS is headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, with an office in Brussels, Belgium. Please visit www.afsvision.com. About Kyndryl Kyndryl (NYSE: KD) is the world's largest IT infrastructure provider. The company designs, builds, manages and modernizes the complex, mission-critical information systems that the world depends on every day. Kyndryl's 88,449 employees serve over 4,000 customers in more than 60 countries around the world, including 75 percent of the Fortune 100. For more information, visit www.kyndryl.com. While many people are sad that the Indian jury rejected Sardar Udham as India's official entry to Oscars, at the same time, they are also happy that once again a great regional film is getting a big platform to be recognised at the international level. Twitter India's official entry for the Oscars is Tamil film Koozhangal. The movie explored the relationship between an alcoholic, abusive husband and his wife, who deserts him. The story has been narrated from the point of view of their child. The father and the son travel to another village to bring back the mother/wife, and what happens on their journey is basically the crux of the film. Twitter The film will now be screened in the Indian Panorama segment of the upcoming International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Organized by the Directorate of Film Festivals of India, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India in collaboration with the State Government of Goa, the 52nd IFFI will be showcased to all the registered delegates and representatives from the selected films during the nine-day long film festival in Goa. As per a statement, 25 feature films and 20 non-feature films have been picked up for screening under the Indian Panorama segment.'Semkhor', the first-ever Dimasa language movie directed by Aimee Baruah is the jury's choice for the opening feature film of Indian Panorama 2021. Kannada feature films 'Dollu', 'Talendanda', and 'Neeli Hakki' will also be screened at IFFI. The festival will be virtually held between Nov 20 to 28. I had the rare opportunity to travel as a passenger on another airlines flight recently, instead of flying in the cockpit of a plane of my airline as usual. Personally, I prefer the cockpit anytime, for that is my office at 40,000 feet. It is exclusive, expensive, sophisticated, state-of-the art, and offers exquisite views. (Not cuisine!) Photo by Avinash Chikte But sometimes it can get lonely in that office. Other than the co-pilot and the faceless voices of the controllers and the occasional visits to the cockpit by the cabin crew, theres no one to talk to, in the long periods of cruise away from the noise and rattle of the world below. So, when I travel in uniform in the passenger cabin, I like chatting with other passengers who always have lots of doubts. I especially enjoy answering children who ask unexpected, brilliant questions. Uncle, do you have a horn in the plane? What do you do if someone comes in front? Can you lock the doors at night when you park the plane? Have you ever jumped from a plane? Are you afraid when you fly? In return, I always ask them, Do you want to become a pilot? And all of them reply Yes with a bright smile. Then I say, For that, youll have to study hard, okay? And then, the kids stop smiling and their parents start grinning! This was an early morning flight and my neighbour, after a nod and a smile, began to snore the moment the airplane got airborne, and I got busy with my reading. When I sensed that the airplane had begun its descent for landing, I decided to visit the washroom. I looked up from my reading and noticed an elderly gentleman from Row 1 get up slowly and walk to the washroom. He turned and said something to his neighbour before entering. Despite his mask, I recognised the unmistakable mane of silver hair all turned backwards, an affable smile that also showed in his bespectacled eyes, and a humble, kindly demeanour. It was Mr Azim Premji in person! Couldnt he just charter an aircraft? Couldnt he easily afford a private jet? I know of many small corporates who own airplanes, small and big. With his net worth, he could even own an airline. I recalled a recent news headline about him being the top donor to charity in India, giving away a whopping 9,713 Crore Rupees last financial year, which comes to an incredible 27 Crore Rupees per day! Now, despite my seemingly well-paying job, (not since the pandemic though) I shall never see 27 Crore rupees in this lifetime, so I was thoroughly impressed by the mans quiet philanthropy, and here he was, right in front of me. Seeing him in that airplane reminded me of other flamboyant employers who abandoned their unpaid employees, dissolved their companies, robbed the banks of their loans and flew away from the not-so-long arm of the Indian law. Normally, if I were to go to the Wipro Corporate Office, the security staff wont even allow me in, let alone permit me anywhere near him. But here we were, fellow passengers, and for that moment at least, we were together as (almost) equals in what an esteemed ex Minister, known both for his magnificent vocabulary and his irrepressible compulsion to flaunt it, had termed as cattle-class. And I had the advantage of being in my Captains uniform, which granted me the courage to walk up to him. When he saw me and my uniform, he smiled at me, and I said, Sir, I wanted to salute you. He flashed his saintly smile at me and sat down in his seat. After landing, I bid goodbye to the Captain of the flight, from one aviator to another, and walked fast to catch up with Mr Premji at the baggage belt. There were a few people with him, but he stood in the corner like any other passenger, awaiting his bags. He had no snobbish airs, no cronies, and no security guards. The king of a multi-industrial empire worth billions of dollars stood like an ordinary man. What an extraordinary man! I went to him and asked, Sir, may I request a photograph with you? He smiled and said, Ill remove my mask for you. And he did. But the lady with him, who graciously took my mobile phone to click a picture, told him with stern affection, Please wear your mask. And he hurriedly wore it, looking like a student admonished by the headmaster. Photo by Avinash Chikte Doing that, he looked so childlike and so innocent that I was mesmerised by his simplicity. And that reminded me of a Marathi poem by BB Borkar, which, loosely translated, means: Wherever a sign of divinity I behold, There my hands, by themselves, fold. And when I sought his permission to use his photo to write this piece, he only smiled and nodded. Thank you, sir. Youre a true philanthropist. Youve given the world and our country a lot over the years and youve given me an invaluable lesson in humility, in just a few moments. All I can give you is my folded hands. The writer is a former fighter pilot of the IAF and now a commercial airline pilot. He is the author of two books and many blog posts, available at www.avinashchikte.com For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News. Surrounded by mountains, fields and lush green trees is the Baba Wayil village located in central Kashmirs Ganderbal district some 30-kilometers from city centre Srinagar, which is also known as Dowry Free Village of Kashmir. The picturesque mesmerizing village has a population over 1000 people and around 200 households. The people in the village are usually involved in farming walnuts, importing and exporting Pashmina shawls. The road leading to the village is in a dilapidated condition and it too has no proper public transport system. This village has rejected the notion of lavish weddings and put a ban on dowries, in a bid to return to a simpler time while following the Islamic norms. Baba Wayil village Dowry is the property or money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage. Since dowry is strictly prohibited in this village, all the villagers have signed a stamp paper promising neither to take nor not to give dowry. The papers have been signed by the local Imam, elder villagers and prominent people of the village. What Do Documents Read? As per the signed document, it says, No person has the right to demand jewelry, television, refrigerator, clothes, etc. from the bride's family. Anyone who violates the rule will be boycotted socially, and is denied an entry to the mosque for the rest of his life; also the person/family wont be allowed to bury their dead in the local graveyard, the document states. Idrees Bukhtiyar/Representational image The document also stipulated that the grooms family should not demand anything from the brides side. Instead, the boy side has to give at least Rs 15,000 in Mahr and Rs 20,000 to shop for her wedding. Villagers Say The 67-year-old Imam of the village Bashir Ahmad Shah told Indiatimes that they shunned dowry since 1985 but decided to formalise it with a written document in 2004. The aim of taking this decision was to put an end to this marriage custom that has ruined the lives of our daughters, he said. After witnessing the rise in dowry cases in the entire valley and due to which the children were suffering, we decided to make an official stamp document in which we mentioned dos and donts for the weddings, he said, adding that villagers are following the norms strictly. Mohd Altaf Shah, sarpanch of the village said, Dowry is an evil and we all have to stop it. It has made the life of a woman miserable and we all have to play a pivotal role to save the lives of our sisters. Idrees Bukhtiyar/Representational image Raj Shah, 24, a local, said that he is getting married soon and is glad about the anti-dowry rules implemented in the village. This has also given a freedom to the young people to marry in a simple way because lavish marriage may not be possible for everyone, he said. Nine Cases Of Dowry Death in 2020 Jammu and Kashmir recorded a 15% increase in cognizable crimes in 2020 compared to 2019, the latest report by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) revealed. The report said that Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh registered 29,314 (including 403 cases in Ladakh) crime cases under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) or under the Special and Local Laws (SLL) in the year 2020. This was a 15% increase from 2019 when 25,408 crime incidents were registered, which was 6% less than 2018, when 27,276 cases were registered. The report has maintained a separate section for Ladakh from the year 2020 only. Idrees Bukhtiyar/Representational image The statistics show that in 2020 there were nine cases of dowry deaths, 243 rape cases, 349 cases of cruelty against women by their husbands or relatives, 1,639 cases of assault on women and 1,744 cases of assault on women with intention to outrage their modesty. Six decades after the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1961, the continuing prevalence of dowry remains Indias national shame. The 2019 National Crime Records Bureau data tells us that a woman is subject to cruelty by her husband and in-laws every four minutes. Every 73 minutes, there is a dowry death- 23 bodies a day. According to a BBC report, researchers looked at 40,000 marriages that took place in rural India between 1960 and 2008. They found that dowry was paid in 95% of the marriages even though it's been illegal in India since 1961. The practice, often described as a social evil, continues to thrive and leaves women vulnerable to domestic violence and even death. For more on news and current affairs from around the world please visit Indiatimes News. India has ended the ban on business dealings with Leonardo SpA, with relation to the Rs 3,546 crore VVIP helicopter scam with AgustaWestland International since 2013-2014, as per TOI. The defence ministrys decision is subject to certain conditions imposed on the company, according to top government sources. This means Leonardo SpA cannot make any commercial claims or file any civil suit against the Indian government for any deal in the past. Also, fresh business dealings will take place without any prejudice. AFP Italy has repeatedly been asking India for the ban to be lifted in bilateral talks. An early casualty of the scandal was the cancellation of Indias proposed Rs 1,200 crore deal to buy Black Shark heavyweight torpedoes. 2012 was when allegations of Rs 360 crore being paid as bribes to Indian politicians, bureaucrats and IAF officers to swing the Rs 3546 crore deal to supply 12 AW-101 VVIP helicopters had first surfaced. The deal was from 2010. AFP The CBI had formed a case against former IAF chief Air Chief Marshal S P Tyagi, Finmeccanica CEO Giuseppe Orsi, AgustaWestland chief Bruno Spagnolini and alleged middleman Christian Michel James. The probe is still on. Leonardo was among the 15 arms companies on the put on hold/suspended list of the defence ministry till September this year. Khem Lal Khaterji was just six years old when he started off as a child labourer. He was forced to break coal and pack mud into brick moulds. "We used to work for 18 hours a day and even then, we would struggle to get two meals a day," he told The Better India. The first home I knew was the jhopdi (hut) I was born in. My parents were both construction site workers and worked for a daily wage. At a time when they thought their life was getting better, they were sold from one contractor to another. Thus, we found ourselves in Meerut (Uttar Pradesh), enslaved to another contractor, he added. The Better India Khem's father was in debt and could not buy their freedom and they were bound to the contractors. At 13, Khem began to skip work and attend school but soon the contractor came to know. As much as I try to forget that experience, I am unable to. The contractor heated up a large spoon and stuck it on my cheek. I remember howling in pain begging him to let me go. But he didnt, he recalled. Finally, an NGO in the area rescued them. Khem got a taste of what being treated like a human was like, something he had not experienced since he started working. The Better India Khem decided to help others and that helped him heal as well. In 2020, he along with a group of survivors like himself got together to form an organisation called SAANS (Shramik Adhikar Aur Nyaya Sangathan). Now 27, Khem is working closely with the government to draft an anti-trafficking bill. He too could have been trafficked, but was one of the lucky ones. Its been a decade now, but when I think about how my childhood was taken away from me, I break down. I may never be able to put the torture behind me, but knowing that Im working towards a better future for my people puts me at ease. When we know better, we have to do better thats the mantra I live by," he added. He is a champion in his own life and is now being a champion for others. In September 2020, former Facebook employee Sophie Zhang laid bare the companys far-ranging threats on its pool of platforms, with Facebook at the centre. While user privacy and misuse of user data have become the dangerous markers of a technology-giant-gone-rogue, the focus has now shifted to Facebooks larger threat to democracy and free speech. Zhang witnessed the manipulation of public discourse in action first-hand, which compelled her to come forward with startling revelations about how bot accounts are used on the platform by governments and third-party actors to sway political mood of the public in different regimes, including India. Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang | The Guardian / Indiatimes Referring to the bot accounts as what Indians commonly understand as often government-backed IT cells, Zhang shed light on how these accounts are used by various agencies on Facebook to spread to shape the country's political mood. In a memo widely circulated among Facebook employees after she was fired, Zhang alleged that Facebook self-interest and the greed for profit prevented the company from making proactive decisions about protection of democracy, a claim corroborated by another Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen. Zhang recently gave a testimony to British lawmakers, wherein she explained how a loophole allowed fake engagement to continue unabated on Facebook in the form of likes, comments, and shares. Essentially, while individual actors on Facebook may be required to verify their identity, there are no mechanisms in place to verify brand and business accounts. These series of automated accounts, when set up by political actors in a country are known as coordinated inauthentic behaviour or CIB, the same mechanism allegedly used by Russian authorities to sway public mood in 2016 US elections that ended in the victory of controversial figure Donald Trump. The never-ending threat to democracy Facebooks three biggest markets include India (340 million users), United States (200 million), and Indonesia (140 million) with a global user base of 2.89 billion monthly users. Whistleblower Francis Haugens testimony to US senators in October revealed that 87 per cent of all Facebook anti-misinformation resources are allocated to the US, with the rest of the world receiving only 13 per cent of all resources. Also read: Hateful Ads On Facebook Are Cheaper Than Other Ads, Says Facebook Whistleblower Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang | ABC According to Zhang, this represents the power held by Facebook in worlds biggest democracies and how little it does to preserve the same democracies. In countries like the US, the UK and India, the power that Facebook holds consists of a threat to existing public institutions and democratic safeguards, Zhang told Indiatimes. Even then, Facebook may only be counterproductive in democracies, Zhang explained. In countries where democratic safeguards don't exist and freedom of speech doesnt exist, Facebook can be better than nothing In those countries, having Facebook is better than not having Facebook at all. Why Facebook isnt doing more For starters, Zhang believes Facebook is just like another company that wants to maximise its profits at any cost, even the well-being of its users and the health of democracies. While Zuckerberg attempted to absolve himself of blame by suggesting that polarisation in society predates not only Facebook, but Zuckerberg himself, Zhang told Indiatimes that this is how Facebook continues to absolve itself of any responsibility. So, does Facebook even care? Yes and no, Zhang believes, while adding that Facebook cares about its users in the sense that its users are a source of profit. And it does not want a source of profit to go away. Reuters For Zhang, the question of responsibility and culpability is more about how an individual Facebook employee feels about the dangerous content shared on its platforms and how little theyre equipped to deal with given the new-emerging threats that continue to appear on the platform. Also read: New Whistleblower Alleges Facebook's Poor Response To Hate Speech & Misinformation Facebook did care quite a bit. For instance, when in, I believe 2019, 2020 rumours in India grew viral on WhatsApp [that led to] mass lynchings and murders of innocent people. After misleading messages triggered a series of mob lynchings in India through Facebook-owned WhatsApp, the company introduced a series of features including a cap on how many chats a forward message may be sent to and a warning label for suspicious links. This response, according to Sophie Zhang, on Facebooks part was due to the fact that the cause of lynching was very direct and emotionally persuasive to people that other concerns to democracy were not. While this may be true, the larger-looming threat of political manipulation is still not water under the bridge. Facebooks disregard for Zhangs concerns As discussed in Part 1 of our interview with Sophie Zhang, most of her concerns were disregarded by Facebook when she first made disturbing discoveries about political manipulation. Zhangs concerns were buried due to a variety of reasons. For her, it was due to her inability to express herself clearly to not only Facebook but to the world. On Facebooks end, it was simply because the sensitive information Zhang had uncovered about mass manipulation in authoritarian regimes like Russia and Belarus was simply useless to the company. The discoveries made by Zhang were not part of her full-time duties at Facebook, but instead she dedicated her spare time to focus on the project, which led to her eventual dismissal from the role. Also read: New Whistleblower Alleges Facebook's Criminality, Says She Has 'Blood On Her Hands' Zhang explained to us how bot accounts undertake manipulation campaigns on Facebook through self-compromised accounts, the most common method used in India. These self-compromised accounts allow for nefarious activity to continue by bad actors on accounts that belong to real people. This access is achieved through manipulation on Facebook itself, I can use your account to do something nefarious even while you keep access to it yourself, Zhang told us. Mark Zuckerberg | Reuters Why is there still no concrete action on Facebook's part? That's because Facebook usually wakes up from its deep slumber of inactivity after a problem has become uncomfortably deep-seated, Zhang asserted. In this case, the problem is a lot bigger than just fake accounts. Its the very threat to democracy and social harmony that culminated in a violent insurrection attempt on US Capitol in January this year. Its the same discomfort that birthed a series of lynchings in India based on forwarded messages, and Zhang believes Facebook will not take responsibility until people and governments unite to get their message across. On how another whistleblower, Frances Haugen got away A month ago, another Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen spoke in front of US lawmakers, urging them to do something about the Facebook problem before its too late. It's frankly, quite a surprise to me that Francis Haugen was able to get away with looking through documents as much as she did because she had no business reason to be looking through them. According to Zhang, Facebook has people who look for potentially whistleblowers who could have easily found her but did not. Even then, something that is built into the very primal nature of Facebook let Haugen get away with a treasure trove of internal information about Facebooks misdemeanours. But thinking about it, it's not as surprising because one of my main criticisms of Facebook is that they're fundamentally reactive. Zhang believes Facebook is not a company that would act to get in front of issues. Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen | Reuters They wait for things to happen and become problems and then fix them. And so it appears to me that they took the exact same approach with Francis Haugen. Also read: Whistleblower Alleges Facebook's Dismal Response To Hate Speech In India While Haugens revelations about Facebook focused on misinformation, hate speech, polarisation and inflammatory content that are serious issues for democracy, Zhang worked on inauthenticity and fake accounts. This may sound very similar to misinformation, but theres actually no relationship at all. While misinformation, Zhang said is a function of what is being said, her work profile was focused on who is saying it. Francis was way more prepared and ready for this than I was, Zhang claimed while explaining why her concerns werent taken as seriously as Haugens when she first came out with the startling claims. I am not as polished and poised as Francis, Zhang said. Facebooks range of threats to democracy and us While Facebook may enable authoritarian tendencies in countries that are democracies, it also helps in creating a communication bubble among people living in authoritarian regimes that pre-date the creation of Facebook, according to Zhangs claims. Even then, Facebooks biggest contemporary victim remains democracy. The fundamental biggest threat posed by Facebook is that it has no interest in protecting democracy. While referring to the US Capitol attack that left five people dead, Zhang explained her fears for the future with Facebook as a leading voice and shaper of public discourse. Zhang believes that Facebook could apologise if a similar event were to happen in the future while taking no responsibility. Facebook will be like Im sorry, or claim that this isnt their responsibility, with the classic promise of stopping this from happening again. Also read: Facebook Whistleblower: FB Knows You're Addicted But Won't Do Anything About It While Facebooks products inadvertently compromise democracy, their targeted products also harm children. Facebook had planned to unveil its under-13 kids version of Instagram, which it delayed indefinitely in September 2021 after an internal report highlighted the issues that Instagram caused among kids. Reuters A series of serious claims involved a high rate of self-image issues and the subsequent risk of self-harm. In addition, Instagrams effects on young girls was found to be especially predatory, according to the internal leaks. The biggest information from this leak was that Facebook was well-aware of its problems, yet continued to pursue the development of an age-specific app for kids. I believe that Facebook is no longer used by younger people as much. And the habits formed by people in childhood tend to, to stay with them for a lifetime. For this very same reason, Zhang believes Facebook is attempting to widen its user base among kids so that its monopoly is effectively maintained. What can Facebook do to fix its problems? For starters, Zhang believes Facebook needs to address the harm embedded into its pool of products. Just like cigarette companies have mandatory labels on their boxes about users potentially developing cancer, Facebook needs a similar warning screen, Zhang suggested. That is a very basic example of what would probably be a very controversial change to Facebook, Zhang said while adding that Facebook should have a warning on the home page. This product will ruin your [mental health], this product is addictive, she said. Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang | Associated Press In addition, the companys role in civil society may need to be re-orchestrated. Zhang feels that Facebook is expected to fix problems while inserting itself into the general functioning of a country. The people at Facebook in-charge of fixing problems are the same people charged with keeping good relationships with local politicians, governmental members, and helping Facebook grow. This creates a natural conflict of interest. Also read: Friend's Death From Misinformation Forced Whistleblower To Reveal FB's Dark Side Comparing Facebook to dictatorships, Zhang further claimed that for democracy to survive, the same set of rules need to be in place for all people. Democracy cannot survive if there is one set of rules for the rich and powerful and one set for everyone else. But that is essentially the system at play in Facebook right now. To end Facebooks monopoly, Zhang believes Indians need to take charge of the situation. Ultimately, I think it's up to individual Indians to demand action by the government. She also urged Indians to press Facebook because Facebook will not solve its problems without people forcing it to. On online safety, especially on WhatsApp Smartphones are especially cheap in India, with the lowest range of devices costing about 3,000 ($40). This, for Zhang, represents the dangers embedded in forwarded messages and viral content on platforms like Facebook-owned WhatsApp. Zhang made it extremely clear to us that she wasnt involved in any projects on WhatsApp, but still believes the company needs to do more to curb misinformation. Facebook claims WhatsApps end-to-end encryption is a solid tool to prevent misuse of the platform. But like many others, Zhang isnt convinced. Perhaps a single user can control hundreds of WhatsApp accounts and use them to [spread misinformation and hate speech]. Also read: Facebook Crisis: Whistleblower Shares How FB Chose Profit Over User's Mental Health Sophie Zhang believes governments threatening people for forwarding misleading WhatsApp messages isnt the way forward. Instead of putting the onus on individual messages that are difficult to judge and breaches freedom of speech, adding friction to the messaging process may help. These friction measures include requiring WhatsApp to crack down on the use of fake WhatsApp accounts and by limiting the amount of mass messages that can be sent out, essentially making it difficult to forward a message. Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang | Lisa Danz It is true that in the past disasters have happened because of WhatsApp messages, like for instance, the lynching of innocent people in India in the past few years. Even though Mark Zuckerberg is already attempting to leave behind the controversies associated with Facebook, Zhang believes Zuckerberg needs to realise the responsibility of having his product used by billions worldwide especially given its contribution to the degradation of democracy and the destruction of civic discourse. Is our only option to log off? The problem with social media, according to whistleblower Sophie Zhang, is in how the platforms were built. I would say that this is the road that social media has built. A road in which outrage is rewarded more than kindness and calmness That's when sensationalism is rewarded more than nuance, she told Indiatimes. A slew of internal documents called Facebook Papers revealed by whistleblower Frances Haugen alleged that the companys top bosses are well-aware of the problem, but still wont do anything to fix it due to a variety of reasons, including political considerations. Also read: Facebook Targeted 6-Year-OId Kids To Widen User Base, Revealed Internal Blog A broken system rots from the top. When people are trapped in a broken system, that affects all of them [as well as] their actions and their motives, Zhang told us. Due to this inaction on Facebooks part, People [on Facebook] have learned to use sensationalism, to use anger, to use hate, and spectacle with virality at the centre of all discourse. Facebook whistleblower Sophie Zhang | The Guardian / Indiatimes Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have accentuated the viral culture, wherein whatever gets the most hits and likes shapes the pop culture discourse at that juncture in time. To Zhang, this is still relatively new, even though weve come to believe that it is typical. Even then, censorship may not be the answer to Facebooks excesses. In fact, Zhang proposed a simpler solution. For starters, Facebook should reverse to displaying a chronological newsfeed instead of curated feeds that claim to cater to a user. While Facebook claims user-specific feeds improve user experience, sometimes the algorithm leads users to content that Facebook believes they would like, without taking into account what the content may be. For instance, a Facebook experiment showed how the platform directed users who liked Fox news to dangerous QAnon conspiracy groups in the United States. In addition, Zhang wants Facebook to stop the ability to re-share content. This doesnt have to be arbitrary. In fact, Zhang proposed a cap on the number of times a post may be re-shared before a user is required to go visit the original post on the user profile before sharing it. For instance, preventing people from sharing content, if it has already been shared more than three times. A balancing act between the preservation of freedom of speech and Facebooks excesses is key to preventing a crisis in democracies, Zhang is convinced. Circling back to what both Haugen and Zhang initially started their arguments with, the ex-Facebook employee told us Ultimately, Facebook is not willing to take some of these steps because it would hurt its profit. India is the world's largest democracy I very much hope it stays the world's largest democracy. It was founded on the principle of harmony and equality, on the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, and India should not forget those roots, Zhang said towards the end of our chat, in a message to Indians who use Facebook's products. Do you think Facebook should be given a free pass or regulated more fiercely in this era of misinformation and disinformation? If so, are governments that undertake manipulation campaigns to be trusted with regulatory methods? Only time will tell. In the meanwhile, keep reading Indiatimes.com for the latest in technology and science. If you missed Part 1 of Sophie Chronicles, you may read it here. Dont forget to share your thoughts with us in the comments below. Employees need to be incentivised to return to offices in the post-Covid era of the "Great Resignation." Google is pulling back employees into the physical fold by making some radical changes to how a workplace should look. For starters - nap pods. Unimpressed? One word - insects! COOKFOX architects Zootopia, but at Google? In a bid to pull back employees in the beginning of 2022, Google is building a "biophilic" office, according to a report by Financial Times. The new office complex will be heavy on greenery and the likes of birds, bees, caterpillars... even a resident praying mantis! With a whopping cost of $2.1 billion, Google is building one of the most expensive office spaces in US history in Manhattan. According to the architect, Rick Cook, the workspace at St. John's Terminal is designed to enable the intermingling of the environment in the workplace, defying the norms of what traditional offices look like. Bloomberg Also read: Sundar Pichai Explains Google's 'Three Two Model' For Return To Office In 2022 Perhaps this is the shake up all offices need to lure their employees back to the office. "Biophilic," according to Cook, represents the human tendency to connect with nature. Google is taking its back-to-office initiatives very serious, for the company has hired in-house ecologists to maintain office premises. In conversation with Financial Times, Cook claimed that the goal is to recruit and retain talent in the post-Covid era. Reuters Also read: Facebook 'Knew What It Was Doing' And Acted Irresponsibly, Says Google's Ex-CEO Earlier, Google CEO Sundar Pichai had spoken in favour of calling employees back to office in the first half of 2022 with a 3-2 proposal - three days in the office and two from wherever the employee prefers. What do you think about this ambitious design to lure employees back? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below. For more in the world of technology and science, keep reading Indiatimes.com. Citation Chaffin, J. (2021, November 3). Forget skyscrapers: nature inspires next generation of New York offices. Financial Times. Do you believe in seers with extra-earthly abilities to peek into the future? While being able to see what's about to happen may be a far-fetched estimation, Facebook's new Metaverse ambitions under Mark Zuckerberg were correctly predicted in a 29-year-old book called 'Snow Crash.' Written by author Neal Stephenson and published in 1992, the book may be the first written record of the word "Metaverse." Information Age Eerie similarities with the book The plot thickens! Turns out, the word in the book carried the same connotation as Mark Zuckerberg's vision for what the Metaverse ought to be - essentially a virtual-reality and augmented-reality based experience that will follow up on the exploits made by the current iteration of the internet. Man, does it get more eerie! In the novel, Stephenson also plotted the Metaverse as an environment-bending setting where people use digital avatars to interact with the online world... which is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg intends to do with Facebook (now under the aegis of new branding called Meta). Reuters Also read: FB Whistleblower Sophie Zhang On The Social Giants Uncomfortable Relationship With Democracies Is this just a case of coincidence or has Zuckerberg spent the last few years mimicking Stephenson's interpretation of a dystopian society? If it's the latter, we've got more to worry about than misinformation and Facebook's threat to democracy, as laid bare by Facebook whistleblowers Sophie Zhang and Frances Haugen. Zhang told Indiatimes earlier how little Facebook does to control the spread of fake accounts that are used by elected officials in authoritarian regimes to shape public discourse and opinion. Regardless, Stephenson personally hasn't interacted with Zuckerberg about the Metaverse, he recently told Axios. AFP Also read: Explained: What Is Facebook Metaverse, And How Does It Work What do you think about the future of the internet as envisioned by Big Tech companies like Meta and Microsoft? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below. For all-things-Metaverse and the latest in technology and science, continue reading Indiatimes.com. Citation Huddleston, T. (2021, November 3). This 29-year-old book predicted the metaverse and some of Facebooks plans are eerily similar. CNBC. King, H. (2021, October 30). Metaverse creator reacts to Facebook name change. Axios. Climate change is drowning our coastal cities. As icy glaciers continue to melt and the water flows into our rivers and eventually the oceans, the water level will continue to rise at an alarming rate. While world leaders may be figuring out solutions to climate change and the disasters lined up for humanity in the future at COP26, the inevitable has already begun happening. In fact, some of our favourite cities in the world could be underwater before 2030. In its latest report, Climate Central created a map of sorts to assess which parts of Earth will be underwater before 2030 owing to rising sea levels. The map was created using information from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC), the United Nations body responsible for analysing science related to climate change. Also read: Climate Change May Reduce Winter Migration Of Birds And Their Population There is only one underlying factor on which the list is created - the current trajectory of pollution. While things may change in the next decade, based on the lack of concrete action we've seen in the last decade, it appears that the following six cities (including one from India) could be underwater partially or entirely in less than a decade from today. Here are the six cities that could be underwater before 2030. 1. Amsterdam in the Netherlands Wikipedia The world famous destination in the Netherlands, Amsterdam is known for its love for bridges, marijuana with an unrivalled nightlife. Sadly, Amsterdam falls in the region known as "Low Countries," including other cities like Rotterdam and the Hague. Also read: Climate Change Is Causing Plankton To Migrate, Could Cause 17% Dip In Marine Life While the Dutch have mastered the science of flood defences, it seems Amsterdam will be in the direct line of rising sea levels within this decade. 2. Basra in Iraq Al Jazeera Considered the primary port city in Iraq, Basra is situated along the Shatt al-Arab river that drains into the Persian Gulf. With deep marshlands as its neighbour, Basra could find itself partially or completely submerged before the end of this decade. 3.New Orleans in the United States TimeOut Climate change doesn't care for our understanding of the developed vis-a-vis the developing. It will affect all territories equally. The only difference will be based on how well different countries are equipped to deal with the crisis. The city of New Orleans already has a famed system of levees to protect it from drowning. Even then, the city needs to do more to see the next decade. 4. Venice in Italy I, Wanderlista Not a stranger to flooding, Venice is known for its waterway network - a tourist favourite. If you want to see the beauty of Venice, we suggest going in the near future, before most of the city is submerged. Also read: Climate Change Is Spiking Suicide Rates And Infectious Diseases: Study According to Timeout, the city is sinking by two millimetres every year, along with facing the direct effects of rising water levels. Even though Venice also has protective measures, more radical steps may be needed to prevent it from submerging. 5. Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam Lonely Planet Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam could be underwater before 2030, at least most of its eastern areas that are located near the Mekong River, along the marshy areas of Thu Thiem. Even if the city does not submerge, it may be rendered too dangerous for humans to live in due to a variety of factors including flooding and storms. 6. Kolkata in India PS Group The capital of West Bengal in India, Kolkata has a new challenge coming its way if it wants to retain the cultural history associated with the city. Before 2030, large parts of Kolkata could face immense flooding, causing the city to submerge. Do you travel to Kolkata to enjoy a raw Durga Pujo experience every year during the festival season? Now might be the time to pressure political leaders to take climate change and its effects more seriously. Also read: This Website Shows How Your City Could Look In A Climate Change Catastrophe Which city from this list do you want to visit before it falls prey to rising sea levels and other catastrophic effects of climate change? Share with us in the comments below. For more in the world of science, technology, and all-things-climate-change, keep reading Indiatimes.com. Citation Cunningham, E. (2021, November 3). 9 Cities That Could Be Underwater By 2030. Time Out Worldwide. Sea level rise map and coastal flood tool US and global. (2021). Climate Central. Sixth Assessment Report. (2021). IPCC. A US teenager who had been missing for the last few days was rescued after she made hand signals for domestic violence that had gone viral on TikTok. According to a report by Fox 8, investigators rescued the missing North Carolina minor and arrested the man with her during a traffic stop in Kentucky. Authorities at the Laurel County Sheriffs Office said that a caller told 911 that the female passenger in the silver Toyota in front of them on I75 was making hand gestures that are known on TikTok to represent violence at home, I need help and domestic violence. Canadian Women The missing teenager was reported missing by her parents in North Carolina. The Laurel County, Kentucky Sheriff's Department said 61-year-old James Herbert Brick of Cherokee, North Carolina, was arrested for "unlawful imprisonment" after he was pulled over off interstate with the missing teenager in the back seat of his car. The sheriff's office added that he had sexual images of a teenager on his phone. James Herbert Brick The teenager had reportedly travelled with Brick to Ohio, where he had relatives. Once his relatives realised that the girl was underage, Brick tried to get away with her. The teenager kept making the signals until someone understood them and called the police. Deputies say they found a photo of a juvenile female being portrayed in a sexual manner on a phone in Bricks possession. Brick was charged with unlawful imprisonment and possession of matter showing sex performances by a minor," the report added. The department did not reveal what sign the teen used. However, here is the signal used to discreetly report domestic violence. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SIGNAL Isolation can increase the risk of violence at home. Use this discrete gesture during a video call to show you need help: 1. Hold hand up with palm facing other person. 2. Tuck thumb into palm. 3. Fold fingers down over thumb. pic.twitter.com/gsIgSbXOmc Halton Police (@HaltonPolice) August 24, 2021 What do you think of this? Let us know in the comments. For more interesting stories from around the world, please visit Indiatimes.com A businesswoman in the midlands has spoken of the sophisticated scam which nearly cost her the contents of her businesss bank account in the hope it will save others from the same thing. Pat Murphy, the co-owner of a stove dealership in Co Longford, paid tribute to the anti-fraud gardai which she dealt with, but said the assistance of her bank left a lot to be desired. She told her story to the Irish Examiner amid news that fraud rates have risen exponentially in Ireland over the past 12 months of the pandemic. In late September the CSO announced that fraud incidents had risen by 40% in the 12 months to end June 2021. Most of those incidents related to attempts to obtain personal or banking information from people by phone, perhaps unsurprising given the explosion in automated phone dialler scams which affected much of the population in the early months of the summer. Plausible payment scam For Pat however, the scam encountered was a great deal more plausible. It was last Monday and we got a call from someone claiming to be with TNT, a courier company that we have a lot of dealings with, she says. It was a girl with an English accent, calling from an 0044 (UK) number, asking us to settle a small amount of underpayment on import charges, saying once that was clear she could guarantee delivery the next morning. We run a business where we get parcels in every day, we import from Italy and the UK and weve already had issues with imports over Brexit over whos being held liable for delivery charges. It was a charge of 3.12, so I said fine and gave them my card number. Pat Murphy was duped by what seemed like a legitimate charge for just 3.12. She wants to warn others of the fraud risk. She explains that her partner wasnt convinced by the call, so I kept dipping in and out of my account all day to make sure all was ok. In the end I transferred everything out bar what was needed for the end-of-month bills. Then at 5pm, the transactions started happening, she says. When I saw the second one coming out, I jumped in and managed to transfer the remaining funds to a savings account. They got another 1,800 but that was it. All told, the scammers took over 5,000 from the companys account before Pat took her emergency action. The name on the transactions was that of a well-known credit card company. Fifty minutes on hold She immediately called Bank of Irelands anti-fraud section which led to 50 minutes on hold before she was told they probably wouldnt be able to stop the scam. But they did say we needed to go to the gardai to get a PULSE number for the crime. So we drove straight to Longford Garda Station. And they were lovely, very reassuring. They took our statement and had a file ready by the next day. The next morning I had a text from Bank of Ireland with an email address, asking for the PULSE number. In the end there were two, for two crimes - phishing and takeover of account numbers. I gave them to BOI, they reimbursed me, and the matter was resolved. The problem is Im sure Im not the only one, says Pat. I wouldnt want this to happen to anyone else. What is also less than clear is if the scammers will be apprehended, or if in this scenario the bank is the main loser. They told me they will come back to me to see if Ill give a fuller statement, Pat says. Hopefully they do. A spokesperson for the bank said: "Fraudsters pretend to be from banks, telecommunications providers, delivery companies, social welfare departments, and post offices, but their aim is always the same, to try to get you to hand over confidential information. While we cant comment on individual cases, consumers are being targeted more than ever before with fake calls, texts and emails, and we strongly encourage them to adopt the zero trust principle never trust, always verify when it comes to protecting their personal and financial information." A man who threatened to bust a garda, squaring up to him "nose to nose when he delivered a summons to his Cork home, narrowly avoided a custodial sentence. Philip OLeary, 26, barged out the door", throwing the summons at the officer and threatened to attack him if he ever came back. He was charged with assault under Section 2 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act, 1997 following the incident on February 7 at 7.15pm. When Garda Micheal Hynes called to the defendants address at Banshane, Midleton that evening another man answered the door and said the defendant was not home. But Gda Hynes saw OLeary in the caravan and proceeded to hand him the summons. OLeary then barged out the door, threw the summons back at Garda Hynes and angrily squared up to him, nose to nose, Midleton District Court heard. He threatened to attack the guard if he ever called back with another summons. Defence solicitor Joseph Cuddigan said that his client apologises profusely for his conduct that day. There was no physical contact, it was an outburst of verbal rage, Mr Cuddigan said. He acknowledges and apologises for his behaviour. He would have been, up to the recent past, a relatively heavy user of cannabis. Some people foolishly maintain that it has no side- effects but it can lead to psychosis - this man was suffering from that, Mr Cuddigan said. "He has abstained for five weeks, hopefully this is the start of what will be a successful period for him. He said that he feels more energised and engaged with life. Now he is doing something to address what I think is the root cause of the problem. He said that despite his clients initial resistance, he had obeyed the summons and turned up to court. He said that his client was only on disability allowance, pleading for leniency. But Judge Joanne Carroll said: I take a very poor view of this. A member of an Garda Siochana is out doing very important work and this man squares up to him and threatens a law enforcement officer. Members of An Garda Siochana are out serving society and do not deserve to be put in that position. I heard what you said about cannabis - on that basis and that alone he is not going to prison today. Judge Carroll sentenced OLeary to two months in prison but suspended it for 18 months. She warned him that if he does have a problem with cannabis and gets into similar difficulty again he would have to go to prison to serve a sentence. Midleton District Court heard that OLeary had five previous convictions, the most recent being for drug possession for which he was fined 100 on April 21. When Annmarie McCarthy first met the woman who agreed to be a surrogate for her, words quickly turned to tears. She was so overwhelmed that this total stranger standing before her in a room in a New Delhi clinic in November 2015 had agreed to do this. It was surreal meeting the woman who was going to carry our baby, the 41-year-old care assistant who lives in Mallow, Co Cork, recalled. I was very nervous meeting her because what do you say? Where do you find words to thank somebody who is going to do what has to be one of the most unselfish things a woman can do for another woman? You get in the room and emotion just takes over, tears take over. I think she knew well what I was trying to say. "I started off by going I don't know how to thank you... She said this is something I want to do, it's okay. She was trying to tell me it's fine. I suppose we both kind of knew exactly what each other was trying to say to each other. We did it through emotion more than anything. A hug and tears. You end up holding her and saying the words like thank and you over and over. Fast forward to today, and a woman who thought she could never be a mother now has two gorgeous, happy twins. Five-year-old David and Olivia, whose first contact with her was when their little baby fingers clasped around her hand for the first time in the New Delhi clinics neonatal unit, started junior infants this year at a school just outside Mallow. And thats where this story should end, for now, with a '...happily ever after'. Annmarie and Ian McCarthy in Cork with their five-year-old twins David and Olivia. '[The Government is not] 'giving their own citizens equal rights, simply because of how they were born,' says Annemarie. Picture: Daragh McSweeney/Provision But it doesn't end there for Annemarie McCarthy and for hundreds of other Irish women because, behind the joy of achieving lifelong dreams to parent children that most people take for granted, they in the eyes of the State have no rights. Annmarie is, for all intents and purposes, a legal stranger to the twins. If she and her husband Ian were ever to split, he would have sole legal custody over the children. If she dies, her children would have to pay a higher rate of tax on their inheritance of anything she owns. And on an even more basic level, if a teacher asks for her consent to allow David and Olivia go on a school trip, she is not legally entitled to give it. And if they need a life-saving operation that requires parental consent? Once again, she cant give it. Hopes for legal reform There are currently approximately 1,000 surrogate children living in Ireland as Irish citizens and, for the last two decades, couples have tried to get the State to resolve the legal issue. Two reports have been produced over the past two decades, and an Oireachtas committee is about to be set up to compile a third. Professor Conor OMahony, University College Corks Deputy Dean of the School of Law and Director of the Child Law Clinic, wrote the last report. His Review of Childrens Rights and Best Interests in the Context of Donor-assisted Human Reproduction and Surrogacy in Irish Law was published last December. It was supposed to help legislators drafting the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill which is currently being put together by various government departments. 'Postponing it to another day will be contrary to children's rights': Prof Conor O'Mahony expects that foreign surrogacy will eventually be included next year in the legislation now being drafted. Picture: Tomas Tyner, UCC The bill will provide for the regulation of a range of practices including gamete and embryo donation and domestic surrogacy, and provides for the establishment of an independent regulatory authority for assisted human reproduction. That the draft doesnt mention foreign surrogacy has angered the hundreds of parents of surrogate children in this country. Prof OMahony was asked to compile his report in June 2020 by the then minister for children, who had appointed him as the governments Special Rapporteur on Child Protection in 2019. He recommended in his report that, among other things, the Oireachtas should enact comprehensive legislation regulating surrogacy. And Prof OMahony recommended this legislation should recognise both domestic and international surrogacy arrangements. A version of the bill that has appeared on Gov.ie website does not refer to foreign surrogacy, causing dismay and concern among couples who have brought their surrogate children home to this country. As Prof O'Mahony pointed out in his report, the unavoidable reality is that children will continue to be born following international surrogacy arrangements and to be cared for by intending parents who may have no legal connection with the children. In the face of this reality, the European Court of Human Rights has held that states that are party to the European Convention on Human Rights must provide a pathway to legal recognition of these family relationships. The UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children has echoed this point, while expressing concerns about the potential for surrogacy to violate laws prohibiting the sale of children and emphasising the need for a high level of legal safeguards to mitigate this risk. He urges those who fear the State will turn its back on foreign surrogacy to be patient. The process is underway and we have to wait and see, he said. The latest information I have is that we will be seeing this during 2022. It is an ongoing process and it was always likely to take some time. It's all to play for at this point and the bill is still being worked on, so I'm not taking this as set in stone yet. But he also has words of caution for the Govement. I think it will be very regrettable if [foreign surrogacy] was omitted from the bill, he said: It will be short-sighted because it's taken so long for us to get to the point where we might actually pass some legislation dealing with this. And so if we don't deal with this now, when there's a bill on the table, well, then when will we deal with this? I don't think it's credible to say we would postpone it to another day. There won't be a better day to address this issue and postponing it to another day will be contrary to children's rights. At the moment [we] pretend surrogacy doesn't exist, and have no legal regulation of it leading to situations where children are born into families and cared for in a family where one or both parents have no legal connection to the child. In essence, we deny them the right to recognition of their family relationships. It would be far better from a children's rights perspective to have a framework that allows children family relationships. We won't achieve any of those things by omitting international surrogacy from the bill. "The reality is that even if we [just] regulate domestic surrogacy, there are always going to be people who engage in international surrogacy, we can't prevent that. It's going to continue to happen." And he added: We have a choice between continuing to do what we do now which is leaving families in a legal twilight zone or actually addressing it and putting in place safeguards that will protect children's rights and safeguard the interests of all the other parties as well. Annmarie and Ian's story Annmarie and Ian McCarthy went down the surrogacy route because Annmarie has congenital heart defects. She knew early on in life that carrying a caring child wouldn't really be the safe option for her. Because her oxygen levels were always quite low, it would put a lot of strain and pressure on her heart if she was to carry a child. That also ruled out IVF, but when they tried to go for adoption, they were advised that due to her health issues the couple were unlikely to be successful. Around that time, a social worker suggested they look at surrogacy, and they did. But after all they have gone through, they still have another journey to go on to try and get the legal recognition they believe that they are entitled to. After a demonstration outside the Dail and a row that followed a newspaper report raising questions about the issue of foreign surrogacy in the new bill, the Government said it would set up an Oireachtas committee to look into the issue. Organisations such as Irish Families Through Surrogacy (IFTS) in general and the McCarthys, in particular, were exasperated. As far as Im aware, they will be setting up this committee to again look at these issues, said Annmarie, who is an IFTS committee member. This committee will make recommendations as to how international surrogacy can be included. But theyve had 21 years to look at these issues. "This is not new. These children are here. They are living, breathing Irish citizens. Their citizenship has been granted by the Irish Government, yet theyre not giving their own citizens equal rights, simply because of how they were born." Her voice starts to tremble with emotion, as she adds: You know, it's a dreadful situation for any child to find themselves in. A raising of the flag ceremony to be attended by the Taoiseach in Cork tomorrow will be subject to a formal protest by workers at Munster Technological University. The Bishopstown-based university is set to welcome the Taoiseach Micheal Martin together with Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris to the event at 10am. However, workers at the university from the TUI union are set to hold a silent protest with placards at the symbolic raising of the MTU flag for the colleges first academic semester on the same morning. The protest stems from a number of issues raised by staff with management at the new university, formed via a unification of Tralee IT and CIT under the same banner. Susan Flannery, chair of MTUs TUI branch, says the protest has its foundations in the decision to form a technical university in the first place, with staff members left frustrated due to there being no meaningful engagement with management since January 2019. Those grievances relate to unresolved issues concerning recruitment, staff complaints procedures, a perceived lack of proper career frameworks for workers, and the safeguarding of regional provision, something Tralee would worry about, Ms Flannery said. The MTU union branch says it remains engaged in industrial action, following an overwhelming mandate, due to a blatant failure by management to consult with its academic staff. In terms of staff recruitment, they claim that key positions are being created and filled without open competition. It appears that only a chosen few are favoured by MTUs senior management to be in with a chance to implement plans and policies for the new university and the move has lecturers up in arms, the branch said in a statement. Ms Flannery said that the protest would be low in numbers due to the branch being mindful of Covid-19, but that given the opportunity to engage with the senior politicians present we will certainly avail of it. We will have our banner there too, she said of the unions planned protest. The last time management granted us a meeting was back in May. We have been greeted with a wall of silence ever since. A UK move to suspend parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol could see the EU doing likewise with the Brexit trade deal, the foreign minister has warned. Simon Coveney said it appeared the UK was set to follow through with its threat to trigger the Article 16 suspension mechanism within the post-Brexit arrangements for Irish Sea trade. He said it looked as though the UK was laying the foundations to make the move when the Cop26 conference in Glasgow was over. Mr Coveney said the EU would respond in a very serious way to such a unilateral act. The Minister for Foreign Affairs expressed hope a trade war could be avoided. He minister insisted the EU was in solutions mode and could go a little further in terms of trying to streamline checks required on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Brexit Minister Lord Frost has repeatedly warned that the UK will trigger Article 16 (PA) However, he warned there was a limit to the EUs flexibility and criticised the UK Government for adopting a tactic of asking for a lot while offering nothing in return. Noting potential retaliatory action the EU could take if the UK triggers Article 16, Mr Coveney highlighted that the Trade and Co-Operation Agreement was contingent on implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement, including the protocol arrangements. I believe that if the British government essentially refuses to implement the protocol, even with the extraordinary flexibilities that are now on offer, and instead looks to set it aside then I think the EU will respond in a very serious way to that, he told RTE Radio One. He said that did not mean the introduction of a hard border on the island of Ireland. The minister added: It means that the Trade and Co-operation Agreement that was agreed between the British government and the EU was contingent on the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement, which includes the protocol. One is contingent on the other. So if one is being set aside, there is a danger that the other will also be set aside by the EU. Mr Coveney said he hoped the UK and EU were not set for a trade war. I certainly hope were not, he said. I think it is important that people like me and others whove been involved in this process make it very clear to the British Government the consequences of what theyre considering doing in the context of the triggering of Article 16. I think I have a responsibility to perhaps set aside the diplomatic language that Im expected to use as a foreign minister and be a bit more direct in relation to the consequences of that, as the Taoiseach (Micheal Martin) has done this week. This would be a significant act that would damage relationships between Britain and Ireland, and would put extraordinary pressure on parties in Northern Ireland also. The minister said Northern Ireland only works when the UK and Ireland work in partnership with each other. Mr Coveney insisted the EU would remain united in the face of any UK move on Article 16. We act and we have always acted together on this in solidarity, and I believe that solidarity will hold, he said. Negotiations between London and Brussels over the protocol remain deadlocked and there is mounting speculation that the UK Government is poised to trigger Article 16 later this month. Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the UK Government was playing a very dangerous game (Damien Storan/PA) The British government has repeatedly warned it will move to unilaterally suspend elements of the protocol if an agreed outcome is not reached. The oversight role of the European Court of Justice in policing the operation of the protocol remains a key sticking point in the talks to resolve issues with its operation. Mr Coveney suggested the EU could offer more flexibilities around reducing checks on agri-food products but he did not mention any potential movement on the thorny ECJ stand-off. I think the EU can go a little further on some of these issues and have indicated that their package is not the final word from the EU, but they want the UK Government to work with them in partnership to try to actually bottom out the remaining concerns, he said. Mr Coveney criticised the UK strategy in talks with the EU and said London was essentially asking to rewrite the protocol entirely. The negotiating tactic of the British Government, of the Prime Minister and of Lord Frost, has been very consistent it has been to offer nothing and to continue to ask for more, he said. In the short term that is a successful negotiating tactic because throughout this year, each month that passes, the EU has tried to provide new solutions, new answers, new compromises, more flexibility and so on. But, at some point, the EU says enough, we are not negotiating with a partner here that is acting in good faith. The trade arrangements that have created economic barriers on the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland were originally agreed between the EU and UK as part of the Brexit withdrawal deal. The protocols purpose was to avoid the creation of a hard border on the island of Ireland post-Brexit. It has achieved that by effectively keeping Northern Ireland within the EUs single market for goods, an arrangement which has led to the checks on products crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain. The Palestinians have condemned Israel for rejecting the promised reopening of the US consulate in Jerusalem, a move which would restore Washingtons main diplomatic mission for the Palestinians in the contested city. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said late on Saturday that there is no room in Jerusalem for another American mission. The USs Jerusalem consulate, which for years served as the de facto embassy to the Palestinians, was closed by the Trump administration. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pledged to reopen the US consulate in Jerusalem (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Pool via AP) Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pledged to reopen it, a move that Israel says would challenge its sovereignty over the city. The reopening could help mend US ties with the Palestinians which were ruptured under Donald Trump. In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it views the reopening of the consulate as part of the international communitys commitment to ending Israels decades-long occupation of territories the Palestinians seek for their future state. East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of the occupied Palestinian territory and is the capital of the state of Palestine. Israel, as the occupying power, does not have the right to veto the US administrations decision, the statement said. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, right, during a news conference with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool/AP) Asked about the consulate at a press conference, Mr Bennett repeated Israels position on Jerusalem. Theres no room for another American consulate in Jerusalem, he said. Jerusalem is the capital of one state and thats the state of Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid suggested the consulate could instead be opened in the Palestinian administrative centre in Ramallah, West Bank. However, the Palestinians reject that idea because it would undermine their claims to Jerusalem. Israel views Jerusalem as its eternal, undivided capital. The Palestinians seek the eastern part of the city, which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed, as capital of their hoped-for state. Israelis hold signs and flags during a protest against the possible reopening of the American consulate in Jerusalem (Sebastian Scheiner/AP) The consulate is emerging as another test between Mr Bennetts government and Joe Bidens administration, which has moved to restore traditional US foreign policy towards Israel and the Palestinians after the Trump White House largely sided with Israel on issues related to the conflict. Mr Trump had downgraded the consulates operations and placed them under his ambassador to Israel when he moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city in 2018. The embassy move infuriated the Palestinians and led them to sever most ties with the Trump administration. Mr Blinken has not provided a firm date for the reopening and US officials have implied that Israeli resistance to the move could act as a hindrance. Colder morning and day of 2021! Find an outdoor spot you like from our participating #tasteofkeybiscayne restaurants and enjoy a wonderful Sunday treat, leaving room for a sweet treat this Sunday, November 7! Sake Room Complete your Sake meal with our delicious and exclusive nutella roll! Free Crunchy Crab Salad with $50 purchase Special only good for orders called in to (305) 456-0488 We are open for Indoor & Outdoor Dining, Takeout or delivery daily from Noon to 10 p.m. Call (305) 456-0488 to place a takeout or delivery order directly Following all CDC safety protocols 328 Crandon Blvd Ste 108, Galleria Shopping Center Grub hub UberEats also available. Please if you can call us first Pops Burger At Pops, we love burgers and desserts! Complete your burger meal with our special cheesecakes! Our burgers are made with 100% certified Angus beef and we offer everything from the most basic burger or cheeseburger, to our new Signature Burgers!! At Pops, we serve our food in a safe and family style setting and we are pet friendly! Pops Burger is located in the Square Mall, at 260 Crandon Blvd, Key Biscayne We are open at Noon to 9 p.m. seven-days a week. We close at 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. To place an order, please call 786-401-7474 or order online by clicking here. We offer dine-in, takeout and delivery via UberEats and Postmates Randazzos Italian Seafood and Classics Open for Indoor & Outdoor dining, Takeout or delivery. Reservations recommended After a delicious Italian meal, enjoy a cup of Italian Coffee with a chocolate and lemon biscotti Call us directly to order at (305) 456-0480. Offering Randazzos own delivery service. Local and safe Open Tuesday to Sunday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. 328 Crandon Blvd Ste 112, Galleria Shopping Center Outside the island delivery via @Postmates or @UberEats D'Lite Bistro & Bakery Who says eating healthy means sacrificing taste and flavor? Not at DLite! This Sunday, how about an Acai Bowl? Do you know They're Loaded With Antioxidants, May Improve Cholesterol Levels and may Have a Possible Anti-Cancer Effect? Swing by and join us in our terraza We are a unique and healthy restaurant that serves salads, wraps, sandwiches, bowls, protein smoothies and cold press juices made fresh every morning including gluten-free, vegetarian and keto options. We open at 7 a.m. daily and close at 8 p.m. everyday except Sat and Sun when we close at 6 p.m. DLite is located in the Arcade Mall, 180 Crandon Blvd. To place an order, call (305) 882-9284 or visit us online by clicking here. Inka Bowl Newest concept on the island healthy Peruvian Fusion Bowls to enjoy at home. This Sunday, try our new Salmon Bowl Or some of our other delicious combinations Order on UberEats or call (786) 401-7474 Pick up your order in the Square Mall, at 260 Crandon Blvd, Key Biscayne Boaters Grill & Lighthouse Cafe / Bill Baggs The restaurants inside Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park the popular Boaters Grill, located at No Name Harbor and accessible by boat, and the beachside Lighthouse Cafe. Safe and friendly. Great service and great food. After a great meal at Boaters, leave room for the our homemade flan Boaters Grill is open Sunday through Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Lighthouse Cafe is open 7-days a week, from 9 a.m. to Sunset The restaurants are located inside Bill Baggs State Park, at 1200 Crandon Blvd., Key Biscayne. You can reach them at (305) 361-0080 32 Degrees by MG 32 Degrees by MG is excited to announce NEW menu items for you to enjoy. Let us help you simplify mealtime. Convenience delicious and healthy meals delivered Start your week off right ordering today for the week ahead perhaps some delicious soups? Our meals fresh-frozen go from your freezer to your microwave to your plate in 5 minutes or less. No additives and preservatives. Just delicious gourmet food that is ready to heat and eat when YOU are. To see our new menu, go to 32-degrees.com. Use code 32ISLANDER at checkout and receive 15% off* your first order. *Offer good on orders of $40 or more. Costa Med Bistro Enjoy Costa Med this evening either with it or at home this evening.. This Sunday, indulge in something sweet. We invite you to try our Crepe Souffle filled with Tahitian Vanilla Cream, and a warm passion fruit coulis. Order online for take out, click here! Costa Med, a TripAdvisor Traverlers Choice nominated restaurant, is located in the Square Shopping Center. 260 Crandon Blvd. Since they are operating at reduced capacity, reservations suggested. Call (305) 361-7575 to make a reservation Hours. Lunch Mon to Sat: Noon a.m. to 4 p.m. Dinner Mon to Sat: 6 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. / Sun 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The Golden Hog Stop by and pick up everything you need from your local independent grocer on the island! This Sunday, stop by our ice cream area and take home our new Frozen chocolate covered Raspberries, or chocolate covered cherries Your local independent grocer can deliver freshly prepared meals or all the groceries you need. Email us your order here. Before you leave, stop by our grill and enjoy our New BBB! Made for the Brave Burger. Grilled to Order in our meat market. Only offered Sundays and perfect to watch the big game today! And before you leave, stop by our bakery for a sweet completion Call (305) 361-1300 for Sundays special menu. The Golden-Hog has a complete line of specialty groceries for delivery. Golden Hog puts safety first, shop with confidence. To place an order online, click here Brasas KB Have you tried our Peruvian Chicken Rotisserie for lunch or dinner? Enjoy change of pace this Sunday with our Rotisserie chicken sandwich and plantains Our delicious half pound hamburger, with one side and a soda, only $10.99 - loaded it up with a fried egg, bacon, cheese and pickles to make it a "completa" for only $4 more! Can't beat the quality! Unmatched value! We are open for Indoor & Outdoor Dining, Takeout or free delivery. Call (786) 615-2399 to place a takeout order. Open Noon to 8 p.m. for Dine-In, Takeout or delivery. 328 Crandon Blvd, Galleria Shopping Center AMICI At Key Biscayne Today, visit a slice of Italy right in Key Biscayne. And after a delicious authentic Italian meal, enjoy one of our spectacular desserts! AMICI at Key Biscayne is located inside The Towers of Key Biscayne at 1111 Crandon Blvd. To make a reservation call (786) 453-0974 or click here. Open for lunch Wed to Sun from Noon to 2:30 p.m. and for dinner 6 to 10 p.m. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays La Scala Closed on Sundays The popular Italian Bistro now offers their delicious meals to enjoy at home and thanks your support during the last year To place a Monday takeout order call (786) 773-3633 or visit us online by clicking here. Open 5 to 9 p.m. 180 Crandon Blvd Arcade Shopping Center. Kazumi Closed Sunday. Our modern Japanese fusion restaurant offers creative treatments & creativity in our dishes To see our menu, click here Call us tomorrow at (305) 361-2675. Corner Coffee and Pantry Closed Sunday Did you know you do not have to be a member of the Community Center to enjoy the best Italian Coffee on the island? Delivery via UberEats and Postmates Located in the lobby of the Key Biscayne Community Center at 10 Village Green Way. You can reach CCP at (786) 420-2666. Open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mon-Fri - closes at 2 p.m. on Saturdays Check back tomorrow for more specials as we add more restaurants to #tasteofkeybiscayne-To-Go And please remember to order from the restaurant directly before using one of the apps this way we support the local restaurants by saving them the commission they are charged, which at times is as much as 30% Today A mix of clouds and sun. High 83F. Winds N at 10 to 15 mph. Tonight A few clouds. Low 51F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Tomorrow Intervals of clouds and sunshine in the morning with more clouds for later in the day. High 79F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. The chief operating officer of Bank of America does not see cryptocurrency as a kind of competition. Instead, he sees it as an asset class and points out that people like it for a variety of different reasons. Chief Operating Officer of Bank of America Cryptocurrency: I dont think this is competition at all Tom Montag, chief operating officer of Bank of America, talked about cryptocurrency in a speech on Thursday interview Chainalysis CEO Michael Gronager at a conference hosted by Blockchain Analytics in New York. Montag is also President of Bank of Americas Global Banking and Marketing Department and a member of the companys executive management team. He is responsible for all businesses that serve companies and institutional investors. He said that cryptocurrency reminded him of early derivatives. He also admitted that he did not understand stablecoins. I dont understand this and everyone in the room Is there really a dollar behind the stablecoin? The chief operating officer of Bank of America was also asked whether the bank was competing with cryptocurrencies. He replied: I dont think this is competition at all. I think its just another asset classPeople like it for a variety of different reasons. Bank of America executives are not the only ones who see cryptocurrency as an asset class.Competitor Investment Bank Goldman Sachs It was stated in May that Bitcoin is an investable asset. JPMorgan In July, it said that many of its customers see cryptocurrencies as the asset class they want to invest in. When commenting on whether Bitcoin is a store of value, Montag shared: I thought of how to use Bitcoin as a store of global value. When you are used to having a stable currency, it is difficult to understand the importance of being an American. . As for the Feds launch of its own central bank digital currency (CBDC), he believes, It will be inevitable, but it will be fine. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell Said In September, We are actively evaluating whether to issue CBDC, and if so, in what form. Last month, Bank of America launched its encryption research, stating that digital assets are Too big to ignore. The banks dedicated encryption research team is Established In July. What do you think of the comments made by the Chief Operating Officer of Bank of America? Let us know in the comments section below. Image Source: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons More and more mayors of American cities have stated that they hope to pay in Bitcoin. The Mayor of Miami stated that he will use cryptocurrency for all his salary, the other two mayors will convert their salaries into Bitcoin, and the elected mayor of New York City will pay his first three salaries in cryptocurrency. More U.S. city mayors demand bitcoin payments More and more mayors of American cities hope to use Bitcoin to pay their rewards. At the time of writing, at least three mayors and one elected mayor stated that they will receive their next salary in Bitcoin. The first mayor to say that he will be paid in Bitcoin is Mayor of MiamiFrancis Suarez, Florida, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, My next salary will be 100% paid in Bitcoin. In response to Suarezs tweet, Elected Mayor of New York CityEric Adams said on Twitter that he will receive the first three salaries in Bitcoin after taking office as the mayor of New York City. Following Adams tweet, Suarez said in an interview with Fox Business Channel that he will not only pay the next salary in Bitcoin, but also pay his entire salary. BitcoinThe Mayor of Miami pointed out that the citys chief information officer was the first employee to actually pay a certain percentage of his salary in Bitcoin and elaborated: I will be the second employeeI will pay 100% of my salary in Bitcoin. Of course we will not impose it on anyone, the mayor emphasized. This will be completely optional We want our employees to have this choice, but of course it will not be something we want to force them to do. We understand that such a decision is a personal decision they must make. , If they want to do it. Suarez was recently re-elected Mayor of Miami.He has been working hard to build his city into Crypto capital international. The other two mayors stated that they would like to be paid in Bitcoin. The mayor of Jackson, Tennessee, Scott Conger, is also working hard to make his city a Bitcoin hub, Tweeted on Thursday: Although state law prohibits Jackson, Tennessee from paying me bitcoins, I will follow suit [Miami Mayor] Francis Suarez & [NYC Mayor-elect] Eric Adams immediately converted my next salary to Bitcoin. Another mayor interested in bitcoin payments is the mayor of Tampa, Florida. On Friday, CBS-affiliated television station WTSP reported that Tampa is trying to become the center of cryptocurrency, and the mayor of the city wants to prove that she is doing her best. At the Bitcoin and Blockchain Summit held in Tampa on Friday, Mayor Jane Castor proposed the idea of ??using Bitcoin to receive a salary. The mayors spokesperson Lauren Rozyla (Lauren Rozyla) subsequently stated that the mayor has agreed to accept two salaries. BitcoinHowever, she is not sure how this will happen. The spokesperson pointed out: This may involve her paying in ordinary U.S. dollars and then investing in Bitcoin immediately. Do you think the mayors of American cities should pay in Bitcoin? Let us know in the comments section below. Image Source: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons The popular science fiction writer Neal Stephenson coined the term meta universe in his first best-selling and breakthrough novel in 1992. avalanche. Now this concept is becoming a reality, and more importantly, you can invest in the meta universe.exist Ready player one, OASIS is another example of advanced virtual reality. Many other science fiction writers, such as Ian M Banks, have created and used similar concepts in their novels. Back in September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was obviously interested in advancing the meta-universe.In the recent earnings conference call, Facebook made it clear that they hope to unify the community, creators and e-commerce in the meta universe with Zuckerberg Say: Our primary goal in all these initiatives is to help bring the meta-universe to life. Just last week Facebook changes its name to Meta And announced a plan to develop Metaworld. How big can the meta universe be? There are already many well-known names that have made a lot of money in this field, such as Roblox and Fortnite. These are complete virtual reality worlds in which users exist through avatars. Less well-known examples of virtual reality include Decentraland, Upland and Sandbox, as well as another upcoming platform, Victoria VR. From an investment perspective, we can confidently say that this explosive growth of virtual reality and meta-universe is comparable to the Internet boom of the late 1990s. What we are witnessing is that the next stage of the Internet is being created, and the meta-universe may surpass and replace the existing network. related: New industry, new rules: build Metaverse without prejudice Some companies in this field (such as Fortnite) have been able to sustain growth until they keep pace with Facebook, Google, Amazon and other technology giants. Epic Games, the creator of Fortnite, recently raised $1 billion, and Sony invested $200 million in this round of financing. Facebook is investing a lot of resources and funds for a new workplace called Horizon and a prototype Metaverse VR platform. Brands are also placing big bets on virtual reality.Part of the brand Already sold directly to the avatar (D2A) or Gucci Sell A virtual package that is more expensive than the real package.Nike Sell Virtual Jordan in Fortnite and Coca-Cola Start selling virtual wearable devices In Decentraland. Bloomberg has estimated The size of the Yuanjie market is worth 800 billion U.S. dollars. Even if this is in the formative stage, savvy crypto investors can contribute to the growth of Metaverse and the token trading of high-growth startups. Therefore, many smart investors are betting that this boom in virtual reality will accelerate further. One day-perhaps in the next five years-there will be a virtual reality platform comparable to major social networks. How do you invest in Meta universe? Cryptocurrency has become part of these virtual realities, and various platforms accept encryption as a payment option for virtual goods, including VR-based real estate. Gamers in Decentraland and The Sandbox can create virtual businesses, such as casinos and theme parks, and then monetize them. When it comes to crypto investors who have benefited from this trend, some hard work has already been done. Matthew Ball, the futurist and founder of Roundhill Investments, and Jacob Navok, CEO of Genvid Technologies, recently registered this Metaverse ETF. related: Metaverse: Will it be a decentralized safe haven or a centralized tyranny? Metaverse ETF is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that operates in a similar manner to the stock market, except for its crypto-based investment in Metaverse. It is a collection of investments in a series of companies-called an index-allowing investors to enter a wide range of Metaverse markets. Currently, Metaverse ETF has a median market value of US$74 billion, with investments in 41 companies (shareholdings) in 8 countries. This includes investments in infrastructure companies such as Cloudflare and Nvidia, game engines such as Unity and Roblox, and metaverse content pioneers such as Tencent, Sea and Snap. Since the index is sold through the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), it only includes public companies and does not include private companies. This means that if you wish to invest at an earlier stage, cryptocurrencies and other investors need to find other places to get a little closer to the action. For early investment, the best option will be the encryption field. Game, hardware and content creation companies will launch initial coin offering (ICO) and initial DEX offering (IDO) token sales, which means investors can join long before these companies go public. related: Science fiction or blockchain reality?Can build Ready Player One oasis When we consider the total addressable size of this marketincluding core growth components such as creators, hardware, advertising, and e-commerceit may be worth more than $1 trillion. When we also consider the current importance of the Internet to daily life, this is what Metaverse can become in a shorter period of time. As an investment opportunity, Metaverse, especially companies in the ICO and IDO stages, have unparalleled upside potential. Of course, the premise is that you choose wisely. We are witnessing and participating in some exciting things. The Internet and the way we experience reality will no longer be the same, because the accelerated expansion of meta-universe and virtual reality has brought many benefits. This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading action involves risks, and readers should research on their own when making a decision. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are only those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph. Federal Representative Luizao Goulart, a member of the Brazilian Congress, introduced a bill to legalize encrypted payments as a payment method for workers in the public and private sectors. Gulat proposal Seek a new law that allows all Brazilian workers the right to choose to require employers to pay in cryptocurrency. However, the bill guarantees that encrypted payments can only be made after a mutual agreement is reached between the worker and the employer. According to the translated version of the Act: The limit on the percentage of cryptocurrency payment (remuneration) will be freely chosen by the workers. Any imposing by the employer will be prohibited. The bill emphasizes the evolution of finance-from the barter system to fiat currency to Bitcoin (Bitcoin)-Focus on decentralization and eliminate the dependence on a single person or a central entity. If signed into law, Goularts bill will establish a consensus between workers and employers to predetermine the percentage of compensation in cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies. According to Gulat: The most important thing is that the proposal will help solve thecash problem of federal, state and municipal governments by providing alternative payment methods, while promoting a huge market economy in the future. In requesting approval of the proposal, Gulat pointed out the need to establish a global economy that promotes the daily lives of citizens and provides a good quality of life for all. The bill will be passed into law 90 days from the date of approval. related: Brazil aims to strengthen penalties for crypto-related financial crimes A special committee of the Brazilian House of Representatives recently approved a bill to punish crypto-related financial crimes. In addition to increasing the minimum sentence for similar crimes, the latest regulatory amendments also increase penalties for money laundering. As Cointelegraph reported, the penalty increased from one-third to two-thirds of the money laundering amount, and the imprisonment period increased from 10 years to 16 years and 8 months. Because of the lack of regulation, people have nowhere to go. The Brazilian market will adjust ahead of schedule. There will be no more profiteers who use technology to deceive millions of Brazilians, said Federal Vice President Aureo Ribeiro. Congress has passed bills aimed at improving infrastructure, addressing climate change, and strengthening social services in the Biden administration. The 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill also expanded the definition of a broker, waiting for the signature of US President Joe Biden after being passed by a vote of 228-206 on Friday. The bipartisan infrastructure bill passes $1.2 trillion The bipartisan infrastructure bill has been a hot topic recently, and the bill on Friday Passed in Congress Now awaiting President Bidens approval. After weeks of delay and debate, 13 Republicans joined the ranks of the vast majority of Democrats to help promote the proposal. Suddenly: The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill has just passed the House of Representatives and will now be submitted to President Biden. They cannot stop spending, nor can asset prices stop rising. Pump? (@APompliano) November 6, 2021 Bitcoin.com news Report Three days ago, the bill was reduced to 1.75 trillion U.S. dollars, and legislators once again reduced the figure to 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars.From the State Banquet Hall, Biden Famous Congress passed the bill and said with a smile: Finally Infrastructure Week. The 1,600-page proposal discusses incentives to combat climate change, provides universal preschool childcare services, and Fund allocation Free computer. estimate It is said that about 550 billion US dollars will be used to fight the so-called climate crisis in the United States. I voted against this so-called infrastructure bill. The bill is only used to advance the final socialist agenda in the United States, and it is completely lacking in financial responsibility. Less than 9% of the $1.2 trillion price tag goes to hardware infrastructure. -Representative Paul Gosar, DDS (@RepGosar) November 6, 2021 US$47 billion will be spent on flooding, coastal and climate restoration, and US$39 billion will be spent on transport modernization. About US$5 billion will be spent on low-emission and zero-emission buses, US$110 billion will be spent on roads and bridges, and US$7.5 billion will be spent on electric vehicles and charging development. Broad definition of broker, Section 6050I of the Tax Code Now, it has increased by trillions at the same time Debt mountain It is not good for the United States to have it. Most cryptocurrency supporters are more concerned about cryptocurrency tax regulations. The senator who helped draft the bill slipped in a clause change that said organizations that trade digital assets were treated as brokers. In fact, digital currency proponents worry that the definition of a broker is very broad, and crypto proponents believe that in addition to exchanges, software engineers and miners may also be targeted. The way the bill is written, the main concern is Reporting requirements The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will force all brokers to submit 1099 forms and declarations. In addition, there are concerns about the amendment to Article 6050I of the Tax Code, which essentially requires individuals and businesses that have received US$10,000 in cash or bank wire transfers to submit IRS Form 8300. I emailed two senators from Virginia today. What have you done to ensure you live the life you want in the future? Repeal section 6050I of the tax law and punish politicians who support them by voting to step down politicians. #Infrastructure Act #American government Forward to spread the message -Oh Smit (@thatguyoliver) November 5, 2021 This form requires businesses and individuals to follow the Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures and record the senders name, address, and social security number. The 8300 form must also include detailed information about the reasons behind the funds. Meltem Demirors: Infrastructure Act is essentially anti-American Even after the bill passed in Congress, cryptocurrency supporters told their fellow Americans to call their representatives to fix the revised section 6050I.An encryption advocate Tweet: Everyone in the cryptocurrency community must contact their members of Congress.A clause requiring them to oppose secretly joining [the] The Infrastructure Act will amend Section 6050I of the Tax Code, which will destroy the defi industry. It is very important that we kill it. Coinshares CSO Meltem Demirors also complained about the passage of the bill. This bill is unconstitutional and anti-American in nature. Private citizens have the right to financial privacy and financial freedom. It is absolutely shameful to see this, Demirors Said. President Biden called the bill a once-in-a-lifetime investment. It puts us on the road to winning economic competition in the 21st century, Biden explain. What do you think of Congress passing the 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill? Please tell us your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below. Image Source: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons If London continues to threaten, the EU may abandon the entire Brexit agreement with the UK Suspension of partial withdrawal agreement, The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ireland has issued a warning. In some of the strongest public comments to date, these comments indicate Full-scale trade war Getting closer, Simon Covinni told the broadcaster RTE that the UK is deliberately pushing for a deal it knows cannot be reached. He said that Brussels retaliatory action will go hand in hand with any action in London. One depends on the other. Therefore, if one of them is shelved, then the other may also be shelved by the EU. This triggered the specter of a broken relationship between London and Brussels. For weeks, the British government has stated that it has the conditions to suspend part of the Brexit agreement due to huge differences in how to formulate a Brexit agreement. The post-Brexit trade rules apply to Northern Ireland. Despite the withdrawal of the United Kingdom, the region remains within the EU Customs Union and the single market The so-called Northern Ireland Agreement Brexit agreement. This is to avoid the need for land borders on the island of Ireland and to protect the 1998 peace agreement that ended three years of sectarian conflict. Respected London has dismissed Concessions made by Brussels last month This will simplify the Irish Sea Customs inspection, saying they have not done enough, and refuse to accept the EU Supreme Courts supervision of the transaction. The Brexit negotiator Lord David Frost and the European Union Vice President and key figure in Brexit Maros Sevkovic held talks and will meet again in London on November 12. But even though Brussels said it was already very flexible, the United Kingdom said it was not doing enough. There are growing expectations that London will trigger Article 16 of the Brexit agreementactually shelving the deal or part of the agreementand it is widely believed that action may be taken in the next few days. Covini stated that the EU will view it as deliberately forcing the breakdown of relations and negotiations between the two parties. The EU increasingly believes that London is seeking to disrupt negotiations Let the EU rewrite the agreement -What Brussels refuses to do. He said that this may eventually cause the EU to rebound, saying Enough is enough, we are not negotiating with partners who act in good faith. I think they are deliberately asking them to know what they cant get, he said, adding that London didnt provide anything but just continued to ask for more. Last week, Irishman Taisoeach Micheal Martin uncompromisingly criticized Londons position. Invoking Article 16 is irresponsible, unwise and reckless. If the British government takes such action, I think it will have a profound impact on the relationship between the UK and the EU, he said. According to an official from the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC), the Peoples Bank of China digital currency (CBDC), or digital renminbi, has been used in transactions worth nearly 10 billion U.S. dollars. In addition, government digital wallets have been downloaded by approximately 140 million people. The adoption rate of digital renminbi has risen, and the transaction volume is close to 10 billion U.S. dollars Mu Changchun, director of the Digital Currency Research Institute of the Peoples Bank of China, shared the progress of the adoption of the digital renminbi at the Hong Kong Fintech Week Conference on Wednesday. He revealed that as of October, about 140 million people had downloaded the eCNY wallet of the Peoples Bank of China Digital Currency (CBDC). In addition, according to Reuters, the digital renminbi has been used in transactions totaling approximately 62 billion yuan ($9.7 billion). Although China has been actively testing its digital renminbi, officials from the Peoples Bank of China stated that the digital currency has no official release date. Mu added that so far, 1.55 million merchants can use eCNY wallets to accept payments, including utilities, catering services, transportation, retail, and government services. More and more central banks around the world are exploring the launch of their own CBDC.According to the Atlantic Council CBDC tracker, 87 countries are now exploring CBDC. Among them, 7 have been launched, 17 are pilot projects, 15 are under development, and 39 are under development. In September, Benoit Cure, head of the Innovation Center of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), urge The central bank is now taking action against the central banks digital currency to compete with the initiatives of the private sector, including cryptocurrencies. What do you think of the number of people who have already used the digital renminbi? Let us know in the comments section below. Image Source: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wikimedia Commons The day after the government reiterated its commitment, China reported dozens of new local coronavirus infections on Saturday. Strict measures Designed to limit the spread of the pandemic within its borders. The countrys National Health Commission reported 74 new cases from the previous day on Sunday, 50 of which were locally transmitted. A wave of cases has spread to most of its 31 provinces. This is the most widespread outbreak since the coronavirus outbreak last year. The data was released after officials stated at a press conference in Beijing that even if other countries in the region abandon the zero new crown virus policy, China will continue to comply with its preventive measures. Wu Liangyou, an official of the National Health Commission, said that China faces complex and severe challenges this winter and next spring in controlling the virus, because the epidemic is still at a high level in neighboring countries and the world. In China, where the Winter Olympics will be held for the first time in February next year, new cases have slowed to a trickle in mid-2020, and the authorities have since reacted quickly to any prospect of a possible large-scale outbreak. A highly contagious variant of Delta appeared in the country, which hit July, the eastern city of Nanjing, Leading to major measures aimed at limiting its spread, including travel restrictions. Respected Increasingly restrictive measures have emerged in the country, and nearly 1,000 new cases have been reported since mid-October.Last weekend, thousands of tourists Locked in Shanghai Disneyland for large-scale testing After discovering a case related to the theme park a day ago.The government also warned families Store food In case of emergency. Chinas efforts to control the epidemic are carried out in the context of a broader economic slowdown. Economists have pointed out in recent months the impact of restrictions on consumer spending, weak real estate industry and energy shortages. Although the GDP growth rate in the third quarter fell to 4.9%, the lowest in a year, data on Sunday showed that Chinas exports were resilient, which also helped to promote its rapid recovery from the early stages of last years pandemic. In dollar terms, exports exceeded expectations in October, up 27% year-on-year. Chinas economy shows [a] Zhang Zhiwei, chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said: The pattern in October is similar to the previous few months: exports are still strong due to the recovery in global demand, while domestic activity may remain sluggish to some extent driven by the regional Covid outbreak. Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark on Friday stonewalled the House select committee investigating January 6, responding to a subpoena demanding he appear for an interview with the panel, but not answering questions posed to him, sources familiar with his appearance told CNN. Instead, Clark provided a letter from his attorney Harry MacDougald that claimed he could not provide testimony until a court declares that his interactions with former President Donald Trump are not protected under attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. CNN has not obtained a copy of the letter, first reported by Politico, but confirmed its contents through a source with knowledge of the letter. Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson said in a statement later Friday that he had considered and rejected Clark's claim that he didn't have to answer questions under subpoena. "He has a very short time to reconsider and cooperate fully," the Mississippi Democrat said. "We need the information that he is withholding and we are willing to take strong measures to hold him accountable to meet his obligation." "It's astounding that someone who so recently held a position of public trust to uphold the Constitution would now hide behind vague claims of privilege by a former President, refuse to answer questions about an attack on our democracy, and continue an assault on the rule of law," Thompson said. MacDougald, an Atlanta-based attorney, previously worked on the pro-Trump lawsuits that pushed unfounded claims of election fraud. He worked with former President Donald Trump's ex-lawyer Sidney Powell on a lawsuit against Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger that aimed at overturning Joe Biden's win in the state. It was among the dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits filed by Trump's legal team after his election loss in an attempt in court to gain traction on voter fraud. Clark was one of the officials within the Justice Department pushing to pursue unfounded claims of voter fraud in the weeks after the November election, and, according to officials who interacted with him, was in touch with Trump repeatedly. So far, Clark is one of only a few then-Trump administration officials to have received a congressional subpoena. Clark's appearance was delayed until Friday, after he parted ways with a lawyer who was preparing him to the House last week. The appearance lasted about an hour and a half, during which time Clark and his attorney walked in and out of the room on several occasions. Neither Clark, nor MacDougald, would answer questions as they left. Going into the session, Clark did not describe his level of cooperation with the panel. "I'm going in," Clark told CNN Friday morning upon walking into an office building. "Mr. Clark is subject to a sacred trust -- one that is particularly vital to the constitutional separation of powers," Clark's lawyer wrote in his 15-page letter. "As a result, any attempts -- whether by the House or by the current President -- to invade that sphere of confidentiality must be resisted." MacDougald also referenced Trump's lawsuit seeking to block the committee from obtaining more than 700 records related to January 6. He suggested that the committee delay its request for Clark's testimony until that lawsuit is resolved. On Thursday a federal judge heard arguments in that case and appeared deeply skeptical that Trump could block lawmakers from obtaining evidence that is relevant to their investigation. Previously, Trump hasn't attempted to block former Justice Department officials from speaking to members of Congress about his election fraud antics, and Clark doesn't appear to have any extensive executive privilege shield available to him. Yet other officials from the Trump White House have delayed their testimonies, and Trump is already in court arguing to keep documents from his presidency private. As a sympathizer to election fraud conspiracy theories, Clark became Trump's most useful asset inside the Justice Department in the days before January 6. Clark helped Trump devise a plan to oust the then-acting attorney general, place himself atop the department and have the DOJ intervene in Georgia to set aside its voting results in order to sway the state toward Trump. When Clark's superiors learned of his scheming with Trump in early January, they threatened to resign en masse. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a member of the committee who also served as a House manager for Trump's impeachment related to January 6, told CNN previously he was "very eager" for Clark's testimony. "Clark had a lot to do with this plan for January 6," Raskin said, "and he also was apparently making a play to become the Attorney General, which caused a huge number of lawyers to say they would resign immediately. So we would get something like the Saturday Night Massacre that took place back during the Watergate period." Raskin said the committee is interested in learning about any efforts behind the scenes at the Justice Department to oppose the certification of the Electoral College vote, the process that was interrupted when Trump supporters violently overran the Capitol. Center of Senate report Previously, the Senate Judiciary Committee released its own lengthy staff report detailing how Trump and his allies pressured DOJ to overturn the 2020 election. In that nearly 400-page report, Clark's name appears more than 200 times and casts him as the agency's pivotal figure helping Trump, according to other witnesses from the Justice Department. In one particularly poignant scene, the report recounts a December 26 call that Clark received from then-acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who spoke at length with the Senate committee. Rosen wanted to know why Trump had mentioned Clark in a previous phone call. When Clark told Rosen he had previously met with Trump, Rosen called being "flabbergasted." The Senate Judiciary Committee, which did not interview Clark for its investigation, described several other elected officials, lawyers working with Trump and even lower-level Justice Department employees who appeared to support Clark's efforts at DOJ. The Senate report also noted a meeting just before Christmas Day where Trump met Clark and Republican congressmen at the White House. But the report was unable to nail down the extent of coordination among the election fraud theorists without insight from inner-circle witnesses like Clark. Handwritten notes In addition to the characters around Trump, handwritten notes of a December 27 discussion between the President and top Justice Department officials document that Trump said he wanted to put Clark in a leadership role and that Republicans in Congress could promote Trump's election fraud theories. At the time of Clark's push, the DOJ had already determined the voter fraud theories were largely unfounded. Trump's reference to Clark, an environmental lawyer temporarily filling the civil litigation leadership role at Justice "surprised" then-acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue "because Clark 'didn't have anything to do with the Department's election responsibilities,'" the Senate wrote, citing Donoghue's own testimony to the Committee. Separately, Perry spoke to Donoghue about Clark as well, telling Donoghue he liked Clark and thought Clark could "do something about this," the Senate Judiciary Committee noted, again citing Donoghue's testimony. By New Year's, Clark was asking for an intelligence briefing about election interference and sent Donoghue his proposal for the Justice Department to announce investigations into the vote in Georgia. He and the DOJ leadership met with Trump on January 3. At that meeting, Donoghue and others told Trump there would be mass resignations at the Justice Department if the President were to fire the acting attorney general and put Clark in charge. All of Clark's actions came at the end of December, "following personal communications with Trump, including at least one meeting that Clark attended in the Oval Office without the knowledge of DOJ leadership," the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote. But they were not able to detail exactly what Trump has said. That work may be left for the House investigators. This story has been updated with additional details. Correction: An earlier version of the headline and story misspelled Jeffrey Clark's name. The-CNN-Wire & 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. A police chase takes a dramatic turn, a four-year-old girl is reunited with her family, and a deli is targeted with a Molotov cocktail. These are the must-watch videos of the week. Don't try this at home A police chopper captured Hollywood-worthy footage of an alleged car thief attempting to evade police. Biden appears to doze off at climate summit An aide seemingly woke up President Biden after he appeared to doze off at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. CNN's Jeanne Moos reports. A heartwarming reunion Four-year-old Cleo Smith has been found alive 18 days after she went missing from a campsite in northwest Australia. Bad airline behavior A "customer disturbance" aboard a Delta Air Lines flight from Atlanta to Los Angeles resulted in the flight being diverted to Dallas, according to Delta. Deli hit with Molotov cocktail Fire marshals in New York have arrested a man who allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at a Brooklyn deli. The-CNN-Wire & 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved. SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Authorities say a Sacramento police dog was stabbed while trying to apprehend a suspect. The incident occurred Friday night while officers were at a residence to locate a suspect with a warrant for stalking and threats. The suspect, armed with a knife, fled out the back door and the K-9 named Ranger and his handler tried to take him into custody. Ranger was stabbed in the abdomen during the confrontation and was then taken to a veterinarian where he underwent emergency surgery. Police say the dog is expected to make a full recovery. The suspect was treated for arm injuries caused by the dog. ROCHESTER, Minn. - Rochester Repertory Theatre is giving the public a look at its remodel after a year in the dark. The remodeling process started in 2019 when the company asked community members how they would like to see the theatre improve physically. One of the most requested responses was updating the bathrooms. During the pandemic, the company was not able to have shows there. That's when they decided to remodel the downstairs - including the lobby, bathrooms, offices, and concessions. Board president, Merritt Olsen says it's important to keep local theatre alive. We want to get up and running, get audiences comfortable coming back, and doing some great shows and entertaining Rochester, and then we'll see where we are after we do that. Future remodel plans include upgrading furniture, installing a new heating and cooling system, and eventually further expanding. The artists and the audiences are anxious to return to normal... normal for us will still mean audiences wearing masks. But at least we're getting back toward that normalcy, Merritt adds. Donors raised $50,000 for this phase of the remodel. Grant money also went toward the project. DEXTER, Minn. A one-vehicle accident on Interstate 90 in Mower County sends one person to the hospital. The Minnesota State Patrol says it happened around 2:13 am Saturday near mile marker 194. The Patrol says Ryan Daniel Olson, 31 of Austin, was eastbound when he ran off the highway to the left and rolled his vehicle. Olson suffered non-life threatening injuries and was taken to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester. The State Patrol says alcohol was involved in this crash. Shenandoah, IA (51601) Today Plenty of sunshine. High around 50F. Winds NNW at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight Some clouds. Low 24F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Hyundai Card's headquarters in Seoul. Courtesy of Hyundai Card By Park Jae-hyuk Hyundai Motor Group is speeding up the process of separating Hyundai Capital from Hyundai Card and Hyundai Commercial, raising speculation that Chairman Chung Euisun will strengthen his control over the auto-financing company, which was previously managed by his brother-in-law, Hyundai Card and Hyundai Commercial Vice Chairman Chung Tae-young. Last Friday, Hyundai Card and Hyundai Commercial announced that Hyundai Capital's press releases will no longer be uploaded on the former's online public relations (PR) platform. Hyundai Capital's logo was also removed from their websites. "Hyundai Capital's PR team was split off from our team, so Hyundai Capital employees, who previously handled issues regarding Hyundai Card and Hyundai Commercial, will only deal with issues related to Hyundai Capital," a Hyundai Card spokesperson said. The comments indicated that the latest governance overhaul of Hyundai Motor Group's three financial arms has also affected their rank-and-file employees. Hyundai Capital's regulatory filing has already shown that its 29 executives, who were concurrently holding positions at Hyundai Card and Hyundai Commercial, resigned Oct. 12 to work only for the credit card issuer and the corporate financing firm. Regardless of their remaining terms as Hyundai Capital executives, those who were in charge of business management, digitization, brand awareness, personnel affairs and PR left the company. Their resignations came about a month after the Hyundai Card vice chairman and his wife, Hyundai Commercial President Chung Myung-yi, stepped down from their posts at Hyundai Capital, Sept. 30. "We do not have any plan to hire new executives, as we will maintain our existing executives," Hyundai Capital said in a regulatory filing. Hyundai Capital is expected to gradually increase the number of executives from Hyundai Motor Group's key subsidiaries, including Hyundai Motor Company, for the chairman to tighten his grip over the financial firm. The appointment of Hyundai Glovis managing director Yoo Heung-mok as a Hyundai Capital executive, Oct. 18, supports this speculation. He built most of his career at Hyundai Motor Company. In addition, Hyundai Glovis has been viewed as one of the most important subsidiaries for the Hyundai Motor Group chairman, who is the logistics company's largest shareholder with a 23.3 percent stake. While the Hyundai Motor Group chairman is strengthening his control over Hyundai Capital, the Hyundai Card vice chairman seems to be focusing more on the credit card firm. The vice chairman and his wife together hold a 37.5 percent stake in Hyundai Commercial and the corporate financing firm increased its stake in Hyundai Card to 28.5 percent in August by acquiring a 4 percent stake from special purpose entities owned by Affinity Equity Partners. Taiwan's Fubon Financial, which has maintained a close relationship with the Hyundai Card vice chairman, also took over a 20 percent stake from Affinity at that time. Hyundai Card, however, has denied the rumors about its spin-off from Hyundai Motor Group, citing Hyundai Motor Company and Kia hold 36.9 percent and 11.5 percent stakes in the credit card firm, respectively. Hyundai Motor Company also holds a 37.5 percent stake in Hyundai Commercial. By Kwon Mee-yoo About nine months into his presidency, U.S. President Joe Biden has yet to name a new ambassador to South Korea, despite the importance of the post in bilateral relations as well as the significance of Seoul as an important ally in East Asian geopolitics. "America is back, diplomacy is back," Biden said in February, distancing himself from his predecessor Donald Trump who made "America First" his main policy. However the message hasn't sunk in yet as about half of U.S. ambassadorial posts still remain vacant with South Korea being one of them. According to the American Foreign Service Association, 95 out of 189 positions were vacant as of Nov. 4. Only seven of Biden's ambassadorial appointees have been confirmed since he took office, while 63 are stalled in the Senate, according to the Partnership for Public Service, Nov. 2. South Korea falls into the remaining 25 positions that do not have nominations. Former Ambassador to Seoul Harry Harris, who was appointed by Trump, resigned Jan. 20 after President Biden took office. After Harris's departure, Robert Rapson served as acting chief of mission, before current Charge d'Affaires Chris Del Corso was appointed in June. Some figures emerged as potential candidates for the ambassadorial post in Seoul in spring and summer, but rumors of their appointment soon died away. Vincent Brooks, former U.S. Forces Korea Commander, was on the list, but an aide said that he had not received an offer from the Biden administration. U.S. Ambassador to Albania Yuri Kim, the first Korean-American woman to become a U.S. ambassador, has also been mentioned for the post, considering her expertise on East Asian issues, as well as former U.S. Ambassador to Burma Derek Mitchell. With the vacancy being prolonged, a group of Korean lawmakers belonging to the National Assembly Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee asked White House Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell for a swift nomination of the new ambassador to South Korea during their visit to the U.S. in October. Campbell said he "fully understands" the needs to fill the vacancy. Meanwhile, some other big names have been taking ambassadorial posts in allies and rivals of the U.S. in the Indo-Pacific region. Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel was named as U.S. ambassador to Japan, and seasoned career diplomat and former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns was tapped to take the ambassadorship in China. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti was nominated as the country's ambassador to India. President Moon Jae-in gives former U.S. Ambassador to Korea Harry Harris a farewell gift at Cheong Wa Dae, Jan. 19, two days before he left Korea after resigning following the inauguration of the Joe Biden administration. Courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae President Moon Jae-in instructed aides to make greater efforts to strengthen exchanges with Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, known collectively as the Visegrad Group, noting their economies are growing dynamically compared with Western European nations, a senior presidential official said Sunday. Moon issued the instruction after returning from a three-nation European trip that included a summit in Hungary with the four Visegrad Group countries, senior presidential secretary for communication Park Soo-hyun said in a Facebook posting. Park quoted Moon as saying that companies are well aware of how dynamic the V4 countries are, but people and the media don't appear to be, and the government should inform people about the countries in detail and strengthen cooperation with them. "V4 represents the biggest destination of investment in the European Union and about 650 South Korean companies already have a presence there," Moon was quoted as saying. "Compared with Western European economies that are in the doldrums or slumps, this region is growing dynamically." Moon also said South Korea and the four nations have similarities in that they have achieved democracy after overthrowing military-led authoritarian regimes or communism, according to Park. Moon instructed aides to ensure cooperation with the V4 nations will continue in the next administration too, Park said. (Yonhap) By Trudy Rubin Just before global leaders gathered in Rome for the G20, to blather about confronting COVID-19 globally, a damning report was issued by a Brazilian senate committee. The 1,200-page document recommended that President Jair Bolsonaro face criminal charges for crimes against humanity, charlatanism, and malfeasance for his refusal to confront the pandemic, leaving Brazil second only to the United States globally in COVID-19 deaths, with more than 600,000 fatalities. The populist Bolsonaro, a proud Trump clone, ridiculed scientists, downplayed the virus (even though he caught it), fired health professionals and replaced them with inept cronies, promoted fake cures like hydroxychloroquine, and debunked safety measures. Sound familiar? "There is a murderer hidden in the presidential palace," said the report's main author. The message from Brazil is that the struggle to crush this pandemic, and prevent the next one pits authoritarians who undermine it against democratic leaders who may be hobbled at home. Pope Francis urged Biden, at their Vatican meeting, to focus on closing the vaccine gap for poor nations. And the G-20 leaders assembled in Rome wanted to send a visual message when they posed in a joint photo with doctors in white coats and first responders from the Italian Red Cross. They know that around 76 percent of the vaccine shots administered have been in high and upper-middle income nations and only 0.6 percent in low-income countries. They also know that unvaccinated populations can generate new variants which spread around the world. But missing from the photo were not only Bolsonaro but non-attendees Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia. Their absence undercuts any unified global struggle to end the pandemic, for different reasons. The COVID-19 villains have caused millions of unnecessary deaths and may enable the next pandemic. Russia, with its technological prowess, should have been a global vaccine leader, but the Kremlin is so wedded to secrecy that no one trusts Russian statistics. Russia's domestic-made vaccine, Sputnik-V, was rolled out without sufficient testing, and is not internationally recognized. And the government's failure to promote or combat vaccine hesitancy has led to a shockingly low vaccination rate of 32 percent. The kicker, however that undermines the world's ability to trust Russian vaccines is that Russia has recorded 753,000 excess deaths during the pandemic, a figure demographers use to measure the real impact of pandemics. That means that Russia, with less than half the U.S. population, may have exceeded America's 740,000 coronavirus casualties. However, the Kremlin only admits to 235,000 dead, and Putin has been in hiding for most of the pandemic. No wonder Putin didn't want to show up in Rome. No leadership for global vaccinations there. As for China, Beijing brags that it has distributed over a billion vaccine doses to the world but most have been sold to rich Asian countries, not donated to poor ones, with very few going to Africa. Moreover, China still refuses to provide the World Health Organization with the data that could determine the pandemic's origin from a Wuhan lab accident or an animal-to-human transfer. Meanwhile, Chinese state-controlled media promote fake stories that it began in the United States and Italy. That is shameful, given that both the SARS virus and COVID-19 almost certainly began in China. Unless the world knows how this pandemic originated, China could become the breeding ground for new and lethal variants of the virus. With his absence from Rome, and lack of transparency, Xi Jinping put nationalist politics above any concern for vaccinating the world. Health activists have criticized the G20 for accomplishing little on the pandemic, and the White House for pledging only 1 billion doses for poor nations. The anger increases as many doses go unused in the U.S., due mainly to the GOP's whipped-up hostility to vaccines for political benefit. Too bad domestic politics prevents a Brazil-like investigation into vaccine villains here. However, there are potential heroes in this fight, such as President Joe Biden, and one other whose name may surprise you: Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. Both leaders may be crippled by domestic politics or broken global supply chains. But their future performance will be critical for vaccinating the world. The key to vaccinating the world is likely to be ramped-up production in poorer countries such as India and South Africa, in cooperation with Western vaccine manufacturers who license the technology or offer it for free. India, home to the world's biggest vaccine manufacturers, was supposed to play that role, promising hundreds of millions of doses to poorer countries, to be distributed by an international non-governmental organization with funding from the Gates Foundation. But the populist Modi totally botched the initial vaccination of his own people, leading to a staggering explosion of the virus at home and a ban on exports to low-income countries. Fortunately, Modi shaped up and India has now administered over one billion doses, and has a home-produced vaccine waiting for global approval. While only a quarter of its population is fully vaccinated, the Indian leader says the country is ramped up to start sending vaccines abroad. If Biden and private funders team up with Modi, there is a potential pairing that could speed the inoculation of poorer global citizens. That would give a huge boost to global democracies and put virus villains to shame. Trudy Rubin (trubin@phillynews.com.) is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. This article was distributed by Tribune Content Agency. Kendallville, IN (46755) Today Rain. High near 45F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%.. Tonight Some clouds. Low 27F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. New Delhi, November 7: Union Home Minister Amit Shah is slated to visit Prime Minister Narendra Modi's constituency Varanasi on November 13 to attend Akhil Bharatiya Rajbhasha Sammelan, Home Ministry sources said. The Home Minister will chair the inaugural day of the two-day event in Varanasi beginning on November 13, said the sources. Shah's visit is significant in view of the upcoming high-stake assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh as he is considered as the architect of the BJP's turnaround in the state after the party had been reduced to the fourth major electoral group in the 2012 polls. Soon after taking over as the BJP's national president, the party in 2014 had registered a historic win in 71 out of the state's 80 Lok Sabha seats. In his day-long visit to Varanasi, the Home Minister is likely to hold a brief meeting withThe Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders. PM Narendra Modi to Lay Foundation Stone for Four-Laning of Key Sections of Shri Sant Dnyaneshawar Maharaj Palkhi Marg, Other NH Projects Tomorrow. The BJP, under Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, is seeking another round of victory in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections slated from 2022, where it had stormed to power five years ago with a decisive mandate. The party had, in the 2017 polls, won 312 seats with a vote share of 39.67 per cent. This was followed by a strong electoral performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when the BJP won 62 of the state's 80 parliamentary constituencies. The next legislative Assembly elections will be held in Uttar Pradesh in the month of February to March 2022 to elect 403 members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly. The term of the current assembly elected in 2017 will expire on May 14, 2022. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi, Nov 7 (PTI) The one-upmanship over Chhath celebration involving the ruling AAP and opposition BJP intensified on Sunday with saffron party MP Parvesh Verma asserting to defy the ban on celebrating the festival at Yamuna banks and challenging Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to stop him if he can. Meanwhile, some Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislators staged a protest accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of stopping them from preparing a Chhath ghat at Dwarka. Also Read | Maharashtra: Newly Married Woman Found Murdered in Her Flat In Virar. The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) has prohibited Chhath Puja on the banks of the Yamuna this year. The AAP and BJP leaders have been involved in a war of words over Chhath for the last several days. Also Read | Puti Gaonkar, Trade Union Leader and Well Known Mining Activist, Joins Aam Aadmi Party in Goa. The festival assumes political significance as Purvanchalis (natives of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) who are settled in Delhi and celebrate the festival are a major vote bank in the city. Verma, the BJP MP from west Delhi, alleged that Kejriwal has "prohibited" celebration of Chhath at Yamuna ghats which is unacceptable. "I will be accompanied by Purvanchali brothers and sisters and we will clean the Chhath ghat at ITO and start the puja. I challenge Arvind Kejriwal to stop us if he can," Verma said. Meanwhile, AAP MLAs Sanjeev Jha and Vinay Mishra, who staged a protest in Dwarka demanding that a Chhath ghat be constructed there, alleged that the BJP was trying to obstruct Chhath Puja in the city. "The BJP at many places in Delhi is stopping Purvanchalis from preparing Chhath ghats to obstruct the Chhath Puja. The AAP MLA and volunteers have come forward to construct Chhath ghat in Dwarka in response to this," tweeted Jha who is the AAP legislator from Burari. The tussle between the AAP and BJP started with DDMA's September 30 order prohibiting celebration of Chhath at public places this year due to COVID-19. Delhi BJP leaders, including northeast MP Manoj Tiwari, launched an agitation against the order and claimed that the Kejriwal government was responsible for the ban. Tiwari even took out a Rath Yatra' in Purvanchali populated areas of the city to put pressure on Delhi government for lifting the ban. Kejriwal, who had earlier supported the ban at public places in view of safety of people, wrote a letter to Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal in October to allow Chhath Puja in Delhi. The DDMA had last week allowed Chhath celebrations at "designated sites" excluding Yamuna banks in Delhi in a meeting attended by Baijal and Kejriwal while the Delhi government declared November 10 a public holiday on Chhath festival. Chhath, celebrated after Diwali by people belonging to Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh, involves the offering of 'Arghya' by fasting women to the Sun god in knee-deep water. It involves elaborate rituals spanning over three days. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) By Pragya Kaushika New Delhi [India], November 7 (ANI): West Bengal politics resonated in the Bharatiya Janata Party national executive meeting being held in the national capital Sunday as party chief JP Nadda assured the leaders and people that "the BJP will chart a new story in the state". Also Read | Punjab Shocker: Upset Over Daughters Decision to Marry Against Familys Approval, Malerkotla Man Steals Son-In-Laws Car. With many leaders who played a crucial part in the recently concluded Assembly polls in West Bengal, Swapan Das Gupta, Anupam Hazra, Kailash Vijayvargiya present in the audience, the BJP President assured that the BJP will write a new story in West Bengal. "I want to assure the people of West Bengal that we will be with you and we will chart a new story in the state," said Nadda. Also Read | Uttar Pradesh: Man Gets Death Penalty for Rape, Murder of a 12-Year-Old Girl in Bahraich. The political situation in West Bengal is witnessing a lot of churn with many dissatisfied elected BJP leaders leaving the party to join ruling Trinamool Congress. The party had to face embarrassment after one of its newly-nominated national executive committee member Rajib Banerjee left the party and joined TMC again. Nadda also gave targets to be completed on the ground to the party leaders. The party chief said that booth level committee formation must be completed before December 25. "Every booth has been mobilised to listen in to the Maan Ki Baat at the booth level," stated Nadda. While mentioning that BJP's vote share has increased in every poll, Nadda said that from general to the panchayats polls, the vote share of the BJP has increased. In fact, in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP has and is performing exceedingly well," stated the party chief. He listed policies started by the Centre for health and agriculture. Nadda has addressed the national executive committee meeting in national capital with PM Narendra Modi, and several Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers in presence. Many other senior leaders including, LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, have joined the meeting virtually from their respective states. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Srinagar, Nov 7 (PTI) A policeman sustained severe injuries after he was shot at by terrorists in the Batamaloo area of the city on Sunday, officials said. He identified as Constable Tausif Ahmad, they said. Also Read | Goa: Kidnapped And Raped, Minor Girl Attempts Suicide, One Arrested. "At about 8 pm, terrorists fired upon JKP Constable Tausif Ahmad near his residence at SD Colony, Batamaloo," the officials said. They said the cop was critically injured and has been shifted to the SMHS hospital here for treatment. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi to Inaugurate 340-Km Purvanchal Expressway in Uttar Pradesh on November 16. The area has been cordoned off, and a hunt has been launched to nab the attackers, the officials added. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) New Delhi [India], November 7 (ANI): Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Sunday said that he will be sending a letter to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav asking him to call an emergency meeting on the issue of stubble burning. During a press conference at his residence in Delhi, Rai said, "I'm sending a letter to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav to call an emergency meeting to stop stubble burning. Environment Ministers of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan should be called to discuss the solutions." Also Read | PM Narendra Modi to Lay Foundation Stone for Four-Laning of Key Sections of Shri Sant Dnyaneshawar Maharaj Palkhi Marg, Other NH Projects Tomorrow. Entire Delhi is facing pollution for the last three days. Delhi's air remains stifling. We studied it with the scientists of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) regarding the changes in the pollution level from November 1. It was anticipated that if the incidents of stubble burning did not reduce, then Delhi would have to go through an even worse situation". Gopal Rai further mentioned the incidents of stubble burning in neighbouring states between November 1 and November 6. Also Read | Jammu and Kashmir: Lashkar-e-Taiba Terrorist Found in A Critical Condition in Shopian District. Showing the photographs taken by NASA's satellite, Rai said, "On November 1, stubble was burnt at 2,077 places in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the pollution level of Delhi was 281 on this day. On November 2, 3,291 incidents of stubble burning were reported and the pollution level in Delhi rose to 303". Rai further informed, "The next day, on November 3, 2,775 incidents of stubble burning were reported in neighbouring states, the pollution level on this day was 314. On November 4, stubble was burnt at 3,383 places and the pollution level of Delhi increased to 382". "On November 5, stubble was burnt at a total of 5,728 places in neighbouring states and due to this the pollution level of Delhi increased to 462, although the pollution of firecrackers was also added to it. On November 6, stubble was burnt at 4,369 places, on this day the pollution level of Delhi was 437," he added. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Srinagar, Nov 7 (PTI) Major General Prashant Srivastava on Sunday took over as the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Army's south Kashmir-based counter-insurgency Victor Force, a defence spokesman said. Major Gen Srivastava took over the charge from Major Gen Rashim Bali, who has moved to Delhi on an important assignment in the Integrated Headquarters of the Ministry of Defence (Army), defence spokesman Col Emron Musavi said. Also Read | Cardiac Patients Increased Due to Air Pollution, Says Health Expert. He said Maj Gen Srivastava was commissioned into elite Parachute Battalion of the Special Forces on June 9, 1990. An alumnus of National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, the General Officer has attended all important career courses including Defence Services Staff Courses Wellington (Tamil Nadu), Higher Command Course and National Defence College (USA). Also Read | Jammu and Kashmir: Police Constable Shot Dead by Terrorists in Batamaloo Area of Srinagar. He has an MSc in Strategic Studies and Masters of Philosophy to his credit. The General Officer has vast operational experience having served in intense Counter Insurgency/Counter Terrorist environment in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, the spokesman said. He said Maj Gen Srivastava has been awarded Sena Medal in 2011 while commanding his unit. He has held various important staff appointments prior to assuming the command of the prestigious Counter Insurgency Force (Victor), Col Musavi said. (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) By Pramod Chaturvedi Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], November 7 (ANI): Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday lashed out at the BJP-led Centre and warned the party's state chief Bandi Sanjay to refrain from loose talk or else "we will cut your tongue." Also Read | Editors Guild of India Condemns Booking 102 People, Including Journalists, Under UAPA by Tripura Police. While addressing the media here, KCR lambasted the BJP and said that Sanjay has been bluffing the farmers of Telangana by asking them to cultivate paddy and giving them false hope that the BJP will ensure that the produce is procured. "The Centre has said that they are not going to buy paddy. That is the reason why the agricultural minister asked farmers to opt for other crops instead to prevent the losses of farmers. The centre is behaving irresponsibly," he said. Also Read | Moto E30 Budget Smartphone With Android 11 (Go Edition) Launched; Check Prices, Features & Specifications. "I directly visited the Union Minister concerned and asked him to take the procured parboiled rice. He said he will take a decision and communicate to me, but till now I have received no response. Telangana state already has around 5 lakh tons of paddy from last year. The Centre is not buying it," he added. Lashing out at Sanjay for asking the farmers to grow something that is not being procured by the Centre, KCR said, "The Centre is saying we will not procure paddy and the state BJP is saying we will procure it. Refrain from loose talk. We'll cut your (state BJP leaders) tongues if you pass unnecessary comments about us." "Sanjay said he will send me to jail. I dare him to touch me!" he added. "China is attacking us in Arunachal Pradesh but the Centre hasn't taken any action. We were silent till now, thinking that it's better to let the dogs bark, but now, we will not keep quiet. Legal action will be initiated," he added. Slamming the BJP for their policies "against farmers", KCR said, "You (BJP) are killing farmers by running cars on them. A BJP CM asks people to beat farmers to death." "We will support the farmers who are protesting against three farm laws. We have the responsibility to save the farmers. The opposition is playing cheap politics. They are playing with the sentiments of the farmers," he added while informing that the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) will protest against the Centre for the rights of farmers. Launching a verbal attack on the BJP, KCR questioned what BJP has done in the last seven years. "India's (per capita) GDP is less than Bangladesh, Pakistan and Centre has increased taxes unnecessarily," he claimed. "Did you give Rs 15 lakh to every person of the country or did you give two crore jobs (as promised)?" asked KCR. KCR also demanded that the Centre withdraw the cess levied on petrol and diesel, and said, "Centre has lied on petrol and diesel prices. Crude oil price was 105 US dollars in 2014 and now it is 83 US dollars. BJP lied to public saying that prices of petrol and diesel have increased abroad." (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Taiwan [Taipei], November 7 (ANI): An official in the European Parliament delegation Thursday said Beijing's aggression has driven Europe closer to Taiwan. Raphael Glucksmann, the chair of the European Parliament's Special Committee on Foreign Interference, made a case for stronger European support for Taiwan in an interview with French newspaper Liberation, Taiwan News reported. Also Read | UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Issues Personal Status Law for Non-Muslims in Abu Dhabi. Glucksmann said that the European mission, which took place from November 3-5 was intended to send a message to the world that all political forces in Europe have acknowledged the importance of engaging with Taiwan. Glucksmann also said that Beijing's 'aspirations' are not confined to Taiwan but go beyond the island, Taiwan News reported. Also Read | Earthquake in Pakistan: Quake of Magnitude 4.8 on Richter Scale Jolts Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. "China's aspiration goes beyond Taiwan only, and the failure to take action will only feed its growing ambitions," he argued. This came after the delegation of the European Parliament visited the democratic island with an aim to study Taiwanese experiences in addressing interference and manipulation campaigns. The seven members of the Special Committee on Foreign Interference and Disinformation (INGE) met President of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen, other representatives of the Taiwanese authorities and civil society organisations to discuss Taiwan's innovative system to combat disinformation campaigns and other types of hybrid attacks. This has been the first official visit of the European Parliament to Taiwan, European Parliament said. Taiwan is a democracy of almost 24 million people located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. Despite being governed separately for more than seven decades, Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan.China has also threatened that "Taiwan's independence" means war. On June 1, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to complete reunification with self-ruled Taiwan and vowed to smash any attempts at formal independence for the island. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Islamabad [Pakistan], November 7 (ANI): The Imran Khan government has mandated all the news channels to show the map of Pakistan daily before airing the 9 pm news bulletin, reported local media. The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has issued a notification to display the new map of Pakistan approved by Prime Minister Imran Khan in August, reported ARY News. Also Read | UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Issues Personal Status Law for Non-Muslims in Abu Dhabi. The PEMRAS's letter titled Streamlining Correct Use of Pakistan Political Map stated, "All the news channels (both public and private) have to flash the political map of Pakistan for 02 seconds before airing the news bulletin at 09:00 pm on regular basis." It directed all the satellite TV channel licensees to comply with the recommendation. The letter cited the reference from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on the matter. Also Read | Earthquake in Pakistan: Quake of Magnitude 4.8 on Richter Scale Jolts Swat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. PEMRA, the media authority in Pakistan, has been previously blamed for clamping down on news channels through its various orders. In March, PEMRA had asked news and current affairs satellite channels to refrain from airing "unsubstantiated, judgemental and unipolar remarks" about the country's National Accountability Bureau, "with an alleged intent to malign the state institution", without getting the bureau's point of view, said Dawn. According to PEMRA, the airing of such content was in violation of the PEMRA (Amendment) Act of 2007 and the Pemra Rules of 2009. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Beijing [China], November 7 (ANI): Snowfall has continued to lash the Chinese capital of Beijing since Saturday evening, affecting road traffic in the region, Chinese media reported on Sunday. A large part of the city received snowfall from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. (local time) on Saturday following rainfall earlier during the day. The snow is expected to last till Sunday noon or afternoon, Xinhua reported citing Guo Jinlan, chief forecaster of the Beijing meteorological center as saying. Also Read | PM Narendra Modi Tops Global Leader Approval Ratings with 70% Approval, Highest Among 13 Global Leaders. The snowfall may reach 6 mm to 12 mm in the city proper and the southern area, with the accumulated snow reaching up to 10 cm, said Guo, adding that the temperature will drop drastically accompanied by strong winds. As of 8:30 a.m. (local time) Sunday, more than 164 bus routes have been suspended, and many sections of multiple expressways have been closed, Xinhua reported citing traffic authorities. Also Read | Travis Scott Issues Statement on Astroworld Tragedy in Houston, Offers His Condolences to the Families of the People Who Lost Their Lives. The city has issued yellow alerts for cold waves, strong winds, icy roads, as well as snowstorms. China has a four-tier colour-coded weather warning system, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow and blue, the Chinese media reported. (ANI) (This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body) Guwahati: Former Assam CM Hiteswar Saikia's son Ashok Saikia arrested by CBI in an old case of alleged bank loan fraud "The politically-motivated case was registered in 1996. I've paid the loan &received acknowledgement. I'll submit it in the court," he said before the detention pic.twitter.com/HW47pK9O96 ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) Imperial College (@imperialcollege) #London has established multiple ties with Chinese military specialists besides forging relationships with #Qatar and #SaudiArabia, the Daily Mail reported. pic.twitter.com/qjtnr5o5vH IANS Tweets (@ians_india) November 7, 2021 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) ICYMI: Gabon, the so-called lungs of Africa, store more carbon per hectare than the Amazon, help regulate temperatures, and generate rain for millions in the arid Sahel and distant Ethiopian highlands. How it manages its rainforest is critical https://t.co/wprbVytsZ4 pic.twitter.com/Y96QSuKb7e Reuters (@Reuters) November 6, 2021 (SocialLY brings you all the latest breaking news, viral trends and information from social media world, including Twitter, Instagram and Youtube. The above post is embeded directly from the user's social media account and LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body. The views and facts appearing in the social media post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY, also LatestLY does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.) U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman issued the following statement on President Biden's appointment of Marlene Cintron as Regional Administrator for the Atlantic region, John F. Fleming as Regional Administrator for the Mid-Atlantic region, and Mike Fong as Regional Administrator for the Pacific Northwest: "The U.S. Small Business Administration needs the best and the brightest as we continue to deliver record relief and ensure our nation's 32.5 million small businesses and innovative startups have the tools and resources they need to start, grow and be resilient. Marlene, John, and Mike have a proven track record of doing just that - and I'm confident that, together with their mission-driven district staff, they will continue to deliver the on-the-ground expertise and guidance our small businesses and innovative startups need during this period of economic recovery. I look forward to having them join my team to carry out the SBA's mission and ensure all entrepreneurs are given a fair shot at achieving their dreams." READ ALSO: Biden Administration Announces First Steps to Undo Trump Endangered Species Act Changes Region II (Two) As Region II Administrator, Marlene Cintron will oversee SBA programs, offices, and operations in the SBA's Atlantic region, serving New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Ms. Cintron was born and raised in The Bronx. During her trajectory, she has worked for Congressman Robert Garcia, Mayor David N. Dinkins, Governor Pedro Rossello of Puerto Rico, and New York State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. In 2010, she was named President of the Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation and The Business Initiative Corporation of New York where she utilizes her government relations and financial acumen to support current and prospective Bronx businesses. Ms. Cintron received her bachelor's degree from SUNY College at Old Westbury, her Master's in Education Administration from Fordham University, and her Juris Doctorate from the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC. Region III (Three) As Region III Administrator, John F. Fleming will oversee SBA programs, offices, and operations in the SBA's Mid-Atlantic region, serving Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. Previously, Mr. Fleming was the district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration's Delaware District Office. In that role, Mr. Fleming was responsible for the delivery and management of the Agency's programs throughout the State of Delaware. Mr. Fleming started his SBA career in 1992 and has served in various positions, including deputy district director, chief credit officer, and public information officer. Mr. Fleming graduated in 1992 from Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, with a degree in Business Administration. Prior to attending college, he served in the United States Marine Corps as a non-commissioned officer. Region X (Ten) As Region X Administrator, Mike Fong will oversee SBA programs, offices, and operations in the SBA's Pacific Northwest region serving Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Mr. Fong is currently Chief Recovery and Resilience Officer for Snohomish County, Washington. He is leading efforts to prioritize the region's $160M allocation of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for recovery from the pandemic. Previously, Mr. Fong served as Senior Deputy Mayor for the City of Seattle where he led and coordinated crisis response efforts for COVID-19, resulting in the nation's lowest metropolitan area rates of cases, deaths, and hospitalizations and the first major city in America to reach 70% of residents fully vaccinated. Mr. Fong is the first Chinese American to serve in the role of Deputy Mayor for the City of Seattle. The new regional leadership team will oversee offices collectively covering 11 states, two U.S. territories, and Washington, D.C. RELATED ARTICLE: Pres. Joe Biden Plans to Demote the Second Top U.S. Customs and Border Protection Official: Report A man stole property from the Paediatric Hospital of the Midlands Regional Hospital in Portlaoise, the District Court heard last Thursday. Michael OLeary, 40, of 2 St. Matthews, Ballymahon, Longford was charged with stealing a laptop bag, a red leather wallet, a Romanian identity card, 5 in coins and a 20 note at the Paediatric Department at the Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise on March 5, 2019. Sgt JJ Kirby told the court that Mr OLeary entered the paediatric department of Portlaoise Hospital on that date. A red leather wallet with a card was taken. One doctor reported 20 taken from a zip pocket bag, and another member of staff reported 5 missing. There was CCTV footage from which Michael OLeary had been identified. He later made admissions in an interview. The court heard he is serving a sentence in Mountjoy. At the time of the offence, he was homeless and living in a car and travelling around. He was feeding his drug habit. He had attended at Coolmine Drug Rehab Centre, and was from Portarlington. He had seen a psychiatrist. He suffered from depression for which he was taking medication. He had recently got out of hospital. He apologised for his actions. Judge Catherine Staines sentenced him to six months in July, commencing from the date of the sitting. 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 subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter . Support our mission and join our community now. The Irish Heart Foundation is urging Leitrim people to know the signs of stroke and to be aware of the vital action to take in the event of witnessing one. Research conducted nationally has found that only one in five people know the most important steps to take in the event of a stroke - with 43% unaware of any of the four key signs, new research shows. And experts warn that the worrying figure of 41% of patients failing to get to hospital within 4.5 hours to receive thrombolysis (clot-busting treatment), could be much higher. There were 19 stroke or stroke-related deaths in Leitrim in 2020 10 men and nine women - according to Central Statistics Office data. The Irish Heart Foundation voiced concern at the shockingly low awareness of stroke as a medical emergency as it launched a new Act F.A.S.T. campaign nationwide. An Ipsos MRBI poll for the charity reveals that just 20% know the T stands for the importance of time to call 112 or 999. A high proportion of death, severe disability and misery for families caused by stroke in Ireland, could be avoided just by knowing what those four letters mean, said Chris Macey, the Foundations Head of Advocacy. Facial weakness (can the person smile and has their mouth or eye drooped?), Arm weakness (can the person raise both arms?), Speech problems (can the person speak clearly and understand you?) and Time (call for an ambulance if you spot any one of these). Stroke is one of the few conditions where your own actions will determine your outcome. Treatment has improved dramatically but doctors still rely on people getting to hospital as soon as possible after experiencing symptoms to give them the best possible chance of recovery. The average stroke destroys two million brain cells every minute and its estimated that every 60 seconds saved between having a stroke to getting effective treatment, saves one week of healthy life for a patient. Unfortunately, the survey, conducted earlier this month, found that 43% do not know any of the F.A.S.T. signs and just 10% know them all, even though they are among the most vital signs. Broadcaster Mark Cagney, who suffered a stroke in January, is backing the campaign to raise awareness of the key time factor. It's like having a first aid box at home it's just one of those things that you should know because a stroke could happen to anyone, said the former Ireland AM host, who has returned to work on Newstalk radio. The father-of-four said he had to choose whether to go on or go under and is urging the public to become as familiar with F.A.S.T. as they are with the alphabet or counting. He collapsed in his local supermarket in North Dublin and soon afterwards, returned home and collapsed again, at which point he was advised to go to Dublins Beaumont Hospital. Tests confirmed he had had an acute ischaemic stroke and a clot on his lung. This can happen to anyone and everyone. It doesn't matter if you are Superman or Superwoman. If a vessel pops or it clogs, it will drop you, so if you don't know the signs then you're in even bigger trouble than you were to start with, said Mr Cagney, 65. He said he felt incredibly lucky to escape relatively unscathed from his stroke, despite losing some of his vision, being unable to drive and having ongoing difficulties with spatial awareness. Meanwhile, Mr Macey called for the urgent publication of the HSEs long overdue National Stroke Strategy, which includes provision for a fully funded rolling annual F.A.S.T. campaign that will improve the recovery rate and reduce the cost of treating severe stroke. An estimated 7,500 people in Ireland are hospitalised due to stroke each year, with younger age strokes becoming more prevalent, an average of 1 in 4 strokes affecting those under 65. Visit irishheart.ie for more information on stroke. The number of people attending Sligo University Hospital with eating disorders has more than doubled since the pandemic began, a doctor has revealed. Professor Cathy McHugh, a consultant physician at the hospital, told RTE's Drivetime that it would normally treat four to six people a year with eating disorders. However, 12 patients have already presented with the condition so far this year, three of whom are currently on the wards. She said hospitals are only seeing the tip of the iceberg because when she speaks to her colleagues in the community "it has blown out of all control". Prof McHugh said it appears that people's anxiety levels across the country have been raised as a result of the pandemic. People who have eating disorders are "vulnerable to anxiety" and their social supports have been stripped away in the past year and a half. She warned there was "little to nothing" to support people with eating disorders in Ireland due to very minimal services. They need the help of a psychiatrically-trained eating disorder nurse, who "is the difference between you doing well and you doing poorly". Prof McHugh said she has has significant concerns about admitting people with eating disorders to hospital in a pandemic, as they are very vulnerable if they get Covid. But when it gets to a serious level, she "has no choice". Mike Denver is returning to Landmark Central on Friday, November 19 due to popular demand. Mike's meteoric rise in popularity over the past while culminated with him been voted 'Entertainer of the Year 2016' together with No 1 album of the Year 'Cut Loose' at the ACMA Awards in RTE. Backed by a band a of Ireland's top musicians Mike presents a two and a half high energy show which features all his hits including 'Tommy K',' 'Wasn't that a Party', 'Galway Girl', 'Blown Away', plus hits from the 60's and 70's. Doors open at 7.30pm with the show starting at 8pm. TICKETS: All original tickets with date March 12, 2020 are valid / no exchange necessary. Tickets 30.00 are available at The Landmark Hotel and www.ticketmaster.ie THE THREE AMIGOS LIVE IN CONCERT For quite a number of years now, the hugely popular Three Amigos tour has never failed to generate enthusiasm, lift spirits and provide a rare musical treat that invariably caters for even the most discerning tastes. And so it is that Jimmy Buckley, Robert Mizzell and Patrick Feeney will once again bring their spectacular concert extravaganza to prestigious venues across the country as part of their latest nationwide tour which includes The Landmark Hotel, in Carrick-on- Shannon on December 28. This show is sure to sell out quickly so don't miss out on securing your tickets which cost 35.00 and are available at The Landmark Hotel t: 071 96 22 222 and www.ticketmaster.ie If you are looking for a Chrismtas activity for all the family, the Snow White panto will be performed in Longford this year. Following the huge success of their Panto Cinderella in 2019, Stray Cat Productions are back this year with the Panto Spectacular Snow White. This Traditional Style Panto is for all the family and is not to be missed. X-Factor favourite Mary Byrne returns to play Fairy Nuff along with the hilarious Damien Douglas (who played Buttons in Cinderella) playing the lovable Billy Doolittle. After almost two years of the world interacting on Zoom, the panto will feature a Virtual Magic Mirror. The mirror will be played by Irish comedy legend June Rodgers. Ugly sister (in Cinderella) Colin Flynn returns to play Daisy Doolittle - no daddy in the audience will be safe! Theres a Longford debut for Jordan Bass as he takes on the role of the handsome Prince Harry. Jordan recently performed in the highly acclaimed West Side Story concerts in The Bord Gais. Lots of local talent will take to the stage including Valerie Shiels as Queen Evilene, Leia Victory and Niamh OBrien will share the role of Snow White, Davy Flaherty and Iarlaith ORourke play Tik & Tok and Conor McLoughlin plays Igor. The chorus of dancers includes over forty students from Evolution Stage School. St Mels College will be once again converted into a Panto Theatre with amazing lights, sound, production and over 400 seats. Snow White is Written and Directed by Pat McElwain, choreographed by Tracey Carty, musically directed by Paul Hennessy, with Gerry McCann as Stage Manager. Tickets are selling very fast so dont delay; you wont want to miss this huge event in Longford Town this Christmas. Snow White is supported by Longford Tourism and The Longford Arms Hotel. Snow White opens on Dec 20 with a special opening night offer of 15. Tickets available from www.gr8events.ie. Follow on Facebook & Instagram: @LongfordsTraditionalPanto. GARDAI are warning they have been alerted to several incidents of so called 'acommodation fraud' in Limerick - particularly in the city. In an effort to raise awareness of the issue, one recent incident issue is being highlighted publicly. "A man from Caherdavin called into Mayorstone garda station to say a student had called to his home address that morning stating they had viewed an advertisement online where a room in his home was for rent. This student was requesting to view the room," explained divisional crime prevention officer Sergeant Ber Leetch. "The gentleman was surprised and informed the student that he was not renting any rooms and was unaware of any advertisement. The student could provide him with details of the advertisement, he checked online but could see that the advertisement had since been deleted," she added. Gardai believe criminals are using legitimate addresses to lure people seeking accommodation, into making contact with the intention of attempting to to scam money out of them. "In this case the criminal got nothing as the student was wise enough to call to the address before any money or personal details were given by phone or email. Do not take any advertisement at face value, be suspicious and do your own research first," advised Sgt Leetch. A BROADFORD man living with lewy body dementia has written a second book to raise awareness on the fatal condition that also affected the late Robin Williams. Dementia advocate Kevin Quaid, is a member of the Irish Dementia Working Group (IDWG), supported by The Alzheimer Society of Ireland (ASI) as well as vice-chair of the European Working Group of People with dementia and co-founder of Lewy body Ireland. Now living in Kanturk, County Cork with his wife Helena, Limerick hurling mad Kevin was first diagnosed with the condition in 2017 at the age of 53. He has since drawn on the fighting spirit of the 2018 Limerick Hurling final winning team and channelled their energy in shaking his fist at dementia, which now affects 64,000 people in Ireland. On his second book, I am KEVIN not Lewy, he said: I never imagined that I would write one book let alone two. My first book Lewy Body Dementia Survival and Me is still selling three and a half years later and the reason that I wrote I am KEVIN not Lewy, is to give people hope. No matter what the diagnosis is, dont ever give up, and when you have finished reading this book, I want you to say if Kevin can do it, then I can. Kevins trailblazing campaign work for dementia sufferers has been documented extensively by the media, and despite experiencing a range of severe symptoms, the County Limerick mans enduring positivity seems to know no end. He was one of the first patients in the world to write a book about Lewy Body Dementia from a first-person perspective as well as narrating that of his families. Lewy Body Dementia, is the second most common type of progressive dementia, following Alzheimers disease. Thinking, memory and motor control are adversely affected, for which there are treatments to help manage symptoms, but no cure. Kevin, who recently launched his new book at Carebright CLG, Irelands first purpose-built community for people living with dementia in Bruff, regularly keeps in contact with the widow of the late Robin Williams. The Mrs Doubtfire star was diagnosed with lewy body dementia after his death. Kevin has always felt an affinity with him, so much so, that the cover depicts an image of Kevin and Robin created by Nigerian artist Kunle Adewale. It's not the destination, it's finding the joys on the journey, Kevin has made my future look happier, said Naomi Gleeson, who was recently diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia. A COUNTY Limerick farmer has stopped spilling his herds milk into a slurry tank in a dispute over a hedge for now. Robert Hickey, of Carrigmartin, Ballyneety said his cows milk was going into a slurry tank for 85 days in total. I dried them off last Tuesday (October 26). Id normally milk until Christmas Eve and I'd have a few pound then for January. Overall, around 25,000 / 26,000 will be gone out of my pocket, said Mr Hickey. He decided to dry off his cows early because of the slurry spreading deadline of October 15. If the milk was going into a clear tank I dont know could I spread it the whole year round. This milk is going into a slurry tank. I read it in the Leader about the deadline and how somebody could report you. I am in the spotlight so people would report me. I have about a week's worth of milk in the tank. I couldn't let it build up it would be too dangerous. The rules are there and if you break them you will be up in court and fined, said Mr Hickey. This all dates back to August 2 when the 52-year-old received a note from a driver for his milk processor. It read: Last collection til bushes cut back. He had previously received warnings that his milk collection would stop due to the overgrown roadside hedge along the public road leading to his property. Mr Hickey says he wont be cutting the hedge as it is the councils responsibility. A council spokesperson said: The landowner is incorrect in his assumption that hedge cutting is the responsibility of the local authority and should cut his hedgerow from September 1. Mr Hickey says this contradicts what a council employee said in a court case where he was prosecuted. During the hearing in 2018, the council employee said they take the view that it is responsible for the surface and margin of all public roads in as far as the roadside ditch. Mr Hickey's position is that the hedge is in the charge of the council as was stated in court. They took away my rights to my own property in court and now they're not taking responsibility for it, said Mr Hickey. He said he became aware recently of a roadside ditch being cut by the council in the Herbertstown area. The Leader sent a query regarding this to the council. A spokesperson said the council has nothing further to add to its response given previously. Mr Hickey said the last few months have affected him both financially and mentally. It was very stressful at the start. It was very tough on me because this has never happened before. Then it became normal as I was doing the same thing all the time. Since I dried off the cows it really hit me again that this is ongoing and there is no solution to it. I got up the other morning at my normal time, went up to the parlour and only then I realised I had no cows to milk It is affecting me big time financially. Normally at the back end of the year you would have a surplus of cash you might invest in maintenance work building, fencing, drainage, getting your own hedges in the fields cut. Whatever few pound I have now I have to survive on until next spring and see what happens, said Mr Hickey. When his cows start calving next year what is going to happen? I don't know. I can't answer that until the time comes, he concluded. A GROUP of volunteers in Castleconnell and surrounds have landed an award courtesy of Salmon Watch Ireland. But that is all the Castleconnell River Association will land as they carry out important works to improve the natural environment of the lower Shannon river. It has resulted in an improvement in critically low numbers of salmon fry and salmon redds in local streams. Castleconnell River Association, formerly the Castleconnell Fishery Association, was awarded the Salmon Hero Award 2021. The associations chairman Pat OConnor said with the Shannon salmon virtually on the brink of extinction, it is vital that everything possible is done to help the remaining salmon to breed successfully, and to help return as many smolts and kelts to the sea as possible. Salmon numbers in the Shannon are currently reckoned to be at roughly 3% of historical levels, said Mr OConnor, which brings home the gravity of the situation. To help the remaining salmon, Castleconnell River Association has been cleaning spawning gravels and keeping streams clear with the help of fishermen and volunteers from such entities as Castleconnell Tidy Towns, Ormston House Cultural Resource Centre, and Shannon Paddlers Kayaking club. Sadly there are still people on the lower Shannon who are living in the past, killing indiscriminately the few remaining salmon when they are trapped in the tidal part of the river by low water levels and rising temperatures upstream. Hopefully this award will bring some attention to the huge amount of volunteer effort it takes to keep these salmon in existence, said Mr OConnor. Yet, this could be a momentous year for the Shannon, because in May 2021 the draft report was published of a new initiative to help fish of all types migrate up and down past the Ardnacrusha-Parteen hydroelectric generating system. Volunteers say that this is not a moment too soon. This fish passage project needs to be progressed immediately in all its aspects if it is to make a difference. Meanwhile, it is vital that we do everything we can to protect the remaining brood stock so that there are fish still alive to populate the upper Shannon when it is accessible, said Mr OConnor. Salmon Watch Ireland (SWIRL) initiated the Salmon Hero Award in 2019 to highlight efforts being made to help this most iconic and endangered fish. SWIRL was instrumental in ending drift netting off the Irish coast, and is a leading campaigner against the damage being done by salmon farms off the coast of Ireland. They are organising a conference on November 6 on river barriers, including Ardnacrusha, details of which can be found on salmonwatchireland.ie A NEW star-studded crime drama filmed in parts of Limerick will premier on RTE television tonight. Crime thriller Hidden Assets which is a Belgian/Irish production, was filmed at several locations across Limerick city and Shannon in June of this year. The show was created by Peter McKenna, whos popular Dublin crime series Kin finished its first season on Irish television in October. Hidden Assets is a six-part drama split between the west of Ireland and the Belgian town of Antwerp, known as the diamond capital of the world. The Limerick Leader previously reported that filming for the upcoming series took place at several locations in Limerick city centre and at a house on the North Circular Road. Hidden Assets is about "family, power and the corrosive effects of boundless greed. The drama revolves around a by-the-book Belgian Chief Inspector Christian De Jong (Wouter Hendrickx) and CAB Detective Emer Berry (Angeline Ball) as they are thrown together in a heart-pounding race to halt a further horrifying terror attack in Antwerp. There's a new boss in town, Detective Sergeant Emer Berry #HiddenAssets - Kicks off this Sunday at 9.30pm on RTE One & @RTEplayer pic.twitter.com/F3y79bNHUX RTE One (@RTEOne) November 3, 2021 After a bag of rough-cut diamonds is discovered and linked to the series of bombings, a political conspiracy must unravel as ties to a wealthy Irish dynasty are revealed. The show is directed by Emmy-nominated Thaddeus O'Sullivan (Into the Storm, Silent Witness) and leading Belgian director Kadir Balci (Cold Courage). Prominent cast members such as Ennis woman Simone Kirby, Cathy Belton of Red Rock and Love/Hates Peter Coonan will all feature Made in association with RTE, Screen Ireland, Screen Flanders and AMC Networks' Acorn TV, Hidden Assets will air on Sunday nights at 9.30pm on RTE One with catch-up available on RTE Player. The first episode will air this Sunday, November 7 at 9.30pm on RTE One and RTE Player. Elon Musk on Saturday said he would sell 10% of his stockholdings in Tesla Inc. if the move won backing in a Twitter poll, reinjecting himself into the debate over how some of the wealthiest Americans should be taxed. Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock," the Tesla chief executive said on Twitter, adding, I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes." Mr. Musk, considered the worlds richest person after a surge in the value of his Tesla stock, previously blasted a proposed tax on billionaires that would have subjected some holdings of about 700 Americans to annual capital-gains taxes on increases in value. Eventually, they run out of other peoples money and then they come for you," Mr. Musk wrote on Twitter last month. The plan would have taxed the billionaires unrealized gains on publicly traded assets, so they would have owed tax annually on rising values whether the assets were sold or not. (Losses would have offset gains.) This change would have effectively eliminated the billionaires ability to defer capital-gains taxes indefinitely. The proposed tax drew strong opposition and was dropped soon after it was proposed in late October. Opponents feared that the tax could be broadened to apply to assets of less-wealthy taxpayers, among other things. Mr. Musks poll drew a response Saturday from Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden. Whether or not the worlds wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldnt depend on the results of a Twitter poll," the Democrat from Oregon said in a statement in which the lawmaker voiced support for a tax on the income of billionaires. Regardless, if Mr. Musk is inclined to sell stock, now could be a good time to do it. The current top tax rate on long-term capital gains is 23.8%, but Congress has been considering raising it. Changes in capital-gains tax rates often take effect immediately, to prevent gamesmanship. Mr. Musk holds more than 17% of Tesla stock, valued at over $200 billion, according to the most recent available data in FactSet. Mr. Musk, who also runs the privately held rocket company Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, has a total net worth of around $338 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. A Tesla share sale could amount to around $21 billion based on the stocks Friday closing price of $1,222.09. The Twitter poll is scheduled to close Sunday afternoon. Mr. Musk accepts no salary at Tesla. In a tweet Saturday he said the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock." Shares have risen about 75% over the past three months. His compensation package entitles him to stock awards. He typically doesnt sell stock, though he has sold some to cover taxes on past stock options. Selling shares would weaken Mr. Musks control over Tesla. Unlike Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook Inc.) and Google parent Alphabet Inc., Tesla lacks a dual-class of stock ownership, which gives founders supervoting power over common shareholders. Mr. Musk has some personal loan obligations pledged against his Tesla stock, according to a company regulatory filing. Mr. Musk in September said he would prefer to stay out of politics" after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the billionaire supported his social policies. Mr. Musk, who has since said he would move Teslas corporate headquarters to Texas from California, has become increasingly critical of the Biden administration, after Tesla wasnt invited to a White House event aimed at accelerating the adoption of electric vehicles. Subscribe to Mint Newsletters * Enter a valid email * Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter. Click here to read the full article. The Comcast Corporation has released a statement applauding the House of Representatives final passage of a sweeping bipartisan infrastructure bill for its focus on increasing broadband access. The bill passed in the House on Friday night, after months spent negotiating amid an internal rift among moderate and progressive Democrats. In its statement, Comcast heralded the bill as a major benefit to the United States economic future. Congress and the Biden Administration should be applauded for passage of the momentous infrastructure bill. This legislation will bring meaningful investments and jobs across the country and marks a major bipartisan effort to tackle digital equity and access in America, recognizing that broadband is a critical part of 21st century infrastructure, said Sena Fitzmaurice, senior vice president of government communications at Comcast Corporation. The provisions in the final act appropriately focus on getting broadband infrastructure first to areas where it does not currently exist, while at the same time continuing to promote faster speeds and disincentivizing duplicative projects, Fitzmaurices statement continues. The bill also provides important resources to spur broadband adoption. Allowing local communities flexibility and valuing both private and publicly funded projects will be key to closing the digital divide. The infrastructure bill, which passed in the Senate in August, is a $1.2 trillion legislation which will deliver $550 billion of new federal investments in Americas infrastructure over five years, as well as invest $65 billion in improving the nations broadband infrastructure. This broadband access aims to improve internet services for rural areas, low-income families and tribal communities, bridging what Comcast calls a digital divide. Most of the money for broadband access will be made available to states through grants. Along with the construction of infrastructure, the infrastructure bill provides a benefit to companies that have invested heavily in streaming content, as more Americans will gain access to their online platforms in the coming years. The final vote on the bill was 228-206. Thirteen Republicans voted with the majority of Democrats while six Democrats voted against, including progressive Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massuchesetts and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. A man allegedly pushed from a third-floor balcony and paralyzed at a Travis Scott concert four years ago was devastated to hear eight people were killed at the rappers Astroworld show in Houston on Friday, his lawyer told Rolling Stone. Kyle Green, 27, was injured at Scotts April 30th, 2017 concert at Terminal 5 in Manhattan, the same show where Scott was caught on video encouraging a different fan to drop down from the second-floor balcony into the crowd below. I see you, but are you gonna do it? the rapper exhorted the fan who already had climbed over the railing. They gonna catch you. Dont be scared. Dont be scared! Unlike that fan, who appeared to dangle and drop willingly, Green says he was forced over the edge of the higher railing at what hes called a severely crowded and out-of-control event. According to a lawsuit filed six months later in October 2017, Green broke several bones including vertebrae in his fall and was subsequently hauled off the floor by show staff without a cervical collar, backboard and other safety precautions. Security picked him up like a sack of potatoes and carried him toward the front. Travis offered him his ring. Then they finally carried him out. Unfortunately, he was paralyzed, Greens lawyer Howard Hershenhorn said in an interview Saturday. The case is currently pending. Green was confined to a wheelchair when he first filed the lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court that names Scott, his manager, the concerts promoter Bowery Presents and a security company as defendants. Hershenhorn said his client can actually walk now, but with significant, significant disability. Hes partially paralyzed still. When Green heard about the tragedy in Houston, he took it hard, the lawyer said. Hes devastated and heartbroken for the families of those who were killed and for those individuals who were severely injured. Hes even more incensed by the fact that it could have been avoided had Travis learned his lesson in the past and changed his attitude about inciting people to behave in such a reckless manner, Hershenhorn said. Scott, 30, is famous for his high-energy shows with raucous, stage-diving crowds. He even raps about his love of aggressive, full-body moshing in the 2018 track Stargazing. And it aint a mosh pit if aint no injuries/ I got em stage divin out the nosebleeds, he sings. For Hershenhorn, those lyrics show a careless disregard for peoples safety. His desire to rile up the crowd beyond hysterics, where people are pushing and shoving, has resulted in a massive catastrophe. Its time for him to do some significant self-reflection, the lawyer said. Scotts camp has a history of rejecting that position. In an August 2018 filing, the rappers lawyers said Greens alleged injuries resulted from risks voluntarily undertaken by concertgoers and anything attributable to possible negligence involved parties Scott was not obligated to supervise or control. In a Saturday statement posted on Twitter, Scott said he supported a police investigation into the deadly tragedy at NRG Park Friday night. Im absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival, he wrote. Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life. I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need. Scott also was arrested in 2017 for allegedly inciting a riot at the Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion. Police said he encouraged people to rush the stage. He pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of disorderly conduct in 2018 and paid $6,825.31 restitution to two people who claimed they were injured at the show, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. He (Scott) felt bad about anyone being injured and was always willing to pay the restitution, one of his lawyers, Jon Nelson, told the outlet. Click here to read the full article. Fans screamed for help and made pleas to stop the show during a crowd surge at Travis Scotts Astroworld Fest set Friday night that left at least eight people dead and hundreds more injured. An estimated 50,000 people were in attendance at the sold-out event at Houstons NRG Park. Witnesses described a massive wave of people surging toward the events main stage as Travis Scott began to perform, knocking people down and stepping on those who fell to the ground in the chaos. A number of witnesses said they sought help from police, security guards or others working at the festival as things started to turn more dangerous, but those pleas were met with apathy. Everything was normal up until when Travis posted the time he was going to get onstage, Donovon Davis, 22, of Houston, told Rolling Stone. Thats when it just got wild. The crowd was moving so violently that people fell on top of us, and when they fell, people fell on top of them. There was layers and layers and layers of people falling, Davis said. He said at one point he tried to assist someone who had fallen down next to him. I turned to pick him up, and I could hear him screaming for help. The music hadnt started yet. And then the crowd just moved me, and I saw a wave of people just walk over him. Following the incident, accounts and video flooded onto social media about what people experienced during the stampede-like atmosphere, as well as the futile attempts to stop the concert in order to allow the injured people trapped within the churning mass to receive the help they required. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said on Saturday that 528 police officers were working at the festival and 755 private security officers provided by Astroworld organizers Live Nation were also in attendance. Madeline Eskins, an attendee and an ICU nurse, told Rolling Stone on Saturday morning, It was definitely overcrowded. It was insane, honestly. I knew it was just way too crowded it just got worse and worse as i got closer to Travis Scott performing it got more crowded, more crowded, more crowded. Fans were recording the concert and people doing CPR, Eskins added. Fans were yelling at the stage crew around us, saying stop the concert, people are dying. No one listened. Eskins, attending her third Astroworld fest, told Rolling Stone that, in the initial crowd surge at around 9 p.m., I looked at my boyfriend and I was about to tell my boyfriend to tell my son I loved him because I did not think I would make it out of there. And I fainted, Eskins said. I tried to jump up as much as I could to get air. I couldnt breathe. I just felt it. I knew it was coming. Someone then crowd-surfed Eskins to a security guard while she was still unconscious; she came to in what she believed to be a VIP area that was filling up with unconscious festival-goers. Eskins shared more of her experience on social media, saying she believed the medical staff at the show was inexperienced and overwhelmed: Grant Tate, 20, was between the stage and a camera platform when the pandemonium started. As soon as Travis Scott came out, people just started compacting. People were just pressing on you from every direction. You were at the will of crowd, he told Rolling Stone. I remember there was a girl next to me looking straight up trying to get a breath. I could see how scared she was. I was scared. You couldnt raise your arms or get your balance. We were scared for our lives, honestly, he said. The Scottsdale, Ariz., resident, who described himself as 6 feet 3 inches tall, managed to make his way back to the platform with the camera crane. He recalled helping about eight smaller people over the barricade before climbing it himself. It was a really chaotic experience. One girl, her top came completely off, he said. The camera went low over peoples heads, and someone reached up to grab onto it. People were just panicking. They were definitely trying to get out of the area. That was them trying to get out. Tate and other festival-goers described a shocking lack of staff communication. They said the people climbing onto the risers where cameras were filming Scotts set which streamed live on Apple Music pleaded with the crew to communicate to someone that the concert needed to be halted. Video from the incident appears to show the crew ignoring those efforts, with some in the crowd mocking the pleas for help. I was telling the crane crew, There are people on the ground. They need help. They didnt have any communication with the EMTs or security. They couldnt help, Tate said. There was just no preparation for them to have an emergency scenario like that. He said one man collapsed directly on the cameras wheel well while another was sprawled out near the camera with no shirt getting CPR. People were yelling, Stop the show! But a lot of people were yelling lot of things. Im sure it was hard for (Scott) to understand, he said. If there was any communication between that middle camera area and (stage staff), he might have understood and maybe stopped the show. Baheer Kashif, 21, said he escaped the living hell of the mosh pit about 15 minutes after Scott took the stage at 9 p.m. He started sprinting toward a medic tent to sound the alarm and encountered a group of about 15 uniformed Houston Police officers, he said. I told them, Hey, theres a group in this little section who are suffocating. Theyre gonna die. They cannot breathe. We need to go help them, get them out. They basically said, Calm down. Were aware of the situation. Were dealing with something else right now, but well take care of it. Kashif said the officers continued standing there, doing nothing at all. Their calm response bugged me out a little. I tried again, telling them, Im not trying to be an asshole, but theres people in there who are probably dying, he recalled. I was basically told to fuck off. Just no urgency at all. People even rushed the camera men, and they still continued the show. #ASTROWORLDFest pic.twitter.com/vIw4pMr7CG Ethan Froneberger (@LDCMOA) November 6, 2021 As one attendee (@seannafaith) wrote on Instagram, We began to scream to help. We could see security, just a few people away, in the walkway in the middle. It got tighter. Impossible to breath, as our lungs were compressed between the bodies of those surrounding us. More people began screaming for help, but we were not heard. There was nowhere to go. @seannafaith also claimed they were among the people who climbed the camera platform to inform the cameraperson that people needed help. I climbed the ladder and pointed at the hole, telling him people were dying, they wrote. He told me to get off the platform, and continued filming. Amy Harris, a freelancer working for the Associated Press, told Rolling Stone that she had safety concerns in the early afternoon as hundreds of people jumped the barrier between the crowd and the stage where photographers were stationed. I got crushed in the crowd between the barricade and the fence in the tunnel going out. I was very scared, Harris said. I got out. I texted the PR. I told them it was an unsafe situation and I wouldnt be going back out. They made an alternate plan to enter and exit the opposite side of the stage all day. Despite the concerns, the situation worsened when Scott took the stage. Many people were streaming over the barricade wall in our photo pit. The photo pit was jam-packed with chaos, Harris said. We saw a lot of people crying We didnt understand what was happening. But I was done. I had texted my photo editor at 9:30 and basically told her I wasnt coming back for the second day because I didnt feel there were too many safety concerns while I was there. Harris, who has shot music festivals over the past 12 years, added of the Astroworld crowd, They were the most aggressive fans Ive ever seen at a festival. An on-site photographer who requested not to be identified told Rolling Stone that she was pulled out of the VIP section, which was stormed by other attendees from general admission, because she couldnt breathe. I couldnt move and I was screaming for help, she says. My Apple Watch was pinging, alerting me that my heart was moving at an incredibly high rate, but she couldnt actually look at it because she couldnt physically raise her hands. When she got pulled out of the catwalk, she saw other people getting pulled from VIP. eyes closed, mouth open, just not responsive, she says. On her way out of the show, she says, it was sensory overload between the sounds of the stage, the sounds of the ambulance, the sounds of people screaming for the show to stop. As she headed near the medical tents, she saw absolute chaos, as well as people lying on the floor in the surrounding area unattended. No one knew what the fuck was going on, she says. Another festivalgoer, Anne Nguyen, a 23 year-old nurse from Dallas, told Rolling Stone that the festival wasnt overcrowded for most of the day and recalls walking by a noticeable security presence, including mounted police, when entering the venue. She watched Lil Baby perform from near the front of the crowd at the festivals smaller of two stages. As Lil Babys performance ended around 7:15 p.m., Nguyen planned to move toward the side of the stage to watch SZA, who was set to perform on the smaller stage next, before she headed to the larger stage for Travis Scotts set. But as she began to move, the entire crowd morphed into a stampede toward the larger stage. Nguyen says, We were essentially carried to the other stage. If I were to stop, I would have been run over I had no choice but to keep on pushing. It was very scary. Video also emerged of Scott witnessing at least one unconscious fan being carried out of the area near the side of the stage; at one point during the concert, Scott looked into the crowd and stopped the music. Somebody needs help, somebody passed out right here, he said in video posted on Reddit. Can somebody help jump in real quick, cmon cmon. However, soon after, the concert continued. Disturbing video shows Travis Scott watching & singing as he watched a passed out fan in the crowd get carried away by medical personal. #ASTROWORLDFest pic.twitter.com/mV3PlUWN1J TheHouseGossip (@thehousegossip) November 6, 2021 If he wouldve stopped the concert, or paused it, people would have settled down and the situation could have been assessed a lot better, Eskins said. If he could see someone was passed out, he couldve seen something shouldve been done. This started from the very beginning of the concert. So it went from about 9 pm, thats when I passed out. And went on till about 10:15, 10:30. As for allegations, reported by TMZ, that the crowd surge was sparked by someone injecting people with drugs, Eskins said, People around me were sober. Theyre trying to say it was drugs. The only thing i saw was people around smoking weed and people around me were not doing that. During a news conference on Saturday, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that one security officer was given Narcan and revived after being pricked by something that medical staff said was consistent with a needle. Police are still trying to identify and locate the security officer. Theyre trying to blame drugs. And I will level with you, I dont think this was caused by drug use, Eskins said. Could it have been a contributing factor? Sure. Will they find drugs in the bodies of those passed away? Maybe. But people were getting suffocated. People were getting trampled. A lot of these trauma-based injuries. One dude had his face smashed in. He was bleeding from his nose, face, and mouth. Which I guess drugs can cause, but so can getting trampled. This post has been updated to include additional eyewitness accounts. Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified photographer Amy Harris. She is a freelancer working for the Associated Press. Sign up for Rolling Stone's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Click here to read the full article. Roddy Ricch has pledged his earnings from this years edition of Travis Scotts Astroworld music festival to the families of those involved in the incident that left eight concertgoers dead on Friday evening. Please have the families of those who we lost yesterday reach out, the rapper wrote in his Instagram stories on Saturday. Ill [be] donating my net compensation to the families of this incident. #Pray4Houston Ricch requested that families of those involved in the tragedy contact Shawn Holiday, a member of his management team. Holiday served as the co-head of urban music at Columbia Records. He is also part of the Black Music Action Coalitions advisory board. Ricch was one of several performers involved in Fridays line-up at Astroworld in Houston, Texas. Other acts included SZA, Yves Tumor, Toro Y Moi, Metro Boomin, Don Toliver, Lil Baby and Master P, all of which performed on the Thrills stage of the festival. Scotts set was the only act on the festivals second Chills stage. On Sunday, Kanye West, or Ye as hes legally named, dedicated his weekly Sunday Service prayer service, which airs live on YouTube, Triller and Revolt, to the loved ones of Astroworld. The visual for the service attendees dressed in black as beams of light illuminate a vast grey space and the Sunday Service gospel choir sings evoked the feeling of a wake. Tragedy struck the Astroworld festival on Friday night when a surge in the tightly packed crowd for Scotts set left at least eight concertgoers dead and over 300 others injured. A 14-year-old and a 16-year-old were among the casualties, with other victims ranging in age from 17 to 21. Scott has promised to fully cooperate with authorities as a full investigation into the incident continues. Anytime I could make out, you know, anything thats going on, I stop the show and help them get the help they need, Scott said in a video posted to his Twitter on Saturday night. I could just never imagine the severity of the situation. Weve been working closely with everyone to try to get to the bottom of this. Click here to read the full article. Ichiyama Shozo returned this year to the Tokyo International Film Festival as its head selector, having for the last twenty years headed the rival Tokyo Filmex event. COVID last year forced the two festivals to put aside their rivalry and to cooperate in the key autumn slot. Though virus and vaccination conditions in Japan have since improved, allowing the return of in-person festival screenings, the collaboration has been continued. Ichiyama, however, laughs off suggestions that his shift has made TIFF more like Filmex. When TIFF chairman Ando approached me at the beginning of this year with the invitation to become program director of TIFF, Id already been thinking that it was time for Filmex to change, be renewed. His offer was a good chance to reprogram Filmex under a new director. Kamiya Naoki, had been with me from the beginning of Filmex and totally knew its purpose. He has very good taste. And very good connections with sales agents and producers, said Ichiyama. After being sure that Kamiya would take over, Ichiyama agreed to the TIFF move. Naokis taste and mine are slightly different. Now hes freer to choose what he wants. During the selection phase, the two events may have been dancing around each other, trying not to overlap, but it happened on occasion. I tried to shut out [Kamiyas opinions]. Sometimes hed send me an email asking for my advice. Id usually tell him to go ahead and show the film, said Ichiyama. But it did happen that we send invitations to the same title. One film we invited for non-competitive World Focus section and Filmex invited for competition. We left it for the producer to choose. At TIFF we prefer to show world premieres, so usually that means that if the film showed in Cannes or Venice, wed show it in World Focus. Filmex does not require premiere status, so they can take films from [Cannes] Directors Fortnight or Un Certain Regard or from Venice. While Ichiyama says that both festivals have achieved strong line-ups, he says it was an accident that TIFF ended up with a more Filmex-like, Asian-heavy selection than in previous years. I started by thinking about [balancing out] geographies. But once we started watching, we realized there were so many good Asian films which have not been shown at European festivals. Venice in particular does not show so many Asian films these days. Instead, they are showing more strong films from Hollywood or Netflix. And, Toronto has reduced the number of films it shows. So, many good Asian films could not get a premiere there. We ended with many Asian films in competition, ten out of fifteen, and no French or Scandinavian films, said Ichiayma. Fans of European films were able to find plenty in other sections. Global trends have created another dilemma. While many autumn festivals and awards shows may be trying to position themselves as part of the awards season build-up to the Oscars, there is a surge of interest in Asian TV content sparked by Squid Game among other things. Tokyo has responded by establishing TIFF Series as a platform for TV content. This year it finds house room only for two: Fragrance of the First Flower, an LGBT series from Taiwan, and two episodes of Folklore, a horror omnibus steered by Singapores Eric Khoo. But Ichiyama is confident at the section will be expanded in future editions. I hope it will become a platform for discovery of Asian series, as that can only be a good thing for the festival, Ichiyama said. Nor does he see streaming as an immediate threat to the role of film festivals, despite their huge reach. Amazon Prime Video has 12 million subscribers in Japan, vastly more than the number of tickets TIFF can sell. Amazon is one of the big sponsors of the festival this year. They did not submit any films to us, but we are working together on the short film pitching program. We also know that many Japanese directors are shooting films for Amazon. Maybe we can show some next year, said Ichiyama. A good film is a good film, even if it is a series. The festival has also showed two Netflix films from Venice: The Power of the Dog and The Hand of God in non-competitive sections. Earlier this year, TIFF became the first major Asian festival to sign the Collective 50/50 Pledge on gender equality. Achieving that remains a work in progress. We have started with jury members and selection committee members and are around equal numbers, said Ichiyama. Indeed, the competition jury has a female majority. I dont think we should think about gender when selecting films. But Im sure that we can make a very good selection with many women. We have four [of 15] in competition, Ichiyama said. But none of those are Japanese. Instead, the Asian Future has one film by a Japanese woman, and the new Nippon Cinema Now section has two more. Gender parity aside, the indie sections may now be better balanced. We felt it strange that strong young Japanese filmmakers were not competing in the Asian Future section. So, we did away with Japanese Cinema Splash section and put some Japanese films into Asian Future, said Ichiyama. He says that TIFF still has a need for a panorama of new Japanese filmmaking, hence the creation of the Nippon Cinema Now section. But he also suggests that other festivals, such as Pia and Skip City, which have competition sections for new independent films, have a role to play. We will come back and discuss after the festival has finished if we find that young Japanese filmmakers complain that they dont have enough chance to compete, Ichiyama said. Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Doctors Hospital and the Laredo Physicians Group have filed an anticompetitive conduct lawsuit against Dr. Ricardo Cigarroa, The Cigarroa Heart and Vascular Institute, Laredo Medical Center and more, stating that Cigarroa has the city in a cardiology stranglehold and is unwilling to let go. The complaint was filed on Oct. 29 and the plaintiffs, Doctors Hospital and Laredo Physicians Group, stated that in August 2020 they began to actively recruit new interventional cardiologists in order to reduce the need for residents to travel to different cities for their cardiovascular needs. In these cases, the court documents state that traveling for an uncertain amount of time poses risks to those in need of interventioal cardiological services as patients need treatment ASAP. According to the plaintiffs, Time is muscle as each minute of a delay in sufficient blood flowing to the heart can result in tissue damage, impact their recovery or may result in death. The plaintiffs also highlighted that with Laredos population having over 260,000 and growing, it should have at least 20 working cardiologists and each acute-care hospital that offers cardiological services requires an interventional cardiologist to be on-call at all times. Instead, there are only eight cardiologists, with six being interventional cardiologists the latter being able to support acute-care cardiology needs. When Defendant Dr. Cigarroa, a prominent interventional cardiologist in Laredo, heard of Plaintiffs plans, he perceived a threat to his dominant market position. Fancying himself the Kingmaker of cardiology in Laredo, he has personally boasted to others that he controls 90% of the market, the plaintiffs alleged. Confronted with increased competition in the interventional cardiology market in the Laredo, Texas Metropolitan Statistical Area, Dr. Cigarroa entered into a conspiracy with the Cigarroa Institute (a cardiology outpatient clinic) and LMC (the largest acute-care hospital in Laredo) to engage in anticompetitive and tortious behavior. The complaint goes further and states that in order to monopolize the cardiology market in Laredo, Cigarroa intervened in the plaintiffs recruitment process. It also mentions that with the subspeciality of cardiology, there is no substitute and patients with acute cardiac conditions are required to see an interventional cardiologist for certain procedures, treatment and the removal of stents. First, Dr. Cigarroa issued threats to Doctors Hospital, Physicians Group, and prospective interventional cardiologists that Plaintiffs were recruiting to not move to Laredo and compete with Dr. Cigarroa. Defendants coercion and threats worked: multiple qualified interventional cardiologists who were interested in joining Physicians Group, and to whom Physicians Group extended employment offers, decided not to join because of Defendants acts, the plaintiffs stated. Allegedly, Cigarroa, his son and nephew also gave notice that they would no longer respond to emergency calls from Doctors Hospital and referring their patients to LMC only. According to the court documents, the plaintiffs believe that these actions have exhibited a pattern of anticompetitive behavior that results in a monopoly for the defendants as well as preventing the plaintiff from hiring additional interventional cardiologists in Laredo. Requests by the plaintiffs, to the court, includes that Cigarroa and the defendants be charged with having violated Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, corresponding treble damages and permanent injunctive relief prohibiting them from engaging in anticompetitive conduct. They also request for the defendants to be judged with interfering with the employment contract of Dr. Marc Feldman, cardiologists, for the Physicians Group and the interference with the employment agreement between Dr. Arthur Santos and the plaintiff Physicians group. Cigarroa was not immediately available for comment for this story. cocampo@lmtonline.com Wednesday was a good day for Laredos own citizen journalist Priscilla Trevino Villarreal, or La Gordiloca, as a case that had been in the works for years against the county and city for her First Amendment rights allegedly being infringed upon by local law enforcement was revived. The revival of the 2017 case comes after two judges from the circuit court in New Orleans ruled police officers involved in the matter did not have qualified immunity, and the citizen journalist was stripped of her First Amendments rights. I feel excited, excited, really excited, because thats exactly what I wanted, Villarreal said. It is karma, as to be honest, I was arrested for absolutely nothing, as they violated my rights. And I was just waiting for this day to get here. Villarreal thanked her attorney J. T. Morris from Austin and her local legal team attorneys Joey Tellez and Oscar Pena as well for continuing the fight on the case. She says she has even received calls from other attorneys congratulating her on her efforts. I have been called by every attorney in Laredo you can think of congratulating me, saying that this is the reason we go to law school for cases like this as you are making law, Villarreal said. Reading the decision, it was just exciting as they even quoted Die Hard 2 on it, as the judges even quoted it, and it is just awesome to know that these judges know that my rights were violated, and that they were wrong. Laredo is so used to people being wrong and authorities not being wrong, but in this case, they were the ones at fault. The quote Villarreal is referring to is found in Page 11 of the decision written by Circuit Judge James C. Ho, in which he states, It should be obvious to any police officer that locking up a journalist for asking a question violates the First Amendment. Indeed, even Captain Lorenzo, the stubborn police chief in Die Hard 2, acknowledge: Now personally, Id like to get local every (expletive) reporter out of the airport. But then theyd just pull that freedom of speech (expletive) on us and the ACLU would be all over us. The judge stated the case had to be revived and reconsidered due to the fact that questions about infringement on the First Amendment were extremely visible in the case. If the First Amendment means anything, it surely means that a citizen journalist has the right to ask a public official a question, without fear of being imprisoned, Ho said. Yet that is exactly what happened here: Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question. Villarreal says since Day 1, everyone knew her case was about her First Amendment rights being infringed upon. Everybody has known that is what happened since the get-go, Villarreal said. I dont know, it's just the process as it was just a waiting game, and things are starting to fall into place. I just believe that the city and the district attorney's office and the Laredo Police Department were just trying to censor me. They were trying to censor the corruption. They were trying to censor me to avoid them getting themselves in trouble, and they just wanted to find a way to shut me down. Even though she says she was stopped at the time by law enforcement, she says she will never stop reporting as La Gordiloca, as her work must continue to protect and serve the community she loves. I have been doing this for the past six years now, and along the way I have learned a lot of things, met a lot of people, have done a lot of good things, and it's all just about being humble, kind and helpful, she said. And basically reporting what is going on in our city and helping the community out such as the elderly, the kids and people in need. And I just feel that it is a duty, as it is something that I have always done even before La Gordiloca started, but now even more so as it is something that I like to do. It is not a hobby now, it is a job. As the matter regarding the case finally takes an unprecedented turn, Villarreal says it will certainly be a major part of the TV series that is currently being created in her name by the network STARZ later next year. She states her struggles with LPD will be a major topic in the series. Just as she waits for the series to premiere, Villarreal also says she cannot do anything more than just wait for the case and those involved to respond in order to see what steps are to come. I think they have 30 days to respond, she said. I have been ready for what is to come. Since there are still some legal hurdles she has to go through, Villarreal says she has not declared victory yet but will rather wait until the whole process is over in order to consider it a victory, as she knows things can change rather quickly. I have been told that you dont count your chickens before they hatch, but I am optimistic that everything is headed in the right direction as right now I am in the drivers seat and now it is just a waiting game, Villarreal said. Villarreal was charged during December 2017 with two counts of misuse of information after publishing names of victims in a suicide and vehicle crash. Court documents state that the arrest warrants were issued for violating Texas Penal Code 39.06(c), which states that a person commits an offense if, with intent to obtain a benefit or with intent to harm or defraud another, he solicits or receives from a public servant information that: the public servant has access to by means of his office or employment; and has not been made public. The benefit Villarreal was stated to have gained was more Facebook followers. jorge.vela@lmtonline.com Just three days away from the official reopening of the land ports, the CBP port of entry office in Laredo held a press conference to discuss the necessary requirements for all foreign travelers coming into the United States. During the event, CBP detailed the vaccines that will be allowed to come into the United States, the type of proof people will need when coming into the country and also whether CBP is ready for the large influx of traffic expected in the area. The press conference helped clarify many issues some were questioning following the announcement to reopen the bridges last month. Effective midnight on Nov. 8, 2021, travel restrictions on ferry and land ports of entry, to include passenger rail between the U.S. and Canada or Mexico, will not apply to fully vaccinated non-documented noncitizens entering for nonessential purposes, Port Director for Laredo Port of Entry Alberto A. Flores said. All noncitizens, 18 and over, applying for entry into the U.S. at the land ports of entry indicating a nonessential reason for travel are required to verbally attest their vaccination status upon primary inspection. Children 18 and under traveling for nonessential purposes are exempt from the vaccination requirement but should be accompanied by a fully-vaccinated adult. According to Flores, a person is considered to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 at 14 days after they have received the second dose of a multi-dose vaccine, or the first dose if they take the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The vaccines an individual has must be those approved and authorized by the Food and Drug Administration and World Health Organization. The vaccines approved for all foreign tourists to have in efforts to cross into the United States include the Pfizer-BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Oxford-AstraZeneca, Covishield, Sinopharm and Sinovac. The vaccines Cansino and Sputnik administered in Nuevo Laredo to many including teachers will not be accepted for entry into the United States. About 4,000 teachers reportedly have gotten the two vaccines will not be allowed to cross into the United States in Nuevo Laredo. In terms of vaccinations within the port of entry of Laredo CBP office, Flores said 90-95% of the employees are fully vaccinated against the virus. Flores also said if people got the vaccine in the United States as they overstayed their tourist visa stays or did so when coming for an essential activity, then these cases will be checked on a case-by-case basis, but the question is not about where they got the vaccine or how but whether they are vaccinated or not. I realize that there were a lot of people from Mexico that may have traveled to the U.S., and incidental to their trip they might have gotten vaccinated, Flores said. Our focus here at the port of entry will be to ensure that the people coming in are vaccinated. We are not going to be asking when and where is it that you got that vaccination. The port of entry director said their officers are being trained to simply ask whether someone is vaccinated or not upon entry into the country without the need to ask for any documentation. However, if the CBP officer would have any doubts about the individual being vaccinated, then additional documentation may be asked for. Flores said individuals who are asked for any verification of vaccination status might be asked to show a printout of their vaccination record or card, downloaded records or vaccination certificates from an official source. These could be a public health agency, a government agency or an authorized vaccine provider. Lastly, foreign tourists might be asked to show their records with a CUR code either in hard copy or digitally. Flores said there is no campaign between CBP and the City of Laredo Health Department to have vaccines be administered along the ports of entry or to have COVID-19 tests administered along the bridges. However, a partnership is being worked on with the Mexican Consulate in Laredo to have commercial industry workers from Nuevo Laredo vaccinated if they still have not been. Additionally, Flores said that any minor who crosses with a vaccinated adult can get vaccinated in Laredo, as vaccinations have already begun for those between 5-11 years old. He said that there is currently no instructions that they cant, and obviously if it is incidental to their trip then it could happen. In January as the second phase opening of the ports of entry begins vaccination requirements will be needed for all individuals whether they are foreign tourists, American citizens or permanent residents entering back into the country. We understand that this change is likely going to increase our workload and international crossings, and as such, we are truly going to be asking our daily commuters and travelers that they be patient, Flores said. However, our travelers can assist facilitating the traffic flow by having all necessary documents ready available and ready to present to the CBP officer, and if our travelers are planning to visit the interior of the United States, we highly encourage the use of the CBP mobile app to electronically apply for an I-94 travel permit to assist facilitating the permit process at the port of entry. Amid the potential influx of people at the international bridges not just from Nuevo Laredo but also from the interior of Mexico Flores said there is currently no plan in place to open a route on the bridges only designated for local travelers from the sister cities. Flores also said the port of entry in Laredo has enough manpower and resources to handle the large traffic expected, even though some officers have been instructed to go and help in other labors amid the surge of migrants seen in the past weeks and months. As new caravans are forming in Mexico, Flores said the local CBP port of entry is ready for any of these surges and is also in coordination with their Nuevo Laredo counterparts and Mexican federal government officials if that is to happen. We are ready for the immense amount of traffic that is going to be coming, Flores said. We have been waiting for it for some time. jorge.vela@lmtonline.com Longford consumers have been told to shop local like they have never shopped local before. The message was one which was resoundingly delivered by Fianna Fail Cllr Seamus Butler last week in the wake of confirmation free off street car parking will once again become a key feature of Longford's festive shopping season. Starting on Black Friday, which is pencilled in for November 26 and the following day, motorists will be able to park for free in all off street locations each Saturday up until December 18. A more broader and daily parking concession will kick in thereafter right through until the new year, it was announced at last week's Longford Municipal District meeting. A former chamber of commerce president himself, Cllr Butler said the move, given the local authoroty's constrained monetary times , was indicative of its unwavering support to hard pressed retailers. The message must go out to people to shop local like they have never shopped local before, he said. Cllrs Gerry Warnock and Peggy Nolan rowed in behind Cllr Butler's call to arms with the pair both talking up how revenue generated by paid parking had proved instrumental in delivering key public services to Longford town and its citizens. I have never seen such a buzz around Longford, said Cllr Nolan. New businesses are opening and we are back in the top ten of IBAL (Irish Business Against Litter). Despite everything and with Covid and all, it goes to show just how fine a town Longford is. It comes as the business, run by Longford natives Liam Hanlon and Eoin Tynan this week revealed their new look Front of House reception area at the brewery on the Ballinalee Road. The reception space has been transformed as part of a major investment by the company in their move to become a new tourist attraction for the town. St Mels Brewing company was established in 2014 and has since become a very popular brand here in Longford and further afield. Their production facility was the first brewery in the midlands since the 1800s. Liam explains the name is very much rooted in our community we wanted a name that was synonymous with Longford. In recent years, the craft beer sector in Ireland has grown exponentially, but the COVID pandemic posed serious challenges for St Mels and their craft beer counterparts across Ireland. However, undeterred by these challenges, Liam and Eoin adapted their business model to embrace the changes brought about by coronavirus. A reception area was opened at the Ballinalee Road premises to allow customers to click and collect, and they began shipping their popular beer subscription packages to customers all over Ireland via their new e-commerce platform. Liam says the pandemic also gave them the opportunity to experiment with their product offering, resulting in several limited-edition brews which have been very well received by the hospitality and off-sales sectors. Family & Parenting, Pets & Animal, Nature & Weather By Catherine Eve Published: November 07 2021 Enjoy a Walk with the Wallabies animal encounter at The Long Island Game Farm in Manorville. Free with regular admission, weekends 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Meet some adorable marsupials up close and personal at The Long Island Game Farm. The largest combined wildlife park and childrens zoo on Long Island is hosting a Walk with the Wallabies program, free with regular admission, weekends 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. The encounter, a $22 value, is an opportunity to learn about wallabies, a member of the kangaroo family, and meet the parks newest wallaby friends, Irwin and his sister Susie, and Mason. Of course, there will be some fun photo ops. Bambiland a.k.a. The Deer Park Holiday Photo Op Visitors can also take a walk through the Farms deer forest and hand-feed friendly deer. There's no extra fee to enter the enclosure and cups of food can be purchased. Encounters are available on a first-come, first-come basis, weather and animal permitting, Feeding opportunities are subject to the animals appetites. November and December Winter Discount During November and December the park is open weekends from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Admission prices, which are 25% off regular prices, are as follows: Adults (13-61) $18.75, Seniors (62+) $16.45 , Children (3-12) $14.25 , Toddlers (0-2) Free, Military Personnel $16.45 General Admission includes petting zoo entrance to the Nursery, the Deer Park, the new Wild Play Park as well as exotic and domestic animal stars. See bison, sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, birds, and more. Keep in mind that the park has scaled back during these colder months as a few animals need heated barns or Florida. The Long Island Game Farm was founded in 1970 and has been a favorite family-friendly destination for 50 years. It is located at 489 Chapman Boulevard in Manorville. Call (631) 878-6644 or visit its website for more information. MANISTEE Bob Crowell wants to find the next generation of first responders. He's planning to do this by bringing together art teachers and first responders in Manistee County for a project called "Art for First Responders." The first meeting was held Saturday at Goody's Juice and Java in downtown Manistee. Amber Puchtel, an art teacher at Manistee Middle/High School, and Brenna Richardson, who's a fine art teacher at Bear Lake Middle School, attended the meeting. First responders including Manistee County Sheriff Brian Gutowski, Manistee Fire Chief Mark Cameron, Jason Hallead of Manistee City Police Department, and Sgt. Matthew Umlauf, from the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians Department of Public Safety, attended the meeting. Tina Robinson, of Manistee County Medical Control, took notes at the meeting. Crowell explained why he was there, and why he brought everyone together. "I retired in 2010. In 2013, I was getting lazy and sitting around all the time, and I wanted to do something beneficial for the community, but I didn't want to set flowers along the highway. I was going to go down to the (sheriff's) office and wash cars," he said. He said a deputy told him about Community Emergency Response Team as a way to volunteer. He described what happened next. "A year later I had a heart attack and the EMS (in Kaleva) saved my life. I was going up a hill and everything went black, I just want you to know there were no lights at the end of that tunnel. It was a warning, I'm here on borrowed time and so part of the reason why I'm here," said Crowell. The presentation that Crowell presented had 16 goals but he brought everyone together for brainstorming. Some of those goals would be bringing first responders in to the classroom, having items like badges and hats sent to schools, or more likely images sent to schools. There would also be an art show in the summer, where the students could display their work, and the work would be judged by current and/or former first responders. He noted two artists that the teachers could use as models: Bernie Fuchs and Mark English. Crowell said that "Bernie Fuchs replaced Norman Rockwell in the commercial art field." Crowell noted that Fuchs was a realist style and English was more abstract but their styles of commercial art could serve as an example for art students who want to draw, paint or create art that is representative of first responders. Crowell himself has a degree in commercial art but did not choose that as his career path. That was another reason why he wants to do this program. Some of the teachers said they would have quite a bit of time to get things together. Gutowski said he has photos of sheriff uniforms, hats, and badges and his contact list where he could send those images out. In Crowell's presentation, there were several points that were key in how the program could be implemented for a school by using a few criteria: Submit equal amounts of work for police, fire and EMS for balance. All work is to be matted with construction paper. This will give the student work a professional look and will enhance the exhibit. A student/school identification tag is to be taped to the mat. Mats are to be secured to the wall with folded shipping tape. The exhibit opens after all schools close for the summer. The exhibit is open for one month, Monday through Friday. There are to be five courthouse judges made up of active or retired first responders, police, fire, EMS, tribal police and Michigan State Police. A jury will select one first, second, and third place winner from each high school, middle school,and grade school. For example, for five high schools, there would be five, first-place winners, etc. Robinson noted that there is already a program that could work alongside this particular project. "(We've had) for 12 years, the statewide program for fire safety, and we changed it probably 10 years ago, to being emergency safety, but we do it during fire safety week, put it all together, mainly because we had several kids in Manistee County, over a 10,15, 20 year period that (died) in fires because they didn't know what to do," Robinson said. Robinson described how some of the children had died in the fires and how the emergency safety program changed things. "They hid in bathtubs, they hid under beds, you know, and so we really wanted to make a connection with those students. We didn't want them to be scared when a stranger walks in the door with this big suit and a strange voice," Robinson said. "We want them to know that it's OK. And I can listen to them, I can follow them, trust them to go out into the scary smoke-filled room, whatever, it'll be the case." Robinson noted how hands-on experience, like going into the ambulance or seeing the fire engine in person, led to some of the kids being less scared. "But what I recognize, and the reason why I'm bringing this up, was (that) we started taking the ambulance there (to the schools), we started inviting a dispatcher, we made it a big program. And those students come into the ambulance to let them see a monitor and we let them ask questions," she said. "And they began to know when we would arrive on the scene. They just weren't scared, which was our goal was to eliminate that (fear). They were like, 'Hey, I know you' and they were smiling. I mean, their family was having an emergency, maybe grandma or grandpa or a mom or dad or them. And they were instantly relieved. So I mean, I think that there's a lot that can bring them toward choosing those career paths." She noted that this program could work similar to the fire/emergency safety program, as a model to use, in the implementation for Crowell's idea. Crowell said during an interview with the News Advocate that he believes this project is a national priority because of attrition. He said it is part of another long line of shortage worker shortages, with many more first responders retiring or moving to private security or private services. A 2019 survey by the Police Execution Research Forum found that the length of service for police officers had a steady decline. The survey found that "Within their first year on the job, 29% of officers resign and within five years, 69% have left their departments." The same problem is affecting paramedics, EMTs, and firefighters and the pandemic has exacerbated it. That has affected response times. The paramedic and EMT shortage, which began a few years ago in Michigan, was exacerbated by the pandemic and now has become a full-blown emergency with some agencies concerned about the future, reads part of a new release from the Michigan Association of Ambulance Services on Aug. 10. This shortage affects all EMS providers including public, private and nonprofit agencies. Crowell was happy with the turnout at the meeting. There are no formal plans for the moment or timeframe, as the meeting was more to get an idea of how receptive people were to the idea, and how it could actually be put into action. "Sounds like we got some direction ... so that's good," said Gutowski. Advertisement YLL measures both the number of deaths and the age at which it occurs, making it a more detailed assessment of Covid-19's impact on populations.For the study, published by The BMJ journal, using this measure, the team set out to estimate the changes in life expectancy and excess years of life lost from all causes in 2020.They compared the observed life expectancy and years of life lost in 2020 with those that would be expected based on historical trends in 2005-19 in 37 upper-middle and high-income countries.Between 2005 and 2019, life expectancy at birth increased in both men and women in all the countries studied.In 2020, there was a decline in life expectancy in both men and women in all countries except New Zealand, Taiwan, and Norway, where there was a gain in life expectancy.The highest decline in life expectancy (in years) was in Russia (-2.33 in men and -2.14 in women), the US (-2.27 in men and -1.61 in women), Bulgaria (-1.96 in men and -1.37 in women), Lithuania (-1.83 in men and -1.21 in women), Chile (-1.64 in men), and Spain (-1.11 in women).Overall, excess years of life lost to the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 were more than five times higher (2,510 per 100,000) than those associated with the seasonal influenza epidemic in 2015 (458 per 1,00,000).Source: IANS Rohit Shettys Sooryavanshi, starring Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif, with Ajay Devgn and Ranveer Singh in extended cameos has finally released on November 5 and the viewers have given a mixed response to the movie. Fans have obviously praised the massy nature of the movie but others have pointed out that the film is a complete waste of time because the director has infused jingoism with the bad Muslims vs Indian Muslims angle. Sooryavanshi takes forward Rohits cop universe with DCP Veer Sooryavanshi, Inspector Sangram Bhalerao, and DCP Bajirao Singham when they come together to stop a terrorist group planning to attack Mumbai. The film that opened to a good Rs 26.29 crore net on Day 1, managed to maintain its hold on Saturday. People are celebrating the return of cinemas and have been going to the theatres to catch a screening. But, the movie is in the headlines for a not-so-positive reason. The screening was stopped in as many as five halls in Punjabs Hoshiarpur after a group of farmers, protesting against the central farm laws, forced cinemas in the city to stop the screening. As per a report in PTI, activists of the Bharti Kisan Union (Kadian), led by the groups district president Swaram Dhugga, staged a demonstration and a protest march from a local Shaheed Udham Singh Park to Swaran cinema against Sooryavanshis live screening. Heres the trailer: They forced the cinema owners to stop the screening as they were pissed with the fact that Akshay Kumar didnt tweet once in favour of the farmers who have been sitting at the Delhi borders since November last year demanding that the government repeal the three agri laws -- Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. They will not let the cinema theatres screen the movie until the farm laws are repealed. We wonder how would the team of Sooryavanshi react to this fiasco. There would hardly be any Indian who isnt a fan of Amitabh Bachchan. The actor has had a glorious trajectory in Indian cinema and entertained around four generations of desis starting from our grandfathers and parents to us. Instagram/Amitabh Bachchan Does anyone even remember how many years has he been mesmerising us with his distinctive voice, macho looks and incredible acting chops? The megastar of the millennial reminded his fans and followers today with a throwback picture from his first film. Instagram/Amitabh Bachchan Bachchan keeps sharing pictures from his earlier days on social media as and when he gets nostalgic. However, todays throwback picture was really special. He shared it to celebrate 52 years of being in Bollywood. Instagram/Amitabh Bachchan The black and white photo is from Saat Hindustani which was released 52 years ago today. He shared it on his official Twitter and Instagram account and captioned them, On 15th Feb 1969 signed my first film "Saat Hindustani" & it released on 7 November 196952 Years .. TODAY !! Instagram/Amitabh Bachchan His fans were elated to see the actor who was in his 20s in the picture. Some recalled his powerful performance in the movie, while others congratulated him for completing 52 years in Hindi cinema. A user wrote, That, indeed, was an era!! And what a struggle for Amitabh sir,to rise from a scratch to be called, Sadi Ke Mahanayak. Actor Karanveer Sharma commented, Where you expressed a million emotions without uttering a single word. Instagram/Amitabh Bachchan Bachchan played the role of a Muslim poet Anwar Ali in Khwaja Ahmad Abbas patriotic action film Saat Hindustani. It also stars Utpal Dutt in a lead role. A few years ago, on the 49th anniversary of signing the film, the actor also shared pictures from the movie and wrote in the caption, 49 years ago I came to the city of dreams and signed my first film .. "Saat Hindustani' on Feb 15, 1969 .. Instagram/Amitabh Bachchan Even after over half a century since his debut in Bollywood, Big B is still the most sought-after and celebrated actor in India. He has been hosting Kaun Banega Crorepati since 2000 and has movies like Brahmastra, Jhund and more all set to release in coming years. Instagram/Amitabh Bachchan 52 down, many more to go! It has not even been a decade since Alia Bhatt made her big Bollywood debut with Student Of The Year. Although the film didnt really do well, she went on to prove herself as a bankable actor in the Hindi film industry. With films like Highway, Raazi and Udta Punjab, she has made a powerful presence in cinema. Instagram/Alia Bhatt Her kitty is full of big budget films that are all set to release next year including Gangubai Kathiawadi, Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahani and Brahmastra. She is even making her debut in Tollywood with SS Rajamoulis Telugu-language film RRR in which she is playing Sita. Instagram/Alia Bhatt However, it seems like her hunger for success and work is endless. Not just Bollywood and South cinema, Alia is on a quest to take over the global film industry. If reports are to be believed, she has signed up with an American talent agency, William Morris Endeavour (WME) which represents Hollywood A-listers like Gal Gadot, Emma Stone, Charlize Theron and others. Instagram/Alia Bhatt She has been reportedly looking at projects in Hollywood and has liked one of the scripts that have been offered to her. She might finalise it soon and make her debut in the West by next year. Instagram/Alia Bhatt A fan of Jennifer Lawrence, Alia has asked her agency to seek projects similar to her work and the kind of films she has done in Hollywood. If all goes well, she might make an official announcement about her debut soon. Instagram/Alia Bhatt Alia too seems to be following the steps of the likes of Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone who also jetted off to LA and worked in American TV and films after making it big in Bollywood. While Padukone starred alongside Vin Diesel in xXx: The Return of Xander Cage in 2017, Chopra has made a mark in Hollywood with her series Quantico and a bunch of other films she did. Alia and Priyanka are also teaming up for Farhan Akhtars next Jee Le Zaraa, an all-girls road trip film which also stars Katrina Kaif. It will be released in 2023. Instagram/Alia Bhatt Alia Bhatt is clearly unstoppable and on her way to becoming a global star. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson visits Kalamazoo office Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson visits Kalamazoo office November 3, 2021 "We're offering more convenient service options than ever before, including more online transactions, self-service stations at grocery stores, and in-person office service that gets people in and out in an average of just 20 minutes," said Benson. "And it's now easy to book visits in Kalamazoo, Portage, Battle Creek, and other offices throughout the region, with visits available for the same day, next day, next week and further in advance nearly all the time." The abundance of office availability reflects the dramatic improvements made by Benson's administration. In November 2018, the average wait time for a visitor to the Kalamazoo office was 88 minutes before they received assistance. Now, the average time visitors spend in any Secretary of State office is 20 minutes total, including the time they conduct their transaction with staff. "Secretary Benson knows the value of meeting people where they're at and we are appreciative of that in Kalamazoo, especially as people are still grappling with a return to normalcy. I cannot thank her enough for her relentless support of the hardworking staff at our branch offices, and her willingness to see firsthand how they are operating, where improvements can be made, and what issues matter most to our residents," said Sen. Sean McCann (D-Kalamazoo), who joined Benson for the visit. "This people-first approach to service resulting in one less thing to worry about or stress over is exactly the relief people need as they tend to responsibilities and as we work to emerge from this pandemic together." Michiganders have embraced the service improvements made by Benson, and now more than half - 60 percent - of all transactions are conducted without visiting a Secretary of State office. This is up from just 26 percent in 2018. The change is in part the result of Benson making more services available online and at self-service stations. She also replaced the state's 93 self-service stations - which broke down frequently - with more than 150 new machines installed through a public-private partnership that cost taxpayers nothing. "I appreciate Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson visiting Kalamazoo today and keeping tabs on what our local branches need to better serve the public," state Representative Julie Rogers (D-Kalamazoo) said. "As we continue to feel the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, expanded, accessible and convenient services are needed now more than ever." Residents have also embraced the ability to schedule their visit ahead of time, which they can do online at Michigan.gov/SOS or by calling 888-SOS-MICH. In all, 88 percent of office visits are scheduled ahead of time. Residents can also walk up to any office and they will be served immediately if there is availability or assisted with scheduling a return visit at a time convenient for them. # # # For media questions, contact Tracy Wimmer at 517-281-1876. We welcome questions and comments at the Contact the Secretary of State page. Customers may call the Department of State Information Center to speak to a customer-service representative at 888-SOS-MICH (767-6424). Governor Whitmer Statement on Conversations with the White House on Issues Critical to Michigan Governor Whitmer Statement on Conversations with the White House on Issues Critical to Michigan FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 22, 2021 Contact: press@michigan.gov Governor Whitmer Statement on Conversations with the White House on Issues Critical to Michigan Discussions centered on economic development and infrastructure, with an emphasis on lead service line replacement and the global chip shortage LANSING, Mich.-Governor Gretchen Whitmer issued the following statement after high-level conversations with key decisionmakers in Washington, DC on Michigan's priorities. "This week, I had an opportunity to meet with national leaders to advance Michigan's priorities. Our conversations centered on growing the economy, creating good-paying jobs, and building up our roads, bridges, and water infrastructure. We drilled down on two issues that are critical to Michigan's families, communities, and small businesses right now: lead service lines and the chip crisis impacting our auto industry. "Communities across the country and in Michigan have been facing elevated lead levels in their drinking water. We have a duty to ensure safe drinking water for all families. That's why I launched the MI Clean Water plan to support 7,500 good-paying jobs and address high water rates, lead service lines, toxic contaminants like PFAS, sewers that can't meet demand, and failing septic systems. We need to work together to replace 100% of lead service lines in every community. I am grateful to the Biden administration for making infrastructure, including lead service line replacement, a priority, and I look forward to using the federal funds we are expected to receive to repair our roads, fix crumbling bridges, expand broadband, and protect access to safe drinking water. "During my conversations, I also touched on the global semiconductor shortage impacting our automotive industry and other businesses in the clean energy and consumer technology sectors. In Michigan, our auto industry production chain is the envy of the world and supports tens of thousands of jobs. We need to continue going to bat for Michigan's workers and ensure our manufacturers have the resources they need to continue innovating and building the future. Michigan put the world on wheels, and we need to do everything we can to address the chip shortage and maintain our competitive edge. "I was grateful to speak with national leaders as we all stay focused on growing the economy and ushering in a new era of prosperity for our state and country." ### LANSING, Mich. (AP) Construction is underway for what owners say is the first Black-owned television and movie studio in Michigan. Standup comedian and director turned entrepreneur, Amaru, who only goes by one name, said it was a combination of events with the death of George Floyd and the COVID-19 pandemic that inspired him to open Greenwood District Studios, MLive.com reports. How can I bring back my job and others some jobs? Amaru said. Hope was the number one thing that came up and doing away with the despair thats happening around, especially with our youth. Racial equity and community demand, self motivation and support spurred an increase of many Black-owned businesses over the course of the pandemic, according to Millie Chu, a business consultant of DEI programs for the Michigan Small Business Center. Some were laid off and pursued entrepreneurship out of necessity and some chose to quit their jobs to pursue their dreams, Chu said. In all, the pandemic has caused us to take another look at options or what truly matters. Often that option or dream is owning a business. Located in the old Lansing Mall Cinema, the lot sat vacant since the cinemas closing in 2014. As a professional entertainer, Amaru knew the 27,000-square-foot lot would perfectly house whats needed for the film and audio production process, from pre-production to post-production and everything in between. We lucked up and got one building to do everything we want to do, Amaru said. While the project has been making steady progress, reutilizing abandoned buildings doesnt come without challenges. Entering inside what was once the cinemas theaters are now tattered and cut screens, along with shattered glass and broken bottles in the second story of the building. The studios small staff and a handful of volunteers have been working, mostly by hand, to remove the debris from the building and restore it with new screens, stages and technical equipment. Michael Nathan is a producer and director who is part of the team working to turn Greenwood District Studios a reality. Good things take time and if youre willing to sacrifice and work for it, itll happen no matter what, Nathan said. Once reconstruction is complete, the building will feature six studios, a state of the art editing bay and office space. A Kalamazoo native, Amaru, 47, has been in the entertainment industry for 25 years. He said his first time getting a taste of the Hollywood experience was working as an aspiring writer in Los Angeles for rapper and actor Master P. He said he was able to make plenty of great connections while out on the west coast, but he was also met with many broken promises. As youre in the business, you begin to get tired of waiting, Amaru said. Waiting for people to follow through is not what I like to do. Although the production space is still being constructed, its the studios Funny is Funny comedy club that will give local talent a shot at the spotlight in a way that he wasnt given before. The comedy club had its grand opening in September. It has open mic nights on Tuesdays, with professional standup comedians performing on the weekends. It may not be about me, it may be about somebody that comes along that I give him an opportunity to blow up, Amaru said. It might be somebody that has yet to come that might be that spark. Similar to what Black entertainers have done, such as Tyler Perry with his Atlanta production studio, Amaru wants to buy the block for Black creatives to be able to explore their craft within their own community. To be able to greenlight and say yes to projects and tell our stories when we want to tell our stories without having to wait for someone... we can change the narrative, Amaru said. Although he is reaching out to Black entertainers, he has made it clear that Black-owned doesnt mean Black only. He said the studios TikTok account, which has over 96,000 followers, has garnered a much welcomed international support for the business. The studio may also be helpful in spreading awareness about Black culture to other communities. The studio is named after the Greenwood District, or Black Wall Street, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The district was home to an abundance of Black-owned businesses, but was burned down by a mob of angry white residents in 1921 in whats now known as the Tulsa Race Massacre. Amaru plans to have images of the Greenwood District displayed throughout the studios and each one of the studios will be named after something that was destroyed in the massacre. We wanted to combine the old with the new so that the old would never be forgotten, Amaru said. Construction is expected to be fully complete by the end of next year. BAGHDAD (AP) Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted his residence early Sunday and officials said he was unharmed. The attack was a major escalation amid tensions sparked by the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results. Two Iraqi officials told The Associated Press that seven of al-Kadhimi's security guards were injured in the attack with two armed drones which occurred in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone area. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements. "I am fine and among my people. Thank God," the prime minister tweeted shortly after the attack. He called for calm and restraint, for the sake of Iraq. He later appeared on Iraqi television, seated behind a desk in a white shirt, looking calm and composed. Cowardly rocket and drone attacks dont build homelands and dont build a future, he said. In a statement, the government said an explosives-laden drone tried to hit al-Kadhimis home. Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by heavy gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and government offices. The statement released by state-run media said security forces were taking the necessary measures in connection with this failed attempt. There was no immediate claim for the attack. It comes amid a stand-off between security forces and pro-Iran Shiite militias whose supporters have been camped outside the Green Zone for nearly a month after they rejected the results of Iraqs parliamentary elections in which they lost around two-thirds of their seats. The assassination attempt is a dramatic escalation, crossing a line in unprecedented fashion that may have violent reverberations, wrote Ranj Alaaldin, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, in a post on Twitter. Protests turned deadly Friday when the demonstrators tried to enter the Green Zone. Security forces used tear gas and live ammunition. There was an exchange of fire in which one protester affiliated with the militias was killed. Dozens of security forces were injured. Al-Khadimi ordered an investigation to determine what sparked the clashes and who violated orders not to open fire. Some of the leaders of the most powerful militia factions loyal to Iran openly blamed al-Kadhimi for Friday's clashes and the protester's death. The blood of martyrs is to hold you accountable, said Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, addressing al-Kadhimi at a funeral held for the protester Saturday. The protesters only had one demand against fraud in elections. Responding like this (with live fire) means you are the first responsible for this fraud. The funeral was attended by leaders of the mostly Shiite Iran-backed factions who together are known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic. Abu Alaa al-Walae, commander of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, in a tweet apparently addressed to al-Kadhimi that did not name him told him to forget about another term. Al-Kadhimi, 54, was Iraq's former intelligence chief before becoming prime minister in May last year. He is considered by the militias to be close to the U.S., and has tried to balance between Iraq's alliances with both the U.S. and Iran. Prior to the elections, he hosted several rounds of talks between regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad in a bid to ease regional tensions. Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Irans national security council, said indirectly in a tweet Sunday that the United States was behind the attack. The assault on al-Kadhimi "is a new sedition that must be traced back to foreign think tanks, which have brought nothing but insecurity, discord & instability to oppressed Iraqi people through creation & support of terrorist groups & occupation of this country for years, he said. The U.S. strongly denounced the attack. This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state, said State Department spokesperson Ned Price. We are in close touch with the Iraqi security forces charged with upholding Iraqs sovereignty and independence and have offered our assistance as they investigate this attack, he added. Egypts President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also condemned the assassination attempt. Writing on Facebook, he called on all sides in Iraq to calm down, renounce violence and join forces to preserve the countrys stability. Saudi Arabia issued a statement of support for stability in Iraq and said it strongly condemned the cowardly terrorist attack that targeted Iraqs prime minister." The United States, the U.N. Security Council and others have praised the Oct. 10 election, which was mostly violence-free and without major technical glitches. But following the vote, militia supporters pitched tents near the Green Zone, rejecting the election results and threatening violence unless their demands for a recount were met. The unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud have cast a shadow over the vote. The standoff with the militia supporters has also increased tensions among rival Shiite factions that could spill into violence and threaten Iraqs newfound relative stability. The election was held months ahead of schedule in response to mass protests in late 2019, which saw tens of thousands in Baghdad and predominantly Shiite southern provinces rally against endemic corruption, poor services and unemployment. They also protested against the heavy-handed interference of neighboring Iran in Iraqs affairs through Iran-backed militias. The militias lost some popularity since the 2018 vote, when they made big election gains. Many hold them responsible for suppressing the 2019 protests, and for challenging the states authority. The biggest gains were made by influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who won the largest number of parliament seats, 73 out of 329. While he maintains good relations with Iran, al-Sadr publicly opposes external interference in Iraqs affairs. ___ Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell and Aya Batrawy in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Samy Magdy in Cairo contributed. HAMDEN A new police commission. A revived, revised charter. A team of social workers handling emergency calls that traditionally have elicited a police response. Those are just a few of the changes residents might expect from Mayor-elect Lauren Garrett, who also hopes to extend the sewer line along the northern section of Whitney Avenue, push forward with a town animal shelter and rethink Hamdens plans for repurposing the abandoned middle school property on Newhall Street. Garretts win on Election Day affirmed the success of the Hamden Democratic partys left-leaning wing, the rise of which has manifested in a changed Democratic Town Committee, divisions on the Legislative Council and public squabbling between party officials and incumbent Mayor Curt Balzano Leng, a Democrat who positioned himself as a moderate. After a failed bid for mayor two years ago, Garrett not only won the party endorsement this year but easily defeated Leng in the September primary, leaving one last obstacle between herself and government center: the general election. She crossed that bridge Nov. 2, beating Independent write-in candidate Albert Al Lotto and Republican mayoral hopeful Ron Gambardella. Changing of the guard The news is sure to bring personnel changes to Government Center, which has not seen a stark change in administrations in at least 15 years. Garrett was not yet ready to announce her incoming team, she said, but indicated some department heads will remain in place while others will change. (State statute protects certain top employees, such as the chief of police, from termination in most cases.) At the start of her term, Garrett also will have the opportunity to appoint the police commission, she said, and she plans to start with a clean slate. In other words, the board will be made up entirely of new commissioners. Longtime commission member and current Chairman Michael Iezzi said he hopes the new members will continue to work to diversify the police force. He said he has long been committed to hiring more women and officers of color, noting department statistics reflect a marked change over the last 15 years. As of January 2021, white males made up 70 percent of the police force, down from 90 percent in 2007. Iezzi also hopes the new commission will follow the charter, he said. The commission has very distinct responsibilities, and theyre very important, Iezzi said. The police commission hires police officers, they promote police officers, they discipline police officers, and we approve policy. We dont create it, we dont make it, we approve it. New priorities But with Garretts win comes a strong possibility the charter will change. The mayor-elect plans to reconvene a Charter Revision Commission, which in 2020 began a monthslong process of drafting a new governing document for Hamden. The revised charter included provisions geared at amping up civilian oversight of the Police Department and fostering diversity and inclusion on town boards. It also would have established four-year mayoral terms and a finance board tasked with advising the budgetary process. To the shock of many involved, the Legislative Council in August declined to forward the charter to a referendum, and a petition to get it on the ballot also failed. Garrett said she wishes to bring the revisions back from the dead, picking up where the town left off. Members of Garretts slate, which ran on a promise of change and was mostly victorious with a few close calls, said they are excited for whats ahead. Two successful candidates specifically mentioned reviving the charter as a bright spot on the horizon. To not have it pass at the last minute, that was disappointing to me - very disappointing, said council member Jeron Alston, D-2. We worked on it for weeks as a council and ... the committee (worked) on it for months and months. ... It just seemed like that was a bit wasteful as far as time and resources. Councilman Justin Farmer, D-5, who helped lead the petitioning effort to get the charter on the ballot, also said he was looking forward to a new charter. Further, he was hopeful well have honest conversations with the community and if theres developments, right like the middle school, where most people are uncomfortable with the project that well go back to the drawing board, he said, referring to the abandoned middle school site on Newhall Street, which long has been slated for development via a contract with NeighborWorks New Horizons. The nonprofit proposed putting a community center and apartments on the site, including market-rate and affordable housing units. But with the contract up for renewal, some have questioned whether the plan is the best way forward. Garrett favors holding community discussions before making any decisions, she said. The mayor-elect also said she wants to push to extend the sewer line along the northern end of Whitney Avenue. It would promote economic development, she said, because many businesses require or prefer sewer access, she said. The availability of federal aid money should help the town pursue that and other infrastructure repairs, Garrett said. Hamden is receiving millions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act, and more aid could be in the pipeline if Congress passes the pending infrastructure bill. Opportunities to collaborate Farmer, Garrett and other members of the Democratic slate said the new make-up of the administration and council will make for more productive governing. Theres a lot of excitement about opportunities to collaborate, and so Im excited for that, Im hopeful for that, Farmer said. I think more work is going to get done. Cory OBrien, who won an at-large council seat, shared a similar view. First and foremost, he said, there will be an actual functioning government with collaboration between the council and mayors office. He noted there is a lot of work ahead, especially when it comes to Hamdens budgetary issues, and that there always will be disagreements. We anticipate debate, but its gonna be respectful, productive debate, OBrien said. Alston said he is hopeful the council will look past politics and push ahead. I again think that its wonderful that we did as well as we did, Alston said. We have a full slate ahead of us of the initiatives that we talked about, and I cant wait to (try) to implement those things. Trepidation Those on the losing side of the election were much more skeptical about Hamdens future. Gambardella, Garretts Republican opponent, was not optimistic about the new council. I think theyll rubber-stamp whatever (Garrett) proposes, he said. Theres no opposition or balance on the Legislative Council, and thats the worst form of government as far as I can see. ... I dont see any checks and balances in the process. The only thing the Republicans can do is voice their opposition but they dont have any power to change anything. Both the current and future councils have three Republicans and 12 Democrats, but Gambardella said the new council is losing its traditional Democrats. Garrett, on the other hand, pointed out that the make-up will remain when it comes to party affiliation. Hamden could really use a functioning council and administration that is interested in working together, she said. Im not expecting everybody to agree with me all of the time, Im just expecting that we will be able to work together and respectfully disagree. Others are worried about what the changing government will mean for policing and crime. Im concerned about the funding of the police, the tone that is out there now as it relates to that and what consequences that will bear for Hamden residents, said at-large Councilwoman Berita Rowe-Lewis, a Democrat who lost the primary. She said talk in progressive circles about defunding the police makes her nervous and concerned about Hamdens future when it comes to crime. Gambardella, too, said he hopes Garrett succeeds but fears she will take a tact thats gonna hamstring police from doing their job. Garrett hopes to prove those fears wrong. What she really is advocating for, she said, is a broader approach to crime prevention. A lot goes into crime prevention making sure that we have enrichment and programming for our youth, jobs, opportunities, mental health supports and thats what really drives down crime statistics, she said. I want to prevent crime from happening in the first place. Garrett also has promised to fill all the Police Department positions the town is required to fill under a recent agreement with the police union, which is meant to ensure a 105-member police force. Regardless of what happens, there is one thing even the two former political opponents can agree on: an animal shelter. Both promised to prioritize a town animal shelter, a project that has stalled for years. With a new administration, Gambardella said, hes optimistic it will come to fruition. I think thatll get done, and Im glad it will get done, he said. She might not have the same vision for an animal shelter that I had, but something is better than nothing. meghan.friedmann@hearstmediact.com CROMWELL More than a dozen residents voiced their opposition to proposed development of a new road and warehouse in the area of Shunpike Road. Scannell Properties presented its proposal at a recent Inland Wetlands and Watercourses Agency meeting. The Indiana-based developer is looking to construct a 1.04 million-square-foot warehouse on a plot of land east of Shunpike Road, north of Geer Street, and south of the Rocky Hill line. In 2018, the same company constructed the largest building in town a 403,000-square-foot facility on County Line Road that has since been occupied by Amazon. In this case, the development, dubbed Project Highlands, would result in unavoidable direct wetland impacts, according to the application submitted by Scannell Properties. They say they have identified the portion of the property that would affect the wetlands the least, and plan to build there. According to the proposal, the development would affect 1.25 percent of the total area of wetlands. The developers also indicated they would create a wetland area of at least 25,000 square feet to compensate for the impact of the project. A public hearing was held at Wednesdays wetlands meeting to give residents an opportunity to voice concerns. Dozens of people from Cromwell and Rocky Hill crowded into the Town Council Chambers to do just that. Robyn Swanson, who lives across the street from the proposed site, said the agency should not allow the project because it destroys the wetland ecosystem in that area. No creature, not even the human ones, want to live in such close proximity to a 1 million-square-foot building with constant noise, moving vehicles, lights, and pollution tainting our water, Swanson said. Mike Baecker, who lives on Geer Street, said the project will clearly have a significant impact on the landscape and the abundant wetlands. He asked the agency to stop the proposal before it reaches the Planning and Zoning Commission, where resident opposition would continue. This commission has the opportunity to stop this project in its tracks, and just save everyone the battle, Baecker said. He cited reasons for his opposition to the project, including its impact on wildlife in the area and potential contamination to the groundwater. Are we prepared to contaminate the water for thousands of residents just for some tax money? Baecker asked. Another resident, Andrew Holt, called the proposed warehouse a monstrosity, and said the agency would not be doing its job if it were to grant the requested permit, saying it would contradict the purpose and goal of the agency. Some of the residents that spoke offered alternatives, indicating they would be OK with a smaller development or something that offered more to the community than a warehouse would. Less than a day after his run for mayor came to an end, Jamin DeProto voiced his concerns during the public hearing as well. He began by saying he was glad to see potential investment in the town. I dont want to necessarily paint Scannell as villains here, DeProto said. Im glad that theyre interested in our town and investing in it. He went on, however, to question what implications would remain for future development of the property. What about that area that youre saying youre not going to develop now? DeProto asked. What about in the future? Thomas Cody, an attorney with Robinson and Cole, LLP representing Scannell Properties, at Wednesdays meeting, acknowledged the concerns raised by residents. There were a lot of good questions asked tonight, Cody said. We have looked at all of these issues in great detail. He indicated he would return to the next meeting with a presentation that answers those questions. The public hearing was continued to the next wetlands agency meeting, which will take place Dec. 8. MIDDLETOWN In the northern part of Harbor Park, beyond a fence and through some brush, sit tents of blue and green tarps, an encampment those experiencing homelessness created in what Mayor Ben Florsheim and other public officials are calling an unsafe area. It is unclear exactly how long the encampment has been there, but the mayor said he became aware of it in early October. Soon after, city departments including police, parks, public works and health gathered at the site to assess it, according to Kevin Elak, the citys acting health director. Elak said the area is unsafe and the city is concerned. Its the area where the retaining wall to the river collapsed a few years ago, Elak said, adding that the city had blocked off the area for safety reasons. Were really concerned that someones going to fall down the embankment or something like that. There are other encampments in Middletown but the city is paying particular attention to this one because of the location. The encampment is not large, and about two weeks ago when Elak visited the site, there were eight tents and he estimated a dozen people living there. The city is working on moving people from the site but Elak was clear theyre not just going to kick people out. We want to give people fair notice and plenty of time to prepare for that, Elak said. We just dont want to go in and remove peoples belongings. The warming center at the Wesley Inn & Suites on Washington Street is set to open Nov. 22, which has become the citys self-imposed deadline to move people from the Harbor Park site. Elak said the plan is to make sure anyone living at the site knows the services available to them, and that counselors from Columbus House and St. Vincent DePaul have been out there, as well. Florsheim said fliers are being distributed and metal signs are going up at the location notifying people that they have to vacate the location by the time the warming center opens. We want to make sure that the folks who are there for whatever the reason that brought them there that they have an ability to, A, get to a safer location, and B, get the longer-term services that theyre going to need, Florsheim said Friday. In the past, the warming center has served as a last resort for people who refused services or did not want to get into permanent housing, Florsheim said, adding that they have had more success getting people referred out of the warming center and into housing. Obviously people are going to be safer in the warming center than they are going to be in an encampment by the river, but theyre going to be safer, much safer, than in the warming center as a long-term solution in permanent housing and really the ultimate goal is to get everybody housed, Florsheim said. When asked whether the city will push people out of the encampment when the warming center opens if they do not leave the area on their own, the mayor said the city will deal with that when the time comes, and he doubted anyone will prefer to remain at the site once the hotel becomes available. Elak said that, if need be, the city may offer those living at the site the option of going to another encampment area around town. Housing and homelessness has been something about which the community has been serious for a long time, according to Florsheim, who said the city is proud of its emerging partnerships with St. Vincent DePaul and Columbus House. The last thing we want to do is to further victimize people in crisis, Florsheim said. Most of the people who are not interested in the services currently available, a lot of that is because they are in crisis and we dont want to put them in a more precarious situation, we just dont think this situation is a safe one for anybody. christine.derosa@hearstmediact.com BRIDGEPORT As the 20th anniversary of Bianca Elaine Lebrons disappearance approaches, investigators say there is no new information in the case to share. Lebron was waiting in line to enter the former Elias Howe School on Clinton Avenue on Nov. 7, 2001, when she told classmates she was leaving to go with an uncle on a shopping trip. The then-10-year-old was last seen getting into a brown and tan van driven by a man. She hasnt been seen since. Officials previously said Lebron did not have an uncle. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System entry for Lebron indicates that the van was an older model with several sanded areas, tinted windows and chrome trim on its sides. Sunday marks 20 years since her disappearance, which back in 2001 launched a nationwide search. Since then, her case has become the subject of many television specials. And as of Friday, authorities continue to probe her disappearance. This case is still open and the Bridgeport Police Department investigates any leads as they come in, said Scott Appleby, the citys director of emergency communications and emergency management. He said police did not have any new information on the case to share. Back in 2011, police got a tip from New Mexico, where someone in an online chat room claimed they saw a picture that looked like the missing girl. It wasnt her. In July 2009, police dug up a section of the west end of Seaside Park for two days after getting a tip she was buried there. Authorities found nothing. In 2003, police questioned an individual they believed might have had a relationship with the girl. He was later released after denying knowing anything about Lebrons whereabouts. In an interview with Connecticut Post after his release, the man and his mother denied knowing anything about her disappearance. Carmelita Torres, Lebrons mother, described her daughter as a happy child who loved school in a 2011 interview with the Connecticut Post. She could not be reached for comment Friday. Lebron would be 30 now. Authorities have generated age-progression photos of what they believe resembles what Lebron would look like more recently. She has a birthmark on her forehead. She has brown hair and hazel eyes. Anyone with information is asked to call the police tips line at 203-576-TIPS. Callers can remain anonymous. WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden is pushing forward with a massive plan to require millions of private sector employees to get vaccinated by early next year. But first, he has to make sure workers in his own federal government get the shot. About 4 million federal workers are to be vaccinated by Nov. 22 under the president's executive order. Some employees, like those at the White House, are nearly all vaccinated. But the rates are lower at other federal agencies, particularly those related to law enforcement and intelligence, according to the agencies and union leaders. And some resistant workers are digging in, filing lawsuits and protesting what they say is unfair overreach by the White House. The upcoming deadline is the first test of Biden's push to compel people to get vaccinated. Beyond the federal worker rule, another mandate will take effect in January aimed at around 84 million private sector workers, according to guidelines put out this past week. On Saturday, a federal appeals court in Louisiana temporarily halted the vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The administration says it is confident that the requirement will withstand legal challenges in part because its safety rules preempt state laws. The president and the administration wouldnt have put these requirements in place if they didnt think that they were appropriate and necessary, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said Sunday on ABCs This Week. And the administration is certainly prepared to defend them. If the mandates are a success, they could make the most serious dent in new coronavirus cases since the vaccine first became available, especially with the news this past week that children ages 5-11 can get the shot making an additional 64 million people eligible. But with two weeks remaining until the federal worker deadline, some leaders of unions representing the employees say that convincing the unvaccinated to change their mind is increasingly challenging. I got the vaccine in February, it was my own choice and I thought it would stop the virus, said Corey Trammel, a Bureau of Prisons correctional officer and local union president in Louisiana. But it hasnt. And now I have people resigning because they are tired of the government overreach on this, they do not want to get the shot. People just dont trust the government, and they just dont trust this vaccine. Vaccines have a proven track record of safety, backed by clinical trials and independent reviews showing them overwhelmingly effective at preventing serious illness and death from COVID-19. More than 222 million Americans have received at least one vaccine dose and more than 193 million are fully vaccinated. More than half of the world population has also received a shot. Scientists have been battling anxiety over the vaccine since it was first authorized; an AP-NORC poll earlier this year found one-third of adults in the U.S. were skeptical, despite assurances the vaccine was safe and effective and few instances of serious side effects. About 70% of American adults are fully vaccinated and 80% have received at least one dose of a vaccine. Vaccinations have unfolded at uneven rates across the federal government. Officials at Health and Human Services, U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Housing and Urban Development said they were working on getting their employees vaccinated but had no figures yet. Several intelligence agencies had at least 20% of their workforce unvaccinated as of late October, said U.S. Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee. Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association President Larry Cosme said there are about 31,000 members from 65 federal law enforcement agencies in the association and he estimated 60% of them have been vaccinated. Homeland Security, a giant government department with more than 240,000 employees, was about 64% fully vaccinated by the end of last month. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has received at least 6,000 requests for medical or religious exemptions, according to the union that represents Border Patrol agents. Federal agencies are warning employees about the upcoming mandate, offering time off to get the vaccine and encouraging workers to comply. But they won't be fired if they don't make the Nov. 22 deadline. They would receive counseling and be given five days to start the vaccination process. They could then be suspended for 14 days and eventually could be terminated, but that process would take months. Republicans have argued the mandate goes too far. House Oversight Committee Republicans sent a letter in late October suggesting the president's authoritarian and extreme mandates infringe upon American freedoms, are unprecedented, and may ultimately be deemed unlawful. In their letter, Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jody Hice of Georgia said they worried about a large number of government vacancies should thousands of workers refuse and get fired. That concern was also felt by those in the already-understaffed Bureau of Prisons. A federal corrections officers union in Florida filed a lawsuit this past week over the mandate, saying it was a violation of civil rights. Some prison workers say theyre torn about the vaccine, not wanting to lose their livelihoods but also unwilling to sacrifice their personal beliefs. Officers near retirement age are contemplating leaving rather than go through with the vaccine. One prison worker in West Virginia texted a colleague that the worker wasnt willing to be a guinea pig, writing: It would be different if it wasn't new. But it is. And I dont wanna be your experiment. The worker, describing how agonizing the decision had been, said: Ive cried and puked so much my eyes and stomach hurts. The worker wondered if it was wrong to stand firm against the vaccine. Border Patrol employees have been directed to confirm their vaccination status by Tuesday, according to union President Brandon Judd. As of Thursday, 49% of Border Patrol agents responded to say they are fully vaccinated and about 7% reported not being vaccinated, Judd said. Its unclear at this point how many will continue to refuse if they arent granted an exemption and face losing their job as a result. When it comes down to losing your livelihood or getting vaccinated, I think the vast majority are going to ultimately get vaccinated, Judd said. We are going to lose people. How many? I really couldnt predict that. ___ Sisak reported from New York. Associated Press Writers Zeke Miller, Ben Fox, Gary Fields, Hope Yen and Ashraf Khalil contributed to this report. CAIRO (AP) Libyas ruling presidential council said Saturday that it suspended the countys chief diplomat, accusing her of not coordinating foreign policy with the council. The three-member body, which serves as Libyas president, also barred Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush from traveling abroad pending an investigation into what it described as monopolization of foreign policy, according to a decree by the council. A spokeswoman for the council did not elaborate circumstances behind the decision. There was also no immediate comment the minister. Saturdays decision came more than six weeks before planned elections, and a few days ahead of an international conference in the French capital to push for holding elections as scheduled Dec. 24. The vote still faces other challenges, including unresolved issues over the countrys elections laws and occasional fighting among armed groups. Other obstacles include the deep rift that remains between the countrys east and west and the presence of thousands of foreign fighters and troops. Libya has been engulfed in chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. He was captured and killed by an armed group two months later. The oil-rich country was for years split between rival governments, one based in the capital, Tripoli, and the other in the eastern part of the country. Each side is backed by different foreign powers and militias. The interim government now in charge was appointed in February after months of U.N.-backed negotiations to lead the country through elections. It includes the presidential council and a Cabinet of ministers that runs day-to-day affaires. With the approval of the COVID-19 vaccine for younger children, many elementary schools around the U.S. are preparing to offer the shots, which educators see as key to keeping students learning in person and making the classroom experience closer to what it once was. Some district leaders say offering vaccine clinics on campus, with the involvement of trusted school staff, is key to improving access and helping overcome hesitancy particularly in communities with low overall vaccination rates. Still, many school systems are choosing not to offer elementary schools as hosts for vaccination sites after some middle and high schools that offered shots received pushback. More than 250 families signed up for vaccinations that began Thursday at elementary schools in Duluth, Minnesota, which organized clinics immediately after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave the final signoff to Pfizers kid-size COVID-19 shot for children ages 5 to 11. Superintendent John Magas called the vaccines a game changer. This brings us one step closer to moving from pandemic to endemic, Magas said. It allows us to reconsider things like social distancing and masking and things like that as safety permits. The Biden administration plans to send a letter to U.S. elementary schools in the next week asking them to host clinics. The Education Department is also urging schools to host town halls and webinars at which parents can talk to doctors about the vaccine. Districts that have held or are planning clinics for younger children span Alaska to Vermont, said Hayley Meadvin, an Education Department senior adviser. Where schools choose not to host clinics, families can turn to doctors offices, hospitals and other sites. There are many points of access, and theres no wrong door, honestly, Meadvin said. In Ohio, some school districts offered on-site clinics for older students, but Rick Lewis, director of the Ohio School Boards Association, said they haven't heard from any districts planning them for younger students. He noted the CDC encourages districts to consider factors like local needs for school clinics and adequate community support. School vaccine drives have faced pushback and protests in Ohio and elsewhere, and some opponents say they plan to keep up pressure as the focus of the vaccination effort shifts to younger students. Sarah Kenney, who represents the group Mainers for Health and Parental Rights, argues that schools should not be getting involved or even talking to young children about the vaccine. She worries about its newness and potential for long-term side effects. A Pfizer study of 2,268 children found the vaccine was almost 91% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 infections. The FDA examined 3,100 vaccinated kids in concluding the shots are safe. Kenney also expressed concern about stigma against children who do not get vaccinated. These conversations and personal decisions have been difficult enough to navigate for adults, we shouldnt be putting this on our kids," she said. Parents are required to give authorization for their children's shots. The vaccines are typically administered before or after school in partnerships with local hospitals and government health officials. Chicago Public Schools, the country's third-largest district, canceled school Nov. 12 to give parents an opportunity to get their children vaccinated by a healthcare provider or at a school-based site. In Portland, Oregon, vaccines will be offered in eight elementary schools starting next week in high poverty districts, where families are more likely to face barriers such as access to health care or transportation, Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero said. On the heels of California's decision to make vaccines for children mandatory, Portland is among districts considering the same. A recent board of education meeting to discuss that possibility was disrupted by a group of protesters. For that reason, security will be present at the vaccine clinics, and their times and dates wont be publicized outside the local community, said Courtney Westling, the districts director of government relations. Schools are a trusted community hub, she said. Families, in general, feel very safe at these school sites. Were also not asking for identification or insurance cards. We dont want people to fear ICE showing up or something. We are just trying to get people vaccinated so we can get some of this behind us and get back to some semblance of normalcy. In Hartford, Connecticut, schools superintendent Leslie Torres-Rodriguez said the vaccination clinics it is planning along with local hospitals will include school nurses, trusted by families. Only a third of the district's students 12 and older are vaccinated. We take an equity stance here and think about the access and removing any barriers that our families might have, she said. In nearby Tolland, Connecticut, school superintendent Walter Willett said his district also is teaming with health providers, including UConn Health, to offer vaccines at school sites to younger students. He said vaccines are important, not just for keeping kids in school, but for teachers, janitors and other staff who tend to be more at risk. They can more effectively do their job when kids aren't bouncing in and out of the classroom in quarantine, he said. Liz Hamel, the vice president of opinion and survey research at KFF, a nonprofit that studies health care issues, said their recent surveys show parents are more likely to accept vaccine information from their pediatrician than from government or educational sources. And one thing we found with teens is that most parents didn't want their school to require the vaccine, but if their school provided information or encouraged students to get vaccinated, those parents were more likely to say that their child was getting the vaccine, she said. Sam Valle, a 9-year-old in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, said he's been bugging his parents for months, asking when he can get the vaccine. Right now, I can't go into a restaurant without it, he said. I can't go into a store without wearing a mask. I can't do a lot of things. Sam's quest will soon be over. His mother says his shot is now scheduled for Wednesday. ___ Associated Press writers Collin Binkley in Boston and Michael Melia in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report. TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Irans military began its annual war games in a coastal area of the Gulf of Oman, state TV reported Sunday, less than a month before upcoming nuclear talks with the West. The report said navy and air force units as well as ground forces were participating in a more than 1 million square-kilometer (386,100 square-mile) area east of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Nearly 20% of all oil shipping passes through the strait to the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean. The drill comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. in the wake of former President Donald Trumps unilateral withdrawal of America from Irans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. State TV said brigades including commandos and airborne infantry deployed for the annual exercise. Fighter jets, helicopters, military transport aircraft, submarines and drones were also expected to take part in the drill. It wasn't immediately clear how long the exercise would last. Dubbed Zolfaghar-1400, the war games are aimed at improving readiness in confronting foreign threats and any possible invasion," state TV said. U.S. officials said last week that Iran had seized a Vietnamese-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman last month and was still holding the vessel in its port. Iran offered conflicting accounts of what happened, claiming that elite Revolutionary Guard commandos had thwarted a U.S. seizure of a tanker carrying Iranian oil in the Gulf of Oman and freed the vessel. It aired dramatic footage on state television but did not further explain the incident. The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, and is meant to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb. After the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018 and restored sanctions on Iran, the Islamic Republic gradually and publicly abandoned the deals limits on its nuclear development. Iran says its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium has reached over 210 kilograms (463 pounds), the latest defiant move ahead of upcoming nuclear talks with the West. Under the historic nuclear deal, Iran was prohibited from enriching uranium above 3.67%. Enriched uranium above 90% can be used for nuclear weapons, though Tehran insists its nuclear program is peaceful. After months of delays, the European Union, Iran and the U.S. announced last week that indirect talks to resuscitate the deal would resume Nov. 29 in Vienna. Today was the last day for teams to issue qualifying offers to eligible free agents, as teams had to make their decisions by 4pm CT. With the deadline now behind us, here are the players who were issued the one-year, $18.4MM offers This is the highest number of qualifying offers issued since the 2015-16 offseason, when a record 20 players received the QOs. Only six players received qualifying offers last winter, which was the lowest ever issued in an offseason, yet not really surprising given the pandemics impact on the 2020 season and league revenues. These 14 players now have until November 17 to decide whether or not to accept the offer. If they accept, theyll receive $18.4MM next season, and cant be traded until June 15, 2022. They also wont be eligible to receive a qualifying offer in any future trips to free agency (players are also ineligible for the qualifying offer if they havent spent at least one full season with their current team). Since the qualifying offer system was introduced in the 2012-13 offseason, 10 of the 96 players to receive a QO have taken the deal. If a player rejects the qualifying offer, draft pick compensation is now attached to their market, unless they re-sign with their former team. Teams who sign a QO free agent will have to surrender at least one draft pick, and potentially some international bonus pool money depending on their status as revenue-sharing recipients or whether or not they exceeded the luxury tax threshold. (Here is the list of what every team would have to give up to sign a QO free agent.) If a QO free agent signs elsewhere, that players former team receives a compensatory draft pick based on this criteria. A draft pick after Competitive Balance Round B will be awarded if the team losing the free agent did not receive revenue sharing or if the free agent in question signed a contract worth less than $50MM in guaranteed money. if the free agent in question signed a contract worth less than $50MM in guaranteed money. A draft pick after Round 1 will be awarded if the team losing the free agent received revenue sharing and the free agent in question signed for more than $50MM. the free agent in question signed for more than $50MM. A draft pick after Round 4 will be awarded if the team losing the free agent paid luxury tax penalties in the preceding season. As always, several factors are weighed by both teams and players about whether or not to issue or accept qualifying offers. This winter provides yet another wrinkle this could be the final year of the current qualifying offer system due to the expiration of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement on December 1. It is widely expected that the owners could lock out the players if a new deal isnt reached by that date. In the event of a lockout, MLB would institute a roster freeze on all transactional business involving Major League players, thus bringing the free agent market to a halt. With this deadline looming, it is possible we could see some QO recipients (those less certain of landing big multi-year contracts) choose to accept the one-year deal in order to guarantee themselves some financial and contractual security prior to a possible lockout. By that same token, this could make teams warier about extending the qualifying offer to certain players due to a larger suspicion that they would acceptor perhaps a players willingness to accept could make a team more inclined to issue a QO to a so-called borderline case. Yency Almonte has opted to become a free agent, the right-hander announced himself via Twitter. The Rockies outrighted Almonte off their 40-man roster back on October 21, but Almonte had enough minor league service time to decide whether or not to decline the assignment and enter into free agency. Originally joining the Rockies in the Tommy Kahnle trade with the White Sox in November 2015, Almonte has pitched in the last four MLB seasons, with inconsistent results. When Almonte has been able to keep the ball on the ground at an above-average rate, he has been good, as evidenced by his solid results in 2017 and 2019. When he hasnt been able to keep the grounders coming, Almonte has been prone to allowing home runs, thus resulting in a 5.56 ERA in 2019 and a 7.55 ERA last season. The rightys walk totals also spiked upwards this year, adding to Almontes struggles. Overall, the 27-year-old Almonte has a 5.30 ERA, 20.7% strikeout rate, and 9.7% walk rate over his 124 career innings in the majors. Getting away from the thin air of Denver could be a boon, as Almonte has pretty pronounced home/away splits a 6.46 ERA in 71 innings at Coors Field, and a 3.74 ERA in road games. McALLEN, Texas (AP) For about four months before President Joe Biden took office, advisers engaged in intense internal debate about how quickly they should undo his predecessor's hardline border policies. The answer, almost always, was that Donald Trump's mark couldn't be erased soon enough. Immigration advocates on the transition team defiantly shot down a detailed memo circulated among top aides that called for turning back some migrants who cross illegally by making them seek protection in other countries. They pushed back against estimates of soaring migration flows if Trumps policies were dismantled. In the end, Biden recognized predictions that more migrants might come to the border, but he was firm that policies instituted by Trump were cruel and inhumane and had to be jettisoned. Biden took office on Jan. 20. Almost immediately, numbers of migrants exceeded expectations. Plans outlined in a December document to fully resume asylum processing at land crossings were soon overtaken by events. Children traveling alone shattered previous highs in March, making up most of the more than 4,500 people housed in temporary tents that were designed for 250 under COVID-19 standards. The Border Patrol encountered migrants in South Texas more often than ever in June and July, dashing expectations for a common summer slowdown. In September, about 15,000 mostly Haitian refugees were camped under a bridge in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas. The chaotic scene stretched on for days as migrants waded back and forth across a river for supplies and families slept in squalor. Images of agents on horseback corralling refugees went viral. The administration began a massive expulsion of Haitians while allowing thousands to remain in the U.S. Its uneven response after months of rising arrivals sparked sharp criticism from both the right and left, illustrating the consequences of scrapping Trump's policies without a new asylum system in place. Some key developments could not have been predicted by any administration, and predating Biden was a major structural problem of immigration courts taking nearly four years on average to decide cases of immigrants not in custody. But a close review of the last year based on internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and AIM Media Texas and dozens of interviews with current and former U.S. and Mexican officials, migrants, shelter managers, advocates and others shows how an administration stacked with seasoned immigration advocates was unprepared for the huge increase in people seeking refuge at the border. Many interviewed for this reconstruction spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized or comfortable discussing private deliberations. When presented with specifics of the reconstruction, the White House defended its record. After four years of the Trump administrations chaos, cruelty and misplaced priorities, the work to build a fair, orderly and humane immigration system will take time and wont happen overnight," said spokesman Vedant Patel. "In a short period of time, the Biden administration continues to make considerable progress delivering on its plan. BROKEN ASYLUM SYSTEM While the Biden administration would work to undo policies put in place during and after a 2019 spike in arrivals at the border, it inherited an asylum system that has been broken for years. It sorely tested Bidens immediate predecessors. In the summer of 2014, large numbers of unaccompanied children from Central Americas Northern Triangle countries Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras showed up along the Texas border in the Rio Grande Valley, a profound demographic shift from predominantly Mexican men that created what then-President Barack Obama called a humanitarian crisis and left a deep impression on more enforcement-minded aides who went on to serve in the Biden administration. Spikes have since occurred periodically. Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras accounted for about two of every three border arrests and people who came in families made up more than half in the governments 2019 fiscal year, both all-time highs. In a throwback to earlier times, encounters with single adults soared during Trumps final year in office after the launch of Title 42 authority, which allowed migrants to be expelled without a chance to seek asylum on the basis of coronavirus. They also faced no legal consequences, encouraging repeat attempts. Against that daunting backdrop, Biden took office surrounded by immigration experts steeped with advocacy backgrounds. Esther Olavarria, an immigration attorney who worked for former Sen. Ted Kennedy and the Obama administration but spent much of her career as a Miami-based organizer, took a top spot on the White House Domestic Policy Council with Tyler Moran, who was then executive director of The Immigration Hub, a group of pro-immigration strategists. Influential, more enforcement-minded voices included David Shahoulian, who resigned last month for personal reasons as assistant Homeland Security secretary for border security and immigration, and Roberta Jacobson, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and career diplomat in Latin America who agreed to serve 100 days on the National Security Council as coordinator for the Southwest border. REMAIN IN MEXICO WINDS DOWN Despite concerns, Biden was adamant about his campaign promise to start reversing Trumps border policies by ending Remain in Mexico, known officially as Migrant Protection Protocols, under which about 70,000 asylum-seekers were made to wait outside the country for hearings in U.S. immigration court. Crossings fell sharply after Trump expanded the policy in 2019, but migrants were forced to wait in dangerous and unfamiliar Mexican border cities where finding steady work was difficult and finding attorneys was nearly impossible. Human Rights First, an advocacy group, documented 1,544 examples of violent assaults, including murder, rape, torture and kidnapping. During the transition, advocates pushed for the policys immediate reversal, but consensus emerged for a more gradual winding down. The complicated logistics of allowing up to 26,000 asylum-seekers with active cases to return to the United States and remain free while their cases wound through the courts was a high priority in the administrations first weeks. All records were on paper, with few working phone numbers or addresses listed, posing a challenge on how to get the word out. U.S. authorities, working closely with United Nations organizations, worried about a rush to the border exacerbating public health and security concerns and at the same time, sending a message to asylum-seekers who had returned to Central America to make the dangerous journey back north. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights website for asylum-seekers with active cases went live Feb. 12 and was overwhelmed with technical glitches. Multiple dropdown boxes created confusion and led to a site redesign. Despite the early hiccups, more than 11,000 asylum-seekers had returned to the United States by June 1, when Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas officially declared the policy was over after a review found it yielded only mixed effectiveness on border security. Others whose asylum cases were dismissed or denied under Trump were allowed in starting in late June. As border crossings soared beyond expectations, Amy Pope joined the White House staff in March after having advised Biden on immigration during the campaign and working closely with him in 2014 when he was tasked by Obama with the unaccompanied children on the Texas border. Her mandate was to bridge internal rifts between advocacy- and more enforcement-minded aides while her nomination to the second-highest position at the International Organization for Migration awaited approval from other member nations at the U.N. agency. UNACCOMPANIED MINORS Some White House and Homeland Security officials were frustrated by how woefully unprepared the Department of Health and Human Services was to handle unaccompanied children. As required by law, it was supposed to take custody within 72 hours and then place them in a home, usually with a parent or close relative. Participants in early interdepartmental meetings said Health and Human Services officials raised few warnings. On Feb. 7, U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened a large complex of white tents in the Rio Grande Valley, cramming more than 500 children into spaces designed for 32 under COVID-19 guidelines. Thick plastic curtains replaced chain-link fences used as barriers in the Obama and Trump administrations, but massive overcrowding was the same or worse. If (Health and Human Services) were able to take these kids off our hands, then it would be better for everybody, Oscar Escamilla, acting executive officer of the Border Patrols Rio Grande Valley sector, said during a media tour of the Donna, Texas, facility on March 30. At the time, unaccompanied children were being held an average of 61 hours over the 72-hour limit and as long as 20 days. Were forced into the (child detention) business because we cant turn them over to anybody. Health and Human Services belatedly sprang into action, aided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It opened about a dozen emergency holding centers within about a month to process unaccompanied children, renting space at a San Antonio concert venue and at military bases and convention centers in Dallas, San Diego and Long Beach, California. By late April, the department had more than 22,000 children in its custody, but even more arrived as others were released to family in the United States during asylum proceedings. July broke Marchs record number of unaccompanied children. On March 19, the Border Patrol for the first time ever began releasing families with notices to report to an immigration office within 60 days, instead of releasing them with more time-consuming notices to appear in immigration court. With processing taking up about 40% of Border Patrol resources, the agency concluded it had no choice. Troy Miller, the acting CBP commissioner, said in congressional testimony that the change cuts the paperwork in half. As of Sept. 10, CBP had released 107,817 people without formal notices to appear in court, according to an internal document. Of those, 29,863, or 28%, did not report to ICE by their deadlines. SUMMER INCREASE IN CROSSINGS Once in office, Biden attended weekly meetings to discuss the border. However, the high-level gatherings became less frequent as COVID-19 travel restrictions eased and arrivals of unaccompanied children fell after March. Any sense of relief evaporated when the Border Patrols daily reports showed dramatic increases in migration flows in late June, bucking a pattern of declines during the summer heat. The Border Patrols Rio Grande Valley sector stopped more than 20,000 migrants for the first week ever from July 18-24, smashing previous highs. Four of its five busiest weeks on record were in late June and July, the other one coming in March. Brian Hastings, who heads the sector, wrote senior Border Patrol officials on July 26 that Catholic Charities of Rio Grande Valley was full and could no longer provide temporary shelter to migrants, which forced the agency to release thousands at a McAllen, Texas, bus station. He also said Health and Human Services was prioritizing children who would be easiest to place in homes over those who had been in Border Patrol custody the longest, specifically older teens and pregnant girls. I know that you are overwhelmed there, but we need to get (unaccompanied children) moving, the Border Patrols deputy chief of operations wrote the same day. This issue is reaching the top level of this Administration again. Just want to make sure we are full court press on (unaccompanied children). (I get it ... along with everything else.) MEXICO SURPRISE The Biden administration underestimated migration flows, but Mexico popped a surprise that severely undermined Title 42, which had been the most significant victory for enforcement-minded aides who fought during the transition to temporarily maintain it. Advocacy groups have repeatedly called to end the public health measure, which was invoked on grounds of preventing the coronavirus from spreading. On Jan. 23, U.S. authorities were taken aback when Mexican officials in the state of Tamaulipas said they would no longer accept Central American families expelled from the United States. Mexican officials in other border states continued taking expelled families, but Tamaulipas borders most of South Texas, the busiest corridor for illegal crossings by far. It resulted in crossings being even more concentrated in South Texas. The Border Patrols Rio Grande Valley and Del Rio sectors accounted for more than half of all migrant encounters in August, compared with less than one-third a year earlier. There was great frustration and irritation with Mexico at the administrations highest levels, according to one person with direct knowledge of discussions with high-ranking officials. Border Patrol officials who work with Mexican authorities on more routine operational issues also pressed for change in long, daily conversations. U.S. authorities had trouble getting on the phone with Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca. Mexican diplomats were sympathetic but said the change was linked to a child welfare law that took effect in January. The law prohibited its immigration agency from detaining children and required state officials to determine in each case what was in a childs best interest. U.S. officials asked Mexico to delay implementation and consider adding more shelters for child migrants to meet its detention ban. When their pleas went unheeded, U.S. officials concluded Garcia Cabeza de Vaca was trying to stymie President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a political rival. Hastings, a career Border Patrol official, contacted other sector chiefs about sending families to them. On a Sunday in early March, he secured twice-daily flights to El Paso, Texas, for families to be expelled to the adjoining Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez. But that number was cut back within days because Mexican authorities there said they could take only 100 people a day. Once-daily charter flights continued from the Rio Grande Valley to El Paso and to San Diego, where families were sent across the border to Tijuana, Mexico. Tamaulipas authorities quickly relented by agreeing to accept families with children 7 years or older, but the impact was limited. In July, only 12% of the more than 83,000 family encounters on the border resulted in expulsion under Title 42 authority. TOUGH TALK BUT INCREASED ARRIVALS On Jan. 29, a federal appeals court authorized immediate expulsion of unaccompanied children under Title 42. As a father and grandfather, Biden couldnt go forward with it, unable to bear sending minors to dangerous Mexican border cities without their parents, even while recognizing the vast majority were 15 to 17 years old. Mexicos reluctance to take families and Bidens exemption of unaccompanied children largely turned Title 42 into a tool for removing single adults. The Rio Grande Valley, a citrus-growing delta of 1.3 million people, came alive each night with inflatable rafts carrying families across the meandering river. Smugglers lifted families into knee-deep water some spanning three generations and with infants and toddlers careful not to step on U.S. soil where Border Patrol agents could arrest them. Agents watched rafts go back and forth between patches of sand on gnarly riverbanks, then escorted passengers to vans that carried them to an international bridge in Hidalgo, Texas, to await processing. If there were no agents, migrants walked under cool, moonlit skies on dirt paths amid thick brush with scorpions and snakes, looking to surrender. Biden and senior officials talked tough Do not come, Vice President Kamala Harris warned on a June visit to Guatemala, repeating herself for emphasis but migrants who kept coming spoke of the change in presidential administrations and stories from friends and relatives who were quickly released in the United States. Jenny Clemente, a 29-year-old Salvadoran mother, said she left home Aug. 1 after seeing TV reports showing lots of families entering the United States. Maria Serrano, a 40-year-old Salvadoran mother departed her hometown with a 10-year-old daughter on July 18 after she was told Biden would let families cross with minors. Another mother from El Salvador, who preferred not to share her name for safety reasons, packed up and left a week later with her 12-year-old daughter after hearing a neighbor was allowed into the U.S. with her child. All of them would end up expelled to Mexico by Aug. 21, struggling to determine their next steps. ENFORCEMENT INCREASED By midsummer, the pendulum swung to enforcement as patience wore thin in the presidents inner circle. The White House regularly consulted with pro-immigration groups, but relations deteriorated to the point that advocates abruptly ended an off-the-record call with Olavarria on a Saturday morning in October. In August, the U.S. began flying Central Americans deep into Mexico to hand them off to Mexican authorities who, in turn, deported them to Guatemala. U.S. authorities initially decided on 24 such flights a month, but Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks flights, tallied 36 in August and 44 in September. The administration then faced the arrival of nearly 15,000 migrants, mostly Haitians in Texas. Mexico refuses to take back anyone who is not from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador, giving rise to growing numbers from other countries. Ecuadorians surpassed El Salvadorans as the fourth-largest nationality arriving at the border in July. Mayorkas said the Haitians arrivals was unusually swift, but people with direct knowledge say Colombia provided intelligence that large numbers were moving on to Panama on their way to the U.S. border. One U.S. official said the Border Patrols acting chief in Del Rio, Robert Garcia, asked headquarters for reinforcements 2 weeks before the Haitian crowd peaked on Sept. 18. The U.S. has flown about 8,000 Haitian migrants back to Haiti since Sept. 19, one of its swiftest, large-scale expulsions of refugees or migrants in decades. The mass expulsions, along with treatment of some migrants at the border, led to sharp criticism of the Biden administration, even from fellow Democrats. WHAT BORDER REFORM? Immigration doesnt command the attention with Biden that it did with Trump, and there is no parallel to Stephen Miller, Trumps powerful aide whose relentless focus on immigration prompted him to call career officials several times a day for updates. Pope, a close Biden confidante, left in July for her post at the U.N. migration agency in Geneva. A December 2020 internal document estimated the authorities could process 3,000 asylum-seekers a month at land crossings with Mexico and 12,000 a month within 180 days. It never happened. The administration has taken modest steps, such as establishing a rocket docket for asylum-seeking families at the border and restoring an Obama-era program for unaccompanied children to apply in Central America to join their parents in the U.S. instead of making the perilous journey to the border. Its most ambitious proposal adapted from the Migration Policy Institute think tank is to assign asylum officers to the border to more quickly decide cases than immigration judges. Seemingly technical, it may have impact. Despite that proposal, which wasnt published until August, the administration has yet to release detailed plans of the humane asylum system that Biden promised during his campaign. ___ This report is a collaboration between The Associated Press and AIM Media Texas, publisher of The Monitor in McAllen, Texas, and other newspapers. Spagat, a San Diego correspondent, is the AP's U.S. immigration beat team leader. Gonzalez is an investigative reporter for The Monitor. Overnight reports from Jacksonville police: Christopher R. Tynes, 31, of St. Louis was cited on a charge of making an improper U-turn after the car he was driving and one being driven by Andrea F. Hyde, 24, of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, collided at 11:59 a.m. Saturday at Park and Grove streets. A counterfeit $20 bill was used to buy items at County Market, 1255 W. Morton Ave., according to a report filed at 7:28 p.m. Saturday. Firefighters were called to a house fire at 749 N. Main St. at 6:58 a.m. Saturday. The residence was vacant and was scheduled for demolition. Shelby G. Ellis 27, of 24 Lake Knolls Drive, Chatham, was arrested at 3:58 a.m. Saturday on a charge of driving under the influence after the car she was driving hit a median at East Morton Avenue and Eastgate Drive. Trisha L. Thompson, 36, of Chicago was arrested at 2:44 a.m. Saturday on a domestic battery charge. She was accused of scratching someone during an altercation in the 1700 block of West Morton Avenue. Cavender Auto Group Opens New Jaguar Land Rover Dealership The Cavender Auto Group has added a new luxury line to its growing San Antonio footprint, adding Jaguar to its list of automotive offerings. The companys newly built Jaguar Land Rover San Antonio dealership opened in mid-September at 13660 I-10 West at UTSA Blvd. Jaguar Land Rover San Antonio is one of the largest Jaguar Land Rover dealerships in the nation, and the only Jaguar Land Rover dealership in San Antonio. To make way for the modern state-of-the-art dual brand showroom and four-story service and parking facility, the building that previously housed Cavenders Land Rover San Antonio dealership was torn down. In its place is a 320,000 sq. ft. solar-powered facility that features: Luxury Showroom Guest Lounge with a barista coffee bar Showroom accessory display to personalize your vehicle Childrens play area Indoor handover bays for customers to receive their new vehicles in an air-conditioned area off of the showroom floor Covered carports throughout the 7-acre property plus a 250-vehicle parking garage to allow for a cooler shopping experience for customers Currently 15 JLR Certified technicians and 3 Level 4 Master Certified technicians The air-conditioned high tech service department includes an electronic tire alignment and tread analysis when a vehicle enters the service reception area plus a 50-bay service shop designed to accommodate customers who prefer one-on-one interactions with their service technician. Thats why keeping the service shop spic and span is a top priority. Our goal is to provide a more interactive and bespoke service experience for our customers, said W.B. Cavender. The service shop area was designed to bring customers in, show them what were doing and introduce them to whos working on their vehicle. With a mind toward sustainability, the facilities will be powered primarily by solar panels mounted on the dealerships rooftop and carports. Dealer Principal Billy Cavender says with the addition of the Jaguar brand, this gives us another luxury line to offer consumers. Jaguar has always been a premium luxury vehicle and with our new facility we will be able to offer an incredible luxury service experience as well. In addition to offering new Land Rover and Jaguar vehicles, the dealership also offers certified pre-owned Land Rovers, Jaguars, and other pre-owned luxury vehicles. About the Cavender Auto Family Founded more than 85 years ago, Cavender Auto Group now includes a fourth generation of Cavenders working in the family business. Cavender Auto Group owns and operates six rooftop dealerships in San Antonio: Cavender Buick GMC West, Cavender Buick GMC North, Cavender Chevrolet in Boerne, Cavender Cadillac, Cavender Grande Ford and Jaguar Land Rover San Antonio. Click here to read the full article. Houston mayor Sylvester Turner has promised a thorough review and investigation of the tragedy at the Travis Scott-headlined festival in the city, where eight people died and more than 300 were injured as crowds surged and stampeded during Scotts set. Approximately 11 people suffered cardiac arrest at the show, Turner said, although causes of death are under review. We had more security over there than we had at the World Series games, Turner told the New York Times on Saturday, noting that the event took place on county property, with security organized by the city of Houston. City police provided hundreds of officers, in addition to what Im told were 240 or 250 non-police security that were there, he said. However, reports on social media and a Variety eyewitness said that a largel number of people attempted to rush the gates in order to gain entry without tickets, both during the afternoon and before Scotts set. Multiple accounts also said that concertgoers had a difficult time finding or notifying security of the situation. As we were arriving to the Astroworld Festival at NRG Park right at 2:00, a stampede burst through the gates. Hundreds of people destroyed the VIP security entrance, bypassing the checkpoint. People were trampled. Some were detained. (Excuse any language you may hear) pic.twitter.com/d0m2rjqAAk Mycah Hatfield (@MycahABC13) November 5, 2021 Turner added that it was too early to determine whether security precautions were sufficient. Im going to hold any sort of conclusion pending a thorough review and investigation, he said. A source told Variety that organizers suspected spiked drugs had caused the cardiac arrests, but Turner cautioned against speculation. I dont even want to go to drug overdoses, he said. We are looking at all potential causes of this incident or what caused the cardiac arrest. Were not taking anything off the table. He said the ages of the dead, whose names have not yet been released, were between 16 and 23. He added that preliminary reports suggested that most of the injuries occurred in one particular area. This was not all throughout the front part of the staging area. Turner told the Times that he has longstanding connections to Scotts family. Ive worked with the family, Ive worked with Travis, Ive worked with his mom, he said. This is a tragic case and thats why I want a very, very thorough investigation of this. He said he had not yet spoken with Scott. Sign up for Varietys Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A new photo center is developing in Southtown to create a safe space for photographers to grow, create and connect. Owners Shannon Gowen and Scott Ball are taking over the space above La Frite on South Alamo to offer a one-stop place centered on photography which will offer rentable studio opportunities, editing labs, and activations like artists talks and photo walks. Gowen says Friday, December 3 is the goal date to open the Photogaphy Center of San Antonio. The idea grew from the Four X Five Photo Fest, an annual day-long event she and her husband, Ball, collaborated on with local photographer Josh Huskin. She said fest guests shared feedback which voiced a need for a year-round space offering the same opportunities provided during the event. Southtown, the arts district, was the prime location to frame their concept and help "elevate" the local photography community, Gowen says. 3 1 of 3 Courtesy, Shannon Gowen Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Courtesy, Shannon Gowen Show More Show Less 3 of 3 "We want people to interact with downtown more, we want them to start out with street photography and just be part of it," Gowen says. "Right now, the arts district doesn't have a designated photo space and so that was kind of our dream to create one within that space." Once open, members and non-members of the center will be able to network and take advantage of different opportunities provided by the team. Huskin is onboard and will manage studio rentals and support programing alongside Alicia Wagner Calzada. Calzada, who is a media law attorney, will provide some legal assistance for professional level members. "It's just a safe space where you can talk to one another and you can network with other people," she says. "COVID really brought to light how important it is for us to engage with one another." While the center is open to all, members will have access to perks, like a small digital lab for photo-editing, and discounts on workshops. Memberships start at the student level at a rate of $5 a month to a professional sign-on for $30 a month. The center will also feature a photobook library, which is free and open to all who want to grab a coffee, sit down and draw inspiration from the photos. Gowen says the space is about 1,500 square feet the plan is to "grow as we go," she says but she and her husband hope to connect with local schools and possibly launch a mobile unit to share with San Antonio communities. The center is located at 728 S Alamo Street. Hours have not been set yet. Diwali returned to San Antonio's Hemisfair for its 13th year after celebrating virtually in 2020. The festival, which celebrates the triumph of good over evil, light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, is hosted by Anuja SA Inc., a non-profit organization created to promote the Sister-City alliance between San Antonio and Chennai, India. The night began with a percussion parade, and included a diya processional, where attendees dropped light floating candles into the fountains at the Tower of the Americas, as well as performances from cultural groups. A market filled with textiles, jewelry and henna artists lined Nueva Street and the Magik Theatre's parking lot turned into a feast filled with Indian fare. MySA was there to capture the magic. Scroll below for more photos from Chris Stokes. As we describe longer-form in our accompanying kickoff post, its getting crazier and crazier in the breakdown lane of late-stage capitalism. Below we recap how weve endeavored to make sense of this treacherous terrain over the last 13 1/2 months since our last fundraiser, with the considerable and extremely valuable input of our knowledgeable commentariat. Crass hint: Since we are late in making our annual appeal, we hope that those of you in a position to be really generous will do so, since you got six weeks more programming than you bargained for in last years fundraiser. So please swing by the Tip Jar right now, which tells you how to give via check, cash or debit card, and support our work. And those of you who are prospering despite (or even due to) Covid-19, another reason to dig even deeper this year is that some of your friends here at the site may not be able to contribute as much as theyd like. The Tip Jar is calling your name. After all, where else can you find incisive commentary, lively and often funny debate, one-stop news, and cute animal pictures? What We Did Last Year: Bringing You the Future Early 2021 was tough: More need to stretch our thin resources to keep on top of Covid and health industry developments as important in and of themselves and for the political economy; more and more ideology- and hopium-driven than factual reporting from the mainstream media, making it harder to pull signal out of the noise; vastly more aggressive social media policing for conformity; continued search engine down-ranking of independent sites, making it hard for new readers to find us. The past year again showed Naked Capitalism to be right and early, just as we were when we launched this site to chronicle the coming financial crisis. In 2021, an underlying theme for many big stories was the lack of operational competence of large organizations, most visibly governments but also critically important private sector players, ranging from hospital systems and pharmacy benefit managers to electrical utilities to truckers. In the UK, the Government apparently still has not come to grips with the logistical and IT implications of having hard borders. This is a distressing contrast with the financial crisis, where even if you objected strenuously to how Paulson, Bernanke, and Geithner went about addressing the meltdown, they did do an impressive job of delivering on their objectives. And they were sleep deprived and stressed out for months on end; Paulsons memoir confesses that he regularly threw up. By contrast, I see no evidence of Rochelle Walensky of the CDC or the sainted Dr. Fauci even breaking a sweat despite over 750,000 Americans dying of Covid. In too many essential arenas, top leaders having grown up as symbol manipulators rather than in complex and breakdown-prone physical production. That has produced diseased managements who hold low-level workers in contempt and tend to think anyone who brings a problem to them must not have been clever enough to solve it. These reflexes have become so widespread that many institutions seem incapable of even mapping the full scope of a problem properly, let alone being able to devise and execute a plan for addressing it. As Lambert has put it, these critical functions are failing to be Jackpot-ready. We first discussed the problem of what we called organizational capacity in connection with the Greek bailout negotiations of 2015. We said then for Greece to leave the Eurozone would require a war-level mobilization, something clearly beyond what its austerity-crippled government could do. We made a similar observation about the UK and Brexit. We pointed out last year how Covid tested many systems, such as the ability to produce and deliver tests and PPE, and to manage quarantines and contact tracing, and often found them wanting (cf. Belshazzars Feast). The officialdom and business leaders are deer-in-the-headlight mode with widespread and interlocking supply chain failures. And even if the Davos crowd were willing to accept how many rice bowls would have to be broken to prevent a climate disaster, symbol manipulators lack the imagination and the systems-building skills to implement the enormous changes that would need to occur. We expanded our coverage last year while still keeping our high standards: Tracking Covid-19. Here, Naked Capitalism, both our writers and our commentariat, showed how powerful vetting information can be. The extensive input of our readers, who have provided links to important studies and news, as well as sightings from their own countries and communities, has given us an information advantage. The most important has been ongoing commentary from our Covid brain trust, Ignacio, IM Doc, GM, and KLG. In addition to IM Doc and Ignacio providing important posts, such as IM Doc calling out the New England Journal of Medicine paper on the Pfizer vaccine as cheerleading, all four have regularly supplied important observations in the comments section. Even more important to Lambert and me, they both provide and react to new papers and articles, helping assure that our takes are well grounded. Readers have regularly cited Naked Capitalism as having the best coverage of Covid, outdoing the mainstream media. We were early to recognize that the rapid spread in Hubei and the severity of Chinas responses meant the risk of global contagion was high. We were early to recognize the danger to front-line workers, particularly in the medical industry. We focused on aerosol transmission instantly, as soon as there was data. We were early to be skeptical that a vaccine would be through clinical trials and in distribution soon enough to prevent severe economic dislocations. We were early to recognize that the PPP loans were stopgaps, and significant failures of small businesses were coming if there wasnt a second relief package (and the Biden Administration concurred). Thanks to Hubert Horan, we were early to warn of the deep and lasting damage to the airline industry and how it would need more bailouts. Although we initially fell in with CDC and WHO guidance on masks, we were early to reverse course and endorse them. We were early recognize that the US was putting all of its Covid response eggs in the magic vaccines basket, and urged readers to implement other protection strategies, like ventilation and masking, recognizing that the vaccines did not confer durable or sterilizing immunity. We were early to see that Delta was much more contagious than wild type Covid, and it would become dominant in the US as it had in India. As a result, we recognized as soon as it was announced that the CDCs May Mission Accomplished anti-masking approach would fail and would be reversed (but not successfully due to muddied messaging). We were early to dispute the orthodoxy about children not being contagion vectors. We were early to warn of the dangers besides mortality, like lung and kidney damage, as well as long Covid. We were even early, actually alone, in predicting that Rochelle Walensky was not competent to run the CDC. Lambert has been particularly diligent about providing links to and write-ups of important studies and updating his Water Cooler graphs. Analyzing supply chain crises. Building on Lamberts keen interest in ships, trucks, and trains, weve drilled into the supply chain crisis and strongly believe it wont resolve quickly or neatly. Fragile, extended and tightly coupled supplier networks are vulnerable to cascading failures. Not only will the US port backlog/trucking mess not resolve itself as quickly as the pundits believe absent concerted Federal action (which we dont see happening), but high energy costs and off and on factory closures in China due to electricity shortages and Covid shutdowns are creating even more shortfalls for consumers and producers. We anticipate that supply chain problems alone could sink the already-foundering Biden presidency. Citizens are not taking well to shortages of critical medications, and those are set to get worse. Continuing supply chain problems will also hamstring a weakening economy. Expanding our geographic and subject reach by adding Nick Corbishley to our team. Nick has broadened our coverage with important stories outside the US, such as Mexico barring glyphosate and GMOs, banking industry woes, such as IT failings, upheaval in Italy, and NHS failings. Watching Gaia. We have only one planet and were very highly adapted to it, even though space-happy squillionaires fantasize otherwise. Fights over limited resources and who bears the cost of pollution and remediation will only become more acute. We continue to provide extensive and often in-depth coverage of events and systems in the biosphere, like species loss (bees, other insects, and birds), soil, rivers, coral, bears, salmon, and bogs, and the larger issue of whether the biosphere can be priced, as well as efforts to reverse or limit damage, like the wars on plastic and fast fashion, the right to repair, and regular highlights in Links of promising technologies. Scanning for the Jackpot. Although the Jackpot cuts across multiple categories (corrupt and incompetent elites, Covid and pending medical disasters, like the increase of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and accelerating damage to the biosphere), considering it as an emergent phenomenon enables the commentariat to look at political responses and personal/local efforts to minimize damage, like permaculture. Dogging CalPERS. Even readers who have no interest in public pension funds have become fans of CalPERS as a soap opera of institutional dysfunction, which also provides entertaining insights into Californias oligarchical functionaries. Following feral hogs. We are leaders in feral hog reporting although some might confuse that with CalPERS. Some of our accomplishments are continuing core activities: Upholding rigorous standards of reporting and analysis in the face of a captured and credulous mainstream media. We challenge you to identify another publisher that does as much as we do with so little. In addition to our Covid-19 coverage, other fresh examples are Nick Corbishleys analysis of economic and political developments in the Spanish speaking world and Italy, Jerri-Lynns reporting on important litigation, such as the opioid settlements and the Texas abortion law, and Hubert Horan outlining why Covid-bled airlines are getting no-strings-attached bailouts. Getting first dibs on Michael Hudsons posts. Michael Hudson graciously and regularly gives NC the first publication opportunity because he likes you! Or at least most of you :-) Maintaining expanded Links and overall writer effort. Due to increased news and noise flow, we increased the coverage of our daily Links feature during the Trump era from a former maximum of 45 articles and tweets to 55 to 60. This represents a significant extra effort, day in, day out. We have been able to maintain, and even increase, our level of original reporting and the range of our original posts by increasing our level of staffing, not just bring Nick Corbishley on board but also having Lambert take on more Links coverage and having Jerri-Lynn contribute more often. We also continue to feature posts from our regular guest writers: Tom Neuburger, Hubert Horan, and John Siman, and this year, weve also been showcasing Jared Holst. Fostering the best commentariat. Naked Capitalism depends on its commentariat. And with general stress levels high and more and more upset about censorship and hard-to-justify-as-public-health-service Covid mandates, dialogue all over the Web, including here, has gotten even more fractious. Weve reluctantly put in more tripwires, and appreciate that most of you have borne getting caught in moderation with good humor. Having more comments to check puts even more of a load on our already overstretched comments DJ Jules Dickson. We had hoped to bring a second person on board but that has not yet come to pass. Keep your fingers crossed that we will be able to revive that plan. And we did this all despite my going two titanium hips towards becoming a bionic woman, having a 93-year-old mother who is getting more feeble and sadly has been diagnosed with early stage dementia, and Jerri-Lynn having a couple of medical emergencies of her own. How This Fundraiser Works Please give whatever you can. $5, $50, or $5000 are all appreciated. If you can only afford to give a little, then give a little. If youre doing well, then please give more. If you are prospering from the stock market and real estate booms, we hope youll include us in your good fortune. Wed like to get broad-based participation from the Naked Capitalism community. Our target is 1100 donors for this fundraiser. Some have told us they are in tough shape now and cant give but hope to contribute when their finances recover. So if you are having a good year, can you dig deeper and give more to make up for loyal readers who cant participate in this fundraiser? It will all even out in the end. Everything you do reading, commenting, giving, and sending us information and antidotes is essential to making this community work. You can help right now by following this link to make a donation. Our accompanying kickoff post gives a high-level view of what wed like to do. Over the course of the fundraiser, we identify specific things that your donations will fund and tell you when weve hit each of these monetary goals. The first goal is funding for digital infrastructure essentials. This plumbing may not seem very sexy, but imagine what happens when your water is cut off or your power fails! This is a critical foundation for this site, so please help us keep it sound. We are behind on tech tasks. For instance, only now are we transitioning off Feedburner for our AM e-mails despite Google deprecating it as of July. Even more important, we need to find a new web host! We are the only client of our terrific and overqualified host Keith and minding only one site has negative economies. Unfortunately, we have a pretty hard list of criteria to fill. We are allergic to cloud hosting (we want our data on specific racks that we know where they live). We need a host that can handle 2% WordPress (our frequency of refresh of our very large comments database puts us in a difficulty range similar to much bigger WordPress sites like HuffPo). All things being equal, wed prefer to be hosted in a more journalist/publisher-protective country like Iceland. We expect our new host to be more costly. So our first target is $21,000. Once weve hit that, well let you know what our next item is. How to Give There are multiple channels for donating, and you will see them all when you go to our Tip Jar. To give by check (which saves us PayPal/credit card fees), please make it out in the name of Aurora Advisors Incorporated and send it to: Aurora Advisors Incorporated 164 Peachtree Circle Mountain Brook, AL 35213 At the same time, please send an e-mail to yves@nakedcapitalism.com with the headline Check is in the mail (and just the $ amount in the message) so we can count your contribution in the total number of donations. Thanks again for your interest and generous support! We received this very nice note, Permission request to archive Naked Capitalism, last month from the Library of Congress. We thought wed share it as part of our fundraiser: Greetings, My name is XXXX, and I am a Business Reference Specialist in the Library of Congress Science, Technology and Business Division (Washington, DC). I also manage and curate the Economics Blogs Web Archive (https://www.loc.gov/collections/economics-blogs-web-archive/about-this-collection/). I would like to get in touch with you about archiving the Naked Capitalism blog (https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/) for this web archive collection of the Library of Congress. The permission request sent from our web archive platform might have gone in your spam folder. The Economics Blogs Web Archive is a digital collection that includes archived versions of blogs over time. The goal of this web archive is to capture current economic research and original thought as reflected in the blogs by professors of economics, economic policy and/or research institutions and other practitioners of economic disciplines. It is important to preserve this openly available content that covers a variety of topics in economics ranging from general macro or microeconomics to specific sub-topics in finances, taxes or healthcare economics. For information and FAQs about our Web Archiving activities, visit https://www.loc.gov/programs/web-archiving/about-this-program/. Please let me know if you have further questions that are not addressed by the web archiving FAQs. You can grant permission by responding to this message or emailing me at XXXX@loc.gov and we hope you will. We do not crawl websites without permission from site owners. It appears Naked Capitalism will have lofty company. And keep in mind, crawling almost certainly means copying all content, including comments. Bots arent typically smart enough to know where the page ends, plus we imagine archivists would want to have the contemporaneous reactions. Of course we said yes and thanked XXX and made positive noises about this project, particularly since so much good analysis took place during the financial crisis, yet some informative sites are no longer publishing. Weve been told by academics that Naked Capitalism is a go-to source for researching the crisis, in part because we quoted key observations from sources that are no longer on line. We had a sneaking suspicion that XXX had played a part in initing this project. His reply: Thank you so much for your response and permission to archive Naked Capitalism. We will start crawling as soon as its prepared by the tech team. I also appreciate your comment on the importance of preserving these blogsthat has been my firmly belief as well and I am sure the archive will be of high research importance for years to come. There is a one year embargo, which means your blog will appear on the Economics Blogs Web Archive (https://www.loc.gov/collections/economics-blogs-web-archive/about-this-collection/) page a year from now. That will be the access point for you and the public to view the archived blog content. We will be continuously archiving blogs in this collection unless they become inactive. Thank you again, and have a wonderful weekend! Thanks to all of you for making this milestone possible. (Natural News) After reviewing an emergency lawsuit now involving 19 states that are suing the Biden administration for executive overreach with the unconstitutional vaccine mandate, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an emergency stay. Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate, the mandate is hereby STAYED pending further action by this court, said the court in a brief order viewable here. Petitioners said the mandate, promulgated as an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) by the Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), should be struck down because it exceeds OSHAs authority under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, reports The Epoch Times. Emergency hearings will take place soon, tweeted Texas Governor Greg Abbott, celebrating the decision. The Epoch Times adds: The courts action not only halts Biden from moving forward with his unlawful overreach, but it also commands the judicious review we sought. The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the Constitution, added Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican and one of the petitioners. The Biden vaccine mandate has no basis in law and no basis in science. A steady stream of published scientific studies has long demonstrated that vaccines do not prevent the spread of covid. In fact, the latest VE rating Vaccine Effectiveness to come out of UK data shows the VE to be a negative number of minus 73 percent. This means people who take the vaccine have an increased risk of hospitalizations and deaths compared to those who avoid the vaccine. If anything, vaccinated people are the super spreaders who should be isolating at home. A published science study carried out by the University of Oxfords Clinical Research Group discovered that vaccinated people carry 251 times higher viral loads in their nostrils, allowing them to spread the virus to others. The real danger to public health, it turns out, are vaccinated people, not the unvaccinated. Gov. Abbott chimed in about the Fifth Circuit decision, saying, We will have our day in court to strike down Bidens unconstitutional abuse of authority. BREAKING: The Federal Court of Appeals just issued a temporary halt to Bidens vaccine mandate. Emergency hearings will take place soon. We will have our day in court to strike down Bidens unconstitutional abuse of authority. pic.twitter.com/8utmU05vw3 Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) November 6, 2021 Vaccine mandates will destroy Americas economy and lead to catastrophic product shortages Today I was told by a contact in law enforcement that around half of US federal prison correctional officers are planning to quit in early January if the vaccine mandate is enforced. Were also hearing similar numbers among police officers, firefighters, sheriffs deputies and other first responders. Employees of Proctor & Gamble the company that manufacturers most of the toxic personal care products that ignorant people put on their skin and then wonder why they have cancer have posted an eerie video that essentially claims they will walk away from the company en masse and bring P&G to its knees over the vaccine mandate: Vaccine mandates, if upheld, would establish literal SLAVERY in America where someone else owns your body In December of 2020, Joe Biden promised he would never push mask mandates or vaccine mandates. That promise didnt last very long, and now Biden apparently believes that the government owns your body and can order you to do its bidding. If we do not have control over our own bodies, then we are government property i.e. medical slaves with no rights whatsoever. The right to control your own body is the most basic human right from which most other rights spring. For starters, if we do not own our own bodies, how can we responsible for the actions of our bodies? This means that if the government claims to have ownership over your body, no person can logically be charged with a violent crime, since the responsibility for the violence must rest on the owner of the body that carried it out. Put another way, if the government claims to own your body, the entire system of law and justice becomes null and void because no person can be said to be responsible for the actions carried out by a body which they do not own. Furthermore, if the government claims to own your body, then it also claims ownership of your children. This explains why big government enthusiasts already believe that parents should have no role whatsoever in the education of their own children. Instead, they say your children belong to the state. The legal answer to all this ultimately falls to the US Supreme Court. Even though Trump managed to install three justices during his term, those individuals (Kavanaugh, Barrett and Gorsuch) have so far demonstrated very little in the way of recognizing individual liberty as a guiding principle. Should SCOTUS decide that vaccine mandates are somehow constitutional, it will no doubt spark a mass uprising, widespread state-led nullification efforts and possibly a civil war. If SCOTUS doesnt think we own our own bodies, then SCOTUS has lost all remaining credibility and has no more useful function in a supposedly free society. If you dont own your body, you can never be free. The Supreme Court, if it nullifies personal ownership of our own bodies, would also nullify its own credibility since it would be placing itself in the position of reestablishing slavery and segregation across America. Not surprisingly, the same political party that once pushed slavery and the KKK the Democrats is once again pushing medical slavery and government ownership of your body. All who value freedom must reject medical slavery and any so-called authority that claims ownership over your body. We reject slavery in all its forms, including medical slavery. (Natural News) The Daily Wire filed a lawsuit against the federal government on Thursday over President Joe Bidens order mandating that large employers must require their employees be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to regular testing. (Article by Tim Pearce republished from DailyWire.com) The Dhillon Law Group, Inc. and Alliance Defending Freedom filed the legal challenge on behalf of The Daily Wire in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. The mandate requires all private employers of 100 or more employees to force unvaccinated employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, be subject to weekly testing, or lose their job. Attorneys for The Daily Wire will also file an emergency motion to stay the mandate. The Daily Wire will not comply with President Bidens tyrannical vaccine mandate, and we are suing the Biden Administration to put a stop to their gross overreach, said Daily Wire Co-Founder and Co-CEO Jeremy Boreing. President Biden, the federal government, social media, and the establishment media have conspired to rob Americans of their freedoms in the name of public health. They have broken faith with the American people through conflicting messaging, false information, and by suppressing data and perspectives with which they disagree. The lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration lacks constitutional and statutory authority to issue the employer mandate, and that the mandate failed to meet the requirements for issuing a rule taking effect immediately without the normal process of considering public comments. The federal government lacks the legal authority to compel private employers to play the role of vaccine or COVID police, lack the police power to force private employees to undergo medical treatment, and may not ignore constitutional limits on its ability to regulate every aspect of our lives, said Dhillon Law Groups partner Harmeet K. Dhillon. The Biden administrations attempt to impose this unprecedented and unlawful federal medical mandate on the U.S. workforce without considering the publics views is arbitrary, capricious, unsupported by the evidence, and would produce a willfully ignorant rule. The lawsuit takes no position on any COVID-19 vaccine or whether any person should make the personal decision to receive it or not. The Daily Wire has employees who have received a COVID-19 vaccine and those who have not. The Biden administrations decision to mandate vaccines through an OSHA rule is unlawful and compels businesses like The Daily Wire to intrude on their employees personal health decisions, said ADF Senior Counsel Ryan Bangert. The government has no authority to unilaterally declare that employees are workplace hazards or to compel employers to become vaccine commissars, and we are asking the 6th Circuit to put a stop to it immediately. The Daily Wire said in a press release: As the motion for stay filed with the 6th Circuit will argue, the federal government has no power under the Constitution to force half the U.S. private sector workforce 80 million workers or more to be vaccinated against their will or endure repeated medical testing as a condition of simply earning a living. Nor is OSHA empowered to compel employers to enforce this government diktat or face punishing fines. Yet the OSHA mandate would do just that. Even if it had such power, Congress did not delegate it to OSHA, which is overtly trying to ram this unconstitutional, extra-statutory, and unprecedented mandate into immediate effect through emergency rulemaking to avoid public comment in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. Forced to invade employees medical choices or histories and their religious beliefs in connection with a condition of employment, The Daily Wire risks being trapped between its obligations under the mandate and the prohibitions against discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the burdens of laws regulating the possession of private information. The mandate is unconstitutional because the Constitution does not grant Congress much less OSHA the general police powers needed to mandate vaccination and virus testing as a condition of private employment, or to deputize employers to enforce that mandate on its behalf. Read more at: DailyWire.com (Natural News) This week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced he is forming a special state office tasked with handling election fraud claims to further strengthen the states election integrity. He made the announcement in West Palm Beach, the same city where he signed a slew of other election rule changes into law nearly six months ago. The governor is calling on legislators to establish a police force within the Department of State that will be tasked with investigating election crimes. Its going to make Florida way number one by a long shot anywhere in the county, he said. The new Office of Election Crimes and Security will be introduced in a state legislative session that gets underway in January. He is also pushing state lawmakers to raise the criminal penalty for violating new restrictions that have been placed on the collection of mail-in ballots and would like to see a new 100-day strict deadline placed on when local officials must scrub their voter rolls for people who have moved, have been convicted of a felony or have passed away. Because local law enforcement officers do not always have the expertise or time needed to prosecute election fraud, he believes a fully staffed office dedicated to the matter is needed. If someone is ballot-harvesting, you report it to these people and this is their sole job. Well have sworn law enforcement officers as part of this, well have investigators, he said. A report from Politico indicates that the new police force will have more than 50 employees across six offices, including 20 sworn law enforcement agents, with a base in Tallahassee as well as five field offices. Other aspects of the proposal include the uniform reporting of felony convictions to electoral supervisors, a ban on using ranked voting in cities, and instituting a new deadline for the determination of voter eligibility. Right now, local supervisors are required to report the number of voters who have been removed in the previous six months to the state twice a year. At the press conference, DeSantis said: I guarantee you this: The first person that gets caught, no one is going to want to do it again after that. DeSantis has also said that he would like to see drop boxes abolished. Although the governor signed a bill two years ago that initially authorized their use in the state, he now believes they should not be in use. However, if they are allowed, hed like to see their number and location limited. He is also calling for them to be monitored by live security guards and video surveillance and to close by 7:00 pm. The push comes just a few months after the governor convinced state legislators to enact a new voting law placing restrictions on when and where drop boxes can be located. It has already been the subject of several federal lawsuits from voting rights and civil rights groups, who believe that those restrictions unfairly discriminate against voters with disabilities, minorities and elderly voters. Right now, the GOP controls the Florida legislature, so Democrats do not have much power to stop the changes. Many of them were quick to criticize the governors plans, saying they are designed to give Republicans the edge in midterm elections next year. However, the fact remains that last years presidential elections saw widespread voter fraud throughout the nation, and every state should be taking steps to ensure election integrity. Sources for this article include: WesternJournal.com Politico.com Finance.Yahoo.com (Natural News) In archery, theres a way to hit the bulls-eye every time if you cheat, because you simply shoot the arrow anywhere, then go paint the target around it. It looks like that is what has been accomplished in a new Covid study where the results are a perfect bulls-eye for the mass media narrative to push vaccines, but the target (patient pool) of the study looks like it was drawn in to fit the shot. The CDC recently hired researchers to analyze data from 7,000 hospitalized patients (notice they dont say Covid-infected) with Covid-like symptoms to conclude theyre five times more likely to test positive for Covid later, if they were unvaccinated. They compared these advantageous statistics to people who got the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines with no prior history of Covid. Their conclusion? Prior infection doesnt protect people as well as vaccines against re-infection. Two massive issues with CDC so-called study: Prior infection means anyone with Covid-like symptoms and PCR tests often show false-positives Is it even possible to really test for Covid-19, because the last time we checked no laboratory can identify and isolate the mysterious lab-made strain that seems to be infecting the whole world, and that goes for Delta too. First off, testing for symptoms associated with Covid-19 does not equate to people who actually have the virus. They could easily be suffering from a head cold, or chest congestion, maybe a bacterial infection, allergies, asthma, lethargy, headaches or other aches and pains from any number of causes. Secondly, PCR tests have been completely blown out of proportion when examined for accuracy as the readings are amplified to reveal just about any pathogen, bacteria or virus as qualifying for Covid positive (especially since they cant even identify the China virus strain on its own). Conclusion: Any unvaccinated person with previous flu-like symptoms who tests positive on a faulty Covid screen later is categorized as a re-infection case for a handy little pharma study where they can claim that vaccinated folks have less chance of re-infection. Fox News is funded in major ways by Big Pharma, so its no wonder they push dangerous vaccines and faked studies (propaganda) on their network Pharma companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to advertise on the major networks, and you can bet your last penny they have major say in the networks medical narratives surrounding vaccines and new drugs for doctors to push and patients to request from their doctors. If they were honest, they would say, Ask your doctor if clot shot gene-mutating therapy and deadly-addictive opioids are right for you! (side effects include blood clots, myocarditis, and heroin addiction until early death). Still, the report researchers concluded for clot-shot manufacturers benefit, stating: vaccine-induced immunity was more protective than infection-induced immunity against laboratory-confirmed COVID-19. No doubt this will be referred to as a landmark study that proves scientifically their bulls-eye of a point, even though the variables, as well as the conclusions (that were massive leaps), are highly questionable. The study does NOT line up with a previous retrospective study conducted in Israel, where nearly all of the populace are fully Covid-vaccinated, where researchers revealed they did NOT find higher protection in vaccinated adults compared to unvaccinated folks with previous natural infection, and this was done during the mysterious Delta outbreak. Well folks, thats the logic of the study, or lack thereof. Have a look yourself if you like. For the best in truth news on your internet dial tune to Pandemic.news because it doesnt take a scientist or doctor to see that Covid vaccines, Remdesivir, masks, ventilators and bad CDC advice has all created a pandemic of its own. Sources for this article include: Pandemic.news TruthWiki.org NaturalNews.com ZeroHedge.com FoxNews.com (Natural News) The rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were breaking the law that day. As the day unfolded, many Americans from across the political spectrum looked on with disgust and dismay. (Article by Michael Austin republished from WesternJournal.com) Thankfully, the situation never escalated to a point of extreme violence, as many on the left have since claimed. Nevertheless, according to an extensive Sunday report from The Washington Post, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina believed the rioters should have been shot by Capitol Police upon entering the building illegally. According to the report, Graham was irate that senators were forced to flee their own chamber. What are you doing? Take back the Senate! Youve got guns. Use them, Graham reportedly told the Senate sergeant-at-arms. We give you guns for a reason, he reiterated. Use them. If the Posts reporting can be believed, this could be damning news for Graham. Sure, the rioters were out of line, but taking the situation to such a drastic place in such short order, arranging a virtual firing squad against unarmed demonstrators, would have been completely uncalled for. After all, in the end, while some violence did occur during the riot, it was not even remotely as fatal as the media and left-wing establishment have been claiming. Although 4 people died at the Capitol that day all of them among the Trump-supporting crowd no one was deliberately killed by the supposed terrorist insurrectionists. Two of the deaths were attributed to heart attacks, the third to a drug overdose and finally, Ashli Babbitt was shot by Capitol Police. In other words, the only killing that occurred that day was when a Capitol police officer shot at the crowd. Furthermore, video evidence even indicates that as many as 38 percent of the protesters were waved through the west terrace doors to the Capitol by police officers. Throughout 2020, for months on end, Americans unfortunate enough to have found themselves living in Democrat-run cities were under constant threat of having their businesses destroyed during Black Lives Matter protests. On Jan. 6, our elected officials got a little taste of that horror and, despite being quickly evacuated and heavily protected by armed police officers, they couldnt handle even that. Its good news that men like Graham werent the ones armed with weapons that day. Otherwise, the Capitol incursion may have actually become the violent event leftists want us to believe it was. Read more at: WesternJournal.com (Natural News) Dear Readers, give the extraordinary coercive Covid vaccination program a moment of thought. What explains the emphasis, even the use of tyrannical methods in free societies, to force vaccination on populations when even Big Pharma and the corrupt medical establishment only claim a short-run and steeply declining protection from the vaccine? According to the medical establishment itself, double-vaxxed is no longer protection. Booster shots are needed every six months for the rest of your life. (Article by Paul Craig Roberts republished from PaulCraigRoberts.org) This is especially puzzling when we consider the known facts that (1) The mortality of Covid is very low. It kills mainly those with co-morbidities and those who are untreated or wrongly treated. (2) The vaccine reduces our natural immunity. (3) The vaccine causes a large number of adverse reactions including deaths and lifelong disabilities. The CDC and WHO admit that the adverse reactions reporting system vastly underreports deaths and adverse reactions from the vaccine. No vaccine or medicine ever before in history has been kept in use that produced even a tiny fraction of the reported deaths and injuries. (4) The vaccine causes variants that are immune to the vaccine and to the weakened immune system of the vaccinated. New vaccines are needed to deal with the new variants, producing still more new variants. (5) The medical establishment has blocked to the extent of its ability the treatment of Covid with two known, safe, effective, and inexpensive medicinesIvermectin and HCQ. Doctors who have saved lives with these medicines have been fired for using them. (6) Distinguished and renowned scientific and medical experts, including Nobel laureates, have been censored and deplatformed for warning about the dangerous vaccine and advocating effective treatment instead. (7) The media speaks with one lying voice that vaccination is our only hope. (8) Evidence from a number of countries (I have reported it) demonstrates that Covid cases and deaths rise with vaccination and that the majority of cases and deaths for most age groups are the vaccinated. (9) The science is clear that the vaccinated spread the virus as easily, or more so, than the unvaccinated. (10) Indeed, the evidence is clear that the unvaccinated relying on natural immunity are better protected than the vaccinated. With these known, established scientific facts, what is the justification for mass vaccination? Why the emphasis on vaccinating children when it is known that the spike protein attacks ovaries and testes unless the plan is to reduce fertility? Why can ignorant talking heads on TV who can barely spell their own name feel secure attacking renowned scientists who are telling us the truth? There are certainly many sound reasons to conclude that the Covid pandemic is an orchestrated plot. What are the obvious elements of the plot? (1) Profits forever for Big Pharma, the medical school recipients of Big Pharma grants, the profits of patents shared with NIH and NIH personnel, campaign contributions for Senators, Representatives and presidential candidates. (2) The use of fear to remove civil liberty protections and extend control over people. These two elements are obvious. The third element of the plot is almost as obvious but much harder for many people to believepopulation reduction. Before scoffing, ask yourself: (1) why vaccinate children, who are essentially unaffected by Covid, with a vaccine known to attack the reproductive system and to cause abortions. (2) Why vaccinate anyone when there are known, safe, and inexpensive cures? (3) Why attack these cures as dangerous and strive to prevent their use? How can the medical establishment claim safety and caution for blocking Ivermectin and HCQ when it has unleashed a dangerous experimental vaccine on the worlds population? (4) Why suppress the warnings of renowned experts? If the vaccine was the only solution or even a solution, it could stand public discussion. Consider that the World Economic Forum has had a half century to indoctrinate and brainwash business and other leaders. Founded January 24, 1971, the annual meeting in Davos has become a prestigious event. Leaders compete for invitations as attendance is a sign of prestige. The World Economic Forum is financed by 1,000 multi-billion dollar global corporations whose leaders have been sold on the Great Reset comprised of population reduction and the termination of national sovereignty and human autonomy. The Great Reset is a prescription for tyranny. The orchestrated push for universal vaccination is so extreme that countries formerly considered part of the free world are now totalitarian stateswitness Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Italy. The effort to extend the tyranny into France and Germany is meeting with strong public resistance. In America the main resistance comes from nurses and other medical-related personnel who have witnessed the devastating impact of the vaccine on those injected. Every person needs to consider the implication of silencing independent experts who know the truth while ignorant talking heads dictate the official narrative. When truth is murdered, so is all freedom, all morality, all justice. Are you just going to sit there and let it happen? The PCR Covid Test Was Used to Create the Appearance of a Pandemic Nobel Prize Laureate Kary B. Mullis was the inventor of the polymerase chain reaction technique, which is analyzed in this article. Dr. Kary B. Mullis, who passed away on August 7, 2019 at age 74, stated emphatically that no infection or illness can be accurately diagnosed with the PCR-RT. PCR is a Process. It does not tell you that you are sick. The measurement is not accurate. Mullis described the PCR-RT as a technique rather than a test. https://www.globalresearch.ca/nucleic-acid-testing-technologies-use-polymerase-chain-reaction-pcr-detection-sars-cov-2/5739959 7,200 physicians and medical scientists worldwide have signed the Rome Declaration to alert citizens about the deadly consequences of Covid-19 policy makers and medical authorities unprecedented behavior https://www.globalresearch.ca/thousands-physicians-medical-scientists-sign-rome-declaration-protest-launch-new-information-platform/5757188 57 Top Scientists and Doctors Release Shocking Study on COVID Vaccines and Demand Immediate Stop to All Vaccinations https://www.globalresearch.ca/57-top-scientists-doctors-release-shocking-study-covid-vaccines-demand-immediate-stop-all-vaccinations/5746848 A Letter to the Unvaccinated https://www.globalresearch.ca/letter-unvaccinated/5752287 Read more at: PaulCraigRoberts.org Champaign, IL (61820) Today Cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy this afternoon. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 54F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few clouds. Low 21F. Winds NW at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible. Reporter Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk). Reporter Debra Pressey is a reporter covering health care at The News-Gazette. Her email is dpressey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@DLPressey). I was impressed. Not just a little impressed. Wow," said Matt Kreeb of Fisher, a former guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery, speaking about volunteers who'll conduct a vigil Veterans Day at a replica of the tomb in LeRoy. When immune cells move throughout the brain, they act as the first line of defense against viruses, toxic materials and damaged neurons, rushing over to clear out them. Researchers at Indiana University School of Medicine have been investigating how these immune cells in the brain-;microglia-;relate to a gene mutation recently found in Alzheimer's disease patients. They published their findings today in Science Advances. The study, led by Hande Karahan, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in medical and molecular genetics, and Jungsu Kim, PhD, the P. Michael Conneally Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics, found that deleting the gene-;called ABI3-;significantly increased amyloid-beta plaque accumulation in the brain and decreased the amount of microglia around the plaques. This study can provide further insight into understanding the key functions of microglia contributing to the disease and help identify new therapeutic targets." Hande Karahan, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in medical and molecular genetics Karahan based her research on a human genetics study of more than 85,000 people-;fewer than half were Alzheimer's patients-;that identified the mutation in the ABI3 gene. Researchers concluded this mutation increased the risk of late-onset Alzheimer's. "However, there was no investigation into the function of ABI3 gene in the brain or about how this gene affects microglia function," Karahan said, a fact that led to her research. The team deleted the ABI3 gene from an Alzheimer's disease mouse model and tested the functions of the gene in microglia in cell cultures. In the mouse model, they saw increased levels of plaques and inflammation in the brain and signs of synaptic dysfunction-;characteristics associated with learning and memory deficits of the disease. Additionally, Karahan said the deletion of the gene impaired the movement of microglia. The immune cells cannot move closer to plaques to try to clear up the proteins. Amyloid plaques are commonly found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's; amyloid beta proteins clump together and form plaques, which destroy nerve cell connections. "Our study provides the first in vivo functional evidence that the loss of ABI3 function may increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by affecting amyloid beta accumulation and neuroinflammation," Karahan said. Over the past few years, Karahan has been building upon her Alzheimer's disease research. In 2019, Karahan received the Sarah Roush Memorial Fellowship in Alzheimer's Disease Research, established by the Indiana Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and funded through a generous donation from James and Nancy Carpenter and a matching contribution from Stark Neurosciences Research Institute, where Karahan conducts her research. Karahan and Kim received three separate grants supporting this research from the National Institute on Aging, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) branch for Alzheimer's research, resulting in $7.8 million over the next five years. "One grant will fund the creation of a mouse model that will allow us to delete the ABI3 gene in any cell types in the body, such as brain microglia and peripheral immune cells," Kim said. "Once we validate this new model, we will make it available to others in the research community to use this model for their own investigations." The other grants will fund additional mouse and cell models for the team to further investigate how the ABI3 gene in microglia affects Alzheimer's disease pathologies as well as fund state-of-the-art techniques, including brain imaging using the Bruker BioSpec 9.4T PET-MRI scanner, located in the Roberts Translational Imaging Facility at Stark Neurosciences Research Institute. Each of these projects has an end goal of identifying druggable targets for the treatment of the disease, Karahan and Kim said. The team will collaborate with the IU School of Medicine-Purdue TaRget Enablement to Accelerate Therapy Development for Alzheimer's Disease (TREAT-AD) Center. (Newser) It's a story about a man reconnecting with the father he barely knew as a child. But in this case, the father is someone who ends phone conversations with statements like, "I don't know anything about who whacked Jack Kennedy." James Dolan writes the account, headlined, "My Father, the Hitman," in D Magazine. As he explains, his dad, James "Doc" Dolan" led a life of crime for all of his adult life. He spent long stretches in prison. And he worked with associates such as Jack Ruby in Dallas, the man who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby really wanted to be seen as a tough guy," Doc Dolan once told his son, but the story doesn't shed new light on the JFK assassination. The Ruby link is just one small thread in the story of how the younger Dolan, a psychotherapist, sets out to understand his father. story continues below When the two reconnected in the 1980s, with the author in his 30s, his father gave him a special type of fatherly advice. If he ever has trouble making mortgage payments, Doc Dolan said, just put the house "in the sky." That is, burn it, as the elder Dolan did to the younger Dolan's childhood home in Texas. The entire account is a colorful one, filled with stories of cons (like a counterfeit counterfeit machine) and safety deposit boxes filled with cash, but the author also has to come to grips with the brutal murders his father committedincluding a pair of executions related to a dog-fighting ring. The elder Dolan was murdered himself in 1984, not too long after the men had reconnected, and the author tries to untangle the various theories in play. He realizes, however, that he may never know his father's full story, in ways big and small. (Read the account here.) (Newser) In July 2021, Mark Redwine was found guilty of murdering his 13-year-old son. In a 2017 Newser story on Redwine's arrest, we recounted that "cadaver dogs were able to determine that a dead body had been in the older man's home and the bed of his truck." Science magazine takes a deep dive into cadaver dogs and the somewhat controversial role they play at trial. In Redwine's case, it was actually one dog: a German shepherd named Molly who was handled by Carren Corcoran, owner of Canine Search Solutions. Dylan Redwine went missing from his father's Colorado cabin in November 2012. Some of the teen's remains were found in 2013 on a trail about 10 miles away. Corcoran and Molly went to the cabin to, quite literally, sniff around in August 2013. They returned in February 2014 to sniff Redwine's pickup truck. story continues below Peter Andrey Smith explains that Molly has been trained to sit when she detects the odor of human remains, and she sat upon encountering some of the clothes Redwine allegedly had on around the time when Dylan vanished, as well as in locations in and outside his cabin. If that sounds open and shut, Smith details why it isn't, at least according to critics who "worry that the criminal legal system has embraced a technique profoundly lacking in scientific validation." For one thing, there is a dearth of research on what exactly the dogs are detecting. Corcoran likens it to popcornafter you've eaten the bag, someone entering your house can still smell it, and dogs have far more olfactory receptors than humans do. But "what odors would be left 7 months or more after Dylans alleged murder?" writes Smith, who notes that "little evidence suggests all dead bodies immediately start to give off a standard, identifiable odor signature." (Read the full story for much more, including the Innocence Project's efforts to get the dog-sniff evidence kept out of Redwine's trial.) (Newser) Henry Ruggs was allegedly driving 127mph, with at least twice the legal limit of blood alcohol concentration, before rear-ending a vehicle carrying a 23-year-old woman and her dog in Las Vegas on Tuesday, killing both. The former Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver is charged with felony DUI resulting in death, but as MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos writes for NBC News, the alleged crime easily fits the definition of second-degree murder, requiring "malice" or an "abandoned and malignant heart." Ruggs doesn't have to worry about a murder charge, though, because the drunk-driving laws in this country are "broken," argues Cevallos. story continues below It starts with the fact that drinking and driving isn't illegal under state laws "unless or until the driver is impaired and incapable of safe driving." Generally, this means a driver has 0.08 grams of alcohol per 100 millileters of blood or per 210 liters of breath, Cevallos writes. But this presents an ambiguous limit for regular citizens who don't have access to measuring equipment. "So everyone who has a couple of margaritas and drives is guessing." But prosecutors don't actually need to have evidence of blood alcohol concentration to secure a conviction, Cevallos notes. In Nevada, "a driver can get a DUI just based on how badly the arresting officer thinks the driver looks, smells and stumbles." "All of this nonsense has contributed to a grand public misconception, one Ruggs may have shared: that a driver can have 'a couple' and then drive home," Cevallos writes. "This is trueuntil it horribly, tragically isn't." So "why not just have zero tolerance?" He refers to the billion-dollar alcohol industry and suggests it is up to Americans to change their attitudes. At a rural watering hole on a night like tonight, patrons will "finish up their last drink and tell themselves, 'I'm fine to drive,'" he writes. And "until we find a way to change [that concept], thousands and thousands of people will continue to die." Read the full piece here. (Read more drunk driving stories.) (Newser) Update: Twitter has spoken. Of the more than 3.5 million users who took part in Elon Musk's poll, 57.9% of them voted that, yes, he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock, the Verge reports. In proposing the poll, the Tesla CEO had pointed out, "Note, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock." In response to that, ProPublica journalist Jesse Eisinger tweeted, "Thank you for confirming our story: That for the ultra wealthy income taxes are essentially voluntary. (Thats the one you previously claimed was misleading for reasons.)" He's referring to this piece. And CNBC notes the "real reason" Musk is likely selling is to pay the $15 billion tax bill he'll soon owe on stock options. Our original story from Sunday follows: story continues below Stop us if you've heard this before: Elon Musk is making headlines with an unconventional tweet. This time, the Tesla CEO has launched a Twitter poll to determine whether he should sell some of his shares in the company. The tweet: Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this? Musk tweeted, adding a "yes" or "no" vote function. I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes." Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this? Musk tweeted, adding a "yes" or "no" vote function. I will abide by the results of this poll, whichever way it goes." Big money: Such a sale would amount to about $21 billion, given that Musk has more than 170 million shares, calculates Reuters. The background: Musk's reference to "unrealized gains" is about Democratic plans to levy a "billionaires' tax"to make them pay a tax on their wealth even if they don't sell assets such as stock shares in a given year. Musk has previously spoken out against the idea. CNBC notes that Musk also has previously said that he will probably sell "a huge block" of his Tesla options soon. Musk's reference to "unrealized gains" is about Democratic plans to levy a "billionaires' tax"to make them pay a tax on their wealth even if they don't sell assets such as stock shares in a given year. Musk has previously spoken out against the idea. CNBC notes that Musk also has previously said that he will probably sell "a huge block" of his Tesla options soon. Firing back: Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, criticized Musk's latest comments. Whether or not the worlds wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldnt depend on the results of a Twitter poll," he said, per the Hill. "Its time for the Billionaires Income Tax." (Read more Elon Musk stories.) (Newser) Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt with an armed drone that targeted his residence early Sunday, and officials said he was unharmed. The attack in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone marks a major escalation of tensions sparked by the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results, per the AP. "I am fine and among my people. Thank God," the prime minister tweeted shortly after the attack. He called for calm and restraint, for the sake of Iraq. He later appeared on Iraqi television, declaring that "cowardly rocket and drone attacks dont build homelands and dont build a future." story continues below The government said an explosives-laden drone tried to hit al-Kadhimis home. Several of al-Kadhimi's security guards suffered minor injuries, reports the Washington Post. Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by heavy gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and government offices. There was no immediate claim for the attack. It comes amid a stand-off between security forces and pro-Iran Shiite militias whose supporters have been camped outside the Green Zone for nearly a month after they rejected the results of Iraqs parliamentary elections in which they lost around two-thirds of their seats. Al-Kadhimi, 54, was Iraq's former intelligence chief before becoming prime minister in May last year. He is considered by the militias to be close to the US, and has tried to balance between Iraq's alliances with both the US and Iran. Prior to the elections, he hosted several rounds of talks between regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad in a bid to ease regional tensions. The US strongly denounced the attack. This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state, said State Department spokesperson Ned Price. (Read more Iraq stories.) (Newser) American Airlines is throwing money at the problem. The problem, canceled flights, is due in part to labor shortages. So, with the holiday travel season looming, the company is offering a cash incentive to stick around and work through until the new year. Flight attendants will earn 150% of their normal rate during peak periods, and those who show up for every flight between Nov. 15 and Jan. 2 will have their pay tripled for those peak periods, the Wall Street Journal reports. Vice President of Flight Services Brady Byrnes sent a memo to staffers Friday acknowledging that flight attendants have had a lot to deal with lately. From mother nature wreaking havoc on the operation, the myriad of policy changes youve had to keep up with and an increase in incidents of customer misconduct, youve been dealing with a lot, he wrote. story continues below The airline isnt doing this just out of the goodness of its heartit had help from the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which negotiated the extra pay. The peak periods fall Nov. 23-29 and Dec. 22-Jan. 2, CNBC reports. Flight attendants aren't the only ones eligible for the incentivesother work groups can get them, too. American Airlines isnt the only one struggling with staffingwith travel demand bottomed out during pandemic lockdowns, many airlines sent employees home on leave or with buyouts. Southwest canceled almost 1,800 flights last month for murky reasons. (Read more American Airlines stories.) DANBURY After securing a narrow mayoral win, Dean Esposito faces growing schools, a burgeoning downtown and a booming west side. Esposito, a Republican sees promise for the city thanks to projects like the career academy, downtown streetscape and other development. The mayors chief of staff for the past five years, Esposito said hes well prepared to meet the moment. Its going to just be my priority to continue those positive things, said Esposito, who beat Democrat Roberto Alves by just 171 votes in Tuesdays election. His Republican and Democratic colleagues know him well from his years on the then-called Common Council and city government. But Democrats, still reeling from losing races up and down the ballot, Tuesday, are concerned with how theyll push for the issues they care about. Its going to make it a little bit more difficult, but there will be times when we flat out lose, said Paul Rotello, the Democratic minority leader on City Council who was reelected to represent the Sixth Ward. There will be some victories, but when it gets lopsided, you have to expect more losses than victories. Vinny DiGilio, a Republican and the City Council president who was reelected to represent the Second Ward, expects Esposito will continue the progress mayors Mark Boughton and Joe Cavo made for the city. Its going to be hit the ground running, DiGilio said. Hes up to speed on all the issues having worked so closely with Mayor Cavo. The new mayors priorities Espositos first plan is to meet with the police and fire chiefs, as well as the city department heads, to ensure they have what they need and assure them that he plans to continue the work of the Boughton and Cavo administrations. It would be a lot harder if I was coming off the street to do this transition and job, Esposito said. But its going to be an easy transition for us because weve been working so closely together for the last five, six years. He also wants to meet soon with school leaders. Rising enrollment and education funding were major issues in the campaign, but the budget is the first on his agenda because it must be crafted over the next several months. The mayor and City Council have typically cut the superintendent and school boards budget proposal, where in the past two years they have asked for millions more from Danbury. The schools have several millions of federal COVID-19 relief funds to use this year and for the next few years, but officials are concerned theyll create a hole in the budget when that money is exhausted. Esposito said he wants to better collaborate with the schools to avoid problems like this. The big thing Im looking at is the school, he said. I really want to start meeting with them and the Board of Education much earlier than usual to get on the same page with our budgeting process and assure we have enough money to continue to provide the quality of education that we do right now. He aims to support the creation of the $99 million career academy, which will serve 1,400 middle and high school students and provide them with opportunities to study career fields. The city is building the school within the Summit, a multi-use development on the west side. The school is expected to open in fall 2024. Its going to be huge for our school system, Esposito said. Projects hes excited about include the multi-million effort to install a new streetscape downtown. The first phase of the project is expected to be done before winter. These efforts to revitalize the downtown saw progress last week when Savings Bank of Danbury announced plans to build a four-story office building at the corner of Main and White streets. The city last week also announced a $10 million plan for a 10-acre solar farm that would power the public works complex. Its going to be a huge plus to the city financially, Esposito said. Developers announced plans last week to build a 425,000-square-foot lifestyle center with housing, office space, an assisted living facility and more on a 32-acre property next to Western Connecticut State Universitys west side campus. Esposito and the city have worked closely with developers on the project for years, he said. Its going to be a huge multi-purpose project over there, and I think its going to be really good for Danbury, he said. The city is concerned about how the project will affect traffic, but is collaborating with the state on road improvements that could address the problem, he said. (Bi)partisanship The Republicans have majorities on City Council, the Board of Education and the Zoning Commission, which will make it challenging for the Democrats to carry out their priorities. You have other levers you can pull court of public opinion, theres lots of things you can do, but theres no substitute for votes, Rotello said. With 14 of the councils 21 seats, Republicans have a super majority and do not need Democratic support to make changes to the mayors budget proposal or vote on bond issues outside of a referendum, DiGilio said. Two recent borrowing projects the $62 million package from 2020 and the $99 million career academy passed unanimously. In the last two years, I cant honestly recall when we didnt work together to get what we needed done for the people of Danbury and the city, DiGilio said. In Rotellos years on the council, hes seen the majority swing in favor of both parties. When the party breakdown is closer, there is more more compromise, compared to when one party has a super majority, he said. Ive been told, Rotello, you dont have the votes, he said. Cavo, the former council president, said the council typically acts in a bipartisan fashion. Deliberations are not as acrimonious as they are on the national level, and final votes are often bipartisan or unanimous, he said. We included everybody at the table in our discussions, he said. Im certain Dean will just continue to do that. But Andrea Gartner, chair of the Democratic Town Committee, said transparency has floundered when Democrats are in the minority on boards. If the past is any indication of the future, I dont have a lot of confidence that that will characterize the 11th term of Republicans running this city, she said. Leaders from opposing parties still get along, but they also have long memories, Rotello said. Republicans should know that if they dont compromise with Democrats, then Democrats may not want to make deals with them one day. They know if they ignore us now, there is a good chance we could ignore them later, he said. Both parties agreed they have the same general goals, however. The players in our rooms here have Danburys best interests at heart, Cavo said. As long as everyone continues to work like that, well be successful as we've been over the last 20 years, and Dean will have a successful first term. ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) The University of New Mexico is disenrolling 256 students from classes for not complying with university's requirement for vaccination against COVID-19. University spokeswoman Cinnamon Blair said the students being disenrolled took no action to comply with the requirement by Friday's deadline, the Albuquerque Journal reported. Students facing disenrollment have been receiving daily messages for over a month and, prior to that, biweekly messages, Blair said. Under the requirement, students must show proof of vaccination or acquire an exemption for medical or religious reasons or only take remote-study classes off campus. Exempted students on campus are required to submit weekly COVID-19 tests to the UNM vaccine verification site. For the fall semester only, students who have not been vaccinated or exempted are permitted to remain at UNM if they submit weekly COVID-19 tests results. UNMs online vaccination site shows 92.2% of students on the Albuquerque campus have been vaccinated and that 91.8% of students throughout the university system are vaccinated. Blair said disenrolled students do not have to return financial aid received during the fall term, but disenrollment may affect their chances to get aid in the future. Thats because they will not receive credit in the fall semester, and certain forms of financial aid require that a student demonstrate good standing and regular progress toward a degree, she said. Disenrolled students may return to UNM in the spring semester as long a they provide proof of vaccination or request and receive a qualified exemption. In another development, the Las Cruces school district has seen a big spike in COVID-19 cases among students and staff after several weeks of steady increases, totaling over 900 cases since classes began on Aug. 9, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported. The district had 194 new cases in the week ending Thursday, almost four time the weekly numbers through early October. Vijay Pagare says that he was in touch with Sunil Patil, Manish Bhanushali etc for some reason during September 27 and October 3. He also claims that he went near the NCB office on 3rd October with Bhanushali. Vijay Pagare, who claims to be an eyewitness in the ongoing drugs on cruise case, alleged that Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khans son Aryan Khan was framed deliberately by some people to make money. He says that he was in touch with Sunil Patil, Manish Bhanushali etc for some reason during September 27 and October 3. He also claims that he went near the NCB office on 3rd October with Bhanushali. We reached the NCB office where I saw the whole atmosphere. When I reached the hotel back, I saw the news on TV that Shah Rukh Khans son has been caught. Then I understood that there is a big mess and Aryan Khan has been implicated, he said On October 3, Bhanushali met me & asked me to go with him to get money. While I was with him in the car, I heard them saying that a deal of Rs 25 crores was scheduled but settled on Rs 18 crores and Rs 50 lakhs taken, Pagare said. Pagare further said,I had given money to Sunil Patil in 2018-19 for some work & for the last 6 months, I was following him to get that money back. This year in September, we were in a hotel room where Sunil Patil told Bhanushali that a big game has happened and we need to leave for Ahmedabad. They returned from Ahmedabad only on 3rd October and Bhanushali asked me to accompany him to get my money back. An NCB team busted an alleged drugs party on the Cordelia Cruise ship which was on its way to Goa at mid-sea on October 2. A total of 20 people, including two Nigerian nationals and Aryan Khan, have been arrested so far in the case. China is among the very few which seem to have started engaging with the outfit. Last month, the Taliban said Beijing has provided USD 1 million to Afghanistan and has promised additional humanitarian aid worth USD 5 million. Afghanistans acting foreign minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi met with Chinese ambassador Wang Yu on Saturday and discussed bilateral relations and trade. Acting FM Amir Khan Muttaqi met with Chinas ambassador to Afghanistan, Wang Yu, on Saturday, the foreign ministry spokesperson said, adding the two discussed bilateral relations and trade, Tolo News tweeted. Last month, the Taliban said Beijing has provided USD 1 million to Afghanistan and has promised additional humanitarian aid worth USD 5 million. Meanwhile, Chinese FM urged the US and the West to lift sanctions on the country. The meeting came amid Taliabns repeated appeal for wider international recognition. China is among the very few which seem to have started engaging with the outfit. Other members of the international community are taking a wait and watch approach. The decision of the de-proscription comes after TLP assured the government it will not organise violent protests in the future, reported Geo News citing sources. After Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTIs) government struck a secretive deal earlier this week with Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), the federal cabinet on Saturday approved the de-proscription of the banned outfit on Saturday. The decision of the de-proscription comes after TLP assured the government it will not organise violent protests in the future, reported Geo News citing sources. The federal cabinet approved the removal of the partys proscribed status through a circulation summary sent by the interior ministry, sources said. Two days back, Chief Minister Punjab Usman Buzdar granted the initial approval to the summary sent to him by the Punjab home department for the revocation of the TLPs proscribed status, reported Geo News. After granting preliminary approval to the summary, the CM had sent it to the Ministry of Interior to take a final decision regarding the matter through circulation. The Ministry for Interior, after receiving the summary to change TLPs status, had sent it to the federal cabinet earlier today, the sources said. In line with the deal struck with the TLP, the Punjab government has already removed the names of 48 TLP workers among 90 from the fourth schedule, reported Geo News. The provincial government also decided to release 100 other activists of the proscribed organisation from different jails in the province. On November 2, the government began implementing the accord with TLP, with reports suggesting that it had released more than 800 supporters of the party arrested across Punjab. GREENWICH The Country Table, a new specialty prepared foods market, is scheduled to open within the next month in the towns Glenville section, marking the latest venture for two local entrepreneurs. Set to open on or around Dec. 1, The Country Table will occupy 2,000 square feet in the entire ground floor of a landmark brick building at 1 Glenville St. The Country Table represents the retail extension of Geoff Lazlo Food, a boutique events-and-catering company based in Greenwich that was founded in 2018. The Country Table and Geoff Lazlo Food are owned by chef Geoff Lazlo and Greg Oshins, who are Greenwich natives and lifelong best friends since meeting in the second grade at Brunswick School. The Country Table will be a convenient place to grab a freshly made-to-order salad or sandwich (and) a great cup of coffee, Geoff Lazlo said in a statement. And most importantly, it will be a community hub that embodies the local, small-town feel of the Greenwich we remember from our childhood. We cant wait to open our doors later this fall. In addition to The Country Table, the space at 1 Glenville will also house the operations for Geoff Lazlo Food, including a commercial kitchen. Since the departure of the former occupant Watsons Catering, the culinary space at 1 Glenville has undergone a full renovation. Our upcoming brick-and mortar location in Glenville is a natural extension of Geoff Lazlo Foods catering and events business, which grew organically into our prepared-foods home-delivery business during the pandemic, Oshins said in a statement. Were putting a focus on making busy times stress-free for families, commuters and working professionals by offering flexible deliveries, curbside pickup and a simple and intuitive mobile ordering platform. Among previous roles, Lazlo served as executive chef of le Farm and The Whelk in Westport before opening in 2015 his own farm-to-table restaurant, Mill Street Bar & Table at 230 Mill St. in Greenwichs Byram section. He left Mill Street Bar & Table in 2017 to start Geoff Lazlo Food. Mill Street Bar & Table closed in 2018, according to Lazlo and Oshins. pschott@stamfordadvocate.com; twitter: @paulschott DANBURY When Joe Cavo returns to a City Council seat next month, he doesnt expect to be its leader. Cavo does not plan to pursue the role of City Council president, a role he held prior to becoming mayor. He said he told the Republican caucus on Wednesday night that he wants fellow Republican Vinny DiGilio to continue the role He is best in the position as president of the City Council going forward because I view him as the future, said Cavo, the current mayor. I dont view myself as the future of the Republican party here in Danbury, otherwise I would have run for mayor. DiGilio, who was reelected to represent the Second Ward, was appointed president of the council after Cavo became mayor last December. Cavo was elected to City Council in 2003 and became the council president in 2006. Hes retired from the citys career fire department. DiGilio said he plans to follow Cavos lead. At this point, Mayor Joe has earned whatever...leadership position that he would like to pursue, DiGilio said. Cavo described DiGilio as brilliant and a consensus builder. Mayor Cavo and myself have a great working relationship, DiGilio said. Hes been my mentor since the beginning and I value his leadership. The council will vote on a new president at its December meeting. With the Republicans holding a 14-7 majority on the council, the president will likely be from the GOP. Cavo said he would take on a different leadership position within the Republicans on council if a role were available. Cavo ran his final meeting as mayor on Thursday evening, thanking the city staff who he said helped him over the past year. Mayor-elect Dean Esposito, a Republican who has served as the mayors chief of staff since 2016, will be sworn in on Dec. 1, before the next council meeting. Cavo presented plaques to five council members who lost their seats or didnt run for for reelection. They included Republicans John Priola and John Esposito III, as well as Democrats Frank Salvatore, Jr., Roberto Alves and Robert Taborsak. Council members acknowledged Cavos leadership through the coronavirus pandemic and in the wake of the departure of longtime Mayor Mark Boughton. To do what hes done and what hes accomplished in the short time, kind of thrown on his plate and turned his lifestyle upside down, I have the greatest admiration for you Joe, said Warren Levy, a Republican reelected to an at-large City Council seat. AUBURN, Ala. (AP) The wild turkey population has been declining in the U.S. over the last 10 to 15 years, and Auburn University professor Will Gulsby is determined to find out why. Gulsby is an associate professor of wildlife management in Auburn Universitys School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences and will be conducting research to identify the areas where the wild turkey population is decreasing in regions of Alabama and the reasons behind it. Gulsby said the turkey population is not just declining in Alabama but is also declining in other areas throughout the southeast. Turkeys are one of the most important game species and most important hunted species in our state, second only to the whitetail deer, Gulsby said. The amount of information we have on the turkey population and reproduction is very limited compared to what we know about deer, so were trying to catch up. Gulsby will be gathering data from public lands and private lands, which are rarely included in wildlife population studies. He will be conducting research on sites in four regions in Alabama to get a representation of turkey reproductive timing and behaviors across the different climates of the state. Gulsby will be using artificial intelligence and autonomous recording units to collect data on reproductive behaviors by determining the timing of turkey gobbling. Well have a recording unit, or microphone, 30 feet up in a tree to record all the turkey gobbles in the area, Gulsby said. Well have about 90 devices across the state, so the artificial intelligence will allow us to go through more data. Knowing when the turkeys are gobbling tells us the timing of their reproductive activities, Gulsby said. During this research project Gulsby will be looking at where the birds are more abundant and where they are less abundant, how population differs from one property to another, and the characteristics of each property. He will also determine the timing of turkey gobbling and how its influenced by hunting pressure, determine the proportion of male turkeys capable of fertilizing clutches of eggs, and monitor success and failure rates of nests. While monitoring turkey nests, Gulsby will be researching the cause of nest failure and the survival rate of young turkeys and will test for diseases. Its important that any hunted species is hunted sustainably, Gulsby said. The best thing hunters can do is get involved with conservation organizations like Alabama Wildlife Federation and Turkeys for Tomorrow because they fund the research thats needed to ensure the populations are sustainable in the future. The Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries has recently implemented additional restrictions on turkey hunters for the spring in response to the concerns of the declining population. Gulsby will be releasing research updates throughout the study, and hopes to start publishing results within three to four years. He will be collaborating with Michael Chamberlain from the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. Dr. Gulsbys unique, wide-ranging research will yield valuable insights into the reasons the turkey population has been in decline and, most significantly, lead to steps that can be taken to reverse that trend, benefiting conservationists, hunters and the state in general, Dean Janaki Alavalapati of the Auburn School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences said in a release. WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) Waterburys convicted former mayor is seeking to have his prison sentence reduced. Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence after being convicted of sexually abusing 9- and 11-year-old girls. Giordano was cooperating with federal authorities in an organized crime investigation and wearing a wire in 2001 when FBI agents overheard the abuse as it was happening, the Waterbury Republican-American reported. In a recent court filing, Giordanos attorney wrote that while in prison Giordano has taught classes to inmates and also has continued to help federal authorities including the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, which investigates organized crime. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Stefan Underhill, an attorney for the New Jersey commission confirmed that Giordano has provided valuable information in furtherance of our investigation, according to the newspaper. The 58-year-old Giordano currently is incarcerated at Yazoo City Medium Federal Correctional Institution in Mississippi. Giordano would live with his wife, Dawn, in Commack, on New York's Long Island, if released, his attorney, Sebastian DeSantis, told the Republican-American. His three sons also wrote letters in support of his release. Giordano tried unsuccessfully in 2015 to have his sentence set aside, arguing his trial attorney failed to convey a plea deal to him. Last year, he sought to have his sentence reduced due to concerns over COVID-19. A hearing on the most recent motion hasnt yet been scheduled. HOUSTON (AP) Screaming. Suffocating. Panicked. Unconscious. The concertgoers at a highly anticipated Houston music festival Friday night say they were shocked to witness how the event brewed into pandemonium that left at least eight people dead. Rapper Travis Scott was the headliner for the sold-out Astroworld Festival in NRG Park, which was attended by an estimated 50,000 people. Here, some of them describe the chaos theyre still trying to understand. ___ Ariel Little of New York was in the middle of the crowd in a prime viewing spot with her husband for only a brief minute before she started to struggle. It was in trying to escape the increasingly packed venue that the couple realized how dangerous it was becoming. Littles voice quivered with emotion as she described how small she felt gasping for air as she was battered by the crowd. My chest is in so much pain from people pushing and crushing literally crushing my chest and in my lungs. And all I can remember is just screaming for him. I gotta get out! I gotta get out! And people werent moving, Little said. They thought it was a joke but it was like literally people dying. Her husband, Shawn, surveyed the scene quickly to find a way out. There was a lot of people in my section that were kind of like screaming and having panic attacks just because it felt almost as if you were under an elevator and the elevator was coming down on you and there was nothing you could do about it, Shawn Little said. No one in my section at the time was moving because I think everyone was just in shock of how crazy and how panicked that everyone was. There was a lot of fear in peoples eyes. ___ Madeline Eskins is an intensive care unit nurse who said she was one of the festivalgoers who passed out as the mass of people pressed closer to the stage. She was taken to a slightly less crowded area for medical attention, where she woke up. Eskins, 23, of Houston, said she then saw someone nearby who needed medical help, and she told them she was a nurse. When a security guard overheard her, he asked if she could start helping others, Eskins said. There was three people on the ground getting CPR and the most disorganized chaos that I have ever seen in my life, Eskins said. Eskins said she tried to guide medical staff and volunteers on how to use a defibrillator, and she also helped to check for pulses and do CPR compressions on several people. ___ When the main performer came out like Travis people got, like, compressed cause they just wanted to see him, said Sal Salinas. It was like you were suffocated in there. If you werent on the side or anything, you were getting suffocated. ___ Niaara Goods, 28, of New York, said the crowd surged as a timer clicked down to the start of the performance. As soon as he jumped out on the stage, it was like an energy took over and everything went haywire. All of a sudden, your ribs are being crushed. You have someones arm in your neck. Youre trying to breathe but you cant, said Goods, who traveled to Texas to see friends and to celebrate a birthday. She said she and her friends, one of whom was punched on the head and jaw, were quickly separated from each other but all escaped. Goods said she was so desperate to get out that she bit a man on the shoulder to get him to move. Some people are laughing at us those who are screaming to get out. Because they thought it was funny. They didnt realize it was terror, she said. Later, after getting to safety, she saw the injured streaming to safety in gurneys or in wheelchairs. It was literally the scariest night of my life. I literally thought I was going to die trying to get out. Thats just not what you pay for, she said. ___ Gary Gaston, 52, of Houston said he went to the concert with his ex-wife, their 14-year-old son and the teens friend. They felt so threatened after only a few of Scotts songs that they decided to leave and meet outside by the medical tent. When Gaston and his ex-wife arrived shortly after 10 p.m., he said they saw medical personnel start to bring at least eight people into the tent on gurneys, most of whom appeared unresponsive. It was surreal because you see these people being pulled out on these gurneys and people running into the medical tent, but the music is still going, Gaston said. People in the arena were unaware of it. ___ Gavyn Flores said people kept trying to scoot into spaces where there was none to spare, while others tried to will their way toward the barricades to jump over to safety. They couldnt get there because there were people like blocking them so those people like they had to just deal with it like because they couldnt get out of the show, Flores said. They were like chanting Stop the show! and there was a guy in the back getting CPR. So many people were getting CPR, like it was absurd. ___ Julian Ponce said there were signs of injuries but he didnt realize there were deaths until he got home. It was kind of mind-blowing, like we kept hearing people say, Stop the show. Stop the show, but we didnt know what was going on. We heard somebody was bleeding. We heard a lot of stuff and we werent too sure, Ponce said. I dont even know how to feel. Its just breathtaking. ___ Associated Press reporter Acacia Coronado contributed from Austin, Texas. WEST HAVEN Democratic Mayor Nancy Rossi beat her Republican opponent Barry Lee Cohen by just 32 votes Sunday in an official recount of the Nov. 2 election that came as the city faces a financial scandal allegedly created by two municipal employees. The final count of 4,275 votes for Rossi and 4,243 votes for Cohen came just before 6 p.m., according to Head Moderator George Chambrelli, The count had started around 9 a.m. We will certify the numbers and submit to the state today .. nothing has changed from these results and thats about it, Chambrelli said. Rossi had led Cohen by 29 votes Wednesday after all of Tuesdays votes were counted, the Registrar of Voters office reported. Im very pleased with the outcome, Rossi said Sunday just after Chambrelli announced the results. Were going to make the changes we need to make. Were going to get through this together, were Westies. The margin Tuesday was close enough to trigger the mandatory recount, which occurs when the margin is within one-half of 1 percent of the votes. Cohen and his attorney, Vincent Mari,no said Sunday night that they had concerns about absentee ballots in the race. We want to make sure every ballot was counted appropriately, Cohen said Weve made no decisions yet about accepting results. Marino said they have 14 days to file a complaint if they choose to do so. Chambrelli said all of the absentee ballots were handled correctly. Prior to the counting on Sunday, Rossi exhibited confidence. She said she was not surprised the margin was tight because were in the news every day, unfortunately not for the good news. She said she would do anything I can to restore trust in her administration following a major scandal that broke in the weeks leading up to the election. Cohen continued his criticism of Rossi before the votes were counted again. He has raised numerous questions about oversight in the city since two employees were arrested on a federal wire fraud charge. This administration is an embarrassment to West Haven, he said. We need a change, no matter what happens with this recount. He criticized that the administration held a press conference the day before Election Day to announce a purchasing committees recommendation to lease the Savin Rock Conference Center to New England Brewing Co. before a vote from the City Council. Cohen called on Rossi to resign, which she said Sunday she would not do. At issue during the election has been that now former state Rep. Michael DiMassa, also a former City Hall employee, was arrested on a federal wire fraud charge stemming from his alleged misuse of the citys federal CARES Act funds. DiMassa has since resigned his City Hall job and his House seat. Since Tuesday, John Bernardo, also a West Haven employee, was arrested on a federal wire fraud charge connected to the company for which he and DiMassa are principals. After DiMassa was arrested, the state Municipal Accountability Review Board, which currently has oversight over the citys finances, indicated its patience is waning rapidly as the latest financial issue unfolds, and members said the alleged fraud reflects poorly on oversight. A number have also said they would support withholding funding from the city until changes are made. Rossi has condemned the alleged acts of the two men, and has said it was she who discovered potentially fraudulent transactions. The invoices submitted by Compass Investment LLC, the company DiMassa and Bernardo created, were not for any real work, according to federal authorities. The states Office of Policy and Management also has hired auditors to review how West Haven officials spent pandemic relief funding, including using money for compensatory payments to employees. DiMassa and Bernardo both received such payments, city records show. The CT Mirror also reported that West Haven officials spent tens of thousands of dollars in federal COVID relief funding on Christmas decorations, payments to a city councilmans business and a marching band that performed at the citys Memorial Day parade, according to records released by the city. Rossi did not respond to the Mirrors request for comment on the expenditures. Rossi is a certified public accountant and before she became mayor four years ago served on the City Council for 10 years. Rossi, who took office in December 2017, is West Havens 12th mayor and the first woman to hold the job. Rossi defeated incumbent two-term Mayor Ed OBrien in 2017. Cohen, the 10th District City councilman, is a former Planning and Zoning Commission member and has said his skill set as a marketing and communications professional and his status as a political outsider makes him suited to run the city. Rossi told supporters just after the count Tuesday that she was confident the margin would stand and joked that 24 would be her lucky number if so. The difference in votes, however, turned out to be 32, according to Chambrelli. According to the registrar of voters, 20 people registered to vote on Election Day, and 8,744 votes were cast from a list of 28,566 voters. Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has described the Onigbeti of Igbeti, Oba Emmanuel Oyebisi, Afasegbejo III as a great leader and a peace-... Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has described the Onigbeti of Igbeti, Oba Emmanuel Oyebisi, Afasegbejo III as a great leader and a peace-loving monarch. Makinde made this disclosure while reacting to the death of the monarch. Makinde while reacting, explained that the death of the monarch has left a vacuum in the state. He described the late traditional ruler as a good and peace-loving leader. Makinde maintained that the monarch has worked hard for the development of his domain and the progress of his subjects. He said, I condole with the entire Igbeti Community of Olorunsogo Local Government Area of the State on the demise of the Onigbeti of Igbeti, Oba Emmanuel Oyekan Oyebisi. I equally commiserate with the Oyo State Traditional Council and friends, families and well-wishers of the late royal father. The late Kabiyesi was a great leader and a peace-loving ruler. His love for the development of Igbeti and Oyo State, in general, is unprecedented and he never missed an opportunity to make this clear. Surely, Oba Oyebisis death has left a huge vacuum in Olorunsogo Local Government and among the traditional council in the state. Days after intelligence intercepted the plot by the Islamic States West Africa Province (ISWAP) to smuggle military uniforms into Nigeria, ... Days after intelligence intercepted the plot by the Islamic States West Africa Province (ISWAP) to smuggle military uniforms into Nigeria, ISIS fighters are battle-ready. Eons Intelligence reports that ISWAP may hit Baga, Malam Fatori and Marte communities in Borno State anytime soon. They will be assisted by more than 200 ISIS mercenaries from Libya and Syria currently in the Sabon Tumbu axis. Their arrival coincided with the installation of Sani Shuwaram as the new ISWAP leader (Wali). He succeeds Malam Bako. Bako was killed while leading the sect in acting capacity after the death of Abu Musab Al-Barnawi. Al-Barnawi, son of the late Boko Haram founder Mohammed Yusuf, was eliminated during a battle with security forces. The ISIS fighters now within the Nigerian territory observed Jummat prayers on Friday at Sabon Tumbu in the Lake Chad region. The planned assault in and around Borno border villages seeks to consolidate ISWAPs grip in the zone. It is already established that ISIS, through ISWAP, desires to take over towns and enforce Islamic rule in spite of ongoing military campaigns against their activities. ISWAP currently dominates Lake Chad after hundreds of Boko Haram members defected following the death of JAS leader, Abubakar Shekau in May. As part of counter-terrorism efforts, the Buhari administration has approved extra assets to boost North East Operation HADIN KAI (OPHK). Three female students have been injured in a fire outbreak at the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) Murtala female hostel on Saturday. Prope... Three female students have been injured in a fire outbreak at the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) Murtala female hostel on Saturday. Properties were also destroyed in the incident, the second of such in one month. The inferno reportedly started from a cooking stove and was put out by the universitys fire service. Public Relations Director, Prof. Danjuma Gambo, said preliminary investigations showed it was a Kerosene explosion. NAN quoted the spokesman as confirming that the three undergraduates were in a hospital. Gambo assured that the management was taking steps to enforce more fire safety regulations in hostels. Watertown, NY (13601) Today A mix of clouds and sun this morning followed by some light rain this afternoon. High 49F. Winds S at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain. Low around 35F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. More than a decade after it was filed, the city of New Orleans has quietly paid more than $2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the heirs of a man shot by plainclothes New Orleans police officers. The shooting of Adolph Grimes III in 2009 was one of the most controversial in the years between Hurricane Katrina and a 2012 reform agreement with the federal government. While former New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Grimes died in a "gun battle," his family called for officers to be charged after the coroner reported that Grimes had been shot 12 times in the back. Under the confidential Aug. 5 settlement, the city agreed to pay Grimes' son and his mother, Arabia Whitfield, $2.2 million in annual installments until 2024. The settlement, one of the largest such payouts since Katrina, averted a trial set for August. The city did not acknowledge wrongdoing on behalf of the six officers who fired 82 shots at Grimes outside his grandmothers 6th Ward house. Without a trial, the central issues of the Grimes killing remain unresolved. Grimes family members said he never fired his gun early on New Years Day, 2009. Cops claimed he took a shot at them before they unleashed a barrage in response. The city and Whitfields attorney, Glenn McGovern, declined to comment. Grimes case points to historic lapses in NOPD investigations of police shootings Whatever nine New Orleans police officers did right or wrong when they unleashed a hail of bullets on Adolph Grimes III six years ago on New Y Grimes, a 22-year-old graduate of Brother Martin High School who lived in Houston, had arrived in his hometown of New Orleans on a visit shortly before midnight, according to his family. They said he was sitting in his car waiting for a cousin to arrive so they could visit a bar. Amid the early morning festivities, police that night said they were responding to a 911 call about a shooting at Club Fabulous on North Claiborne Avenue. By the time cops got there, there was no evidence to be found. But a pair of officers later claimed they saw a small, dark car fleeing from a parking lot across the street. Soon, police said, they spotted Grimes sitting in a small dark car on Gov. Nicholls Street near Claiborne Avenue. What happened next is the subject of much debate, U.S. District Judge Barry Ashe said in a June decision. Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up In the police account, Grimes turned off the dome light in his car and pointed his gun at an unmarked, white Ford Expedition with five plainclothes cops inside. After one officer shouted gun!, the Expedition accelerated past the rear of Grimes car. Grimes opened fire through his rear windshield. Police in the Expedition, and an unmarked Ford Taurus that had arrived on the scene, responded with a volley of shots. Police claimed that Grimes hopped out of his car, and in the words of a recent city legal filing, shots were fired by Officers until the perpetrator dropped on Claiborne and no longer posed a mortal threat. In Grimes familys account, he never fired a shot from the 9 mm handgun he legally owned, and the cops never identified themselves as officers before they shot him 14 times. The familys ballistics expert claimed that the angle of the bullet wounds suggested that Grimes was shot several times while he was on the ground. Grimes' heirs also cited the testimony of two onlookers who said they never heard the cops identify themselves. Moreover, Whitfield's attorneys said, the NOPDs investigation of the shooting was deeply tainted. There were no crime scene photos of Grimes handgun next to his body. The group of officers involved in the shooting took part in a "re-enactment" before giving their formal statements. That event allowed the cops to get their stories straight, Whitfields lawyers said, adding that such dubious techniques led to the NOPD's 2012 consent decree. +2 Feds decline civil rights charges in 09 fatal police shooting The U.S. Justice Department has quietly closed its investigation into the controversial shooting death of a Brother Martin High School graduat Before the trial, the city tried to have the case knocked out of court, on the grounds that the officers behavior was reasonable because Grimes pointed a gun at them. But Ashe, a Donald Trump appointee, said the facts were so hotly disputed that a jury would have to decide them. That ruling paved the way for the August settlement, which came nearly five years after former Mayor Mitch Landrieu settled a batch of post-Katrina police brutality cases for $13.3 million. Grimes heirs missed the opportunity to take part in that process because their lawsuit was put on hold during a federal probe. The feds declined charges in the Grimes case in 2013, but his heirs did not revive the lawsuit until 2019. The settlement is the second time in recent years that McGovern, the attorney representing Whitfield and her son, has challenged the NOPD's use of plainclothes cops. In 2019, the city settled a case brought by the family of Arties Manning III, who was fatally shot by a plainclothes cop in New Orleans East. Kermit Warren may not have realized it, but he was echoing the Edwin Edwards of 24 years ago when he pointed out the other day that there is no law against possessing a large wad of dough. No, that is not too obvious to need saying in the alleged land of the free, because government agents swooped on Warren and seized the $28,180 he was carrying in a pink gift bag through the Columbus, Ohio, airport a year ago. For once, that ubiquitous cliche hard-earned dollars was justified. Warren made his living shining shoes at the Roosevelt until the pandemic cost him his job, and the bag contained his life savings. Although he is the aggrieved party here, Warren may count himself lucky that he has been told he will get his money back by Thanksgiving. Edwards did not fare so well when he had reason to assert an American's right to keep cash on hand. Not only was his lawsuit rejected when he sought the return of $400,000 confiscated from his home and office, but he wound up with a 10-year prison sentence. The biggest difference between our two apostles of the almighty greenback, of course, is that Edwards was a racketeer and shakedown artist, but that is far from the only one. You must already be familiar with the spectacular highs and lows of Edwards's career, while Warren is an unsung son of the Lower 9th Ward in New Orleans. He has not been charged with, let alone convicted of, any crime. But a clean rap sheet may not prevent the government state or federal from arbitrarily snatching your assets and leaving you with no right of appeal. As it happens, the Warren story broke just as the Pelican Institute of New Orleans published a study showing that in the last 20 years. Louisiana, courtesy of what is known as its civil asset forfeiture law, has relieved its citizens of $186 million merely on suspicion of wrongdoing. You might think this is impossible, because the 14th Amendment forbids the government to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. But, Warren is far from the only American to be punished for imaginary offenses. This is such outrageous government overreach that there must be some really smart lawyering behind it. Warren won the right to get his money back with the help of the Institute for Justice, but taking the government to court is such an expensive hassle that many others in his shoes have just rolled over. Although his experience confirms the Pelican Institute's conclusions about the injustice of civil forfeiture laws, the myrmidons on his case were federals. A Black man in possession of a lot of money may have no trouble attracting suspicion, and Drug Enforcement Agency agents were hanging about the airport, which Warren was passing through after the tow truck he proposed to buy in Ohio proved unsuitable for the business he planned to start. Questioned, he panicked and told the agents he was a former New Orleans cop. The badge he showed to back up his claim was genuine, but it had been issued to one of Warren's sons. The agents figured that Warren just had to be a drug dealer. So much for the presumption of innocence. Email James Gill at gill504nola@gmail.com. Its easy to look at national media and focus on the devastating loss and theyre not listening story lines about the national Democratic Party. There's no denying that the Virginia and New Jersey results were wake-up moments for the party. Election night and the morning after were full of Republican cries of joy and Democratic handwringing as many focused on the super tight gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. The Democratic incumbent in New Jersey seems to have won, barely. The Republican candidate in Virginia won, by enough. Though those races, rightly, got a lot of digital, social and television play, they werent the only important elections, so a lot of people missed a lot of big results. Republicans winning the Virginia governors race, the lieutenant governors race and the attorney generals race is great reason for the GOP to cheer, even gloat. They may not have pulled in enough votes to win the New Jersey governors race, but, boy, did they come close. A lot of Democrats have been in a woe-is-us funk mood for several days, but there was a lot of good news that not enough people seem to have noticed. New York City elected its second Black mayor. Not since three-term Mayor Ed Koch was unseated by David Dinkins 30 years ago has The Big Apple seen someone in that office with darker skin. New Yorkers overwhelmingly chose Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams to lead the city for the next four years. Boston elected its first woman and first Asian American as mayor. Former Boston City Council President Michelle Wu ran a good campaign in a field that included multiple competitors, including two prominent Black women. Showing its not only about being Black, Wu moved into a runoff against a self-described a self-described first-generation Arab-Polish American and won over lots of Black voters to help her Chinatown base give her a win. Pittsburgh elected its first Black mayor. Ed Gainey served five terms in the state legislature and decided to run for mayor of his city after the George Floyd murder and subsequent demonstrations. He defeated a Democratic incumbent in a primary and won the runoff with more than 70% of the vote. Cincinnati elected its first Asian American mayor. Aftab Pureval, son of immigrants from Tibet and India, defeated an incumbent mayor with 66% of the vote. Dearborn, Michigan, is larger than Lake Charles but not quite as big as Lafayette. That city elected its first Muslim and first Arab American mayor. State Rep. Abdullah Hammoud defeated his opponent with more than 54% of the vote. Seattle, just about double the size of New Orleans, was on its way to electing its first Asian American mayor. Bruce Harrell, a former council member and former interim mayor, is the son of a Japanese mother interned during World War II. Much like Baton Rouge, Kansas City, Kansas, has a unified city-county government. K.C. elected its first Black mayor. Tyrone Garner wasnt as successful as some other Election Day winners. He campaigned as an advocate for change, narrowly winning with just more than 300 votes. Its important who we choose as mayors. New Orleans has its own race to decide on Nov. 13 with a popular incumbent and a host of challengers. It does matter who we choose for other offices, too. Elected to lead one of the nations most high-profile public offices of attorneys, Alvin Bragg is the incoming Manhattan district attorney, a Black man replacing Cyrus Vance Jr., who led the office to investigate a wide range of activities by a former presidents business activities practices with companies that use his last name. As most focus on Republican Virginia governor-elect Glenn Youngkins victory over former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, much of the attention has been on the cultural-wars part of the successful campaign. Theres another part. Youngkin broadened his appeal in part by running with Winsome Sears, a Black woman. She ran against another woman of color, so history wouldve been made either way. You dont have to agree with Sears on everything, but she has fought for historically Black colleges and universities from her Hampton Roads base, where some prominent HBCUs are located. Democrats were walloped in Virginia and won a bloody fight in New Jersey. The party should look to what worked on more local levels to figure out what more they can do to win back some national mojo. Passing a version of the $1.75 trillion reconciliation bill to help hundreds of thousands of people would be a good start, but its not enough. Think local. Win national. Newer iPhones come with software locks that prevent the use of the cameras should replacement parts be installed instead of factory originals. Now, there are rumors that Google has done the same with its 2021 flagship, the Pixel 6 Pro. A famous independent-repair blogger has investigated these claims using 2 new units of this phone. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Human 2.0 , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Apple has courted controversy in the wake of findings that it sets its iPhones to effectively break various important functions, those of their cameras, biometric authentication and even display auto-brightness in response to independent repair procedures such as a screen replacement by someone other than an authorized technician. Now, claims that Google has imposed the same kind of restrictions on the use of the cameras on its new flagship, the Pixel 6 Pro, have emerged. The well-known Australian YouTuber Hugh Jeffreys has taken it upon himself to test these claims using a process earlier applied to assess the presence and extent of software locks in the last few generations of iPhones. This involves buying 2 new units of the device in question, opening them both and switching their logic boards. Accordingly, the serial numbers of this part and others such as the camera modules and display panels would fail to match, despite their all being factory-fresh components. This is what tripped the dreaded anti-repair messages demonstrably baked into iOS, and could thus do the same if Google really had started to apply the same restrictions. However, this is not what transpired in this case. All of the Pixel 6 Pro's cameras continued to work after being swapped between the 2 devices; however, it seemed this could not be said for the in-display fingerprint sensor following the re-assembly of one of them. This issue was addressed through the use of a recalibration tool that Google has made available online for free, and restores this function after any kind of display replacement. Therefore, it seems the Mountain View behemoth has a much more laissez-faire attitude to repairability, first-party or otherwise. Despite this, it also became apparent that not all is that rosy in terms of Pixel 6 Pro restoration. It became apparent almost from the start of Jeffreys' new video that dissembling the new phone is quite complicated, requiring a plastic pick of a specific depth (3.5mm) to pry the display off, which needs to be done at a particular angle (75) in order to prevent internal damage. Furthermore, the new flagship is full of fiddly or otherwise difficult components and connectors, graphene sheets and a heat-sink included, which may furthermore be hard to source as replacement parts for now as the phone has only just been launched. All in all, while it now seems it is possible to repair one's Pixel 6 Pro by oneself, its recently-demonstrated resistance to damage in the first place might be a good thing. Buy a Pixel 6 Pro on Best Buy According to reports, the Pixel 6 Pro gets nowhere Google's implied 30 W charging speeds. Instead, Google's latest Pixel smartphone barely charges any faster than the Pixel 5 and is much slower than the Galaxy S21 Ultra. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Human 2.0 , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Google brought increased charging capabilities to its Pixel smartphones with the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, having limited previous generations to 18 W wired charging. In Google's marketing materials, it implies that the Pixel 6 series supports 30 W charging, for which it sells an accompanying charger. Supposedly, the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are compatible with USB PD 3.0 PPS, a standard that should provide high wattage charging for the Pixel 6 series across countless compatible chargers. However, Android Authority has discovered that something is amiss with both devices. As the graphs below show, the Pixel 6 Pro does not charge at 30 W even when connecting to Google's official charger. Instead, the device peaks at just over 22 W before dropping to 15 W when the device reaches 50% battery. Over time, the Pixel 6 Pro gradually reduces its wattage further to 12 W and as low as 2 W when it nears 100% charge. For reference, Android Authority conducted its tests with Adaptive Battery and Adaptive Charging disabled. The result is that the Pixel 6 Pro takes 1:51 hours to recharge its 5,000 mAh battery, 24 minutes slower than the Pixel 5 to recharge its 4,080 mAh battery. Google only advertises the Pixel 5 for 18 W charging, though. By contrast, the Galaxy S21 Ultra only neds 1:02 minutes to bring its 5,000 mAh battery to 100% charge at 30 W. According to a renowned leaker, Samsung has set the pre-order and launch dates of the Galaxy S22 series. If correct, then an early February announcement for the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22 Plus and Galaxy S22 Ultra seems likely. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Human 2.0 , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Last month, Jon Prosser announced that the Galaxy S22 series would be pre-orderable on February 8, 2022, over a year after the Galaxy S21 series arrived. At the time, Prosser caveated his statement with 'Samsung hasn't solidified things just yet', but he has now doubled down on his prediction. Writing on Twitter, Prosser asserts that the Galaxy S22 series will launch 10 days later, on February 18. While he has not elaborated on the launch date, we imagine that the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S22 Plus and Galaxy S22 Ultra will arrive simultaneously. This year, Samsung released the Galaxy S21 series two weeks after revealing them, although it did open a teaser pre-order system in late December 2020. However, Prosser claims that pre-orders will commence on the same day as the Galaxy Unpacked event for the trio. The Google Pixel 6 series has launched with Android 12, the latest version of Googles popular operating system onboard. However, youd never know that the Pixel 6 was powered by Android looking at Googles website. 4 Reviews , News , CPU , GPU , Articles , Columns , Other "or" search relation. 3D Printing , 5G , Accessory , AI , Alder Lake , AMD , Android , Apple , ARM , Audio , Business , Camera , Cannon Lake , Cezanne (Zen 3) , Charts , Chinese Tech , Chromebook , Coffee Lake , Comet Lake , Console , Convertible / 2-in-1 , Cryptocurrency , Cyberlaw , Deal , Desktop , E-Mobility , Education , Exclusive , Fail , Foldable , Gadget , Galaxy Note , Galaxy S , Gamecheck , Gaming , Geforce , Google Pixel , GPU , How To , Human 2.0 , Ice Lake , Intel Evo / Project Athena , Internet of Things (IoT) , iOS , iPad Pro , iPhone , Jasper Lake , Lakefield , Laptop , Launch , Linux / Unix , Lucienne (Zen 2) , MacBook , Mini PC , Monitor , MSI , OnePlus , Opinion , Phablet , Radeon , Renoir , Review Snippet , Rocket Lake , Rumor , Ryzen (Zen) , Science , Security , Single-Board Computer (SBC) , Smart Home , Smartphone , Smartwatch , Software , Storage , Tablet , ThinkPad , Thunderbolt , Tiger Lake , Touchscreen , Ultrabook , Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) , Wearable , Windows , Workstation , XPS , Zen 3 (Vermeer) Ticker Google has launched the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro to a lot of fanfare. They feature the companys first (semi-custom) processor called the Tensor, a new camera system, an all-new design, high-refresh rate displays and more. It also features Android 12, the latest iteration of Googles popular operating system -- but you wouldnt know it looking at the product pages for Googles new Pixels, oddly enough. Google runs through every major feature of its new Pixel phones on their product pages. However, the only time it points to the operating system, it doesnt mention Android, and it doesnt even use the term operating system. It talks about software updates and new features dropping every few months, though it doesnt call the new Android 12 Material You theming system by name either. It just mentions A new experience from Google thats all about you. Incredibly, Google doesnt mention Android in the Tech Specs section, but sticks to the hardware features only. Contrast this with Apples product pages for both the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro models and not only is Apple happy to talk about iOS 15, but the pages also link to Apples detailed iOS 15 product page. It might be one thing for Googles OEMs to downplay Android and focus on the features of their respective devices, but even Samsung acknowledges that its devices are powered by Googles Android operating system. It is clearly a deliberate decision and not an inadvertent omission on Googles part. Which begs the question, why? Google could be looking to further differentiate its Pixel line in future with a bespoke OS and it is positioning us for the change, indirectly. Google has been developing its new Fuchsia OS with more modern underpinnings and built on a custom micro kernel called Zircon, instead of Linux. It has already rolled it out as an update to first-generation Google Nest Hub and has plans to expand its footprint. Another clue as to the possibility of Fuchsia making its way to Pixel phones in the future are three recent job listings published by Google last month (since deleted). The company is looking to bolster its Fuchsia development team with at least two new software engineers and an engineering manager. The software engineer's description says now its time to expand to additional smart devices and other form factors, which is certainly an interesting coincidence. Whatever the actual reason, there can be no question that Googles Pixel 6 product pages have been deliberately distanced from the Android 12 operating system that powers them. Its certainly an intriguing decision, but seems to run contrary to the narrative of making a custom processor to create a better marriage between hardware and software. Buy the Pixel 6 Pro powered by Android 12 from Amazon. Airlines make it easier to stick with the program Over the past 18 months, each airline has taken a different approach to hanging on to its biggest spenders, but their goal is the same: to make it easier for customers who have achieved status to keep it. Alaska Airlines, for example, is giving a 50 percent mileage bonus to its customers for all flights they take in 2021. United Airlines has lowered the required number of flights and spending needed to get to each level of its loyalty program. For instance, Premier Silver, the lowest tier, can be reached with 12 flights, along with 3,000 points (related to dollars spent) rather than 16 flights and 4,000 points. United has also been hosting dinners with Premier fliers to understand their priorities as they return to flying. Were committed to being flexible, said Michael Covey, the managing director of Uniteds MileagePlus program. We are monitoring demand and making adjustments. American Airlines has reduced its minimum requirements for 2021 and vastly streamlined its program for 2022. Currently, Gold, the lowest level, can be had for 20,000 miles or 20 flight segments, along with $2,000 in spending, down from 25,000 miles or 30 flight segments, plus $3,000 in spending. Beginning in 2022, the airline recently announced, it will simplify its AAdvantage program so that branded credit card spending and flights would contribute to a single sum of Loyalty Points, rather than asking fliers to reach separate spending and flying thresholds. Delta Air Lines is extending all frequent fliers status an additional year, through January 2023 and counting any miles flown in 2021 or 2022 toward status in 2023. Travelers get bonus miles when they fly, and for the first time, earn miles on award flights those purchased with miles. Travelers who flew and spent enough to meet status requirements will be prioritized ahead of those fliers who kept their status through an extension, when it comes to free upgrades. Earning and spending more points on the ground All major airlines offer branded credit cards which allow customers to accrue points or miles that can be used to buy flights, and during the pandemic, they continued the practice of dangling tens of thousands of points as incentives to buy in. Alaska Airlines offers 50,000 bonus miles and a low-priced companion fare ticket after the credit card holder makes $2,000 of purchases in the first three months of use. A recent Delta Sky Miles Platinum American Express Card offer promised 90,000 miles that could be used to purchase flights and 10,000 Medallion Qualification Miles that could be used to reach status levels after $3,000 of spending in the first three months, and with an annual card fee of $250. Iraqs prime minister survived a drone strike on his home early Sunday, Iraqi officials said, raising fears of wider instability after disputed results in Iraqs parliamentary elections. I am fine, praise be to God, among my people, and I call for calm and restraint from everyone, for the sake of Iraq, the prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi wrote on Twitter after the pre-dawn attack. In a video appealing for peace, he appeared with his wrist wrapped in what seemed to be a white gauze bandage. A senior official in the Iraqi Interior Ministry, Maj. Gen. Saad Maan, said on state television that the prime ministers house in the fortified Green Zone had been targeted by three armed drones. Xi Jinping sets his legacy Chinas top leader will most likely take center stage in a new official summation of Communist Party history. The document is likely to exalt Xi, 68, as a peer of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping before his expected re-election at a party congress late next year. The summation is sure to become the focus of an intense indoctrination campaign in schools, culture and censorship laws that will shape Chinas politics and society for decades. It will also insulate Xi from criticism and give his policies the gravitas of destiny. Context: No Chinese leader in recent times has been more fixated than Xi on history and legacy. The new history devotes over a quarter of its 531 pages to his nine years in power. Quotable: This is about creating a new timescape for China around the Communist Party and Xi in which he is riding the wave of the past towards the future, said Geremie Barme, a historian of China based in New Zealand. It is not really a resolution about past history, but a resolution about future leadership. Stephen Karpiak, whose research into the lives of New Yorkers aging with H.I.V. revealed a scarcity of support networks and high rates of depression, leading to changes in the care of older people living with the virus, died on Oct. 16 at a hospital in Manhattan. He was 74. His brother, Michael, said the cause was kidney damage that resulted from an infection. AIDS had a devastating impact on gay men in the 1980s, especially in New York City. The advent of antiretroviral drugs in the 1990s marked the beginning of a hopeful shift, and a decade later, after an era of despair, gay life reclaimed its vibrancy in the city. But Dr. Karpiak at the time was starting to conduct research about older adults living with H.I.V., and he was troubled by what he was learning. In a landmark study, he interviewed 1,000 New Yorkers, all over the age of 50 and living with H.I.V., about their quality of life and mental health; the study eventually included San Francisco, Oakland and Chicago as well. The data was stark. Dr. Karpiak learned that his subjects struggled with fragile support networks and inadequate health care, and that 70 percent of those infected by H.I.V. lived alone, resulting in substantially higher rates of depression. His study, Research on Older Adults With H.I.V., was published in 2006, and he dedicated the rest of his career to building on it. Many Democrats at the conference were still grappling with Tuesdays election results, in which a number of Democrats were wiped out on Long Island, Republicans made unexpected gains in the City Council, and Democratic candidates around the country lost or barely survived even in typically Democratic-leaning states. We dont have our fingers on the pulse of everyday Democrats, Mr. Adams said at a news conference, speaking broadly of the party. Democrats dont want to disband police departments. They want police officers to do their job. Democrats are not against closing Rikers Island, but they also want to close the pipeline that feeds Rikers Island. Still, Mr. Adams and many attendees were more often in a celebratory mood, taking stock of a City Council that will have a majority of women for the first time and embracing a sweeping infrastructure bill passed by the House late Friday. Around 9 p.m. Friday, shortly before the House vote, Mr. Schumer was at a party hosted by Dominican leaders showing off some unusual dance moves and shimmying with Carlina Rivera, one of the candidates for City Council speaker. Earlier in the day, Mr. Adams had insisted to reporters that he was not involved in the speakers race and that it would be decided by the 51 members of the City Council, though nearly everyone at the event was debating whom he might support and there are ways, overtly or implicitly, that he or his allies may influence the process. Im just excited about the makeup of the Council young, energetic, with a lot of ideas, Mr. Adams said, adding that seasoned electeds like Julie Menin, a veteran city commissioner and the citys census director, and Gale A. Brewer, the Manhattan borough president who is joining the Council, would help guide the group. At an event with union leaders the next day in Loiza, a township founded by formerly enslaved Africans, Mr. Adams vowed to fight systemic inequalities and compared himself to the abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Nat Turner. Im coming from the lineage of those who have always pushed back against the system, he said. At a fund-raiser for the Brooklyn Democratic Party, Mr. Adams also defended himself from criticism that he was spending time with the citys elite at the Manhattan nightclub Zero Bond. I have never had much interest in faith versus science debates. They simply did not resonate with me. I believe God created the world, but I never felt the need to nail down the details or method of creation. I went to a fairly conservative evangelical seminary (founded by Billy Graham himself), and even there, I was taught that Genesis 1 was more like a hymn or a poem than a science textbook. I have long been influenced by early church theologians like Augustine of Hippo, who understood the biblical creation account as primarily making theological claims instead of offering a precise explanation of cosmological origins. I was in campus ministry for a decade among scientists who were leaders in their fields. They sought cures for cancer and studied black holes, and were also passionate about their faith. They saw science as a tool, a gift from God that allowed them to help people and explore the glorious wonder of the world. So I mostly ignored the larger cultural conversations that pit science and faith against each other. Then along came Covid-19. It has not been hard for me to trust the medical community and their recommendations during the pandemic because I personally know biomedical researchers whom I trust. I worship each Sunday with physicians. My church prayed for an end to the pandemic and asked God to help scientists in their vaccine research. We never saw a conflict between the work of God and efforts of science. Dr. Michael Rutter, a child psychiatrist whose many transformative studies included one that demonstrated the genetics of autism and another that assessed how poor treatment suffered by Romanian children in orphanages affected them after they were adopted by English families, died on Oct. 23 at his home in Dulwich, a suburb of London. He was 88. The cause was cancer, said Sandra Woodhouse, his personal assistant at Kings College London. In more than a half-century at what is now the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at Kings College, Dr. Rutter was known for his clinical expertise in treating children with mental health problems, and for his ambitious research. In 1973, he was awarded Britains first professorship in child psychiatry. He really created modern child psychiatry by insisting on using data to drive thinking about diagnosis and treatment, Bennett Leventhal, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a phone interview. If you go back to the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the focus of psychiatry came out of psychoanalysis, which was built largely on case vignettes. Thats not bad its what we had but Rutter said we can do better. Dr. Rutter and his research team conducted what Dr. Leventhal said were the first epidemiological studies in child and adolescent psychiatry. They established, in the 1960s and 70s, that psychiatric problems were fairly common among children on the rural Isle of Wight and an inner borough of London, and that the childrens feelings of misery and depression affected how well or poorly they did in school. Endowments allow you to do the things that the state wont pay for, Dr. Price said. Endowments allow you to bring back top-shelf professors and scholars to teach here because we can cut down the number of classes they can teach. Endowments help us fund more students to not drop out of school because they cant come up with $600. Having a deep endowment, she said, is key to do all the things weve been dreaming about over time. She also described it as a safety net. There are some schools for whom, if in Covid, they had to give back all the tuition Im thinking Harvard, Princeton, University of Texas they would still have enough money in their endowment to make it, she said. We wouldnt. Dr. Price said that Prairie View takes those who have been underserved in their early education and turns them into engineers. For the most part, she said, the students there are not trying to choose between Harvard and us. Were taking kids who are choosing between nothing and us, and were saying, I know nobody expected you to go to college. I know you were not well prepared in your high school. Marquinn Booker, a 22-year-old from Houston and the president of Prairie Views student body, gave the welcome remarks at the first virtual gathering for the Toni Morrison writing program. The event featured its inaugural writer-in-residence, the poet Nikki Giovanni. We know the formula of the fairy tale: There is often a youth, sometimes a journey and always a touch of the fantastical to convey a moral or theme. Since we know the classic tropes from our childhood bedtime stories dont deviate from the path, be wary of witches, fear trolls to contemporize a fairy tale is to shade these narrative standbys, coloring in the context of the time, updating the tone and plot to challenge our expectations. In 1867 Henrik Ibsen did just that, putting his own experimental, modernist spin on the Norwegian story of Peer Gynt to create a timeless narrative of self-discovery in the form of a five-act play in verse, no less. In Ibsens Peer Gynt, the title character is a lazy, selfish liar who is a headache to his poor, sick mother. When he goes to a wedding to steal away the bride an old flame only to fall instantly in love with another woman at the wedding, the town turns against him for his troublemaking. So he flees, and his meanderings lead him to odd characters and even odder situations encounters with magical beings, thieves and asylum patients. The playwright Will Eno puts his own stamp on Ibsens version in Gnit, which opened at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn on Sunday night. Portraying the protagonist as a listless young man on a search for self, Eno ends up with a funny story that is myopic in scope a self-aware and sometimes cloyingly precocious thought experiment in individualism and identity. In Gnit, which originally premiered in the Actors Theater of Louisville in 2013, Eno translates Peer Gynt to Peter Gnit (thats pronounced Guh-nit; youre welcome) and consolidates many of the other characters so that a cast of six can represent a whole town. Thats one of the tricky parts of Ibsens text the long list of characters, the insistent verse, the constant setting shifts, the frequent and abrupt dips into the absurd and surreal. Im just worried things will go wrong because all through the pandemic things went wrong, she said. Once Im in Kansas City, I can breathe again after one-and-a-half years. Beatrice Fratini, 24, who lives about an hour from Venice, also expressed hesitation that her reunion with her American fiance would actually happen Monday evening in Washington, D.C. The travel ban had traumatized her, she said. Im excited but Im not going to believe it until Im there, she said. These long separations can put pressure on relationships, said Giulia Polvara, who lives near Milan. Ms. Polvara, 30, is traveling to the United States next Saturday, the first day she has off work after the ban lifts. Mr. Polvara met her special friend as shes calling him, in December 2020 when she was visiting her sister in New York City. They spent one intense week together. She was supposed to visit him in early March 2020, but then the Lombardy region, one of the parts of Europe hit worse by the coronavirus, was on lockdown, meaning she couldnt even leave her town near Lake Como to get to the airport. By the time Italy loosened its restrictions on Lombardy, the United States had banned most visitors from Europe. There is so much building up to this event, she said. Im very happy. Im also scared of being underwhelmed or that he will be underwhelmed. The man she is traveling to see could not come to Europe, because he is an Iranian living in New York City and he was waiting for the United States to issue his green card. The same week that the ban was lifted his green card was issued, she said. In Indianapolis, eviction courts are packed as judges make their way through a monthslong backlog of cases. In Detroit, advocates are rushing to knock on the doors of tenants facing possible eviction. In Gainesville, Fla., landlords are filing evictions at a rapid pace as displaced tenants resort to relatives couches for places to sleep or seek cheaper rents outside the city. It is not the sudden surge of evictions that tenants and advocates feared after the Supreme Court ruled in August that President Bidens extension of the eviction moratorium was unconstitutional. Instead, whats emerging is a more gradual eviction crisis that is increasingly hitting communities across the country, especially those where the distribution of federal rental assistance has been slow, and where tenants have few protections. For months we all used these terms like eviction tsunami and falling off the cliff, said Lee Camp, who represents tenants facing eviction as an attorney with ArchCity Defenders in St. Louis. But those simple terms missed the complexity of the eviction process and the lack of reliable statistics to track it, he said. It was not going to happen overnight. Certainly it would take weeks and months to play out. And even now, experts say, the available numbers dramatically undercount the number of tenants being forced from their homes either through court-ordered evictions or informal ones, especially as rising rents make seeking new tenants increasingly profitable for landlords. The Marines at Abbey Gate were racing against time. The crowd at the gate didnt know it, but the Marines had been told to close it at 6 p.m. That left just 30 minutes for Capt. Geoff Ball, 33, commander of 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines Ghost Company, to pluck out a few more people with that elusive combination of affiliation and luck that would get them onto a plane out of Afghanistan. Just 30 more minutes for Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, to grab another child out of the sewage canal where hundreds jostled. Just 30 minutes for Capt. Andres Rodriguez, 31, to scan the crowd for men who fit the descriptions in dozens of text messages from people in the United States trying to save their interpreters. The plan for the final retrograde of the American war in Afghanistan was clear: On Aug. 26, the British troops stationed at the nearby Baron Hotel would fall back. A few hours later, the 82nd Airborne would take up the Marines forward positions, allowing Ghost Company to fold into the terminal. And, finally, the 82nd Airborne would fall back to the airport, to waiting planes, ending Americas longest war. The Afghans, who had been on their feet for hours, were passing out in the heat from dehydration. They had been coming by bus, car and foot for 10 straight days, assembling near the jersey barriers, or standing knee-deep in the foul-smelling canal near Abbey Gate, a main entryway to the airport. As Kabul was falling to the Taliban in August, the young Afghan Air Force pilot flew his PC-12 turboprop from Afghanistan to neighboring Tajikistan to escape. Like other Afghan officers who fled in dozens of military aircraft to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, the pilot had faith that his American military partners would rescue him. We believed in the U.S. military and government that they would help us and get us out of this situation, said the pilot, a lieutenant, who, like other pilots in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security concerns. The lieutenant is among 143 Afghan pilots and crew members now detained by the Tajik authorities. They are English speakers trained by the U.S. Air Force, and they are counting on the American government or military to evacuate them, and also to help evacuate their families back home in Afghanistan. Several thousand other Afghan Air Force pilots and crew members are in hiding in Afghanistan, feeling abandoned by the U.S. military, their longtime combat ally. They say they and their families are at risk of being hunted down and killed by the Taliban. [Follow live updates on the meeting between President Biden and Chinas leader, Xi Jinping.] The glowing image of Chinas top leader, Xi Jinping, greets visitors to museum exhibitions celebrating the countrys decades of growth. Communist Party biographers have worshipfully chronicled his rise, though he has given no hint of retiring. The partys newest official history devotes over a quarter of its 531 pages to his nine years in power. No Chinese leader in recent times has been more fixated than Mr. Xi on history and his place in it, and as he approaches a crucial juncture in his rule, that preoccupation with the past is now central to his political agenda. A high-level meeting opening in Beijing on Monday will issue a resolution officially reassessing the partys 100-year history that is likely to cement his status as an epoch-making leader alongside Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. While ostensibly about historical issues, the Central Committees resolution practically holy writ for officials will shape Chinas politics and society for decades to come. The touchstone document on the partys past, only the third of its kind, is sure to become the focus of an intense indoctrination campaign. It will dictate how the authorities teach Chinas modern history in textbooks, films, television shows and classrooms. It will embolden censors and police officers applying sharpened laws against any who mock, or even question, the communist cause and its martyrs. Even in China, where the partys power is all but absolute, it will remind officials and citizens that Mr. Xi is defining their times, and demanding their loyalty. Bill Richardson, the American ex-diplomat, has made numerous trips to Myanmar since the 1990s. He has negotiated with the generals who ruled it, then and now. He has been an ally and later a critic of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, its most popular politician, who is once again a prisoner of the army. Mr. Richardsons latest visit, last week, made him the most prominent Western figure to meet with Myanmars generals since they overthrew Ms. Aung San Suu Kyis elected civilian government in February. In an interview on Saturday, his first since the trip, he said that he had met with the juntas leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, and other officials to try to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Myanmar, including Covid vaccines. On the whole, our discussions were positive and they were productive, Mr. Richardson said by telephone. But some rights activists have been scathing in their criticism of his visit, saying that he had helped the junta by meeting with its leaders as though they were legitimate rulers. The state-run media in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, published a photograph of Mr. Richardson and General Min Aung Hlaing together in a grand hall, Mr. Richardson in a chair and the general perched on an ornate, golden sofa. PARIS The absolute secrecy of confession is central to the Roman Catholic faith. What is said in confession is between a penitent and God, the priest a mediator. Any priest who breaks that seal can face excommunication under church laws that the Vatican places above all others. But what happens when what is confessed is a violation of the laws of the state? It is an issue that has vexed attempts to address the sexual abuse cases that have roiled the church in any number of countries, but one that has emerged as especially charged in France, where the state long ago stripped the Catholic Church of its pre-eminence. A devastating church-ordered report issued in October by an independent commission on sexual abuse inside the French Catholic Church found that the sacrament of confession itself, in rare instances, had been used to cover up abuse cases. Some victims wishing to report past abuses or expose active abusive priests were told to speak about it during confession, effectively suppressing their revelations and turning the sacrament into a weapon of silence, said Laetitia Atlani-Duault, a member of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church, which wrote the report. These days, Korean culture suffuses Sakhalin, a region of about 500,000. You can find Korean restaurants across the island, and kimchi at roadside shops. The Presbyterian Church is run by a South Korean pastor and feels like the only place in Russia a nation of Covid skeptics where everyone wears masks indoors. The public arts school has a Korean department where some of the performances are based on North Korean songbooks, but with altered lyrics. Sometimes theres just a really beautiful melody, and we dont tell the kids that its about the Great Leader, said Yulia Sin, who runs the Korean department. We can choose what we take from North Korea and what we take from South Korea, and create something new. But now the drama of families separated by emigration and repatriation has returned, magnified by coronavirus border closures. The new law allows younger Sakhalin Koreans to move to South Korea if they are caring for a first-generation returnee. But restrictions remain: only one person, along with their spouse, can qualify as someones caretaker, forcing siblings to negotiate who among them will move, and barring their grown children from coming along. Many people are really arguing, quarreling because of this, said Sergei Li, 33, a bank employee who volunteers distributing Korean groceries to older members of the diaspora, paid for in part by a South Korean foundation. At least 10 people were killed and hundreds more were injured at a concert in Houston after a large crowd began pushing toward the front of the stage during a performance by the hometown rapper Travis Scott. The concert was part of the Astroworld music festival, a two-day event that began on Nov. 5. About 50,000 people were assembled there when the injuries occurred, according to the Houston Fire Department. It appeared to be one of the deadliest crowd-control disasters at a concert in the United States in many years, recalling the 1979 crush outside the doors of a show by the Who in Cincinnati that left 11 people dead and stunned the nation. Heres what we know so far. The cause of the surge remains under investigation. It was still unclear what prompted the crowd to surge forward, but witnesses described a chaotic scene before and during the concert, with many people in the back trying to rush to the front. One concertgoer, Neema Djavadzadeh, said the event was hectic from the beginning. After Yashiros death, the District of Columbia Superior Court vindicated Moons church and his widow, and all the others who stood with them. A judge, deciding whether Preston Moon and his fellow board members breached their fiduciary duties while taking control of Unification Church International, found that they did: first, by rewriting its articles of incorporation to eliminate any obligation to the Unification Church, and second, by engaging in asset transfers contrary to its original corporate mission. A more punishing analysis eventually followed. In a nearly 100-page order issued last December, the court found that when Sun Myung Moon became disenchanted with Preston, Preston and his allies on the board proceeded to pillage the companys assets and did it in a way that was secretive, out of the bounds of any kind of review process and not in the best interests of the corporation. In particular, it identified an insidious plan in which the directors, some of whom did not understand basic aspects of what was happening, agreed to irrevocably transfer $470 million in Korean properties and other assets to a Swiss foundation. The foundation supported Prestons own projects. (Lawyers for Unification Church International say the transfer was a pragmatic financial decision that benefited the movement.) The court determined that the directors could never be trusted to act in the corporations interests. So it ordered that Preston and three co-defendants be removed from Unification Church Internationals board and replaced with directors chosen in consultation with Moons church. They are also jointly liable to make the corporation whole by personally repaying more than $530 million, plus interest. The order, which has been stayed while the defendants pursue an appeal, was stunning not only because it trumpeted the righteousness of a religion long viewed with suspicion, and not only because it made Preston out to be a villain in the age-old tale of a struggle for power and money. It answered, unambiguously, the question of how Sun Myung Moons faith was related to True World Foods and his movements other principal American business holdings. And the answer was: The businesses were to be owned and operated for the sake of the church, because that obligation had been there from the start. The pioneers understanding that they had always been building something for Moon that mattered. History mattered. To contradict it was not only insidious; it was illegal. Fostering innovation in Iceland for the digital era Iceland is an innovative country, but has untapped innovation potential. Strengthening innovation, especially in the ICT area, is crucial for strong productivity growth and performance in an increasingly digitalised world, as well as a sustained recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Ensuring more effective public support for business R&D is important. The R&D tax incentive scheme is generous by international comparison, but take-up has been low and many smaller firms have not been inclined to innovate. Following increased support, outcomes need to be monitored regularly. Adopting new technologies is also essential for stronger innovation outcomes. Competition-friendly framework conditions are key to sharpening firms incentives to adopt advanced technologies. The public sector too could become more digitalised. The education system needs to provide relevant skills. Participation of adult workers, especially the less educated, in re-skilling and up-skilling programmes should increase further. At the same time, business and universities need to collaborate more to maximise knowledge flows, with important benefits for innovation and society. In series:OECD Economics Department Working Papersview more titles A 20-year-old man has spoken of how he is lucky to be alive after falling 20 feet from an apartment complex in the Midlands last weekend. Slovakian national Robert Makula (pictured) was rushed to hospital after falling from the second floor of a building along Great Water Street in Longford. He was taken by ambulance to Mullingars Midland Regional Hospital where he spent two nights undergoing a range of tests and medical examinations before being discharged on Sunday. In a miraculous chain of events, Robert said he slipped after attempting to climb through an upstairs window after finding himself locked out. I dont know (what happened), said Robert, in an exclusive interview with the Longford Leader on Monday. I cant remember anything, I was in a coma. His girlfriend Michaela raised the alarm after finding a stricken Robert lying on the floor at the rear of the complex. I looked down and he was just on the floor and couldnt get up so I ran to the next door neighbour, she said. Gardai and emergency services attended the scene and have since ruled out any foul play or criminal element being involved in the lead up to the incident. A three month sentence in the Midlands Prison was handed down to a man who assaulted a juvenile in Kilcormac, at last week's sitting of Tullamore District Court. On April 15, 2021, Pat Craven, Main Street, Kilcormac had assaulted the victim by punching him a number of times in the face. He had also answered his door with a knife on the same date. Solicitor for the defendant, Donal Farrelly said the Injured party had kicked Mr Craven's door a number of times and shouted at him. He said Mr Craven was taking care of his elderly father who is 75. Judge Catherine Staines said on December 11, 2019 she had given Mr Craven a ten month suspended sentence for a section 3 assault. Imposing three months she said under no circumstances should anyone be punched in the head, especially a juvenile. She told Mr Farrelly that if Mr Craven has a problem with some people he should go to the gardai. She gave leave to appeal the sentence. A man who stole money from a person with an intellectual disability appeared by video link from Cloverhill prison where he is on remand for another offence, at Tullamore District Court. In his evidence to last week's district court, Sgt James O'Sullivan said that on September 8 last, Brendan Sherlock (28) 2, Hartley Cross, Lavender Lodge, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Leitrim, approached a man in Tullamore town park. He asked him for money. The man who has an intellectual disability handed him 100. On September 9 2021 at Durrow Lane, Tullamore, Mr Sherlock approached the same man and this time he handed him 25. On August 3, at 3pm on Patrick Street, Tullamore, he stole 10 from a female with an intellectual disability, taking the money from her purse. Mr Sherlock was identified and the money found on him. On August 22 the defendant stole a sandwich and drink worth 5 from Leavy's Centra, Henry Street, Tullamore. The property was not recovered. On August 7, 2021 he stole a jumper worth 10 from Lidl, Main Street. Brendan Sherlock, had 119 previous convictions and is currently on remand at Cloverhill Prison. Solicitor Donal Farrelly said Mr Sherlock was homeless at the time of the offences. He asked Judge Staines not to sentence him to the Midlands Prison as there were death threats against him at the prison. He asked the judge to postpone sentencing for two weeks as he is due to appear at Longford court on another charge and he believes he will be sentenced to Castlerea Prison. Mr Farrelly said Brendan Sherlock had been a heroin addict for a number of years and was now on a methadone programme. He is from Trim and he hopes to go back to where he came from. Judge Staines described the offence as most serious especially since it involved someone with an intellectual disability. She put sentencing back for three weeks and directed that 400 be paid to the victim from the court poor box. She adjourned the case to November 17 for sentencing. HOUSTON (AP) Investigators Sunday worked to determine how eight people died in a crush of fans at a Houston music festival, as families mourned the dead and concertgoers recounted the horror and confusion of being trapped in the crowd. Authorities planned to use videos, witness interviews and a review of concert procedures to figure out what went wrong Friday night during a performance by rapper Travis Scott. The tragedy unfolded when the crowd rushed the stage, squeezing people so tightly they couldn't breathe. Billy Nasser, 24, who had traveled from Indianapolis to attend the concert, said about 15 minutes into Scotts set, things got really crazy and people began crushing one another. He said he was picking people up and trying to drag them out. Nasser said he found a concertgoer on the ground. I picked him up. People were stepping on him. People were like stomping, and I picked his head up and I looked at his eyes, and his eyes were just white, rolled back to the back of his head, he said. Over the weekend, a makeshift memorial of flowers, votive candles, condolence notes and T-shirts took shape outside at NRG Park. Michael Suarez, 26, visited the growing memorial after the concert. Its very devastating. No one wants to see or hear people dying at a festival," Suarez said. "We were here to have a good time a great time and its devastating to hear someone lost their lives. The dead, according to friends and family members, included a 14-year-old high school student; a 16-year-old girl who loved dancing; and a 21-year-old engineering student at the University of Dayton. The youngest was 14, the oldest 27. Houston officials did not immediately release the victims' names or the cause of death, but family and friends began to name their loved ones and tell their stories Sunday. Thirteen people remained hospitalized Sunday. Their conditions were not disclosed. Over 300 people were treated at a field hospital at the concert. City officials said they were in the early stages of investigating what caused the pandemonium at the sold-out Astroworld festival, an event founded by Scott. About 50,000 people were there. Authorities said that among other things, they will look at how the area around the stage was designed. Julio Patino, of Naperville, Illinois, who was in London on business when he got a middle-of-the-night call informing him his 21-year-old son Franco was dead, said he had a lot of questions about what happened. These concerts should be controlled," Patino said. If they dont know how to do that, they should have canceled the concert right then, when they noticed there was an overcrowd. He added: They should not wait until they see people laying down on the floor, lifeless. Steven Adelman, vice president of the industry group Event Safety Alliance, which was formed after the collapse of a stage at the Indiana State Fair in 2011 killed seven people, helped write industry guidelines widely used today. He said investigators will examine the design of the safety barriers and whether they correctly directed crowds or contributed to the crush of spectators. He said, too, that authorities will look at whether something incited the crowd besides Scott taking the stage. Adelman said another question is whether there was enough security there, noting there is a nationwide shortage of people willing to take low-wage, part-time security gigs. Security obviously was unable to stop people. Optically, thats really bad-looking, he said. But as for what it tells us, its too early to say. Contemporary Services Corp., headquartered in Los Angeles, was responsible for security staff at the festival, according to county records in Texas. Representatives for the company which advertises online as being recognized worldwide as the pioneer, expert and only employee owned company in the crowd management field did not immediately respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment. Houston police and fire department officials said their investigation will include reviewing video taken by concert promoter Live Nation, as well as dozens of clips from people at the show. Officials also planned to review the events security plan and various permits issued to organizers to see whether they were properly followed. In addition, investigators planned to speak with Live Nation representatives, Scott and concertgoers. Izabella Ramirez of Texas City was celebrating her 21st birthday and said that once Scott came on stage, no one could move. Everybody was squishing in, and people were trying to move themselves to the front. You couldnt even lift up your arms, Ramirez said. Ramirez said a security guard pulled her over the barricade, while her date, Jason Rodriguez, lifted her up. Everyone was yelling for different things. They were either yelling for Travis or they were yelling for help, Rodriguez said. On video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: Security, somebody help real quick. There is a long history of similar catastrophes at concerts, sporting events and even religious events. In 1979, 11 people were killed as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum to see a concert by The Who. Other past crowd catastrophes include the deaths of 97 people at a soccer match in Hillsborough Stadium in 1989 in Sheffield, England, and numerous disasters connected with the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Experts who have studied deaths caused by crowd surges say they are often a result of too many people packed into too small a space. Also Sunday, at least two of the first of many expected lawsuits were filed on behalf of a man injured in the crush of people in state court in Houston. Attorneys for Manuel Souza sued Scott, Live Nation and others, saying they were responsible. Another lawsuit was filed on behalf of Noah Gutierrez by Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer who has represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people killed by police. In a tweet posted Saturday, Scott said he was absolutely devastated by what took place." He pledged to work together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need. ___ Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Randall Chase in Dover, Delaware; Kristin M. Hall in Nashville and Bob Christie in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report. ___ A previous version of this story was corrected to show Travis Scott is 30, not 29. TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) The Palestinians on Sunday slammed Israel for rejecting the promised reopening of the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, a move that would restore Washington's main diplomatic mission for the Palestinians in the contested city. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said late Saturday there was no room in Jerusalem for another American mission. The Trump administration shuttered the U.S. Jerusalem consulate, an office that for years served as the de facto embassy to the Palestinians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has pledged to reopen it, a move that Israel says would challenge its sovereignty over the city. The reopening could help mend U.S. ties with the Palestinians ruptured under Trump. In a statement, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it views the reopening of the consulate as part of the international community's commitments to ending Israel's decades-long occupation of territories the Palestinians seek for their future state. East Jerusalem is an inseparable part of the occupied Palestinian territory and is the capital of the state of Palestine. Israel, as the occupying power, does not have the right to veto the U.S. administrations decision, the statement said. Asked about the consulate at a press conference, Bennett repeated Israel's position on Jerusalem. There's no room for another American consulate in Jerusalem, he said. Jerusalem is the capital of one state and that's the state of Israel. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid suggested the consulate could instead be opened in the Palestinian administrative center in Ramallah, West Bank. The Palestinians reject the idea because it would undermine their claims to Jerusalem. Israel views Jerusalem as its eternal, undivided capital. The Palestinians seek the eastern part of the city, which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed, as capital of their hoped-for state. The consulate is emerging as another test between Bennett's government and the Biden administration, which has moved to restore traditional U.S. foreign policy toward Israel and the Palestinians after the Trump White House largely sided with Israel on issues related to the conflict. Trump had downgraded the consulate's operations and placed them under his ambassador to Israel when he moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city in 2018. The embassy move infuriated the Palestinians and led them to sever most ties with the Trump administration. Blinken has not provided a firm date for the reopening and U.S. officials have implied that Israeli resistance to the move could act as a hindrance. As Host of 'SNL,' Kieran Culkin Is Exactly As Good As You Expected He'd Be By Dustin Rowles | TV | November 7, 2021 | Cold Open Cecily Strongs Jeanine Pirro is back, and shes interviewing Aaron Rodgers (Pete Davidson). She also interviews Glenn Youngkin (Alex Moffat) about CRT, which he doesnt know anything about, except that it got him elected. James Austin Johnson who really does have a spectacular Trump impression shows up to offer his unelicited support to Youngkin. I dont care how good the impression is, though, Id really rather never see Trump impersonator or otherwise on my television screen again. Makes me nauseous. (Watch Here) (Score: 5 out of 10) Kieran Culkin Culkin shows an old clip of him on the show when Macauley hosted, and its hilarious. Its a short but charming monologue. Hes great (and if you watch it, note that during the sign-off, they picked up Kieran). (Score: 7.5 out of 10) Spectrum Cable Customer Support Culkin plays a guy trying to cancel his cable, and hes given the run-around, and as absurd as it is, it feels very real. Too real. This skit is raising my blood pressure. (Score: 6 out of 10) Car Heist A team tries to pull off the theft of a Lamborghini, but the driver cant, uh, drive a stick. (Score: 6.5 out of 10) The Dione Warwick Talk Show Warwick interviews Miley Cyrus, Jason Mraz (Culkin), the actual Ed Sheeran, Post Malone, and the actual goddamn Dionne Warwick. What a goddamn delight. Wonderful. (Score: 8.5 out of 10) Mens Room We hear the interior monologue of co-workers (Bowen Yang, Chris Redd, Alex Moffat, Andrew Dismukes, and Kieran Culkin) standing next to each other at the urinals trying to engage in awkward small talk. Tracy Morgan makes a perfect cameo appearance, too, as the guy hanging out in the stall. (Score: 7.5 out of 10) Kentucky Derby Kieran Culkin plays a guy who rides a horse like a skateboard and sings a 90s pop-punk song about it. It feels like a Kyle Mooney skit, and its stupid as hell, but also kind of great. Its also the Mat skit of the week. Sorry, Mat! (Score: 6.5 out of 10) Weekend Update Che and Jost are low-energy tonight, and the jokes are not great. Even the groaners are lazy. Kenan appears as Ice Cube to talk about losing a movie over a vaccine mandate, but mostly to talk about all the other movies he cant make because of it (Mamma Mia Cube?). Cecily Strong plays a character named Goober the Clown who had an abortion when she was 23. There are so many good skits otherwise tonight that this may be a first: Im not going to embed the Update vids (Watch here, here, and here), but Im going to embed Goober the Clown because its fantastic. (Score: 4 out of 10, except for Goober, which is an 8 out of 10) Wake Up Rhode Island The weatherman is so preoccupied with his Turkey costume and rap that he missed a major, life-threatening Noreaster, and then it gets hilariously awkward with all the turkey graphics. (Score: 6.5 out of 10) Please Dont Destroy Im not so sure about these guys. The whole skit is about trying to repair a relationship after a break-up but the guys cant stop themselves from cursing the ex out on the phone. Eh. (Watch Here) (Score: 4.5 out of 10) 'Eternals' Review: Marvel's Reach Finally Exceeds Its Grasp | 5 Shows After Dark: 'Dexter: New Blood' Premiere Showtime, 'Yellowstone' Fourth Season Premiere Paramount Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba. Header Image Source: NBC New York, US (PANA) - The UN chief has joined the whole UN System in Sierra Leone in mourning the victims of a fuel tanker collision on Friday night in the capital Freetown, that reportedly left at least 98 people dead, and many more injured Photo: (Photo : Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Some residents in Los Angeles are getting a substantial windfall of $1,000 every month as the city rolls out its new program, BIG:LEAP, or Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot. Under this initiative, 3,000 households could benefit from receiving a basic income from the government, provided that they send in their application before the November 7 deadline. Mayor Eric Garcetti said that BIG:LEAP is meant to help families struggling to make ends meet. "Its name perfectly captures what we're doing here in L.A. because we're taking a big leap forward in our generational fight to end poverty," the mayor said. Read Also: Child Tax Credit: Senator Manchin Wants Fewer Families, Only 'Working Poor' to Get Payments Qualifications for Getting the Basic Income Under the BIG:LEAP program, priority will be given to income-earners above 18 years old, living in Los Angeles, and having at least one dependent child. They must also have a yearly income below the federal poverty line. According to NBC Los Angeles, a family of four below the poverty line has an estimated annual income of $26,000. However, not everyone who applies and qualifies for the basic income program could be given the payment because the beneficiaries will be chosen at random. The budget for this pilot rollout is good for $40 million or 3,000 families only. This rollout is the second biggest basic income benefit after Chicago, that is distributing $500 a month to 5,000 families. City Councilman Curren Price of District 9 is behind the basic income initiative to help struggling households, especially during the pandemic. Price said that the public health crisis has only worsened the racial wealth gap in Los Angeles. In his district alone, those living in poverty have increased by 12 percent; thus, this pilot will also prioritize them. Price said that his district has the most marginalized communities with the highest rates of school dropouts. Applications for BIG:LEAP are accepted through the basic income online portal or in-person hubs like the Trade-Tech College, Vermont Square Branch Library, All Peoples Community Center, Ascot Branch Library, and the Junipero Serra Branch Library. Price said they launched the pop-up application hubs to do away with chaos and frustration that happened with other rollouts, such as the COVID-19 vaccines. Los Angeles residents who may have more questions about the initiative can contact Price's office at (323) 846-2651. Guaranteed Basic Income Won't Be Repaid There is no regulation on how families should spend their monthly guaranteed basic income, and there is no need to repay this incentive during tax season. According to the official site, applicants will not be asked how they plan to spend the money, whether for paying utility bills or rent, buying food, buying new tires for their car, or their savings. If the pilot program succeeds, a bigger and more extensive basic income rollout may follow in the next few years. The mayor said this would be a small and steady investment in the residents, eventually providing stability for many households. Related Article: Chicago Basic Income Program Launched for Families to Receive $500 Monthly Photo: (Photo : BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images) Moms, dads, and baby carers in the U.S. are going to use Uber a lot from now on as the popular ride-sharing, and food delivery app has launched its newest baby -- a baby and kids essentials delivery service in partnership with popular brands dedicated to children's products. In a statement from Uber, the company revealed that its Uber Eats section for mobile phones has a new vertical for baby and kids essentials. Parents can tap on their orders, pay for the purchase, and wait for the delivery to arrive. Aside from necessities like diapers and baby food, the Uber baby and kids essentials section also has items like toddler dishes and placemats, baby thermometers, bedding items, and more. In the initial launch on November 1, Uber has partnered with brands like The Honest Company, Lalo, Little Spoon, Nyssa, Yumi, and over 750 products from the popular home store Bed Bath & Beyond, which has its BuyBuy Baby products. Rafeh Masood, the chief digital and interim chief brand officer of Bed Bath & Beyond, said that they are excited about this Uber partnership as they will reach new and more customers. "We look forward to having their innovative services market and deliver products from Bed Bath & Beyond and BuyBuy Baby right to customers' doorsteps," Masood said. Uber users can easily find the baby and kids essential section by looking at the "Baby" category or searching for the baby emoji on the app. They will have to choose the baby hub option for the delivery or manually set a pick-up order if needed. Read Also: Salesforce Willing to Relocate Dallas Employees and Their Families Over Texas Abortion Law Clamor from Parents Becky Katz Davis, Uber's spokesperson, said that they launched the services for babies and kids because of a demand from their customers, who are parents. Davis said that as a new mother herself, she had situations where her family urgently needed a diaper or pacifier and did not have time to run to the store or wait for delivery for days. The baby hub is undoubtedly an answer for busy and overwhelmed parents and caregivers who now have the convenience of shopping for baby needs with just the tap of a button. Most Americans with mobile phones are also used to Uber services, so using the app will not be challenging as the process is the same for the baby hub. Communities in Need to Also Benefit Following the launch, Uber will also work with Baby2Baby to deliver $200,0000-worth of donations to communities in need. The ride-sharing app will also offer rides for free to baby charity workers to help transport and distribute the products. Baby2Baby is a non-profit corporation that provides diapers, clothes, and other kids' items in the Los Angeles area. Among its celebrity supporters are Jessica Alba, actress and CEO of The Honest Company, actresses Jenna Dewan and Olivia Munn, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The Uber tie-up comes as The Honest Company and Baby2Baby have plans to donate over 10 million products across the U.S. by the end of 2022 to celebrate the latter's 10th anniversary. Alba said that they are kickstarting this community drive this holiday season, including bundle options for donations from their customers. Every bundle purchased will be coursed through the charity. Related Article: Indiana City Entices New Families to Move With Free Babysitting Grandparents Photo: (Photo : RAUL ARBOLEDA/AFP via Getty Images) A start-up company, consisting of mostly female scientists, is finding ways to turn the beneficial properties of a mother's breast milk into milk that everyone can enjoy and drink. Based in Israel, Maolac and its food scientists are using the power of artificial intelligence to replicate the health-boosting properties of colostrum found in breast milk. The company led by mom Maya Ashkenazi saw the potential of developing milk with loads of functional proteins that could be accessible for all, "not just for babies." Ashkenazi said that she saw the market potential of such a product, especially for the health-conscious. Their initial development suggests that Maolac breast milk for all could be out in the market by 2023. Read Also: Potato Milk: New Dairy Milk Alternative Might Be a Hit With Moms Harnessing Cow Colostrum With the help of artificial intelligence, Ashkenazi and her team have initially mapped out the composition of a mother's breast milk to break down its over 1,500 active proteins. Combining what the artificial intelligence platform has derived, the team then upcycled the colostrum in cows. Around five billion bovine colostrum is discarded during cow's milk production every year, and that raw material could be the "novel ingredient" for Maolac. According to the Maolac CEO, human colostrum and bovine colostrum have "more than 400 proteins that are similar." According to Hearthy Foods, by itself, the health benefits of bovine colostrum, also known as "first milk," are actually used in many supplements for adults, and these are either dried, packaged, and stored as pills or powder. Just like mother's breast milk, this contains fats, enzymes, growth hormones, and other vitamins and minerals healthier than regular cows' milk. The nutrients in bovine colostrum may also help fight diseases, boost immunities, and facilitate body repair and infection treatment. But by using bioinformatics to replicate human colostrum using bovine colostrum, Maolac hopes to deliver a product that may also improve a person's quality and longevity of life. During its laboratory work and in-vitro cell culture experiment, the food scientists enriched the bovine colostrum with crucial anti-inflammatory proteins derived from breast milk proteins. Once enhanced in further experiments, the milk could help with the recovery of athletes or older people suffering from muscle pains due to inflammation. Breast Milk Mixed in Cereals, Coffee The news comes as actor KJ Apa shared that he uses his wife's breast milk for his morning coffee. Kim Kardashian West also tried to use her sister Kourtney's breast milk to manage her psoriasis. Actress Amber Tamblyn once said that breast milk tastes so sweet that it could be used for desserts. Hollywood star Jennifer Aniston also said that breast milk might be the only milk that adults could drink without feeling guilty. Amid this COVID-19 pandemic, moms have been feeding their kids cereal filled with breast milk to reap the benefits of the antibodies in vaccinated mothers. Grassroots breastfeeding advocacy groups are also encouraging giving breast milk to kids older than two years old, so they could continue to gain from its nutritional benefits. Related Article: Breast Milk of Vaccinated Moms Have High COVID-19 Antibodies: Study Photo: (Photo : Handout/DNCC via Getty Images) A California history teacher has been the subject of a disciplinary investigation after her rant about Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden's son, and other conspiracy theories were caught on camera by one of her students. Officials at the Anacapa Middle School in Ventura told CBS Los Angeles that the history teacher has been under a progressive discipline policy, in accordance with the teacher's union, for her recorded politically-charged statements in class. Mom Sarah Silikula said that it was her son who took the video upon her instructions. Silikula revealed to CBS Los Angeles that her son, who is in 8th grade, had expressed discomfort about his teacher's lessons, so the mother told him to videotape the class. Read Also: Celebrated Florida Teacher of the Year Arrested for Child Abuse After Allegedly Slapping a Student Hunter Biden, Child Pornography and Stolen Babies In the video, the teacher was heard telling her class that Biden's son has been funneling money from his illegal deals with China and Ukraine. The teacher also believed that Hunter was into child pornography and had been having sexual relations with his own niece. The teacher also told her students that newborn babies in hospitals are being stolen from unvaccinated parents. Silikula said that her son came home very upset after school and told her that he would not get any vaccine of any kind anymore. The mother reviewed the video taken by her son and watched the teacher going on about the 2020 presidential elections as well, where she implied that Donald Trump is still the president. A teacher's assistant was heard on the video asking the history teacher to hold off political discussions with the kids. Most of the teacher's rants were the same conspiracy theories proliferated by QAnon, a far-right movement. In August, a dad killed his children because he believed the QAnon conspiracy theories that his kids had serpent DNA and could turn into monsters. Silikula said her son is quite "confused and damaged" by what he learned in history class since teachers are supposed to "know everything." The mother has also grown worried because her son no longer trusts his parents. Alerting the School Silikula has refused to send her son to school, but she alerted Anacapa Middle School of the video. Mayra Vega Manriquez, the school principal, informed her that their investigations into the unnamed teacher, who has not yet been charged with any crime, will take at least two weeks. However, when Silikula did not hear back from the school authorities, she went public with what happened in her son's class, saying it upsets her that other parents are not aware that this has been going on in school. Meanwhile, Manriquez noted that the entire class is now under a different history teacher, but Silikula believes this action is not enough. "Whatever anybody's political belief is, I respect. It's their belief," the mother said. "Don't impose it on my child who I trusted in your care." Related Article: Matthew Coleman: Friend Confirmed Dad Who Killed His Kids Believed in Conspiracy Theories Photo: (Photo : Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Nestle, Hershey, and Mars, as well as four other large cocoa companies, have been named in a new lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., by eight victims who said that that they were taken from their home in Mali to work in the Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) cocoa plantations. The lawsuit claimed that chocolate giants Nestle, Hershey, Mars, Cargill, Olam, Mondelez, and Barry Callebaut formed a venture to allow their companies to "continue benefitting from cheap cocoa harvested by forced child labor" that goes to the supply chain around the world. About 40 percent of the global cocoa supply comes from Cote D'Ivoire, and the complainants' lawyers argued that, despite these companies' commitment to fighting child labor, they continue to profit from the decades-long practice. International Rights Advocates lawyer Terence Collingsworth, representing the complainants, told The Independent that these big companies are telling the public that they have been working with the farmers by providing money for their children's school needs so they won't have to go into child labor. However, these same companies are also saying that they are "just buying chocolate" and have no involvement in what's going on in the supply chains. Read Also: Oregon McDonald's Hiring 14 and 15-Year-Old Workers Due To Unprecedented Staffing Issue Harsh Labor Conditions According to the court documents filed in September, the complainants were below 16 years old when they were trafficked from Mali a few years ago. They detailed their harsh working conditions, where they had to endure insect bites, incur wounds from accidents using the machete, or work without getting paid for many months. The lawyers said that Nestle, Hershey, Mars, and the other companies should have been aware of these working conditions under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorisation Act (TVPRA) of 2017. Instead, the companies have been "collaborating" with the cocoa production industry to enable child slavery. The chocolate companies, however, denied any wrongdoing and said that the case had no legal merits. While Mars refused to comment since the case is pending in court, a spokesperson for Nestle said that they have been working hard to prevent child labor and are in partnership with various governments and NGOs in tackling this issue. In 2001, many chocolate companies worldwide pledged to get rid of child labor in the cocoa industry by signing the Harken-Engel Protocol or the Cocoa Protocol. However, nearly two decades after the pact, the U.S. Department of Labor came up with a report that revealed 1.56 million cocoa farmers in West Africa are kids working in dangerous conditions. Victory for Chocolate Companies The new lawsuit comes just as the chocolate companies claimed victory over another case that stated Nestle and Cargill are not going to be responsible for the kids who have been working at Cote D'Ivoire. The Supreme Court justices voted eight to one against the allegations that Nestle and Cargill made "major operational decisions" about child labor on U.S. soil. The complainants lost this case because they failed to establish that child labor happened in the American companies even if the practice was still done in Cote D'Ivoire, among the cocoa farming industry. The courts also dismissed a lawsuit citing the Alien Tort Statute as this situation does not apply to this case. Related Article: Politician Gets Rebuked for Child Labor Comments, Saying Kids Can Work if They Can Win Olympic Medals Some Communities in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality and Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region have identified limited health facilities for the management of mental health conditions as one of the causes of increased depression and hypertension. The communities also called for the management of other Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), especially hypertension at the Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) levels within the Districts. The views were contained in a formative qualitative study conducted by the Navrongo Health Research Centre (NHRC) to understand the management of NCDs in 13 communities across the two Districts at the CHPS level. The study showed that Community Health Officers (CHOs) and NCDs checked the Blood Pressures (BPs) of the aged and also monitored medications taken by hypertensive and depressed patients in the communities. Madam Maria Anyorikeya, a Senior Research Officer at the NHRC, who disclosed this in an interview with journalists from the African Media and Malaria Research Network (AMMREN), said the care was limited and clients had to travel far to access health care from higher facilities. She said the few Communities Mental Health Officers were overwhelmed with the large client to provider ratio in the provision of mental health services. CHOs and Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) said they could provide more management for hypertension and depression at the CHPS level when given the needed training, logistics and supervision. Madam Anyorikeya, who is also the Coordinator for the project, Adopting the World Health Organisations (WHO) Cardiovascular Risk Management package into the Ghanaian CHPS, said the project was a one-year collaboration between NHRC and the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai in the USA. She said the aim of the project was to improve the management of NCDs at the CHPS level in Ghana, adding that the formative study gathered the views of community members and health workers at the CHPS and district levels on managing depression and hypertension, and the challenges they encountered. From the qualitative interviews, community members expressed the gap in the management of depression and hypertension and the urgent need for such services at the community level. The Project Coordinator said findings from the formative study would guide the implementation of a pilot study to test the feasibility of managing depression and hypertension at the CHPS level using supervised CHOs and CHVs. Madam Irene Kuwolamo, a Health Research Officer at the NHRC, also told the journalists that the Centre was implementing a project dubbed It takes a village, to test an intervention to encourage expectant mothers and their families to seek modern Ante-Natal Care (ANC) services. She said the project was implemented in five healthcare facilities in the Bolgatanga Municipality, Talensi, Tempane and Garu Districts with Field Officers stationed in selected facilities in the districts to enroll the expectant mothers on to the project. Madam Kuwolamo said the 18-month project was a partnership between the NHRC, the University of Ghana and the University of Berkeley in the United States of America (USA), which started in June 2021 and was expected to end by December 2022. She said per the WHOs recommendations, pregnant women were expected to start ANC early and receive at least a minimum of four Ante-Natal visits, noting that many pregnant women in Ghana still started late, failed to meet the recommendations which sometimes affected them and led to negative outcomes. Madam Kuwolamo attributed some of the factors of the delay to traditional beliefs, influences from family relations and lack of motivation for the expectant mothers from both the community and family. She said the NHRC had initiated community durbars, phone calls and home visits as interventions to encourage more pregnant women to attend ANC. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Agbozome Police Station has intercepted a consignment believed to be 296 slabs of Tesla- Bitcoin (Cocaine) worth about $1.5m from some suspected barons, according to intelligence reports. In a related development a few days ago, a similar consignment was impounded by the Agbozome Police Station where the suspect, Nigerian Adebayor Adesa Ako has since been in police custody, assisting police with investigations. A deep throat source at the Agbozome Police Station revealed that its Drug, Law and Enforcement Unit has taken delivery of the substance believed to have moved from the Tema Harbour. Indications were that the person entrusted with the consignment fled upon arrival in the country, heading towards the Ghana-Togo highway after sensing danger abandoned the consignment in an unused building at Agbozome. The source said, "It was the Agbozome Police that impounded the parcels upon a tip-off. We are currently investigating those behind it and later refer it to the Ho Regional Headquarters for further investigations." Source: Kofi Aduonum Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has imposed sanctions against individuals and groups who have been identified as obstructing the move by the bloc to restore democratic rule to Mali. The sanctions, which include travel bans and freeze of financial assets, apply to the entire members of the transitional authorities and transition institutions, as well as members of their families. The Authority in a Communique issued after its extraordinary meeting in Accra on Sunday said the sanctions were as a result of the inability of the Malian authorities to keep to the February 27, 2022 deadline for elections. It thus called on the African Union, the European Union, the United Nations, bilateral and other multilateral partners to endorse and support the implementations of the sanctions. On the political situation in Guinea, the Authority urged the transition authorities to urgently submit a detailed timetable of activities to be carried out under the transition towards the holding of elections. The bloc maintained the sanctions earlier taken against members of the military junta and their families until constitutional is restored. Meanwhile, ECOWAS has appointed Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambers as a special envoy to Guinea. Source: GNA Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Ghana Police Service has set up a Cold Case Unit under the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to deal with cases, particularly homicides, which have gone unsolved. This came to light during the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr. George Akuffo Dampares maiden engagement with editors and news editors of media establishments at the National Police Headquarters in Accra last Thursday. Some editors had raised the issue of high profile cases which appear to have gone under, with information about them not forthcoming. With the establishment of such a unit, additional fervor would be given such cases with a view to giving them the closure that they deserve. Some cases because of their nature and the challenges detectives encounter in investigating them, take longer than usual to deal and become cold with time. We abhor a situation where criminals after committing crimes return from hiding thinking it is all over. This unit is set to deal with such matters. You cannot hide forever, the IGP said. Complainants of cases would soon be receiving updates about such matters as opposed to the current trend where such periodic information about how far investigations have gone is non-existent, according to the Chief Constable. The IGP exuding humility and plenty of it as he addressed his guests extempore said credit for the gains being made is attributable to the team work between him and his colleagues who have not relented in their resolve to deal a blow to criminal activities which afflicted the country in recent times. Downplaying the many accolades being showered upon him, he said it is all about teamwork, adding it is not Dampare but a collective work in the Police Administration. Let strong persons build strong institutions. We want to leave behind a Police institution stronger than we met it and those who would take over in future to do better than we have done. On how violent crimes are being tackled, the IGP said it is attributable to God and the resolve of the police leadership to deal a blow to the daredevil robbery which recently took centre stage in Accra. As to whether or not there would be consistency in the new direction of policing, he was emphatic about it saying what has started will continue. The IGP disclosed that plans are afoot to enhance access of police officers to medical services at the Police Hospital without being present at the facility at all times. He said a virtual sourcing of medical services would be rolled out and funds for the novelty would be earmarked as a means of improving the overall welfare of officers. Intelligence units are being rolled out throughout the police formations across the country as an added impetus to the fight against crime, he added. The Police Chief assured Ghanaians that the internal security organisation would meet their expectations and the respect for human rights will continue to be followed. A special feature of the meeting was its chairing by the President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Affail Monney. There were inputs by almost all the guests, including Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, Kwame Sefa Kayi, Kwesi Pratt Jnr among others. A wide range of issues were discussed spanning snap checks to traffic management control, including the welfare of officers to which the IGP gave the assurance that attention would be riveted to. Nobody is above the law, he insisted, adding that the police would perform its constitutional mandate to ensure that lives and property are protected. He described the engagement as opportunity to listen to the media, the recommendations from which would go a long way in enhancing policing. Source: Daily Guide Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Former Manhyia North Member of Parliament, Collins Owusu Amankwa, has cautioned Madina MP, Francis-Xavier Sosu against evading Police summon for interrogation over a violent protest at Madina. A video has surfaced showing the MP planning how the protest would be conducted, he could be heard inciting some residents in his constituency to burn tyres and block roads when they embark on the protest which indeed the demonstrators did obey. Before the video went viral, the MP had been invited by the Police for some unlawful incidents that took place during the protest but he declined the Police invite. The Police has since pursued the MP to arrest him; they have secured a criminal summons to compel him to assist in their investigations. Discussing the matter on Peace FM's flagship programme ''Kokrokoo'', Collins Owusu Amankwa advised Francis-Xavier Sosu to psyche himself up for jail. According to him, the MP is making his case worse by avoiding the Police stressing although Parliamentarians have the privilege of immunity, their immunity isn't absolute. He also stated that Hon. Francis-Xavier Sosu's misconduct is an indictment on his constituents. "He is abusing the immunity and privileges he has," he said. "I have a notion that he should keep it in mind that he may be jailed" for his behaviour, Collins Owusu Amakwah told host Kwami Sefa Kayi, adding that the Madina MP has disgraced parliament. Watch the video below. Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video The Majority in Parliament have told Speaker Alban Bagbin that they are not undermining his authority following their criticism against the way he is managing the matter involving Madina Lawmaker Francis-Xavier Sosu. Deputy Majority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin said they respect the authority of the Speaker hence, will not reduce his respect in anyway. The essence of the position taken earlier by was not in any way to undermine the authority of Mr Speaker, no. He is the one who presides over our assembly and the majority leadership will continue to respect his authority, the Effutu Member of Parliament said on the floor of the House on Thursday, November 4. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs had in an earlier statement criticized Mr Bagbin, for the way and manner he handled the issues involving Madina Lawmaker Francis-Xavier Sosu. This comes after Rt Hon Bagbin had denied a request by the Police to release Mr Sosu to them for arrest. Sosu had led some of his constituents to embark on a demonstration against deplorable roads in his constituency. The demonstration started peacefully at Danfa around 6:00am but later saw demonstrators burning tyres and mounting roadblocks on the Ayi Mensah-Danfa Road. Sosu, who has since been charged by the Police, however denied the allegation saying That any allegation of the Police about my involvement in unlawful blockade of road and destruction of public property is false and an afterthought carefully manufactured by the police to shift attention of the people of Ghana from the key issues of bad roads raised by our protest and demonstration. In a letter dated October 28, addressed to the Deputy Director-General of Criminal Investigation Division, F.K. Agyei, the Speaker indicated that due to limitations of Articles 117 and 118 of the 1992 Constitution, Mr Sosu could not be released. I am directed by the Rt. Hon. Speaker to inform you that proceedings of the 3rd Meeting of the 1st Session of the 8th Parliament commenced on Tuesday 26th October, 2021 and having regard to the limitations of articles 117 and 118 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic, he is unable to release the Member of Parliament as requested in your letter, Deputy Director of Legal Services, Nana Tawiah Okyir wrote on behalf of the Clerk of Parliament. But a statement issued by the Majority in Parliament on Thursday November 4 regarding the Speakers response said The Majority Leadership views the foregoing response by Speaker Bagbin as a troubling departure from how his predecessors handled such requests. To avoid doubt, when both Rt Hons Joyce Bamford Addo and Edward Doe Adjaho received those requests during their days in office, they responded by inviting the relevant MPs, held discussions with them, and then asked them to report to the requesting Police or investigative authorities. It added Now the Speaker of Ghanas Parliament, Rt Hon Bagbin, appears to be instituting new rules that seem to undermine the Rule of Law without any prior discussions with the Leadership of the House. We ask: What exactly has changed? Source: 3 news Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. Featured Video Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault speaks to media at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021. Guilbeault says Canada will allocate at least 20 per cent of its $5.3 billion climate finance commitment to nature-based solutions in developing countries over the next five years to tackle global warming. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick , Cookies . cookies. Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier? Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop. Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News N Augusta Breaking News Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time. Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up! Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page. COLUMBIA State and local police have raised alarms about what they say is a rise in gun violence and murder across South Carolina throughout much of the year, but a spate of recent shootings and other firearms incidents in the Columbia area has fueled a greater sense of urgency. During the past month, a man on a roof in a northeast Columbia subdivision exchanged gunfire with deputies, a man was shot to death in the yard of a Blythewood home on a weekday morning as students were preparing for class at nearby Westwood High School, and a 24-year-old man was shot at a Columbia apartment complex. "I just appeal to our citizens, we've got to say this is enough; it is absolutely enough," an emotional Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook said during a news conference Oct. 27 to announce arrests in the 2020 shooting death of 7-year-old Knowledge Sims. "We have a small percent of the population committing the majority of our violent crime and wreaking havoc in our neighborhoods, destroying families, destroying neighborhoods. That's what's happened here." While overall crime is down in the city of Columbia through nine months of 2021 versus the same period a year ago, violent crime is up 11 percent and homicides up 20 percent, according to Columbia Police Department statistics. In Richland County, there have been 29 shooting deaths as of the first week of November, up from 12 at the same time in 2020, a Richland County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman said. Just outside the city during one week in October: Richland County deputies charged two high school students and one middle school student with bringing loaded guns to school. A 3-year-old girl was killed Oct. 29 north of Columbia after she accidentally shot herself. Michael Josey, 32, was charged with eight counts of attempted murder and possessing a stolen weapon in connection to shooting at officers from the roof of a Cascade Street home on Oct. 29. Earlier in October, four men were charged in the fatal Blythewood shooting that resulted in Westwood High School being placed on lockdown. Tyler Hill, Eric Bolar, Antonio Leslie and Antonio Ivery are charged with murder in what the Sheriff's Department said was a robbery. Authorities have repeated a familiar plea, imploring gun owners to keep cars locked and weapons secured. "Every night you've got young people going through neighborhoods, just opening car doors and finding guns," Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Oct. 29 after deputies arrested a man they said had shot at officers from a roof. "These guns end up on the street, and they end up in a shooting." Despite overall crime trending down in Columbia, gun crime remains an urgent issue, Holbrook told city leaders in September. People injured in shootings had increased by 15 incidents to 66 from the same period in 2020, Holbrook said in his update. Police have charged increasingly more people with illegally possessing guns during the past five years, Holbrook told City Council members, and were on track to meet or exceed the 857 guns seized in 2020. Holbrook also said the capital city needed to raise pay for officers to receive the highest salaries of any department in the state and to increase the number of cars officers could take home to help better recruit and retain officers. Holbrook said the agency has averaged about 71 vacancies since he became chief in 2014, with a high of 93 openings this year. The gun violence and public safety issues have become central to the campaigns for city offices. Council members Daniel Rickenmann and Tameika Isaac Devine, who will meet in a runoff election for mayor Nov. 16, have both advocated increasing pay and for take-home vehicles for officers and expanding technology such as Shotspotter that alerts police to gunshots in certain areas before dispatchers receive emergency calls. COLUMBIA While Columbia needs more police officers, sanitation truck drivers, and water system operators and maintenance workers, city leaders said they don't expect its recently announced COVID-19 vaccination mandate to worsen workforce issues. The city will not fire staff who do not get vaccinated against the deadly virus by the end of the year, according to the policy announced Nov. 1. But those who refuse the shot and don't qualify for an exemption will not get pay raises or major job promotions. Those consequences also include coronavirus testing and masking requirements, ineligibility for some training and travel, and no transfers between departments. Employees can seek an exemption or deferral for medical or religious reasons and must apply by Nov. 15. Meanwhile, the city has 96 job openings citywide, according to its human resources department. The most difficult divisions to staff are water, wastewater, police and public works. The city employs about 2,200 people total. As of the date of the policy announcement, at least 80 percent of city employees were fully vaccinated, the policy document stated. But in Columbia's water and public works departments, the vaccination rate is even higher, according to Assistant City Manager Clint Shealy, who heads the departments. "Our blue-collar jobs are where we have the most significant vacancies, and we were concerned if we lay a vaccine mandate on top of that, it would exacerbate the problem," he said. "But I'm proud of my employees and how theyve responded. They've worked to keep each other safe while delivering essential services." The city is offering a $500 bonus to all vaccinated employees. Shealy also said the COVID-19 hazard pay approved separately by City Council was well-received by workers. The Columbia Police Department did not say whether it was worried about the mandate's effect on its force but responded to questions with a statement. The city did not provide a breakdown by department. "There is a nationwide concern for law enforcement officer recruitment and retention. The Columbia Police Department has a successful recruiting program that has been in place for several years. Weve experienced a fluid hiring process and are pleased with the outcomes," the statement read. A city Fire Department spokesman did not respond to requests for comment about policy's potential impact on the agency. The city policy comes as the state fights a national vaccine mandate from the Biden administration. The federal rule, issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, requires vaccination by Jan. 4 or weekly COVID-19 testing and masks for federal contractors or any company with 100 or more employees. South Carolina joined Georgia in a lawsuit late last month challenging the federal contractor mandate. Gov. Henry McMaster also issued an executive order barring state Cabinet agencies from enforcing the mandate. In general, vaccine mandates nationwide have been largely successful, with only a fraction of overall employees, not even 1 percent reported in some workplaces, choosing to lose their job rather than get vaccinated. That was true for MUSC Health University Medical Center when it required vaccines for all clinical workers in April. Of the hospital's 17,000 employees, 3,000 sought exemptions, largely for health reasons related to a prior COVID-19 infection, spokeswoman Heather Woolwine said. Less than five workers refused the vaccine and were terminated due the violation of the mandate and other company policies. On the university side, Woolwine said they are waiting to see how the federal vaccine mandate for government contractors will play out, but the university would be at risk of losing up to $190 million in annual contracts if it does not comply. "None of us (state research universities) can afford to lose hundreds of millions in funding," she said. Nephron Pharmaceuticals Corp., another early adopter of a vaccine mandate, also saw success. The Nephron team embraced the bold goal of a fully-vaccinated workforce in order to stay safe and healthy so it can keep working for patients around the country," the company said in a statement. Only about 30 of the drugmaker's roughly 2,000 employees chose not to be vaccinated and are no longer with the company. Blair Dellenbach moved from North Charleston to the suburban neighborhood Sandhurst so her son would have a better chance at getting into Orange Grove Charter School. The West Ashley school's motto is "Where great minds grow," and its website is filled with photos of teachers instructing students on various yoga positions on sunlit grass lawns. It boasted of an excellent academic program and a family-like atmosphere. On top of all that, the parents praised the school for how it handled the COVID-19 pandemic over the past couple years. It seemed like the perfect place for Dellenbach to send her son to kindergarten. But as the delta variant spread through South Carolina over the summer, Orange Grove parents grew increasingly concerned. Many knew that state politicians had passed a law saying school districts that instituted mask mandates risked losing their funding for the year. But charter schools operated in a murky area where they were not ruled by the same regulations as other public schools. Several charter schools announced that they were requiring masks in schools, but Orange Grove administrators remained quiet. Eventually, Orange Grove parents learned that while the school was going to encourage students to wear masks, they were not going to mandate it. The board did not even institute a mandate after Charleston County School District started enforcing one for all public schools in the region in direct defiance to legislators orders. State law requires charter schools to "adhere to the same health, safety, civil rights, and disability rights requirements as are applied to public schools operating in the same school district." However, Orange Grove's board Chair Jennifer Mieras said that the provision in the 2021-22 budget that prevents districts from enforcing mask mandates supersedes that law. "We're really not trying to focus on the parents, we're focused on following the law," Mieras told The Post and Courier. Dellenbach said that she felt "disbelief" at the board's decision. It made her angry, and added to the general anxiety she felt as a parent of a child under the age of 11, a group that until recently was not allowed to get the vaccine. Orange Grove's decision revealed cracks in the charter school system and left many parents wondering: What did we sign up for when we sent our children to a charter school? Legal tightrope Although the charter schools are sponsored by their local school district, they are governed by their own boards. This allows them many freedoms traditional public schools do not have, and means they do not have to follow their school district's rules and regulations. This level of autonomy is typically used to implement different curriculum or create a theme for learning. During the pandemic, some charter school boards used their power to implement their own health and safety policies. Several charter schools in Charleston County including Carolina Voyager, Allegro Charter School of Music and East Cooper Montessori implemented mask mandates. James Island High School was one of the charters in the district that did not. James Island Principal Tim Thorn pointed out that Charleston County was able to skirt the state law because they found a legal loophole where they discovered if they used their past savings they were not using money from the 2021-22 budget to enforce mask mandates, and therefore not violating the budget provision. Thorn said charter schools are under a tighter budget than the district so the work around of using savings wasn't feasible, and cases at school were never high enough to warrant a requirement. But some James Island parents believe the school is just caving to the pressure from a small but loud anti-mask minority. "They seem to be more fearful of the parents who are anti-mask than of the parents who actually have legal standing," said Kathy Moore, who has two children at James Island. The 1,700-student James Island school has reported 92 cases among students and staff members since the start of the year. Other schools of similar size like West Ashley and Stall high schools have reported over 100 cases since the start of the year, according to the district's dashboard. "To me, it seems like the parents on the school board or whomever were the ones who were making the choice. It wasn't coming from a scientific background," said Erin Kosack, a nurse whose son attends James Island. Seen but not heard The charter school model is praised because it gives teachers and school leaders more autonomy and flexibility. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools boasts on its website about how they allow principals "to create a school culture that fosters student performance and parent satisfaction." But the recent mask debate has shown how little oversight some of these schools have, and the poor lines of communications between some charter school boards and parents make the school community feel helpless that issues will never be resolved. Jordan Sandlin, whose daughter attends Orange Grove, said she was notified Orange Grove would not be following CCSD's mask requirement in an email the night before the start of school. Since then, she and other parents have received very little communication about COVID-19 policies. She is part of the group of parents trying to get more transparency from the school and said what they have uncovered is that there is "very little oversight" of the decisions the boards make. Since the board announced that they were not going to require masks in the school, parents circled around a petition that gathered more than 130 signatures asking for a mask mandate. They also pushed for the board to post agendas describing their upcoming meetings online, something that had not been done before. Mieras said that the school will start following CCSD guidance after the Thanksgiving holiday. The current CCSD mask mandate is set to expire on Nov. 12, and some parents believe that this compliance is coming too late and have left them questioning whether the amount of freedom charter schools have is actually a good thing. Dellenbach said that her son loves the school, adores his teachers, and is thriving academically. "But you have to kind of question the decisions that are being made when I don't feel like basic health and safety is being addressed adequately in regards to the mask mandate," she said. OH WILLIAM!. By Elizabeth Strout. Random House. 256 pages. $27. Elizabeth Strout has written another voice-driven novel, the third in a series of books about the fictional writer Lucy Barton and the people she grew up with in a small town in rural Illinois. Oh William! returns to the first-person perspective of 2016's bestselling My Name is Lucy Barton, narrated by Lucy as she slowly recovers from what should have been a routine operation and her mother, from whom shes been estranged, comes to see her in New York. A year later, Strout published Anything is Possible, a collection of linked stories told in the third person about the characters in Lucys hometown of Amgash, now reconciling their memories of her poor and abusive childhood with her newfound fame as a writer. The new novel picks up Lucys story when she is in her 60s. Her second husband has died, and her first husband, with whom she has two grown daughters, turns to her for help when he starts to have night terrors. Around the same time, Williams much younger third wife leaves him, and he discovers that his mother, whom he revered, abandoned her first marriage and a baby daughter to marry his father. Lucy agrees to go with him to Maine the setting of Strouts Olive Kitteridge stories to find his half-sister, a journey that prompts her to reflect on their lives together and apart, and whether she ever truly knew him or, for that matter, herself. The exclamation point in the title is a tip-off to Strouts distinctive style. It conveys Lucys exasperation and pity for William, who has always been remote and unavailable. It also points to Strouts reliance on punctuation marks, sentence fragments and authorial interjections to convey her speakers frazzled, fragile state of mind. I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William, Lucy begins. Then, a page later, I want to say oh, it is difficult to know what to say! Then, a few pages after that, I thought I did think this that William looked more tired than usual. The halting voice, the habit of interrupting and repeating herself, of being at a loss for words these are peculiar qualities for someone whose celebrity was built on her presumed facility with words. Nevertheless, if you loved Lucy Barton, youre sure to love this one. If you didnt, not so much. GEORGETOWN Residents in the West End of Georgetown have been begging the city for help with dilapidated structures and neighborhood deterioration for decades. All they have gotten, though, is buzzwords that bring little change, even after a new push from the city and business leaders, said Sheldon Butts, the four-year former city council member and West End native. As redevelopment happens all around the historic Black neighborhood, residents fear being priced out of their generational homes, but the West End doesnt need people to come in and tell them how to fix their issues, Butts said. A local Realtors association teamed up with the city, and brought in a nonprofit partner Oct. 19 and 20 in attempts to find solutions to dilapidated structures. The nonprofit's representatives, Frank Alexander and Jazz Watts, suggested forming a community group which the West End already formed years ago. Butts was hoping these experts on neighborhood revitalization would spark real ideas for change in the West End, but instead he and others in the community came away from the visit feeling let down once again. That's a shame on me, I expected something different this time, Butts said. Butts said there already is a plan that spells out in detail the key issues affecting the community poverty, dilapidated structures and heirs properties, or land owned without a clear property title that is rather orally passed through generations. Butts said the West End Redevelopment Plan, made by the city in partnership with the Waccamaw Regional Council of Governments, has sat almost completely unused though since it was created 2003. I dont care how many Frank Alexanders we bring in, were going to always go back to that plan right there to be the closest thing there is to a workable, viable plan of action, Butts said. 'Still living the same way' Locals of the neighborhood that sits across from the old Liberty Steel mill site near downtown say from the 1930s to the 1980s, the West End flourished with more than 60 Black-owned businesses. Children were raised by the collective neighborhood with dozens of churches and residents lived separate from the city of Georgetown. Now, those businesses are gone, the number of churches has shrunk down to less than a handful and one or two walls of homes left to deteriorate are a regular sight. Butts estimates the majority Black community has lost 70 percent of its population in the last three decades. In 1971, according to the redevelopment plan, the West End was made part of the city. That meant adhering to Georgetowns zoning rules. Years without zoning created skinny lots with large homes so as to pack as many homes in as possible, and the new rules forced residents to widen their lots via complex zoning applications or purchase adjoining properties to make them bigger. Because of the inconsistencies between West End properties and Georgetown city zoning laws, officials created the neighborhood development plan in 2003, hoping to find a compromise. The West End plan brought a new zoning designation that shrunk the minimum lot size and barred mobile homes from empty lots paving the way for commercial development, said Chris Inglese, Georgetowns planning and community development director. Still the community suffered under the red tape now required of them, and what was once houses and businesses on every street and corner became a handful of businesses and many dilapidated, worn out buildings. Butts formed a subcommittee while on city council in 2016 to reinvigorate the redevelopment plan, and since then it has educated residents on heirs property. The subcommittee also tried to find grants to help demolish some of the structures and replace them with affordable homes. Even with the subcommittee, the city has given the community little to nothing, Butts said. The neighborhood has received some money for streetscaping, sewage and drainage but not much else, Butts said. Inglese said it is simply untrue to say the city isnt doing or hasnt done enough for the West End. In June, Gov. Henry McMasters office approved a $453,292 water main upgrade grant that will replace old water lines, add new fire hydrants and restore asphalt and concrete in the West End. While those things are vital, it is nothing tangible that residents to be inspired by, Butts said. Not saying there isnt the need for upgrades to the sewer system, but these are things that residents cant physically see," he said. "Like, (the city) just spent a million dollars here on the West End, but were still living the same way we are." Outside help The Coastal Carolinas Association of Realtors knew the West End has been struggling for years, said Madison Cooper, the organization's vice president of government affairs, so pairing its revitalization partner with the neighborhood felt like a great fit. The local Realtors and its national parent company have a program called Transforming Neighborhoods, which partners the nonprofit, Michigan-based Center for Community Progress. The center, according to its website, tries to help urban, suburban and rural communities by transforming vacant, abandoned and deteriorated properties. The center's co-founder, Alexander, said he is most proud of the work they've been able to do in Mobile, Ala., and Syracuse, N.Y., but that they've helped hundreds of neighborhoods over the last 10 years. Alexander and Watts came on Oct. 19 and initially asked about 15 residents about their hopes and dreams for the community, and what makes it special. Residents like Sadie Williams said their heritage matters to them, as nearly all of them left the West End but came home years later. Williams returned to Georgetown nearly 50 years after she moved away to live and work in Connecticut, and she was shocked to see how worn down her neighborhood had become when she moved back. It looked like a third-world country, Williams said. But it was always her plan to move back to the house on Hawkins Street her grandfather built in 1914, and she plans on dying in that same house. After talking about the history of the West End on the first day, Alexander repeated the same conversations of hopes and dreams to residents on Oct. 20. Alexander didnt offer any solid solutions to fix the problems residents talked about other than to form a community action group even though one has existed for several years. Williams is part of the West End Citizens Council that was formed in 2014, and she said they show up to most county and city council meetings to lobby for help with things like sidewalks, potholes in roads, deteriorated buildings and more. Everything seems to be so focused, though, on downtown along the waterfront, Williams said. Inglese said the city is aware of the West End Redevelopment Plan and is in the process of updating it and incorporating it into its comprehensive plan. But some of its 84 goals and strategies just dont fall under government purview, Inglese said. That combined with budgetary constraints and struggles with clear property titles has made carrying out the plan a challenge, Inglese said. The city hopes to filter out the achievable points in the 2003 redevelopment plan while it adds it to the comprehensive plan, Inglese said. At the same time, the private sector will need to respond and invest in improvements to the private properties," Inglese added. Inglese also said the planning and community development department is working with the Charleston-based Center for Heirs Property Preservation to bring heirs property seminars to the West End, employing stronger code enforcement strategies for heirs properties and planning West End community meetings about zoning issues and a sidewalk improvement program. Georgetown's future Redeveloping Georgetown has become a focal point for city officials, developers and business people alike, and many West End residents fear it will hurt them more than it helps them. The city of Georgetown has shifted its perspective in the last year to focus on attracting tourists through bold redevelopments, like a $25 million project including luxury condos, an open-air market and offices thats in the works overlooking marshland on Church Street near the Siau Bridge. Closer to the West End, South Carolinas oldest newspapers office, The Georgetown Times, will soon be demolished to construct a 56-room boutique hotel along the citys harborwalk. And just down the street, the paused Liberty Steel mill, which once was the citys largest employer, only has until Feb. 1 to resume operations. If its misses that deadline, the mill risks a zoning change that will bar it from reopening. Liberty Steels more than 50 acres of waterfront land is seen as a golden opportunity to many private investors. And its right across U.S. 17 from Liberty Steel is the West End. The West End very well could get caught up in the redevelopment of Georgetown, residents say. Some even say it's already started sprinkled among the dilapidated, worn out homes in the neighborhood are larger, nicer homes with fresh paint and fenced in yards. Williams isnt sure what will happen if the West End doesnt get more help. All she knows is shes staying in her grandfathers house on Hawkins Street and making sure its kept up until she dies. Its up to residents to join together and tell the city they need help, Williams said. The citizens council is beginning to advertise its meetings in local churches, she said, and is moving those meetings to Saturdays in hopes more people will be able to attend. Well see what happens, were not going to give up, were just going to keep fighting for what needs done, Williams said. Butts understands development of the West End is going to happen, but what is important is that it is done with the intent of benefiting the citizens who are still there most of whom are elderly like Williams or young families rather than new residents who dont understand the neighborhoods history. At the end of the day, Ill take my people who have been there their whole lives, Butts said. GREENVILLE Before Canal Insurance Company announced that it was leasing space in one of the tallest buildings in the city of Greenville, it was in the market for a new headquarters for years. Leadership of the family-owned company toyed with buying a new property or expanding its headquarters of 29 years on Stone Avenue in Greenville. Then, as so many recent stories go, the pandemic hit and Canal questioned what was important about office space. COVID gives you real pause in terms of what office needs are and the best way of meeting office needs, president and CEO of Canal Insurance Company Paul Brocklebank said. It was really kind of an important and opportunistic pause for us to decide what to do. For the commercial motor insurance carrier with deep local roots, that led to an announcement in October that it would move into the prominent 101 North Main building in the heart of Greenville's central business district. Canal will occupy more than one-third of the building, including floors 4, 12, 14, 15 and 16. The company plans to move its roughly 230 employees into the new headquarters by the middle of 2022. Brocklebank, a Pittsburgh, Pa. native, joined Canal in 2010 as the chief underwriting officer. He assumed the role of COO in 2016, then became president and CEO the following year. Canal transitioned its team to remote work early in the pandemic, but never with an idea that was the best environment for us, Brocklebank said. For now, a hybrid system remains but Brocklebank wants employees to return to a really nice place. The longer the pandemic dragged on, the more I'm convinced that it's important for us to provide a collaboration environment, in a prominent spot in town for us to get back together, Brocklebank said. Canal looked at several options for the headquarters, keeping in mind it plans to grow to around 300 employees, and perhaps more. Several floors of 101 N. Main were available after Bank of America moved down Main Street to the new Camperdown development. That left a prominent spot on the skyline for a local name in lights. I love the building in terms of where it sits downtown, Brocklebank said. We were somewhat proud of the fact that were going to be able to have naming rights to the building and have that become known, if you will, as the Canal building for years to come. Four generations Chad Hardaway, Jr., is the oldest in fourth generation of the Timmons family lineage, the owners of Canal. He works as a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at University of South Carolina and serves as Canal's Family Council chair. To Hardaway, both the Timmons family and Canal are both known in Greenville, so this move is less about trying to become known and more about the company entering into a new era and trying to attract top talent. Part of recruiting is having a location where people want to come and work, he said. "I'm actually seeing our family business, at least from a real estate perspective, catch up to where a lot of high-tech companies are today and operating in that same mindset," Hardaway said. William R. Timmons founded the Wm. R. Timmons Agency along with his manager T.J. Mims during the start of the Great Depression in 1930. Timmons acquired Canal Insurance Company, which had formed in 1939 to insure vehicles financed by the First National Bank of Columbia, at the start of the 1940s. World War II moved money away from car production and toward the war effort, so the bank sold the asset to Timmons for $17,500, the surplus at the time. After Timmons death, Mims continued to grow the company. By 1958, Canal was licensed in 27 states and expanded to 42 states over the following decade. Canal moved into its current 400 E. Stone Ave. headquarters in 1992 to house its then 155 employees. Between 2006 and 2015, the company transitioned from being family-operated to simply family-owned. "My great grandfather started the company, my grandfather built the company, and then my mom's generation, they were part of building it, also sustaining it and they did a really hard job of transforming the company," Hardaway said. "This building and this announcement, to me, is the culmination of all of that." In terms of shareholders, the company is in its fourth generation with the fifth generation on the way. Hardaway has a sophomore at USC and "she's about to become part of the fun," he said. SUMMERVILLE Dorchester County's only animal shelter was forced to briefly put a pause on admissions after maxing out its space. As of Nov. 4, Dorchester Paws' adoption, intake and processing floors were completely filled. Organizers were reporting that in 62 days, the shelter had taken in nearly 750 cats and dogs. That's around 15 animals a day, officials said. Dorchester Paws has 80 available kennels with the option to add 10 more. "The even tougher reality is that there are many days where intakes surpass 20 plus animals a day," said Danielle Zuck, the marketing and development director for Dorchester Paws. This led to the shelter closing off animal admissions Nov. 2-8. In August, organizers with the shelter warned that it was potentially approaching a pause on admissions. This was due to the nonprofit experiencing what its leadership described as the "perfect storm" of concerns. Adoptions had dropped with many families returning to in-person work and school with the COVID-19 vaccine being released. During the height of the pandemic in 2020, the shelter had cleared out its dog kennels for the first time ever. Organizers said they had issues with transferring pets to animal rescues outside of the state. The usual spaces they work with to help reduce their shelter numbers have been full. Meanwhile, the Charleston Animal Society recently rescued 85 dogs in Laurens County. Two people face multiple misdemeanor cruelty-related charges in relation to the incident, according to law enforcement officials. Bryant Taylor, the emergency response and preparedness manager for the organization, said the scene was heartbreaking. Workers had to wear hazmat suits because of poor conditions. They also could only rescue a few animals at a time because of the smell of urine and feces, he said. Two puppies were also found dead. "Many had hidden inside the walls they were so frightened," Taylor said in a press release. More than 6 million animals enter a shelter every year according to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Dorchester Paws is a no-kill shelter. This coupled with other issues led to the shelter's adoption floor being at max capacity for an excessive amount of time. "Much longer than typical for this time of year," Zuck said. If community members want to foster one of the animals, they can email foster@dorchesterpaws.org. They can also visit dorchesterpaws.org to learn more about how to donate. A day of care for 750 animals costs more than $26,000, according to shelter officials. One of the best things residents can do is try to keep some of the strays they find at home with them instead of immediately bringing them to the shelter. They can also ask around their neighborhoods to find the pet owner themselves, organizers said. Staff members with the Berkeley Animal Center also agree. "Dont immediately call Animal Control or the shelter," said Jenna-Ley Jamison, a spokeswoman for the Berkeley Animal Center. Dorchester Paws isn't the only shelter facing concerns with overcrowding. The Berkeley County Animal Center moved into its new location on Berkeley Drive in Moncks Corner in February. This month the shelter is also facing issues with overcrowding. In the past year, the center took in at least 6,000 animals. The shelter is currently facing a shortage in supplies and volunteers in combination with its kennels nearing capacity. "We never intended for the facility to be a place to house animals long-term," Jamison said. "Again, our primary goal is to temporarily care for them while helping find them permanent loving homes." Jamison said the center is asking those interested in adopting or fostering to visit the shelter at 131 Central Berkeley Drive in Moncks Corner instead of calling. The reason is that the center is routinely flooded with calls. Community members can also visit the center's website at animalcenter.berkeleycountysc.gov. There people can learn more about things like how to donate supplies like cat and dog food. But Jamison also said staff members want to emphasize that overcrowding is a nationwide issue. NORTH CHARLESTON Democrats from across the state and country braved a cold, steady rain Nov. 6 to celebrate the Blue Jamboree, the Charleston County Democratic Party's largest fundraiser of the year. Doug Jones, a former U.S. senator from Alabama, rallied South Carolina Democrats rattled by bruising losses in the off-year elections, including a big win for Republicans in the Virginia governor's race. "How many times have we heard in the past that, you know, Democrats are dead, we're going to give them a red tsunami, Democrats are panicking," Jones said. "Nobody's panicking. We're just determined. We're not deterred. You're here on this rainy day because you are not deterred." Jones received a round of applause when he brought up the $1 trillion infrastructure bill that passed the U.S. House shortly before midnight Friday. An important part of President Joe Biden's agenda, the bipartisan bill provides billions of federal dollars to repair the nation's roads and bridges, expand public transit and increase internet access in rural areas. "Democrats have seized this moment. As has been said, this has not been just another infrastructure week we got it done," Jones said, alluding to former President Donald Trump's attempt to pass a similar bill. "And we've seized this moment to not only invest in the infrastructure, but to do it in a way that tackles the growing threat of climate change in this country." Other speakers included Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, former U.S. Rep. Joe Cunningham and state Sen. Mia McLeod, who's running for governor along with Cunningham. Greg Perry, chairman of the Charleston County Democratic Party, said the Blue Jamboree was an opportunity to bring Democrats from across the state together to be empowered and energized. After some highs and lows this week, Perry said he felt the party was "delayed, but not denied." "We may not have what we want right now," he said. "But we are surely going to fight, and we're going to get what we need." Frigid rain fell as salt water swallowed city streets Saturday morning, the third day in a row that unusually high tides have caused coastal flooding on the Charleston peninsula. Tides peaked at 8.4 feet in Charleston Harbor around 10:30 a.m., according to the National Weather Service, causing major flooding that shut down roads and intersections and canceled a planned Veterans Day parade in downtown Charleston. A police officer stood guard over the large pond that formed at Fishburne Street and Hagood Avenue, one of several flooded areas that essentially cut off access to Lockwood Drive during the morning. A city-built berm that typically protects Morrison Drive from coastal flooding was overwhelmed by the high tides, causing police to close the road between Stuart and Grace Bridge streets. In all, 13 streets or intersections were closed in the morning due to the flooding. Mayor John Tecklenburg toured flooded areas on the peninsula and in West Ashley during the morning. He said the flooding was further evidence that the peninsula needed a proposed 8-mile seawall that would protect the citys historic core from sea-level rise and tidal flooding. Brig. Gen. Jason Kelly of the Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to address City Council Nov. 9 about the wall, two-thirds of which would be funded by the federal government. The city would be responsible for paying 35 percent of the cost, or about $384.5 million. Tecklenburg said a cost-benefit analysis showed that the city would see a 10-1 return on its investment, meaning every $1 billion spent would return $10 billion in cost savings over a 50-year period. It's not unreasonable that we're going to have another foot of sea level rise in the next 25 to 30 years, and these things take a while to happen, the mayor said. Just think about another foot on top of what happened today. Tides higher than 8 feet are unusual, but they have occurred more frequently in recent years. Brian Adam, a meteorologist with the National Weather Services Charleston office, said tides in the Charleston Harbor reached 8 feet or higher only 36 times in the past 100 years, which is 3 percent of all flooding tides. Thirteen of those 8-foot tides have occurred since 2019, or about one-third of the total in the past 100 years, according to weather service data. Adam said this week's tides were strengthened by the new moon, creating so-called king tides, as well as consistently strong winds and a low-pressure zone off the coast of Florida and Georgia. Though it drizzled throughout the morning, Adam said the rain did not impact flooding. Syndicated and guest columns represent the personal views of the writers, not necessarily those of the editorial staff. The editorial department operates entirely independently of the news department and is not involved in newsroom operations. That nip you feel in the air is a sign many Lowcountry anglers anxiously await. Because it can mean a few more nibbles on the end of your line. One of the favorite activities of many saltwater fishing enthusiasts is the fall trout bite. With the water temperature dipping into the low 70s, spotted seatrout activity is on the rise for these fun-fighting and delectable creatures. Mike Able Jr., a fishing guide and co-owner of Haddrell's Point Tackle, said he feels the fall trout bite has a lot to do with water temperatures and is really good when the water temperature reaches 75 degrees and continues down to 65 degrees. "I think we're going to have a remarkable trout season," Able said. "We haven't had a (cold weather) trout kill-off in several years, so I think it's going to be really good. It's good now, but the best is yet to come. The water temperature needs to get down a little bit more (currently 72 degrees in Charleston Harbor) to really fire them off." Of course, it isn't just water temperature. There are other factors as well. "To me, you have to have the right amount of current; clean water is a must; and you have to have that right water temperature. If you find those three things, you can catch trout," Able said. The tide stage isn't the most important factor, but it's finding the right amount of current. Weather fronts also play a big factor. Trout fishing can be on fire ahead of a front, but it may be several days after a front moves through before they actively feed again, Able said. "With the different tides we have and the different moon phases, you can have way too much moving water. That's one of the thing I try to teach people coming into the shop, that it's not just a high tide or a low tide," Able said. "If someone goes to a particular spot and throws a 3/16-ounce jighead with a grub on it and it sweeps through the current incredibly fast where you feel like you can't work the lure, you really need to move to where you don't have as much current. If you find some good, clean water and water that's not moving too terrible fast, you can knock out a dozen to two dozen trout relatively easy." Anglers should look for current breaks, such as at the mouths of creeks, or breaks and eddies caused by oyster beds or docks. These are places where bait hangs out and that's where you will find the fish. "We've always used the nickname tide runners because they are hanging out in some type of current and/or rip. If there's going to be any bait, that bait will flush to that rip and that's where your trout will hang out, in those rips waiting for bait to come through," Able said. Noted Charleston-area trout hotspots include the Wando and Cooper rivers and their tributaries as well as the Intracoastal Waterway and its inlets along with the Charleston Jetties. And where you want to fish in these areas may depend on the water temperatures. "When the water temperature starts to creep down, some of those fish will move offshore. That's where hitting some of the inlets can be a little more productive once the water temperature gets really low," Able said. He personally prefers to fish artificial lures because he feels like he is fishing more than when he is soaking a bait. But live baits such as mud minnows, shrimp or finger mullet work well. "If I'm going to use bait, I'm going to take an Equalizer popping cord, put three feet of fluorocarbon leader with a 1/0 circle hook and a split shot right above that. I'll put on a mud minnow. Shrimp is going to work as well, but the finger mullet are about gone out of the creeks. The mud minnows last so longer," he said. "To me, an artificial is going to catch more fish because you are fishing more. You can catch a couple of trout on a mud minnow and then you have to re-bait, where I can take a grub or artificial bait and work it and catch 20 trout on it." His favorite way to fish an artificial he said is when the water temperature is on the warmer side, 75 degrees down to 68, and he has an overcast day or gets out in the morning. "I love throwing topwater lures. I use the Heddon Super Spook Jr. It comes with two treble hooks, which I change over to inline J-hooks. My favorite color with that plug is Silver Mullet," Able said. He said he's all across the board with the grub family. One of the top ways is to use a white Vudu Shrimp or silver D.O.A. Holograpic Shrimp and fish it under a popping cork along the grass edge. As he goes further down the water column, Able likes to use a 3/16 Eye Strike jighead in either gold or red and fish different grubs the Zman MinnowZ in Pearl/Blue Glimmer or Opening Night if the water is really clean. If it's muddy he may switch over to a darker colors such as Saltwater Assassin's Mississippi Hippie or Mama's 14-Karat. It's fishing, so there are no guarantees when it comes to catching a limit of trout (10 per person per day that measure at least 14 inches total length). But it's the time of the year when you can really enjoy some productive days on the water. America's Boating Club America's Boating Club Charleston will hold boating safety classes Dec. 4 and Jan. 15 at 1376 Orange Grove Road, Charleston. Classes begin at 9 a.m. and end around 4 p.m. Successful participants earn the S.C. Department of Natural Resources Boater Education Card. The cost is $25 for adults and youth 12-18 are free. Call 843-312-2876 or email lynes@tds.net. ECOMC Turkey Shoot The East Cooper Outboard Motor Club is holding its annual turkey shoot through Nov. 24 from 6:30-10 p.m. at Goldbug Island, located at 1560 Ben Sawyer, Mount Pleasant. Last year the event donated $30,000 to Lowcountry charities and since the shoot began in 1997 it has raised $483,500 for charity. Across two spending packages being offered by the federal government, Guam could stand to receive anywhere from $1.5 billion to nearly $2 billion. Read more In the scheme of things the indictment handed up by an Eastern District of Virginia grand jury against Igor Danchenko this past Thursday may be small potatoes, but the case is significant. I have embedded a copy of the 39-page indictment at the bottom. Check my summary of the allegations below against the indictment itself. I leave out a lot and the indictment conceals the names of key players in a welter of nameless descriptors such as U.S. Investigative Firm-1 (i.e., Fusion GPS). National Reviews editorial on the indictment I infer that it was written by Andrew McCarthy, author of the best book so far on the Russia hoax has been posted online as The Dossier Deceit. Both the indictment and the editorial explication are well worth reading. We met Danchenko last year in the RCP column Meet the Steele Dossiers Primary Subsource: Fabulist Russian From Democrat Think Tank Whose Boozy Past the FBI Ignored. I pulled a few quotes from Sperrys column here at the time. Danchenko is a Russian national who held down a perch at the Brookings Institution in years past, from 2005-2010. He was Christopher Steeles most important source of the fabrications in the so-called Steele Dossier. Danchenko allegedly relied in part on one Charles Dolan for his fabrications. Dolan was a long-time Democratic Party operative in the Clinton circle of Bill and Hillary Clinton. He is the indictments PR Executive-1. Dolan himself seems to have thought that Danchenko worked for the the Russian intelligence agency FSB. At Brookings Fiona Hill the Trump administration NSC official who promoted Trumps impeachment connected Danchenko with Steele. She also connected Danchenko with Dolan. You can make this stuff up, but it lacks verisimilitude. The Russia hoax is Clintons all the way down. Rep. Devin Nunes essentially cracked the case in 2017 when he subpoenaed the bank documents demonstrating that Marc Elias and the Perkins Coie law firm were cutouts for the players including Steele and Fusion GPS. Charged with lying to the FBI, Danchenko is something of a footnote. I would only add that its not difficult to fool a mark who wants to believe. (Why is FBI AGENT-1 laughing in the recorded interview with Danchenko quoted in paragraph 54 of the indictment?) I seriously doubt that the FBI really needed Danchenkos assistance to ascertain that the Steele Dossier was a fraud. That was my take on it from the first moment I read it after its publication by Buzzfeed. The FBI was instrumental to the con. The object of the Russia hoax was for the Democratic Partys media adjunct to report the FBI investigation in advance of the 2016 election in order to promote the election of Hillary Clinton. When Clinton lost, the object of the hoax was to tie the Trump administration in knots. Failing in its first object, the hoax succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of malice in its second. The FBI and Department of Justice of course took out four FISA warrants on Carter Page based on the fabrications of the Steele Dossier. On each of those four occasions the signing officials vouched that the relevant information had been verified, whatever that means. Apparently it doesnt mean much, or those officials would be answering for their derelictions. Six New York Times reporters and a researcher flagged Page as a key to the alleged Trump/Russia collusion case in their August 2017 story Trump Advisers Visit to Moscow Got the F.B.I.s Attention. The Times cited a story in the Washington Post reporting that the FBI had taken out a FISA warrant on Page. In her take on the indictment for the Wall Street Journal, Kim Strassel makes a point that I have beaten into the ground over the past few years. Quoting Strassel allows me to repeat it here: The Clinton dossier should go down as one of the biggest scandals in U.S. political history. The New York Post republished Strassels column in accessible form here. The NR editorial provides helpful background: In 2009, the FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation of Danchenko. He had allegedly suggested to two Brookings staffers, who appeared to be headed for jobs in the Obama administration, that he could make it worth their while if they passed along classified information. The staffers (one of whom believed Danchenko must be a Russian agent imagine that!) instead passed along word of Danchenkos entreaty to the FBI. The Bureau learned that Danchenko appeared to be tied to two Russian agents who were also under investigation. Agents prepared to seek national-security surveillance of Danchenko under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). But, in what would become an alarming theme, the FBI did not follow through and closed the investigation in March 2011, apparently believing that Danchenko had gone back to Russia. In fact, he had begun working with Steele. Danchenko was introduced to Steele in 2010 by Fiona Hill, another Brookings Russia scholar. Hill, you may recall, was a Trump White House National Security Council member who provided key testimony in the Houses impeachment of then-President Trump in the Ukraine kerfuffle. (Hill appears not to have been knowingly complicit in the unrelated Trump-Russia hype.)But here again, Hill appears inadvertently to have advanced the plot. In 2016, she introduced Danchenko to Charles Dolan, a Russia-focused businessman and Democratic Party activist. The editorial has more: According to the indictment, Danchenko lied to the FBI about getting information from Dolan. He also lied about having learned directly from a close Trump associate that Trumps campaign was in a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation with the Kremlin. Danchenko claimed that this information came from the president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce identified in the indictment as Chamber President-1, and in public reporting as Sergei Millian. A minor real-estate developer, Millian did some business with the Trump organization and started this obscure chamber in order to raise his profile. In reality, Danchenko never spoke or met with Millian. He continued to cling to his incredible story in several interviews by the FBI throughout 2017. As a result, four of the five false statement counts relate to this alleged fabrication. The other concerns Danchenkos alleged concealment of Dolans role. The New York Times and Washington Post stories on the Danchenko indictment point a finger back at themselves in ways that I want to pause over. The Post hilariously reflects on its own role in the story by Devlin Barrett and Tom Jackman: The [indictments] allegations cast new uncertainty on some past reporting on the dossier by news organizations, including The Washington Post. You think? We can only hope its not just beginning to dawn on them, Barrett and Jackman offer this study in understatement: Some of the material came from a Democratic Party operative with long-standing ties to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, according to the charges, rather than well-connected Russians with insight into the Kremlin. Barrett and Jackman take note of the Posts reporting on Millian: The Post and other news organizations reported in 2017 that Millian was a source of key information in the dossier, including the anecdote about the Moscow hotel room. The Post reported that Millian had shared the information with an associate, who passed it on to Steele. The indictment raises new questions about whether Sergei Millian was a source for the Steele dossier, as The Post reported in 2017, Post executive editor Sally Buzbee said in a statement Thursday. We are continuing to report on the origins and ramifications of the dossier. Gee, thanks. We should probably look elsewhere for illumination. The Post treats the New York Times with supreme tact as one of the other news organizations left unnamed by Devlin and Barrett. In the Times, observe how eager Adam Goldman and Charlie Savage are to downplay the significance of the Steele Dossier: The dossier has played a vivid role in the Trump-Russia affair, but was largely peripheral to the official inquiry. The F.B.I. had already opened its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia before the Steele dossier reached the agents working on that matter. The special counsel who eventually took over the inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Robert S. Mueller III, did not rely upon it in his final report. But some claims from the dossier made their way into an F.B.I. wiretap application targeting a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, in October 2016, and three renewal applications the following year. And other portions of it particularly a salacious claim about a purported blackmail tape caused a political and media firestorm when BuzzFeed published the materials in January 2017, shortly before Mr. Trump was sworn in. Andrew McCarthys book on the Russia hoax is Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency. In chapter 2 he turns to the origin of the FBI investigation of the Trump campaign. Steele and his dossier were key. He concludes chapter 2 with the Timess silent revision of the history in stories such as the one on the Danchenko indictment. He writes: This reliance on the dossier, the Times now said, was a false claim that Mr. Trump and others politicians have alleged. Somehow omitted from the [Times] report were the inconvenient details that it was the Times itself that led the charge in claiming Pages trip to Moscow that provoked the investigation, and that it was the Steele dossier that so alarmed the FBI about that trip. I asked Andy about this point yesterday by email. He responded: The Steele dossier was central to the FBIs investigation. The FISA warrants [citing the Steele fabrications] were critical for two reasons: 1- electronic surveillance is resource intensive and calls for court application under oath, and that is never done tangentially; 2- the sworn warrant application lays out the FBIs theory that the GOP presidential campaign was a clandestine agent of Russia. They needed the Steele dossier to get the warrants. It was their only evidence if it were true that there was a well-developed conspiracy of cooperation between Trump and Putin. That was their case. He elaborated on the role of the press in a subsequent message: The shocking journalistic thing about 2016 is that, up to that point, the media, though leftwing, had always perceived the professional need to pose as objective gatherers and analysts of fact. Trump is a watershed because they exploited him to rationalize overtly taking sides they were no longer peddling the idea that a functioning democracy needs an objective factual record; now they overtly claimed that battling Trump without apology was essential if democracy was to be preserved. Though discredited, the mainstream press still has outsized influence, so the importance of 2016 is as much about the press as it is about Trump and the U.S. law-enforcement/intelligence apparatus. In itself the Danchenko case may be small potatoes. There is much room for argument about its deep meaning, but it signifies. Although we have become inured to it, the degradation and corruption of the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Justice should retain the ability to shock. The transformation of the press into the eager tool of these agencies for the rankest of purposes must be included in reckoning the deep meaning of the Danchenko case, or so it seems to me. Danchenko Indictment 0 by Herridge Kyle Rittenhouse is the then-17 year old boy who showed up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, during the violent riots, looting and arson that occurred last year. Rittenhouse, armed with a rifle, wanted to help maintain order and protect private property, but it was a misguided mission to say the least. He ran afoul of extreme leftists, most likely Antifa members, and, coming under attack, shot three of them, two fatally. Viewing the videos that were circulating at the time, it seemed pretty clear to me that the kid acted in self-defense. Now Rittenhouse is being prosecuted for murder. To sum up his life-destroying experience, I cant improve on Jim Treacher, via Instapundit: Kyle Rittenhouse is neither a hero nor a murderer. Hes a kid who got in over his head and defended his own life when things went wrong. If he hadnt shot those guys, they wouldve killed him. And all the people screaming at him right now wouldve just shrugged, because they only care about human life when it serves their political ends. Im sorry those guys are dead, but they shouldnt have chased down a heavily armed man they had just threatened to kill. If you dont like it, send your complaints to the Darwin Awards. Rittenhouse is now on trial for murder in Wisconsin. Multiple cell phone videos show that the second and third leftists whom Rittenhouse shot, as he attempted to flee to safety, were attacking him. He pretty obviously was acting in self-defense. So the prosecution, trying to put away the now-18 year old for murder, concentrates on his original encounter with a violent leftist named Rosenbaum who allegedly didnt pose an imminent threat of death to Rittenhouse. So far, things havent gone well for the prosecution. Its own witnesses are not entirely on board with the anti-Rittenhouse program. Yesterday the prosecution put on a witness who observed Rittenhouses interactions with Rosenbaum. On cross, the defense elicited testimony that was helpful to Rittenhouse. In this clip, versions of which have gone viral, the prosecutor attempts to negate the witnesss testimony on cross that Rosenbaum tried to attack Rittenhouse: Prosecutor: So your interpretation of what [Rosenbaum] was trying to do is complete guesswork. @RichieMcGinniss: Well, he said fuck you and then he reached for the weapon. pic.twitter.com/NK6Sbfh8vy Jordan Chamberlain (@jordylancaster) November 4, 2021 Please indulge me for a moment as a lawyer and litigator for 41 years, and a veteran of more than 100 jury trials This prosecutor, probably an able lawyer, violated a cardinal rule: he asked one question too many of a witness over whom he had no control, who was not really on his side, and with whom he had not coordinated this particular testimony. And his one question too many was vital to his case. But as usual, the real problem isnt the lawyer, the problem is the facts of the case. Every indication is that Rittenhouse, confused and misguided as he may have been, acted in self-defense in response to violent threats, and then actions, from left-wing activists. Several readers have asked us why we are not covering the Rittenhouse trial as we (Scott, in particular) did the Derek Chauvin prosecution.The short answer is that George Floyds death and the subsequent prosecution of Chauvin and others happened in our back yard, while the Kenosha riots and the Rittenhouse prosecution are one state away. But the Rittenhouse case is obviously of interest. If you want to follow it, Legal Insurrection is a good place to go. And we will have updates and commentary from time to time. The Washington Post has a lengthy article about how Tuesdays election has dashed the hopes of black activists. The article begins this way: The summer of 2020 brought a renewed focus on addressing racism, with protesters filling the streets after the police killings of Black men; statues of Confederate leaders coming down from their prominent perches; and the leading Democratic presidential candidate promising systemic changes to right the wrongs of the past on his way to winning the White House. But Tuesdays election results underscored how much the political winds have shifted since the start of what many activists had hoped was a new national awakening to the stubborn legacy of Americas racist history. Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governors race in Virginia, in part, by warning about anti-racism curriculums in schools that examine the ways policies and laws perpetuate systemic discrimination [Note: a misleading statement of the curriculums in question.] A proposal to overhaul policing was defeated in Minneapolis the liberal city that gave rise to the summer of protests after a police officer murdered George Floyd as voters rejected the idea of replacing a traditional law enforcement presence with one that would take a comprehensive public health approach to public safety. Are black activists surprised by these election results? If their critique of America as systemically and unrelentingly racist has any truth to it, the surprising thing isnt that the activists agenda was rejected in Virginia and Minneapolis, its that defund the police and the teaching of dumbed-down Critical Race Theory took hold in the first place. Actually, these two developments defund the police and teaching CRT are surprising under any view of America other than that it went insane. No sane society would entertain the possibility of abolishing or cutting way back on its police force and switching to a comprehensive public health approach to public safety. No sane nation would teach children that race is a central fact about them and their classmates or that an evil like racism is the central fact about its history. Tuesdays election suggests that the insanity was only temporary. Barack Obama understood the perils of advancing a CRT-style critique of America. The Post quotes one of his key advisers, Ben Rhodes, who says that as president, Obama often tried to frame progressive change as a validation of American history rather than a repudiation of it. I doubt that Obama genuinely believed that American history validated or was consistent with his agenda, racial or otherwise. His wife didnt seem to believe this. But Barack was smart enough to pretend. Drawing on Obamas example, Rhodes says: Democrats absolutely have to engage on these cultural issues by presenting the changes we represent and advocate as an extension of our better history and not simply a repudiation of our darker history. There are lots of people out there who are indeed racist and beyond reach. But there are lots of others who have voted Democrat and Republican who were open to the story of an America that is great enough to change. (Emphasis added) Al Sharpton, race hustler extraordinaire, also wants the left to dial it down, according to the Post. He calls, vaguely, for pragmatism: Were going to have to engage more methodically and strategically in the process, because we could lose it all. Weve got to really bring everybody together and understand that this is a wake-up call and those really committed to voting rights and police reform need to deal with it in a practical way. But what does dialing it down or being practical mean in this context? And is a return to Obamas kinder, gentler rhetoric truly a way out of the box Democrats have put themselves in? I doubt it. This isnt 2009 or even 2016. The woke can of worms has been opened. Sweet-sounding rhetoric wont put the worms back. Democrats will have to speak specifically about each one of them. Take CRT. The Obama/Rhodes line that America is great and that our history is consistent with the kind of change the left wants cant be squared with the critique being peddled, not just to school children but to many employees of corporate America. The Obama/Rhodes line entails a refusal to advocate this anti-American indoctrination. But Dems havent openly advocated it. Instead, they have denied that the indoctrination is occurring. Are they going to keep denying this even after what happened in Virginia or will they face up to reality and agree to an about-face? The latter course is the practical one, but I dont expect Democrats to embrace it. The teaching of American history is only one part of the woke education agenda, which is only one part of the overall woke agenda. Each part of the agenda raises difficulties for the Obama/Rhodes approach. Consider law enforcement. Its not enough for Democrats to stop talking about defunding the police. Are they going to support hiring police officers on a scale necessary to bring police forces back to the manpower levels needed to deal with rising crime rates? Are they willing to give officers the latitude they need to be able, or even willing, to police high crime areas? Probably not. But that means risking that violent crime will continue increasingly to plague our cities, while property crime spreads to our suburbs. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and the rest of the Democratic party were willing to get tough on crime not just through more active policing, but also through tougher sentences. Will the contemporary Democratic party move meaningfully in this direction? I dont think so, not any time soon. And the same goes for a host of other areas where wokeness has made inroads with the left. Resorting to high-minded rhetoric about America being great enough to change isnt a solution to the problems woke Democrats confront. They will have to make tough policy choices on the issues associated with wokeness. I dont believe theyre capable of making ones that most of the electorate will like. Last April, police officers stopped a young career criminal named Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. They ran a check and realized that Wright was wanted. Wright resisted arrest and tried to flee in his vehicle. Veteran Brooklyn Center police officer Kim Potter intended to tase Wright, but accidentally drew her gun instead of her taser and shot him. She is now being prosecuted for manslaughter (the prosecution has stipulated that the shooting was accidental) and, as with Derek Chauvin, Attorney General Keith Ellison has taken over the case. Hennepin County District Judge Regina Chu has been assigned the case. Leftist thugs evidently have figured out where Judge Chu lives, and last night they demonstrated outside her apartment building. At least one thug, and perhaps more, gained access to the building despite apartment security and stood outside her door. Crime Watch Minneapolis has the story: . Any mainstream #MNmedia report on the fact that a person entered a secure, private apartment building last night and went up to the 12th floor and stood outside the door of the female judge presiding over the Kim Potter/Daunte Wright case in an attempt to intimidate her? . pic.twitter.com/zLObPt7RFA CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) November 7, 2021 Only one person is shown in these photos; he posted on social media from outside Judge Chus door. But he says he is waiting for the gang to get up here, so more may have joined him. Also, the second graphic says that a resident of the building asked him if there was a reason [he was in the building] and yelling out the window [to protesters outside]. This reply to the Minneapolis Crime Watch tweet refers to thugs gaining entry to the building, so again, there may have been more than one: This attempt to intimidate a judge is totally unacceptable, and yet the reality is that it likely will be accepted. Thugs like the one who photographed himself outside the judges apartment door have been indulged all their lives. Law enforcement in Minneapolis has become almost non-existent, and civic authorities are more interested in preserving what is left of their citys (and states) tattered reputation than in facing up to the depths to which Minneapolis has fallen. Activists want to turn the Kim Potter trial into a lynch mob-dominated circus like the Derek Chauvin trial. At the moment, I am not aware of anything that might stand in their way. The last question is whether any news outlet other than Minneapolis Crime Watch will defend not just Judge Chu, but our criminal justice system, by publicizing these thugs intimidation tactics. Of course, Power Line just did, and I am confident that Alpha News will. But the Minneapolis Star Tribune and other conventional news outlets? Dont hold your breath. UPDATE: I see that Alpha News has just written about this outrage. Alphas post, by Kyle Hooten, includes video of the protest. That post also suggests that the main thug may be George Floyds nephew. It also raises the possibility that the thugs might have had the wrong building. e-ZLA: podaj aktualny adres Gdy zachorujemy i lekarz wystawia nam e-ZLA, musimy pamietac o podaniu aktualnego adresu zamieszkania. Jesli w okresie zwolnienia zmienimy miejsce swojego pobytu, mamy 3 dni na poinformowanie o tym fakcie pracodawcy i ZUS. Jakie kompetencje pracownikow pozadane w XXI wieku? Lista obecnie funkcjonujacych zawodow nieuchronnie sie zmienia i proces ten bedzie trwa, co wynika z coraz wiekszego wykorzystania automatyzacji i sztucznej inteligencji. Zmieni sie charakter pracy i zozonosc poszczegolnych profesji ... GUS: srednia krajowa w listopadzie to 5484 z Przecietne miesieczne wynagrodzenie w listopadzie 2020 wynioso 5484,07 z - poinformowa Gowny Urzad Statystyczny. To o 4,9% wiecej niz w analogicznym miesiacu roku ubiegego. I zaledwie 25 z wiecej niz w pazdzierniku 2020. Dodatkowy zasiek opiekunczy do 17 stycznia 2021 roku Okres wypaty dodatkowego zasiku opiekunczego przysugujacego na dziecko do lat 8 zosta przeduzony do 17 stycznia 2021 roku. Kto moze sie starac o taki zasiek? Kiedy dodatkowy zasiek opiekunczy nie przysuguje? The Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Shuaibu Ibrahim, has commended the patriotism of corps members engaged in the conduct of the governorship poll in Anambra State. Mr Ibrahim gave the commendation on Saturday while monitoring the election in nine local government areas of the state. The commendation was contained in a statement issued on Saturday in Abuja by Adenike Adeyemi, Director, Press and Public Relations Unit of the NYSC. The corps members had written their names in the annals of history, having contributed towards the entrenchment of a credible electoral process, the statement quoted the director-general as saying. The DG also enjoined them to remain impartial and perform their duties in line with established rules. In all the polling units he visited, the corps members informed him that the exercise was peaceful. Observation At Unit 003 Ward 007 in Awka South Local Government Area (LGA), an Election Observer, Nwadishi Faith Ossai, from the Centre for Transparency Advocacy, commended the DG for taking time to go round and see how the corps members were faring. She also praised the corps members for their performance. Mrs Ossai also said the corps members have been advised to be law-abiding and be of good conduct throughout their service year. Sensitisation In a related development, the DG visited the Permanent Orientation Camp in Anambra State. There, he sensitised them on the four cardinal programmes of the scheme and urged them to always obey the NYSC bye-laws and the rules in their places of primary assignments. Mr Ibrahim urged the court members to serve as role models and leave good legacies at the end of their service. Please take advantage of the orientation course to promote unity and teamwork and ensure that the spirit of NYSC lives in you forever, Mr Ibrahim said. He advised them to study the felt needs of their host communities and initiate laudable projects that would add value to the lives of the residents. Mr Ibrahim, however, pointed out that corps members were not expected to use their personal money to execute projects. He said they should rather reach out to people within the community for mobilisation of resources. The DG further enjoined them to take advantage of the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development programme of the scheme, to empower themselves for self-employment. Identify your talent, drive your vision with passion and commitment and the sky will be your limit, he said. He said the NYSC had partnered financial institutions such as the Central Bank of Nigeria, Bank of Industry, Heritage Bank and Access Bank, among others, towards supporting members with loans to finance their businesses. He also said efforts are ongoing for the establishment of NYSC Trust Fund which would, among other benefits, make funds available to corps members for the actualisation of their business dreams. He appealed to the corps members to avoid the wrong usage of the social media, advising that they should instead, deploy them for the promotion of national unity and integration. He also warned them against unauthorised journeys and maintained that only state coordinators, and not their employers, could grant them permission to travel outside their places of primary assignments. Me Ibrahim further warned the corps members to avoid boarding commercial vehicles by the roadside. He stated that the management had partnered the Federal Road Safety Corps and transport unions to ensure they were provided with roadworthy vehicles while travelling. If you have permission to travel make sure you take off from a designated motor park. Do not travel at night; when it is 6 p.m., break your journey and continue the following day, he said. (NAN) Three students were injured and properties destroyed in a fire outbreak at the University of Maiduguri Murtala female hostel on Saturday, the second of such incidents in one month. The fire, which was suspected to have started from a cooking stove, was put out almost immediately by the universitys fire service. Commenting on the development, the director, public relations, of the university, Danjuma Gambo, said preliminary investigations had shown that the incident was caused by a Kerosene explosion, and that the three female victims were in the hospital. Mr Gambo, who described the incident as unfortunate, said the university management was taking steps to enforce more fire safety regulations in students hostels. (NAN) The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has filed a lawsuit asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop President Muhammadu Buhari from spending N26bn in the 2022 presidency budget on local and foreign travels, meals and refreshments, sitting allowance, welfare package, and office building. In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/1361/2021 filed last Friday, SERAP is seeking: an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Buhari to cut the N26bn presidency budget on local and foreign travels, meals and refreshments, and to send a supplementary appropriation bill to the National Assembly to reflect the reduction. SERAP is also seeking an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Buhari to publish spending details on the State House Medical Center since May 29, 2015 to date; and to redirect some of the money on travels and meals to improve public healthcare facilities across the country. SERAP is arguing that The government would continue to borrow to fund the countrys budget until there is a substantial cut to the cost of governance. It is in the public interest to stop the government from spending so much money on these items. Persistent borrowing is neither sustainable nor fair to the Nigerian people. According to SERAP, The huge spending by the presidency is neither necessary nor in the public interest, especially in the face of the countrys dire economic position, the scant allocations to education and health, and the growing level of borrowing by the Federal Government to fund the 2022 budget. SERAP is also arguing that The Buhari administration has constitutional and fiduciary duties to ensure a responsible budget spending, and the well-being and prosperity of Nigerians. Some of the proposed spending could be better allocated to improve access of poor Nigerians to basic public goods and services. SERAP is further arguing that Any spending of public funds should stay within the limits of constitutional responsibilities, and oath of office by public officers, as well as comply with Chapter 2 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution [as amended] relating to fundamental objectives and directive principles of state policy. SERAP is also arguing that Unless the reliefs sought are granted, the Federal Government will continue to benefit from the breach of the law, and the proposed spending of N26bn would leave the poorest and most vulnerable people without access to essential public goods and services, and burden the next generation. The suit filed on behalf of SERAP by its lawyers Kolawole Oluwadare and Adelanke Aremo, read in part: Cutting waste and apparently unnecessary spending would go a long way in addressing the budget deficit and debt problems. Stopping President Buhari from spending the proposed N26bn on travels and meals would ensure that the government is spending the countrys maximum available resources to respect, protect, and promote the rights to basic needs of the poor and marginalized groups. The proposed spending is unsustainable, and would take away critical funding to provide access to quality healthcare and education. Public officers are mere custodians of public records. Nigerians are entitled to know how the commonwealth is being utilized, managed and administered in a democratic setting. According to reports, the proposed N26bn on travels, meals, refreshments and the presidential wing of the State House Clinic is more than the proposed allocations for ongoing and new projects in 14 teaching hospitals combined. N19.17 billion is allocated to the following teaching hospitals: UNILAG Teaching HospitalN1.69bn; ABU Teaching HospitalN2.38bn; University College Hospital, IbadanN1.49bn; and UNN Teaching HospitalN1.38bn. UNIBEN Teaching HospitalN1.35bn; OAU Teaching HospitalN1.35bn; UNILORIN Teaching HospitalN982m; UNIJOS Teaching HospitalN908m; University of Port HarcourtN1.14bn; UNIMAID Teaching HospitalN986m; Dan Fodio University Teaching HospitalN987m; Aminu Kano Teaching HospitalN2.49bn; UNIABUJA Teaching HospitalN1.90bn; and ATBU Teaching HospitalN947m. No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit. Kolawole Oluwadare SERAP Deputy Director A former director of voter education, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, has said the extension of the ongoing Anambra governorship election by INEC from Saturday to Sunday is not a new phenomenon in Nigeria. He spoke on Sunday during a programme tagged; The Morning Show, on Arise Television. Mr Osaze-Uzzi said it was okay for INEC to extend elections if there are technical issues that cannot be fixed by the commission on the scheduled day, adding that extension of elections is not a new phenomenon in Anambra. He said: There are instances when INEC had to postpone elections in the past, reschedule or even extend the time for collation and counting. This is not the first, there are precedents for it, starting from Anambra itself. I think about eight years ago, INEC was prevented from deploying materials from the wards upto the polling units, because some people alleged that materials were not complete and result sheets were missing, so we extended the election. He added that some extensions in the past were based on court orders or violence. He also explained that by virtue of the constitution, the election will be conducted not earlier than 150 days to the expiration of the tenure of the current governor or not later than 30 days to that expiration. We still have quite a number of weeks or months until the expiration of the tenure of the governor, but the sooner the commission concludes, the better for Anambra., he said. On recurring logistics issues Speaking further, Mr Osaze-Uzzi admitted that the logistics issue is a recurring one, as INEC experiences difficulties in the prompt delivery of election materials. He said: I dont know exactly what happened in areas where there were difficulties with early delivery of materials, but they mentioned that there were no security officials to escort the INEC officials to the polling unit. It is extremely frustrating for people to get to the polling units without having to vote immediately, especially elderly people, people with disabilities and those who have other things to do. He recommended that INEC must sit down to deliberate on how to resolve the logistics problems ahead of the 2023 election. The election According to INEC, the 2021 gubernatorial election in Anambra State, which started on Saturday, November 6, was extended to Sunday, to allow voters who were not able to vote due to malfunctioning of the Bimodal Accreditation System (BVAS) to vote. Nkwachukwu Orji, the state INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, disclosed this during a press briefing at the INEC headquarters on Saturday. He said the measure became necessary to enable more eligible voters to cast their votes in the areas affected, as the BVAS malfunctioned due to software glitches. Similarly, Saeed Husaini, director, Research, Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD), said at a news conference on the election analysis on Saturday that the failure of the BIVAS was widely reported across numerous polling units in the state. Aside from the BIVAS failure, the centre also observed lateness of officials in commencing accreditation and polling, electoral malpractice including vote-buying among others. A former national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Victor Umeh, has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the introduction of Bimodal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS). Mr Umeh, who is the agent of the partys gubernatorial candidate in Saturdays election, said the deployment of the device made the process seamless. He made the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Sunday in Awka. Mr Umeh said though the BVAS has its challenges, the device was good when compared to the card reader machine. Yesterday, the BVAS device could not capture the fingerprints of older people and that reduced the number of people who apparently would have voted, he said. The party chief said APGA was grateful to INEC and security operatives for the provision of a conducive environment for the exercise. We are grateful to God that the election was largely peaceful except for Ihiala where the Commission was unable to distribute the election materials due to some hiccups, he said. Mr Umeh said he was at INEC state headquarters for the collation of election results, adding that the party was thankful to Anambra people for believing in her. (NAN) The commissioner of police in Anambra State, Echeng Echeng, has commended the people of the state for the peaceful conduct of Saturdays governorship election. Mr Echeng told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Awka on Sunday that he was impressed by the overall peace in the state during the election. It is on record that we have witnessed one of the most peaceful elections in recent times in the country. I can beat my chest on that, he said. He said there were no security breaches during the election. The election was peaceful, and we had no incident of violence, ballot snatching or fighting in any polling unit in the state, he said. Mr Echeng thanked security agencies in the state and said the seamless collaboration among them was the main reason for the peace experienced during the election. We synergised with sister security agencies and made sure it was incident-free, we held meetings over a long period of time preparing for the election and it paid off, he said. The police boss said the peaceful conduct of the election had proven that Anambra was one of the most peaceful states in the country. Prior to the election, I have been telling people that Anambra is one of the most peaceful states in the country and the peaceful conduct of the election has proven that, he said. He, however, acknowledged that there were some hitches during the election due to the malfunctioning of some Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) gadgets. Wherever you have hitches during the election, it was not based on security problem, rather it was based on problems associated with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) equipment. I think we deserve commendation, he said There were no elections in two local government areas during Saturdays Anambra governorship election, the election officials have said. The two local government areas are Ihiala and Orumba North. The collation officers for the two areas disclosed this on Sunday during the collation of results from the local government areas at the State Collation Centre in Awka. The presentation made by the Collation Officer for Orumba North, Michael Otu, became dramatic when he and his electoral officer openly disagreed and accused each other of misconduct. Mr Otu, a law lecturer in University of Calabar, told the State Collation Officer, Florence Obi, the vice-chancellor of University of Calabar, that he signed the election result under duress. I signed the result, I dont believe in the result. I signed it under duress, he said. He said the electoral officer and another election official who were supposed to work with him brought thugs to attack him during collation. My experience was very pathetic, but I thank God I am alive, he said. The Electoral Officer, Comfort, in responding to the allegations against her, said the Orumba North collation officer, Mr Otu, was unstable and not fit for the job. If you watch this man for 30 minutes, youll know that he is not composed. We were watching him, he said so many things about me. He has never had an experience on how to collate (election) results. He does not know the difference between conducting an election and collating an election, she said. The state collation officer, Mrs Obi, intervened and said she was aware of the case in the area. She said she received a distress call from the area and personally called the commissioner of police in Anambra to intervene. She promised that the case would be looked into. The results from all the local government areas have been called except one. Meanwhile, the exercise has been put on hold for the election officials to go on a break. Charles Soludo, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, maintains a clear lead, from the results announced so far by the National Electoral Commission. Many atimes, Providence speaks to human beings in anecdotes. Unfortunately, man is too blind to even behold the foot of his nose; too lost in pursuit of earthly existential scrambles that the lessons of these stories are most times lost on him. Traditional Africa located the power in relating life experiences, as well as the experiences of living and non-living beings, especially those of animals, to the life of existing man. For centuries, not only did humanity learn to live by minding the landmines that consumed its recent and ancient ancestors, it also fashioned its life therefrom. The holy writs are filled with anecdotal examples of lives lived that ended in perdition and ones lived in exemplary manner that are worthy of being copied. This is the power behind folktales, dreams and historical renditions. Relation of life experiences to occurrences that have happened could even be said to be the philosophy behind the doctrine of stare decisis in law. This doctrine arose out of the need for legal continuity, for the sake of certainty. Inherited from the English common law, in the early 18th century, English courts gave qualified obligation to judges to abide by past decisions and established rules made by former precedents whenever same points and same issues came forth for adjudications. For a whole one week now, Nigeria has been thrown into mourning. Calamities have befallen Nigeria from all fronts before now but the calamity this time around came from the western flank; from the sudden collapse of a 21-storey Gerrard, Ikoyi, Lagos terrace building belonging to Femi Osibona, owner of Fourscore Limited. As at the time of writing this, 40 people had been pulled out of the debris of the collapse, including the remains of the Property Developer Osibona himself, his friends and workers on site. Recriminations, blame trading and tar-brushings that bear imprimatur of politics are being spurned. The calamity has been dimensioned severally, from the architectural, engineering, spiritual to the human angles, The question to ask in all these is, could the Lagos 21-stoey terrace building collapse be speaking to a greater rot within, and a greater calamity to come that bespatter our country, which could happen unless Nigeria takes heed? Put differently, could the collapse actually be a metaphor for understanding a collapse or a likely collapse of Nigeria unless we remedy our national structure? Can we dimension the cracks in Nigeria, taking into consideration the dimensioned fractures that eventually led to the collapse of the 21-storey Ikoyi building, with a view to averting her fall? Osibona, from all that have so far been said about him, had a good intention for himself as an entrepreneur and a projected, even if ostensible, good intention for the property development world as at the time he conceived of the idea of the Ikoyi terrace building. While many have spoken of how Osibona transitioned from being a shoe, clothes seller in the United Kingdom, into establishing Fourscore Limited, his capacity to be able to build the high rise building cannot be questioned. Is it the same for his capability? It may be a throwback to that maxim that says the road to hell is paved with a swathe of good intentions. There have been so many good-intentioned projects and projections that have ended in calamitous ruins. While metaphysicists talk about the unseen dimensions of human engagements, as Africans, we will be engaging in a barren venture if we take the route trodden by the Austrian British philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who maintained that metaphysical matters are nonsensical. For us as Africans, the unseen dictates the template of the seen. In our world, the fly dancing on the river has a drummer hidden from vision, the metaphysics of its being. So, could the crash and collapse of that edifice have had an eidetic significance, far more than the physical lacuna that scientists and professionals have identified as the likely cause of the collapse? Whatever is the foundational, structural or super-structural errors that led to the collapse of the Ikoyi building can be metaphorized as Nigeria. The 1914 structural and foundational error behind virtually all ills plaguing Nigeria has been underscored severally. While the foundational colonial error of bumping together like and unlike entities into a questionable whole has been identified as a major cause of the debilitating instability in Nigeria today, over a century after, super-structural errors that came thereafter have compounded the ills that plague her. German jurist, Friedrich Karl von Savigny of the Historical school of thought in jurisprudence, had espoused what he called the volkgeist, the national spirit, as the glue that cements and binds a people together, the absence of which can mar a jurisprudential understanding of a peoples law. In the colonial shell bequeathed to a post-colonial Nigeria, there is a clear absence of the Savigny volkgeist and manifesting in a Nigeria that is an alien and strange contraption that the people have to encounter as a vague reality. This has led to so many crises, ranging from the military putschs of 1966, the pogrom in the north, a fratricidal war, the incidence of military rule, the monumental heists that have been inflicted on Nigeria ever since and the economic stasis, as well as the security challenges that the country is facing today. There have been so many posthumous accounts of the person of Osibona, the Fourscore property owner. Each of the accounts claimed that he never cut corners and was merely ambitious. However, there have also been other claims to the effect that the initial design of the building was eight floors and that the foundation was not designed to shoulder an edifice of that magnitude. There was also a viral video of men of the Lagos structural enforcement outfit which stormed the Ikoyi property to bring him to book but from whose hooks he freed himself after pressing the usual Nigerian button. This is a euphemism for graft, bribery and the typical Nigerian big-man-ism. Those who claim that in the button pressed by Osibona which secured him freedom from this harassment could be found a nexus between him and those who he allegedly fronted for didnt get the dice right. In Nigeria, you do not need to be a surrogate of a super big man to be able to secure freedom from the law. You only need to possess the right stack of cash that can drive the greed of the system and law. The Nigerian postcolonial burden has ensured that Nigeria is a land of cutting corners. Drugs are fake, human beings are fake, promises are dross, mosques are fake and the pulpit is suffering from a fakery of cataclysmic proportion. When a man approaches you and announces that he is Pastor or Imam, flee. Did you listen to a viral video of Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo sacralizing Osibona and his pursuits? With this, it becomes very difficult to draw a line between devilish, fast-tempoed aspirations and Godly aspirations. By the way, how come that in those moments of laying hands on Osibona to conquer territories, Ashimolowo didnt decipher that a man running at such supersonic speed to conquer property developments in continents could be short-changing the system? Did Ashimolowo caution against speedy sprint of this protege of his? Because the putting together of Nigeria lacks the metaphysical or the spiritual element, it then goes without saying that she lacks a major cohesive ingredient that holds a people together in their time of travails. There is no common goal that the people of Nigeria are pursuing as they lack what in German is called Weltanschauung, a worldview. It symptomizes the collection of values, attitudes, narratives and expectations of the world in which a people are born and which shape them, their thoughts and actions. It is reason why there are variations in the ethos, ethics, religion, philosophy and beliefs of the people of Nigeria. Many structural engineers have queried the substructure of the land that the 21-storey building was erected. When narratives from the top, especially from those who hold the rein of power today, claim that Nigerias unity is non-negotiable, they sound extremely ridiculous like a sub-structural wrong that perhaps the builders of the Ikoyi property noticed but which they believed was immaterial and that a magnificent structure erected on it will cure the wrongs. Trust Nigerians with their multifaceted prognoses at death, we have been variously told that there was a compromise of quality and standard in the building of that fallen edifice. For instance, a Prowess Engineering Limited, a company that allegedly began the construction of the collapsed building, reportedly warned the late Osibona of the inherent dangers in circumventing process and standard in its construction. In a letter that instantly went viral, the company was said to have withdrawn its services on grounds that there was variation, both in the vision of the company, the late owners and the building project. Likewise in Nigeria. Nation-building is a product of shared vision and is a collective enterprise. The moment there is no Fe of ownership of a national project and there is an absence of a consensus of ideas, cracks begin to appear. In a Nigeria where some people are perceived as lords while others are serfs, where some nationalities are kings and others their servants, the end product is always a disaster. The administration of Nigeria, especially from 1966 till date, has yielded so many contradictions and ambiguities. Largely due to the selfish interests of the colonizers which were projected in the foundational administration of Nigeria, ethnic groups were thus balkanized as ethnicities and not as nations. This has made issues to be viewed from their ethnic prism and ethnicity used as a negative construct. Any policy, projects, appointments, infrastructure and dividends of governance is perceived and apprehended from the vantage point of ethnicity. This crack has further become more noticeable since 2015 when Mephistopheles gifted Nigeria a president who has offhandedly escalated the importance of where one comes from in Nigeria, higher than what one has to contribute to Nigeria. Today, apart from all the challenges of making Nigeria a nation-state, Nigeria has become a recipient of dross structural padding that cannot endure. No one administers Nigeria from the position of wishing Nigeria to be great but as a honey-pot from where they could take a lick and bite. There is no synchronization in the expectations, contributions and manifestations of all the ethnic groups of Nigeria. Everybody is merely dancing to the rhythm of their own tunes and beats. The absence of unanimity of purpose has hugely stalled the possibility of nation building. Thus, impunity is ten a dime on Nigerian streets. From the roads, offices, government, individuals and everybody in Nigeria, impunity has become the necklace we fiendishly advertise. If you come in contact with the disorder on the streets of Nigeria, you do not need to read Karl Maiers This House Has Fallen to be able to decipher that Nigeria is going the Ikoyi 21-storey building way gradually. Ostensibly, the fallen Ikoyi building didnt acquire the liability of a fall overnight. It began to crack within unnoticeably a long time ago. As they say, that Rome was not built in a day, it is obvious that Rome was also not destroyed in a day. That great empire began to stink from within and the crumble began gradually. It is same with a Nigeria that we are cobbling together with great efforts and brinkmanship, without bothering to repair the wonky foundation upon which she was erected. There are several lessons Nigeria can learn from the Ikoyi fallen high rise building. Nigeria big but fragile and its fragility has prodded many theorists to point at its probable fall. Nigerias collapse may not be as structural as we saw in the Ikoyi buildings collapse but the country is getting to a point where its existence is hugely threatened. If Osibona was told of the fragility of the structure he was putting together yet stewed dangerously in his own broth of self-delusion of the strength of his magnificent structure, he would be in the same parlour with the rulers of Nigeria who believe that some metaphysical glue that has kept Nigeria from falling, right from the civil war period, would always be available to make Nigeria withstand whatever push and shove she gets from as a result of her wonky foundation. It is not too late for Nigerian rulers to avoid a calamity of the hue of Ikoyi if they come down from their high horses, accept that there are structural errors that needed to be corrected urgently about Nigeria and do that immediately. Festus Adedayo is an Ibadan-based journalist. The vulture is a patient bird. Thats in the animal kingdom. Among humankind, the vulture of social media is the most restless and jumpy animal ever to walk the surface of the earth. In the forest, the bush or the desert, the vulture baits its prey until it drops dead. In real life among homo sapiens, the vulture makes carrion out of every kind of human beef, dead or alive. The collapse of a 21-storey building under construction in Ikoyi, Lagos, was a monumental tragedy which shocked the world. Nothing sells like bad news, so the major global networks compete to flash the breaking news. Crumbling skyscrapers arent exactly what Nigeria wants to be known for, but here we are confronted with our omissions and commissions and helpless in the face of an eventuality we could have prevented. Tragedy is part of life. But tragic incidents are made more horrendous by the total detachment and loss of humanity demonstrated by those who pretend to know the hows and whys and wheretofores of happenings yet to fully unravel. God rest the souls of all the victims. When such terrible events happen, some analysts are quick to make judgements and deliver sentences before the full facts are available. Ahead of the interment of some of the notable victims, some social media vultures are already pissing on their graves in advance. The craze for relevance in the unfolding revelations about the property is so intense that every social media loonie has taken off on his/her own tangent to propound conspiracy theories and libel innocent personalities. Take the allegation against Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo for instance. The social media vultures alleged that the land on which the ill-fated building sat belonged to him and that he was even a co-investor on the property. As a corollary, the purveyors of fake news suggested that Femi Osibona, the property owner, was fronting for some big politician. The name of Chief Michael Ade Ojo, proprietor of Elizade Motors and founder of Elizade University was thrown into the mix as the original landowner who sold the plot to Osinbajo before Osinbajo offloaded it to Osibona. Lies! The Vice-Presidents media aide reacted swiftly and pointedly to the allegations that (a) The VP owns the land upon which the collapsed building in Ikoyi stood; (b) That the said land was sold to him by Chief Michael Ade. Ojo, Chairman of Elizade Motors; and (c) That the Vice President, at some point, intervened with the regulatory authorities in Lagos State to unseal the said property. Laolu Akande, who signed the press statement declared: At no time whatsoever did the VP buy this or any other piece of land from Chief Michael Ade. Ojo, or entered into any transaction for the sale of that land or any other piece of land from Chief Ade. Ojo or anyone for that matter. All property and assets owned by the Vice President have been publicly declared. Also, the Vice President has never spoken to the Governor of Lagos State or any other official of the State Government regarding the unsealing of the said building on Gerrard Road, Ikoyi, which subsequently collapsed. He has, indeed, never acted to influence any other regulatory action on the collapsed building, or any other building for that matter, in Lagos State. The Vice President restates categorically that he has no interest whatsoever, and has never had any interest, either legally or beneficially, in the land, the building or development. Prof Osinbajo decried the wickedness and viciousness of a lie that seeks to utilise a tragedy where so many people have lost their lives, even as rescue efforts are ongoing, and in wanton disregard to the feelings and untold grief of their loved ones for political gain The coordinated assault on the integrity of VP Osinbajo reeked of a well coordinated flinging of political dung at a man who knew nothing and had no hand in the unfortunate disaster. As 2023 presidential jostling gathers steam, we are likely to see more of such attempts to de-market those considered credible threats to the ambitions of some other puppeteer lurking in the shadows. As a citizen and considering our habitual lethargy in such matters I think commendations are in order for the responsiveness of the Lagos State government under the leadership of Babajide Sanwo-Olu. The governor has now confirmed that the developer has approval for a 15-storey building, not 21-storey. How he sidetracked an earlier order to stop work on the site and the circumstances surrounding the withdrawal of the original firm of structural engineers supervising the project, are some of the knots to be untied by the newly constituted panel of enquiry made up of a Town Planner, Structural Engineer, Architect, Builder and two Lawyers with one of them acting as secretary. Not many people will be surprised if eventually the investigative panel proves that the developer cut corners and shunned the building code. It happens with us all the time. If that turns out to be the case, I still contend that we all have to look in the mirror. If a man who has successfully operated in the property markets of South Africa, USA and the UK returns home only to defy building codes (as he cannot do in those other climes without grievous consequences), we must take another look at our culture of impunity fuelled by corruption. Of what use are laws if they wont be enforced? The General Manager of the Lagos State Building Control Agency, LASBCA, Gbolahan Oki, has been suspended. The governor promised to guillotine more heads if other people are found culpable in the course of investigations. Mistakes were made from all angles, said the governor. Help desks have been set up on site to give information and psychological props to distraught family members. But the big problem is that nobody, not even the government or any of its agencies, knows the number of people on site when disaster struck. The customary manifest that is supposed to be filled on site was non-existent. As at the time of writing this piece, 38 corpses (including that of the property developer, his visiting friend and his personal assistant) had been recovered. There are nine survivors so far. As a precautionary measure, the state government has sealed at least 67 commercial, residential buildings and other structures in Alimosho Local Government Area over contraventions of planning laws. Perhaps we can begin to learn to follow due process in such matters going forward. Social media is rife with salacious stories, many of which are unverified. This has compounded the grief of families who are yet to locate their loved ones. It is clear that attention seekers determined to trend on social media will do anything to score more hits by sounding authoritative on a matter they know next to nothing about. Suddenly, everyone is a building expert, the same way we all pretend to be security gurus. Among the perpetual experts running riot on social media is one self-appointed investigative expert who apparently has the ability to predict the gestation stage of a snails pregnancy. She runs riot on every subject, slanders people at will and claims inside knowledge of every subject under the sun. Such media vultures cant wait for a piece of news to mature so that they can give a rounded narrative. And they are too arrogant to admit that all they have is a developing story. No, they claim to know the end from the beginning. Left to them, the panel of enquiry may as well not bother to sit. The armchair investigative journalist knows all the answers. In this digital age, we are constrained to live with fabricated information that is patently false. Many tools have been developed to help people detect it and distinguish it from real news. Websites like Snopes and Politifact verify information using a battalion of human fact-checkers. Machine based algorithms are now being developed to help tackle the problem. Having tasted the many good sides of social media, who wants it to die? We are in the era of citizen journalism. Laypersons now write and disseminate their own news without any gatekeeper whatsoever. There is a liberating air around the new media, but beware, in the midst of reckless freedom lurks the viper. Back to the calamity at hand: Are we going to learn the necessary lessons from this incident, or is it going to be just another significant mention in the litany of collapsed buildings in Lagos? Sanwo-Olu has his work cut out: carry out a comprehensive audit of buildings under construction in Lagos and enforce the laws! The housing needs of Nigerias largest city are enormous. There is understandable pressure. But of what use is an edifice that depopulates? Wole Olaoye can be reached through wole.olaoye@gmail.com. Early results have given preliminary victory to the All Progressives Grand Alliance in all six local government areas announced so far in the ongoing Anambra State governorship election. The partys candidate, Charles Soludo, had earlier been reported to have won his polling unit and ward by wide margin. Mr Soludo has amassed the highest votes in Onitsha South, Awka South, Anaocha, Anambra East, Orumba South and Njikoka. Anambra State has 21 local government areas and collation is expected to extend into Sunday. There are 18 candidates contesting in the election. None of them is a woman, despite Anambra State being the only state to have had a female governor in Nigeria. Virginia Etiaba became governor in November 2006 after former Governor Peter Obi was impeached, but she handed over back to Mr Obi in February 2007 after an appeal court nullified the impeachment. Local government results so far: NJIKOKA APC 3,216 APGA 8,803 PDP 3,409 YPP 924 ORUMBA SOUTH APC: 2,060 APGA: 4,394 PDP: 1,672 YPP: 887 ANAMBRA EAST APC 2034 APGA: 9746 PDP: 1380 YPP: 559 ANAOCHA APC 2,085 APGA 6,911 PDP 5,108 YPP 868 AWKA SOUTH APC 2595 APGA 12891 PDP 5489 YPP 919 ONITSHA SOUTH APC 2,050 APGA 4,281 PDP 2,253 The Volunteer Ministers responded with donations of food such as fruit and vegetables, potatoes, flour, rice and pasta, hygiene suppliesand some nonessential but highly appreciated treats for the children. Some 65 to 70 percent of the 1,700 or so Gyulaj residents are Romamany of them casual laborers living at or below the poverty line. The lockdown took a terrible toll on the community, with farm work and day labor severely impacted by restrictions. The Volunteer Ministers returned to the village with more supplies as the pandemic continued. In September, with restrictions lifting and the promise of returning to normal, the mayor of Gyulaj and the village's Roma leader decided to organize an event for the entire community: A joint celebration of the village day and the annual Roma cultural festival. With the centerpiece of the celebration a cooking contest, the Volunteer Ministers arrived at dawn with their bright yellow van loaded with 70 pounds of meat and cabbage. And to complement the stuffed cabbage and goulash, the volunteers added soft drinks and chocolate. It was a fun-filled afternoon and the Volunteer Ministers left with plans to return for Christmas with gifts and holiday food to make it a great year for the community. Then in early October, tragedy struck the town. The Volunteer Ministers received a call from the Roma leader, asking for help. A freak accident killed four cousins age 17 to 27 as they were driving to work. A fifth cousin was injured but survived. All five were electricians: the breadwinners of their families. Their vehicle skidded into an oncoming truck in the rain. Then, as the village was reeling from that shock, the mother of four children died suddenly, unexpectedly, leaving her children orphaned. The volunteers immediately collected funds and left for the village with food and supplies to help the families through this tragic time and to let them know they are always on call to help them get through this ordeal. The Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers program is a religious social service created in the mid-1970s by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard . A Volunteer Minister's mandate is to be "a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring truth and spiritual values to the lives of others." Their creed: "A Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather, he is trained to handle these things and help others achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well." Their motto is, no matter the circumstances, "Something can be done about it." The Scientology Volunteer Ministers of Hungary headquarters is the Church of Scientology Budapest , whose new home was dedicated in 2016 by Mr. David Miscavige , ecclesiastical leader of the Scientology religion. For more information, visit the Scientology Newsroom or the Volunteer Ministers website. SOURCE Church of Scientology International Related Links http://www.scientology.org CHICAGO, Aug. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Roadpass Digital , the leading technology platform for road travel and outdoor experiences, announced today that it has added Campendium to its family of digital brands. Campendium co-founders Brian Easterling and Leigh Wetzel Campendium Campendium, which will continue to operate as a stand-alone brand, is a crowd-sourced and editorially-curated web and mobile application that allows users to search, preview, and provide feedback on more than 32,000 public and private camping locations across the continental United States, Canada, and Baja Mexico. Over the past 12 months, Campendium's app and website traffic has grown 59%, with a 58.5% increase of net-new users over the same period. "Campendium is the standard for RVers when finding places to camp. From public lands to established campgrounds, Campendium's knowledge is unique, rapidly-growing, and used by millions of RVers," said Roadpass Digital CEO Danny Hest. "It will significantly advance our mission to provide RVers and roadtrippers with end-to-end trip discovery and planning tools including finding accommodations that allow them to fully enjoy their journey. We look forward to applying our experience, scale, and tools to help Campendium further develop its product, enhance the user experience, and grow the platform's reach." As part of that growth effort, Campendium will soon be accessible with Roadpass Digital's Roadpass system. This secure single login profile allows users to access all of Roadpass Digital's travel tools. Co-founders Brian Easterling and Leigh Wetzel, who launched the website in 2015, will remain with Campendium to support its continued growth. "Helping people discover great places to camp has been our passion for over six years," said Leigh Wetzel. "Joining the Roadpass Digital family with its depth of resources and talent is the best way for Campendium to reach its full potential, further improve the experience for our community, and deepen the brand's commitment to the conservation of public lands." Roadpass Digital's other brands include Roadtrippers , a trip planning app that offers users the unique ability to collaborate with friends, sync across map apps for seamless navigation, identify and save destinations, and more; Roadpass Digital RV, the ultimate app to keep RV owners organized, inspired, and on the move with a set of tools focused on improving the RV experience; and RVillage , the largest and most active social network of RV owners and enthusiasts. About Roadpass Digital Roadpass Digital is a technology joint-venture between THOR Industries and Tourism Holdings Limited. Roadpass Digital Group is focused on making it easier to experience, own, and maintain recreational vehicles as well as more easily discover, book, and navigate road trips. Roadpass Digital has offices in Chicago, Cincinnati, and Auckland. Learn more about Roadpass Digital and its Campendium, Roadtrippers, RVillage, and Roadpass Digital RV products at togogroup.io. SOURCE Roadpass Digital Related Links https://www.togogroup.io/ Key Highlights Offered in the Report: Information on how to identify strategic and tactical negotiation levels that will help achieve the best prices. Gain information on relevant pricing levels, detailed explanation on pros and cons of prevalent pricing models. Methods to help engage with the right suppliers and discover KPI's to evaluate incumbent suppliers. Get a free sample report for more information Insights into buyer strategies and tactical negotiation levers: Several strategic and tactical negotiation levers are explained in the report to help buyers achieve the best prices for the Clinical Laboratory Services market. The report also aids buyers with relevant Clinical Laboratory Services pricing levels, pros, and cons of prevalent pricing models such as volume-based pricing, spot pricing, and cost-plus pricing and category management strategies and best practices to fulfil their category objectives. For more insights on buyer strategies and tactical negotiation levers, www.spendedge.com/report/clinical-laboratory-services-sourcing-and-procurement-intelligence-report Key Drivers and Trends Fueling Market Growth: The pressure from substitutes and a moderate level of threat from new entrants has resulted in the low bargaining power of suppliers. Price forecasts are beneficial in purchase planning, especially when supplemented by the constant monitoring of price influencing factors. During the forecast period, the market expects a change of 4%-6%. Identify favorable opportunities in Clinical Laboratory Services TCO (total cost of ownership). Expected changes in price forecast and factors driving the current and future price changes. Identify pricing models that offer the most rewarding opportunities. SpendEdge presents a detailed picture of this procurement market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources. Our Clinical Laboratory Services market procurement report covers the following areas: Some of the top Clinical Laboratory Services suppliers listed in this report: This Clinical Laboratory Services procurement intelligence report has enlisted the top suppliers and their cost structures, SLA terms, best selection criteria, and negotiation strategies. Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings Quest Diagnostics Inc Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. KGaA To get instant access to over 1000 market-ready procurement intelligence reports without any additional costs or commitment. Subscribe Now for Free Table of Content Executive Summary Market Insights Category Pricing Insights Cost-saving Opportunities Best Practices Category Ecosystem Category Management Strategy Category Management Enablers Suppliers Selection Suppliers under Coverage US Market Insights Category scope Appendix Get instant access to download 5 reports every month and view 1200 full reports. With every purchase, we also offer complimentary research add-ons and Covid-19 impact assessments Purchase Now! About SpendEdge: SpendEdge shares your passion for driving sourcing and procurement excellence. We are the preferred procurement market intelligence partner for 120+ Fortune 500 firms and other leading companies across numerous industries. Our strength lies in delivering robust, real-time procurement market intelligence reports and solutions. Contacts SpendEdge Anirban Choudhury Marketing Manager Ph No: +1 (872) 206-9340 https://www.spendedge.com/contact-us SOURCE SpendEdge Related Links https://www.spendedge.com/contact-us DHAKA, Bangladesh, Nov. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Praava Health, Bangladesh's fastest-growing healthcare brand, announced today it has joined the global initiative Ethical Principles in Health Care (EPiHC) , a global set of guidelines to help build transparent, resilient health systems through a set of shared principles that promote ethical decision making and behavior. EPiHC is a World Bank and IFC initiative that sets out pragmatic and universally applicable values to help private sector healthcare providers build transparent and resilient operating systems that meet the highest ethical principles. In joining EPiHC, Praava Health stands alongside more than 100 fellow signatories, including renowned institutions such as Mayo Clinic (USA), Johns Hopkins Medicine (USA), and Apollo Hospitals (India). Aimed at helping to achieve high-quality, affordable healthcare for all, EPiHC currently represents more than 4,000 healthcare organizations in more than 70 countries. Sylvana Q. Sinha, CEO and Founder of Praava Health, noted, "Since Praava was founded in 2018, we have continuously strived to deliver convenient, affordable, and high-quality healthcare to the people of Bangladesh. Our mission closely aligns with the Ten Principles set forth by the EPiHC organization.As a member of EPiHC, we are deepening our ongoing commitment to the highest standard of health ethics at every level of care." Dr. Simeen Majid Akhtar, Chief Medical Officer added, "In contrast to the average amount of time doctors spend with patients in Bangladesh - 48 seconds - Praava guarantees that our licensed healthcare providers spend at least 15 minutes with their patients at every appointment. Ample time spent with healthcare providers is an invaluable and necessary resource for patients. Evidence is clear that better patient outcomes are achieved when patients engage closely with healthcare providers to manage their health. Additionally, this is simply what patients deserve - to be treated with dignity and respect in their interactions with their healthcare providers." Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Praava Health continues to put forth comprehensive and accessible care for communities across Bangladesh. Praava's integrated outpatient healthcare solution offers convenient in-person and virtual doctor consultations, outpatient procedures, a wide array of home services, high quality diagnostic testing, and pharmacy services including e-pharmacy. Praava's laboratory participates in Randox International Quality Assessment Scheme (RIQAS), the world's largest external quality assessment scheme. RIQAS has more than 47,000 laboratory participants in over 139 countries. Praava has been participating in RIQAS since August 2018 and has received an average accuracy score of 99.9% making it one of the highest quality laboratories in Bangladesh. About Praava Health: Praava is a "brick-and-click" healthcare platform that integrates digital health and in-clinic experiences convenient to where everyone lives, works, and clicks. The platform seamlessly combines technology with traditional health services meaningful doctor-patient relationships (15-minute appointments) and quality diagnostics (lab and imaging) and medications to improve patient experiences and outcomes. Praava's digital products include Bangladesh's first patient portal app, video consultation services, e-pharmacy, and a digital concierge for at-home primary care services. Praava is also the first in the region to introduce value-based healthcare concepts, aligning patient values with its own incentives. Praava has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer (June 2021) and Fast Company as a World Changing Idea (May 2020). Recent milestones: 250,000+ patients served to date, growing more than 3x year on year 160,000+ COVID-19 tests processed in-house to date Remote and virtual healthcare services grew to 40% of all services in 2020 New digital product launches in 2020s, including telemedicine, e-pharmacy, and virtual primary care Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 87, exceeding the highest NPS scores for Fortune 500 companies To learn more about the services offered by Praava Health, please visit PraavaHealth.com SOURCE Praava Health Related Links https://praavahealth.com HOUSTON, Nov. 7, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Renowned Texas attorney Thomas J. Henry filed a sweeping lawsuit Sunday against rapper Travis Scott as well as Aubrey Drake Graham, Live Nation and NRG Stadium in connection with a tragic event at the Astroworld music festival that left eight people dead and dozens of others hospitalized. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of one of the victims who reached out to Thomas J. Henry Law following Friday night's catastrophic event. Thomas J. Henry is actively investigating the failings at Astroworld and is providing immediate consultations to all injured victims as well as to families who had loved ones hurt or killed at the concert. Victim in Travis Scott Astroworld Tragedy Hires Texas Attorney Thomas J. Henry as LawFirm Fields Numerous Calls Tweet this Reports indicate a crowd surged the stage of the Travis Scott concert when rapper Drake made an unannounced appearance on stage. The surge soon resulted in chaos as concert-goers were pushed into one another and the crowd pressed its way forward. Travis Scott and Drake continued to perform even as emergency vehicles arrived and responders attempted to rescue those in distress. By the time Live Nation finally decided to end the performance, 23 people required hospitalization, 11 were in cardiac arrest, and more than 300 had to be treated at a "field hospital" on site. So far, eight people have died of their injuries. "Live musical performances are meant to inspire catharsis, not tragedy," said Texas attorney Thomas J. Henry. "Many of these concert-goers were looking forward to this event for months, and they deserved a safe environment in which to have fun and enjoy the evening. Instead, their night was one of fear, injury, and death." Thomas J. Henry believes a message needs to be sent to performers, venues, and event organizers that a lackadaisical approach to event preparation and attendees safety is no longer acceptable. "There is no excuse for the events that unfolded at NRG stadium on Friday night," said Thomas J. Henry. "There is every indication that the performers, organizers, and venue were not only aware of the hectic crowd but also that injuries and potential deaths may have occurred. Still, they decided to put profits over their attendees and allowed the deadly show to go on." About Thomas J. Henry Law Thomas J. Henry Law, PLLC, is one of the nation's leading personal injury firms . Since 1993, the firm has fought to secure justice and compensation for individuals who have lost loved ones due to the negligence of others and to prevent similar instances of wrongful death from occurring again. Over that time, Thomas J. Henry and his firm have been the recipients of numerous awards and recognitions . In 2021, Thomas J. Henry Law was named "Law Firm of the Year" by the American Institute of Legal Professionals. In 2020, the firm was named one of the Best Places to Work by Glassdoor for the second consecutive year. It was the only law firm to secure the accolade. Firm founder Thomas J. Henry was named one of SA Scene Magazine's Best San Antonio Lawyers. Thomas J. Henry was also recognized in Texas Lawyer's (an ALM Company) Southwest Top Verdicts and Settlements of 2020 for securing the #1 Gross Negligence Verdict for the year. In 2019, Thomas J. Henry Law was recognized as one of the nation's Premier Law Firms by Newsweek.com . That same year, Bloomberg Businessweek published a feature on Thomas J. Henry, highlighting his firm's "clear commitment to client satisfaction." Thomas J. Henry was also named the Best Attorney of San Antonio by the SA Current. In 2018, Thomas J. Henry was named a Distinguished Lawyer by Lawyers of Distinction and was also recognized as one of the Best Personal Injury Attorneys in the nation by Newsweek.com. In 2017, Thomas J. Henry achieved one of the 10 largest verdicts recorded in Texas for the year (awarded to Thomas J. Henry by Texas Lawyer, an ALM company) as well as the #1 Texas Car Accident, Bus Accident, and Negligent Supervision Verdicts for the year (awarded to Thomas J. Henry by TopVerdict.com). Other recent results include: $1.25 Billion for Sexual Assault Resulting in Injury to a Minor $50 Million for a Trucking Accident Resulting in Wrongful Death (Expenses: $1,126,381 | Attorney's Fees: $21,000,000 | Net to Client: $27,000,000 ) (Expenses: | Attorney's Fees: | Net to Client: ) $35 Million for a Trucking Accident Resulting in Wrongful Death (Expenses: $100,000.00 | Attorney's Fees: $12,750,000.00 | Net to Client: $22,150,000.00 ) Death (Expenses: | Attorney's Fees: | Net to Client: ) $30.2 Million for an Accident Involving a Recalled Vehicle Resulting in Spinal Cord and Back Injuries (Expenses: $39,576.15 | Attorney's Fees: $10,060,980.00 | Net to Client: $20,121,960.57 ) (Expenses: | Attorney's Fees: | Net to Client: ) $12.7 Million for a Medical Malpractice Resulting in Spinal Cord and Back Injuries (Expenses: $300.000.00 | Attorney's Fees: $2,000,000.00 | Net to Client: $10.4 Million - Purchase of Lifetime Annuity) (Expenses: | Attorney's Fees: | Net to Client: - Purchase of Lifetime Annuity) $10.9 Million for Medical Malpractice Resulting in Spinal Cord and Back Injuries (Expenses: $300,000.00 | Attorney's Fees: $3,200,000.00 | Net to Client: $4,029,762.00 Purchase of Lifetime Annuity) (Expenses: | Attorney's Fees: | Net to Client: Purchase of Lifetime Annuity) $10 Million for a Company Vehicle Accident Resulting in Spinal Cord and Back Injuries (Expenses: $125,000.00 | Attorney's Fees: $4,250,000.00 | Net to Client: $5,625,000.00 ) In 2016, Forbes Magazine named Thomas J. Henry a "Texas Leader in Law," noting his ability to secure large financial awards, a positive reputation among professional peers, and a dedication to philanthropy at the local, national, and global levels. Thomas J. Henry is also a lifetime member of both the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum and of Rue Ratings' "Best Attorneys of America." Outside of the courtroom, the firm is known for its many philanthropic endeavors and generous contributions to local and global communities. The firm has an active philanthropy program that supports causes related to poverty, veterans, national disaster relief, education, animals, and the arts. MEDIA CONTACT: Norah Lawlor, Lawlor Media Group, Inc. www.lawlormediagroup.com SOURCE Thomas J. Henry Law Freetown, Nov 7 : At least 108 people were killed and 92 others injured in a fuel tanker explosion here, Sierra Leone's National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) has confirmed. According to a statement by NDMA on Saturday, a loaded fuel tanker and a truck carrying granite stones collided on a highway late Friday while the fuel tanker was about to enter a nearby filling station to discharge its fuel. Footages and eyewitnesses revealed that while the collision took place, both drivers came out of their vehicles and warned community residents to stay off the scene while trying to address a leakage emanating from the collision, said the statement. In the interim, some community members rushed to the scene and took advantage of the leakage to scoop fuel and store it in nearby makeshift structures. In the cause of scooping the fuel, a major explosion happened and resulted in a fire disaster, it added. The statement said the injured were admitted into different hospitals across the city and suffering varying degrees of burning. Meanwhile, sufficient medical supply has been provided to the victims, Xinhua news agency reported. Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio on Saturday also expressed his condolences over the fuel tanker explosion, saying the government will "do everything to support affected families." In the meantime, the President canceled his trip to the Extraordinary Session of the Economic Community of West African States Authority of Heads of State and Government, which is set to be held in Ghana on Sunday. Algiers, Nov 7 : Algeria and Italy will strengthen cooperation in various fields, according to a joint statement made by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and his visiting Italian counterpart Sergio Mattarella. During a signing ceremony of partnership agreements between the two countries in the fields of justice, education and culture, Tebboune on Saturday said he expected Italy to help Algeria develop its small and medium-sized industry platform. For his part, Mattarella said he looked forward to developing their cooperation, adding the forthcoming high-level Intergovernmental Committee will be an opportunity to reinforce their bilateral partnership, Xinhua news agency reported. The Italian President added that Italy encourages Europe to invest more in the southern Mediterranean region, given that it is a doorway for partnership with the African continent, and "Algeria is a key element in this context." Mattarella began on Saturday a two-day visit to Algeria to boost cooperation, notably in the economic field. The visit provides an opportunity for Italy and Algeria to discuss political and economic issues of common interest, as part of the strategic relations between the two countries. In the energy sector, Algeria feeds 40 per cent of Italian natural gas need through the 1,200-km-long gas pipeline linking the two countries. Bilateral trade in the first half of 2021 hit $5.9 billion, of which $4.2 billion were Algerian exports to Italy, according to the official figures. As many as 384 Italian companies are investing in different fields in Algeria, including construction, manufacturing, mining, and engineering. Prayagraj, Nov 7 : The Allahabad University (AU) will not able to confer the honorary degree of Doctor of literature (D.Litt.) on noted lyricist and writer Gulzar since the Union Ministry of Education has not yet given the permission. The convocation will take place on Monday. Governor Anandiben Patel, who is the Director of AU, would not be attending the function due to a prior commitment. According to AU Public Relation Officer, Jaya Kapoor, "We have still not received the approval of the Union Ministry of Education for conferring the honorary degree of D.Litt on Gulzar and hence, he would not be attending the convocation ceremony." The decision to confer an honorary degree to Gulzar was taken by the varsity's Academic and the Executive Council. Following this, a proposal was prepared and sent to the Union Ministry of Education. However, the Ministry did not respond to the proposal. Union Minister for Education, Dharmendra Pradhan will be the chief guest at the convocation function. A total of 263 medals would be awarded to meritorious students and 550 students would be awarded with Ph.D degrees in the event for academic sessions 2018-19 and 2019-20. Kannauj, Nov 7 : Even as the Zika virus continues to create havoc in Kanpur, a confirmed case has now been found in uttar Pradesh's Kannauj district. According to health officials, a 45-year-old man in Kannauj was detected with the virus on Saturday. The man may have contracted the virus from Kasamau village in Shivrajpur area of Kanpur, that he visited recently, according to health officials. Meanwhile, with 13 more cases of the Zika virus in Kanpur, the total tally of the mosquito-borne disease in the district stands at 79. The district administration has stepped up surveillance to check its spread, health officials said. Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that spreads through the bite of an infected Aedes species of mosquito, which bites during the day. Symptoms of this disease are mild fever, rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain and headache. Hyderabad, Nov 7 : Tribals in Telangana are keeping their fingers crossed as the state government is set to embark on a new exercise to address the long-pending issue of podu or forest lands under cultivation by tribals and other forest-dwellers. The exercise of receiving applications from eligible beneficiaries claiming podu lands, beginning next week, has created both hopes and apprehensions among tribal communities who had been practicing podu or shifting cultivation on forest lands. The tribals are anxious to know how the State government is going to address the vexatious issue which linked to their livelihood. Under podu cultivation, cultivators raise crops on a piece of land in one season and move to different location the next season. The conflict over podu lands have been raging in parts of the state for last few years and on few occasions led to clashes between tribals claiming right over such lands and forest officials, who wanted to take up plantation as part of the state government's plantation programme 'Haritha Haram'. The tribals claim that plantation on podu lands violate their rights, guaranteed under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. The Adivasi Joint Action Committee has alleged that adivasis cultivating podu lands for decades are being driven out by forest department. It claimed that forest officials are taking away their lands every year. The forest officials, however, argued that they are taking up plantation on forest lands. According to them, Forest Rights Act apply only to those lands which were under cultivation before December 2005. Some places in agency areas witnessed clashes during last couple of years. Tribals claiming rights over podu lands tried to stop forest officials who went there to plant saplings. The local public representatives are under pressure from tribals to speak up for their rights and stop forest officials from taking over podu lands. Last year, a tribal legislator belonging to TRS had gone to the extent of threatening a war. Rega Kantha Rao, who represents Pinapaka Assembly constituency in Khammam district, had asked the tribals not to allow forest officials to enter their villages and if they do detain them. In 2019, BJP MP from Adilabad Soyam Bapu Rao had asked tribals to beat up and drive away forest staff who take up plantation on podu lands and also uproot the saplings planted in podu lands under 'Haritha Haram'. Last month, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao decided to address the issue of podu lands once for all. He told the state Assembly that after the issue is settled, the government will not allow encroachment of even an inch of forest land. The government decided to receive claims from tribals and others to settle the podu lands issue. Village committees have been formed as per Recognition of Forest Rights (ROFR) Act to receive the claims. District Collectors were asked to convene an all-party meeting in the districts on solving Podu land issues and protection of forestlands. KCR suggested that all those tribals involved in the podu cultivation within the forest should be provided with an alternative government land nearby for cultivation. If there is no government land available, they should be provided with a land on the outer periphery of the forestland. He said they will also be provided with free water, power and houses. The new exercise has been taken up even as 15,558 claims submitted in the past covering 53,565 acres were pending inquiry. Tribal welfare minister Satyavathi Rathod recalled that under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, over 2.04 lakh claims were filed seeking rights over 6.90 lakh acres of forest land. The tribal welfare department had processed 96,676 claims and approved farming rights over 3.08 lakh acres of forest land. According to officials, 91,942 claims for podu rights, involving 3.27 lakh acres were not approved. There is no clarity if the people, whose claims were not approved in the past, can file the claims under the new exercise. Though the TRS government has vowed to settle the issue of podu land once and for all to protect the forests, analysts say this is easier said than done. If the claims rejected in the past are received afresh and approved, this requires the government to provide 3.27 lakh acres of alternate land to the forest department. If all the previous claims are to be honoured and if they are to be relocated outside the forests, the government will have to find alternate arable land, which will also be equally challenging. The forest officials were busy making a fresh assessment of how many more people and how many more acres of forest land could be assigned the rights. "It is only after this assessment that the government will take a decision on granting recognition of rights," said Forest Minister A. Indrakaran Reddy. The government reached a conclusion that unless those engaged in podu cultivation are provided pattas or ownership document, the issue can't be addressed permanently. Since pattas can't be given to anybody on forest lands, the government is keen to shift all podu cultivators to the periphery of forests. Dakshina Kannada : , Nov 7 (IANS) The Karnataka Police have arrested a rowdy-sheeter on charges of raping a minor girl, who is a sister of his friend, under the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) Act in Mangaluru of Dakshina Kannada district, police said on Sunday. According to Pandeshwara Women's police who are investigating the case, the accused Naveen Sequera (34) had made the girl unconscious and committed the crime at her residence. The accused was a friend of the victim's brother and visited his house. Recently when he visited, he had found the girl alone at home and lured her to drink juice laced with a substance which made her lose consciousness. Later, the accused violated her. After committing the crime, the accused escaped from the house. The girl later informed her parents about the ordeal and they lodged a police complaint. Seoul, Nov 7 : North Korea has conducted an artillery fire competition to boost the country's defence capabilities as set forth by the "militant policy" of the ruling Workers' Party, state media reported on Sunday. The competition was held Saturday to inspect "how the mechanised troops of the KPA have conducted drills in order to increase their mobile artillery combat capabilities", according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KPA stands for the Korean People's Army, reports Yonhap News Agency. Pak Jong-chon, a member of the Presidium of the Politburo of the ruling party, guided the competition. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did not attend the event. "As soon as the firing orders were given by the commanders of the combined units, gun barrels to annihilate the enemy competitively shelled the target to accurately hit it," the KCNA said. The unit that won the first place received a "master gunner certificate, medal and badge", and Pak was "greatly satisfied with the competition results", the report said. It's unusual for the North to unveil an artillery fire competition that was not presided over by leader Kim. The competition took place as Pyongyang has called on South Korea and the US to drop "double standards", criticising Seoul and Washington for defining its military activities as "provocations" while justifying their own as deterrence. Lucknow, Nov 7 : From the famous 'Bua-Babua' narrative that dominated the Uttar Pradesh politics in 2019 when the BSP and SP forged an alliance, the focus is now shifting to 'Baba-Babua' -- Baba being Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Babua remains Samajwadi chief Akhilesh Yadav. Akhilesh Yadav had referred to Yogi Adityanath as 'Baba' at an event and the Chief Minister retaliated by taking a jibe at the SP chief and saying: "Babua, ye Twitter hi vote bhi de dega (This twitter will give you votes)." The Chief Minister was in Akhilesh Yadav's home district Etawah on Saturday to inaugurate and lay foundations for projects worth about Rs 475 crore. The projects he inaugurated included the Central jail in Etawah. Hours before, Akhilesh Yadav, referring to Yogi Adityanath, had said: "Baba Mukhya Mantri should not contest an Assembly seat, he is already on his way out." In retaliation, Yogi Adityanath said: "I had come here (Etawah) twice during corona. But people of other parties were in home isolation even when you were in a crisis. They should remain confined to their homes even during polls. They need to be given replies to by people in this manner only. Tell them, 'Babua, ye Twitter hi vote bhi de dega'." He asked BJP supporters to ensure the aleaders who sat at home during Covid should be made to remain there' in the elections. "They were busy on Twitter. So, tell them, Babua, Twitter will vote for you," the Chief Minister added. Yogi Adityanath also hit out at Akhilesh Yadav for frequently accusing the BJP and him of "re-laying foundation stones and inaugurating or re-inaugurating previous SP government projects". "It happens only in the BJP government that we lay the foundation and then inaugurate the projects. When the intent is not clean, dishonesty and corruption rule. Even if power is attained by deceit, and foundation stones are laid, the public does not leave them in a position to inaugurate the projects." The Chief Minister also mentioned Ayodhya to attack the SP without directly naming it. "The sparkle from the lamps in Ayodhya are shining across the world. This is the same Ayodhya where people used to be scared to go earlier and where Ram bhakts (devotees of Ram) were fired at (in 1990 when Akhilesh Yadav's father Mulayam Singh Yadav was the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister)," he said. The war of words between BJP and SP leaders is already touching a new low with both the parties lashing out at each other, using derogatory languages. The Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections are due early next year along with Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. Political parties have already started campaigning for the polls in right earnest. Lucknow, Nov 7 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has asked the officials to escalate the pace of the Covid vaccination programme, with a focus on the second dose, across the state. The chief minister has issued directions to expedite the inoculation drive by setting a target of delivering 25 to 30 lakh doses every day, in the next two months. According to the government spokesman, the chief minister said, "A target should be set to vaccinate around 25 to 30 lakh people daily so that 100 per cent eligible population gets vaccinated against Covid-19. "To expedite vaccine coverage, the additional chief secretary, health, must start the preparations and speed up the proceedings by holding a meeting with all the chief medical officers of the state." Over 67.18 per cent of the state's total eligible adult population has received at least one dose, while around 22.19 per cent are fully immunised. Earlier, the chief minister had issued a deadline to vaccinate the 100 per cent eligible population by December 15. He had asked the health officials to come up with a special drive to enthuse and motivate people towards vaccination against the deadly infection. The state government has adopted the 'Cluster Model 2.0' to improve the second dose coverage in the state. Giving priority to the full vaccination, the work of applying the second dose using the cluster model 2.0 is being done in those villages/localities where the first dose was successfully administered through the same model. The state-wide launch of the cluster model earlier in June for the Covid-19 vaccination drive made the task easy, equitable, and seamless, eliminating crucial roadblocks like transport and the digital divide. Meanwhile, out of the 75 districts in Uttar Pradesh, only seven positive cases were reported in the span of the last 24 hours. Los Angeles, Nov 7 : Two children, aged 14 and 16, were among the eight people who died at American rapper Travis Scott's Astroworld music festival in Houston on Friday night (U.S Central Time), the city's mayor said. The other victims ranged in age from 21 to 27, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a press conference. Among the injured is a 10-year-old who is in a critical condition, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said. Scott, an eight-time Grammy-nominated artiste who is hugely popular among young adults, was performing at NRG Park, when the crowd began to push toward the stage. Responding to the tragedy, Travis Scott issued a statement on social media that read: "I'm absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at the Astroworld Festival." At least eight people died and more than 300 injured as fans rushed toward the stage during Scott's headlining performance. Scott added in his statement: "Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life. I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need." Multiple reports from attendees collated by 'Variety' from its own investigations and media reports, however, allege that security and emergency workers were difficult to find and at times unresponsive during the chaotic scenes at NRG Park. The crowd, in fact, was already rambunctious, with many concertgoers seemingly inebriated. The first reports that people were falling down and had been injured came around 9.30 p.m. local time. The festival stopped at 10:10 p.m. Some people were trampled in the crush of fans in front of the stage. Around 50,000 people were in attendance. Summing up the dangers imminent in the post-Covid return to normality, 'Variety' noted: "As the concert world has cautiously returned from 18 months of pandemic lockdown, festivals have been a major force in that comeback, both for fans and promoters. Yet the tragedy at Travis Scott's Astroworld festival ... showed just how quickly disaster can occur." The sentiments of the community were articulated by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, who said: "This is an artiste that we know has a following among young people in particular, young people with bright futures." She added that the ages of the victims "just breaks your heart". Houston is in Harris County, Texas. Wellington, Nov 7 : The New Zealand government will increase the income of 346,000 families by an average of NZ$20 ($14) per week as a part of new support measures amid Covid-19, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said. In a suite of improvements to family support from April 2022, the government aims to lift an estimated 6,000 more children out of poverty, reports Xinhua news agency. "Covid-19 has been tough on families and has contributed to the increase in the cost of living. Increasing support for low and middle income families to help cover the basics is the fair thing to do," Ardern said in a statement. "Ending child poverty is a priority for this government," she said, adding that the changes are targeted towards the lowest income families. Those with family income less than NZ$40,000 dollars benefit the most with an average increase of NZ$26 per week. "This change is also on top of our significant boost to benefit rates by between NZ$32 and NZ$55 per adult earlier this year and is just one extra thing we can do for families in these tough times. I know it will make a difference," Ardern said. The changes announced on Saturday will also see an increase of the abatement rate for the Family Tax Credit from 25 per cent to 27 per cent. Bahraich : , Nov 7 (IANS) Seven months after a 12-year-old girl was raped and murdered, a district court in Bahraich has awarded death penalty to accused Phulchand Kanaujia, 20. Additional Sessions Judge (POCSO) Nitin Pandey sentenced Phulchand to death by hanging and imposed a fine of Rs 40,000. The court also announced 20 years' imprisonment to Roshan Lal, a co-accused in the case. The state government has also announced a reward of Rs 1 lakh for the Bahraich police for investigation. Superintendent of Police Sujata Singh said that the body of a 12-year-old girl was found near a pond in the Raja Rehua village under Bondi police station area on April 10. "We immediately formed teams and, based on informers and surveillance, Phulchand and his aide Roshan Lal were arrested. In the meanwhile, the forensic team was called and it was ensured that all vital evidence was preserved and then within a set time frame the results were confirmed by the lab." The autopsy and the forensic investigation confirmed that she was raped before being killed. A charge sheet under the charges of kidnapping, rape, murder and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 was filed in the court against Phulchand and Roshan Lal. The trial began in June and soon the sentence was announced in the case. Mexico City, Nov 7 : At least 19 people were killed and three injured when multiple vehicle pile-up on a highway near the municipality of Chalco in central Mexico, authorities said. The accident occurred when a cargo truck suffered from a brake malfunction and crashed into other six vehicles at a toll booth on the highway, according to Mexico's Federal Roads and Bridges and Related Services (Capufe). The truck driver is among the deceased, and the injured were sent to nearby medical clinics, Xinhua news agency quoted Capufe as saying. Work to remove the vehicles lasted several hours as several vehicles caught fire in the crashes. Los Angeles, Nov 7 : Lebanese-born Haaz Sleiman, who plays Ben, the husband of Marvel's first gay superhero Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry), in 'Eternals', said he was close to tears when he learned of Disney's response to the film being banned in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar because of its LGBTQ+ content. Speaking to 'Variety', the gay actor said: "They (Disney) stood their ground and said, 'Nope, we are not going to compromise the integrity of our film'. It made these Arab countries look so ignorant and pathetic." Movies containing LGBTQ+ content, according to 'Variety', are often cut to appease international censors around the world, but Disney refused to alter 'Eternals'. "I have no respect for those governments," Sleiman said. "They have displayed to the world that they are not only a disgrace to humanity, but to God. Hopefully this will inspire the Saudi people, the Kuwaiti people and the people in Qatar to fight back." Sleiman, who was raised in a Muslim family in Lebanon before moving to the U.S. when he was 21, came out as gay in 2017 after first gaining attention playing Tarek, an undocumented Syrian immigrant in 2007's 'The Visitor'. Mumbai, Nov 7 : Kanika Dhillon, the ace writer who has solidified women's representation in Hindi cinema with her writing, has been recently blessed with a baby boy. She took to social media to introduce her baby Veer. Kanika shared the news with her radiant pictures of her husband Himanshu Sharma, Veer and herself with a heartwarming message, she wrote, "In gratitude , with our hearts full - Wishing love,light n happiness to all our lovelies! ??#mylife #myboys #mylove ... #veerdhillonsharma" She also shared a few throwback pictures from mommy-to-be days where she looked ethereal. Talking about embarking on a new journey of motherhood, the writer said, "Veer has made me realise that life can be unbelievably beautiful. It is a momentous time for Himanshu and me as we share our happiness with our well wishers." "We wanted to introduce our baby boy to our Instagram family on an auspicious occasion, and Diwali seemed just right", she added. Kanika has penned some pathbreaking stories like 'Manmarziyaan', 'Kedarnath', 'Judgementall Hai Kya', 'Haseen Dillruba' and the most recent 'Rashmi Rocket'. Her next in line is the Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar-starrer 'Raksha Bandhan'. The film co - written by Kanika and Himanshu, will be directed by Himanshu's long-time collaborator, Aanand L. Rai, and is slated for a theatrical release on August 11, 2022. Patna, Nov 7 : While the Bihar government is facing criticism over the implementation of liquor prohibition law, three persons, including a BJP district level leader, were arrested for consuming liquor in Jamui. The arrests were made on Saturday night. Following the over 50 deaths in four districts after consuming spurious liquor, police of all the districts are on high alert now. "We got a tip-off that three persons were consuming liquor at Gola village under Chakai police station. Accordingly, the raid was conducted by a dedicated team and we arrested three persons including Bhagwan Pandey, district convener of BJP IT cell Jamui," said R.K. Tiwari, SHO of Chakai police station. "We have taken them into the police station. They were found positive in a breath analysis test. We have recovered a bottle of liquor as well as some packets of chips," he said. "The alleged persons are booked under the Liquor Prohibition Act. Further investigation is on to find out the source where they obtained the liquor bottle," he said. In the last 10 days, more than 50 persons have died due to poisonous liquor in Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj, Bettiah and Samastipur while over three dozen people have lost their eyesight permanently. Tehran, Nov 7 : The upcoming nuclear talks will progress rapidly if the US and European parties abandon any requests beyond the 2015 agreement and adopt a constructive approach, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian said. In a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, Amir Abdollahian praised Moscow's "constructive and positive" position regarding the Iranian nuclear program, according to a briefing by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. Iran "takes into account" earlier developments in the Vienna talks under the previous government, and will "forcefully" defend its position in the upcoming dialogue, Xinhua news agency quoted Amir Abdollahian as saying. Although Iran is pessimistic about the US intentions, the Minister noted, it will return to full compliance with the landmark agreement if the United States does the same, without putting forward additional demands. Amir Abdollahian said Tehran will maintain its technical cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but stressed that the agency's director-general must abstain from political positions. According to the Iranian briefing, the Russian Foreign Minister said all sides must return to full compliance with the 2015 agreement, and first and foremost the US. Lavrov said Russia has always stressed the necessity for the US to stop the action detrimental to the nuclear agreement. On November 3, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani announced an agreement to resume the Vienna nuclear talks for the revival of the nuclear deal on November 29, after a several-month hiatus following the change of government in Iran between June and late August. New Delhi, Nov 7 : Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Gulzar Ahmad will celebrate Diwali at the Teri Temple in Karak, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Monday to express solidarity with the local members of the Hindu community as well as pilgrims reaching the shrine from other parts of the country, Dawn reported. The grand function is being organised by the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC), which invited Justice Ahmed and other dignitaries to take part in the celebrations. The Hindu council will also host a large number of pilgrims from Sindh and Balochistan, the report added. PHC patron-in-chief and member of the National Assembly Ramesh Kumar Vankwani said the presence of senior officials during the celebration would give a strong message to the miscreants that their nefarious designs would be foiled by the state. To provide facilities to those arriving from Sindh and Balochistan to participate in the annual fair at Teri, the Hindu council has also requested the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) to provide boarding and lodging facilities to around 1,500 pilgrims at Hassanabdal, the report said. The pilgrims have already started arriving at Hassanabdal, from where they will proceed to the Teri area of Karak on Monday and return the same day. The shrine is associated to a saint, Shri Param Hans Ji Maharaj, in Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where a temple was established in 1920. However, it was vandalised by a mob led by a local cleric belonging to the Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl last year. Later, on the orders of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, not only the temple/shrine was restored to its original condition by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, but the apex court also ordered the ptovincial government in October 2021 to recover 33 million PKR from the culprits involved in vandalising and destruction of the century-old Samadhi, the report said. On December 30, 2020, more than 1,000 people led by some local clerics belonging to the JUI-F instigated the villagers to demolish the temple as a result people led by local seminary students attacked the temple. Subsequently, the Supreme Court took suo motu notice of the incident and during the proceedings the court was informed by then Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Sanaullah Abbasi that a local leader of the JUI-F, Maulana Faizullah, had organised the protest near the shrine but of the six religious leaders present at the protest site, only Maulvi Sharif had incited the crowd to desecrate the temple, the report said. The court was apprised that 109 people involved in the incident had been arrested soon after destruction. Earlier in 1997, the Samadhi was first attacked and severely damaged, and PHC head Vankwani had approached the apex court in 2015 seeking help to restore the holy place and restart the annual pilgrimage to the place. "At that time, local clerics were creating hurdles to holding of religious congregation for the Hindus, while the followers of Shri Paramhans Ji tried to build the temple at the place but it was not allowed," Vankwani had told Dawn. The Supreme Court had issued directives to the provincial government to restore and preserve the Teri temple at that time, too. Finally, Pakistan Hindu Council started holding the annual fair in 2015. Since the temple/shrine was being managed by the local Hindu families, it comes administratively under the KP government and not under the ETPB control. Glasgow, Nov 7 : Members and partners of the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) are enraged by the deliberate exclusion of feminists and grassroots women at the 26th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow. APWLD member and SERUNI Indonesia's Triana Wardani is one of the very few women representing grassroots communities from the global south who successfully arrived in Glasgow for the COP26. However, Triana noted that the discriminatory Covid-19 travel restrictions by the UK government made the process extremely difficult and alienating. The first week of COP26 ended on Saturday while on the UN premises powerful nations play politics of business as usual. The UK government has initially imposed strict restrictions on Covid-19 vaccines accepted by its government, which blatantly ignored vaccine inequity and capitalism orchestrated by the rich countries. When the UK government decided to remote its tighter restrictions, it was already too late for many feminist organisations. Triana added despite being physically present, feminists, grassroots women, along with other civil society organisations, have remained excluded at the COP26. Hours of queue every day, extremely inadequate ticketing system among many more logistical complications made it almost impossible for women from the Global South to take part in COP26. "This deliberate exclusion of feminists and grassroots women only reflects the continuing gross neglect of women's voices amid the worsening climate crisis. The real situation experienced by women from frontline communities in the Global South due to climate change must be conveyed and heard by the world community to prevent false climate solutions and boost action to realise climate justice," Triana told IANS. For Yasso Kanti Bhattachan of the National Indigenous Women Forum of Nepal, the world leaders cannot make decisions without meaningful participation of the rural and indigenous women of the Global South who are at the forefront of the war against climate emergency. "Our voices are missing. World leaders have just declared their commitment to halt deforestation and land degradation with AA14 billion by 2030. The fund is not only too small for a span of nine years, but there is also no meaningful consultation with Indigenous Peoples prior to the declaration. "In the declaration, we can hardly find commitment to tackle the drivers of the destruction of our land and forest in the name of tackling climate crises such as many massive hydropower projects in Nepal," Yasso explained to IANS. Under the banner of the Women and Gender Constituency (WGC), Triana, together with other feminists and activists present at the COP26 staged a protest to dedicate a space for the amissing voices' of women of COP26. During the protest, women lined up in the COP26 negotiation zone and one-by-one called the names of women who are missing at the conference -- those who were not able to attend physically, and those who were persecuted and murdered for protecting the environment. Climate Watch Thailand Executive Director and APWLD member Wanun Permpibul, one of the names called during the WGC protest, noted that the exclusion of both grassroots women and peoples of the developing countries has robbed them of the opportunity to demand real actions and accountability for false climate solutions that have exacerbated the conditions of women in the Global South. "(There is a need) to break the strong and long rooted capitalism that is in favour of large-scale development, and the false solutions including net zero, natural-based solutions and geo-engineering that prioritise profits at the expense of natural resources and women's livelihoods," Wanun explained. Wanun added that false climate solutions have not only misdirected the issue and further harmed biodiversity and ecosystems, but have also perpetuated oppression of women through militarisation, fundamentalisms and patriarchy, and have strengthened authoritarian governments. The Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) is a leading network of feminist organisations and grassroots activists in Asia Pacific. Its 266 members represent groups of diverse women from 30 countries in Asia Pacific. (Vishal Gulati can be reached at vishal.g@ians.in) Bengaluru, Nov 7 : The Bitcoin scandal, which created a furore in the political circles and put the ruling BJP, opposition Congress leaders at loggerheads in Karnataka, took a new turn as the main accused Srikrishna alias Sriki was arrested again. Sriki was picked up from a five star hotel by J.B. Nagar police on Saturday in connection with a brawl case along with Vishnu Bhat, theson of a famous gold jeweller. Sriki was interrogated by Additional Commissioner Murugan and DCP East S.D. Sharanappa. Sriki was staying at five-star hotel since over one a months after being released on bail. The police have recovered a laptop and a tablet from Sriki. They have also sent his blood samples for testing on consumption of drugs. He was arrested later in the night after questioning. The development has been seen as a major twist to the Bitcoin scandal as Congress is alleging the collusion between the ruling BJP leaders and accused Sriki to mint money. The Congress is demanding Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to release papers regarding transfer of the Bitcoin scandal to Enforcement Directorate (ED). But, Bommai has not made any statement in this regard. Sources explain that the influential "political bosses" from Karnataka have managed to stall the investigation by state as well as the central agencies. However, the complaint has reached Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and it has taken the matter seriously, rattling many top politicians of ruling BJP. The opposition Congress is preparing to launch an all-out attack on ruling BJP in Karnataka. At this juncture, the arrest of the main accused in Bitcoin scandal is seen as a very important turning point. Mumbai, Nov 7 : Making a sensational statement, Nationalist Congress Party Minister Nawab Malik on Sunday claimed that Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan was "trapped, kidnapped for ransom" in the Cordelia Cruise rave party raid by the Narcotics Control Bureau. Moreover, Shah Rukh Khan has been threatened ever since he started making the expose series on the NCB Zonal Director Sameer Wankhede since October 6, Malik told mediapersons. "There are four persons -- Wankhede, his juniors V.V. Singh and Ashish Ranjan and one of their drivers Mane...They are the quartet in the NCB office... They run the private army to trap high-profile people and then extort them of crores of rupees," Malik said. The other members of the alleged 'private army' are Kiran Gosavi, Mohan Bhanushali, Sam D'souza - whose real name is Sanville Steanley D'Souza, Mohit Kamboj-Bharatiya and Sunil Patil, the NCP National Spokesperson said. Responding to the BJP leader Bharatiya's charges of Saturday, Malik said that he had never met Sunil Patil, nor is he linked with the NCP in any manner. According to the NCP leader Aryan Khan was invited to the cruiser party by Pratik Gaba and Amir Furniturewala, both are the friends of Rishab Sachdeva - who is linked with Bharatiya. "Now it is established that Aryan Khan was kidnapped and a ransom of Rs 25-crore was demanded for his release, and the final figure was sealed at Rs 18 crore, of which Rs 50-lakh was already takena Mohit Kamboj-Bharatiya is the mastermind," Malik said, referring to the affidavit of one of the witnesses Prabhakar Sail. He revealed that one Congress Minister Aslam Shaikh and children of other ministers were also invited to join the party. Malik charged Bharatiya of owning a dozen hotels in Mumbai, an accused in a Rs 1,100-crore financial scam, is close to Wankhede and is a member of his 'private army' that traps prominent personalities to extort big money from their victims. The NCP leader's briefing came a day after Bharatiya alleged that the real brain behind the cruiser raids was Sunil Patil, who is very close to the NCP leaders and ministers and even released a purported picture of him (Sunil Patil) with Kiran Gosavi and a Gujarat cabinet minister Kiritsinh Rana. Congress Spokesperson Atul Londhe-Patil said it was strange that the allegation is made of Sunil Patil's links with NCP but his photograph posing with a BJP minister was released. "All this is to divert attention from the massive quantity of several tonnes of drugs which entered Gujarat via Mundra Porta Why nobody is talking about it, where have all the drugs gone... There should be a full investigation into it," demanded Londhe-Patil. Tel Aviv, Nov 7 : Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that he was against the possible reopening of a US consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem. Bennett spoke at a press conference in Jerusalem a day after the Israeli Parliament passed the annual budget for 2022, reports Xinhua news agency. "There is no room for another consulate in Jerusalem," the Prime Minister said he told the US administration. US State Department Spokesman Ned Price said at a news briefing last week that Washington had "been very clear" about its intentions to reopen the consulate for Palestinians. Up until 2018, the US had two consulates in Jerusalem, one for Palestinians and one for Israelis. After former US President Donald Trump "recognised the city as the capital of Israel", the two consulates were merged and housed in a new embassy. Relations between the US and the Palestinians soured during the Trump administration. After US President Joe Biden entered the White House in January this year, he made several moves to improve relations with the Palestinians. One of the steps was the decision to re-open the consulate in Jerusalem for Palestinians. Jerusalem, which hosts sites holy to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, is the most explosive subject in the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Jaisalmer/New Delhi, Nov 7 : The Rajasthan Police have stepped up vigil in the SBI loan scam as it is being feared that other accused may flee the country. The fears have increased as one of the accused Alok Dhir, who is a promoter of Alchemist Asset Reconstruction Company and IRR Insolvency Professionals Pvt. Ltd., has got an anticipatory transit bail from Delhi High Court, to apply for regular bail in Rajasthan, but sources said he was not responding to notices for questioning and has been evading arrest since October 23. Jaisalmer Superintendent of Police Ajay Singh did not respond to IANS phone calls and messages on the issue of lookout notices being served on the accused. Along with Dhir, Rajasthan Police have also issued notices to a General Manager and a Vice President of another bank. Ajay Singh had said that the Chief Judicial Magistrate's (CJM) Court had issued an arrest warrant against Alok Dhir with seven others under several IPS Sections, including 420 (cheating) and 120B (punishment of criminal conspiracy). Realising the magnitude of the scams, the Rajasthan Police had informed the Enforcement Directorate immediately after it got an arrest warrant against him from Jaisalmer Court on October 23. Similar warrants against Dhir, R.K. Kapur, S.V. Venkatakrishnan, Methadil, Devendra Jain, Tarun and Vijay Kishore Saxena were also issued. According to sources, the Jaisalmer police and other agencies are likely to initiate a preliminary investigation on Dhir's role as a middleman in several cases to assess the damage to the banking sector done by him in connivance with bankers and borrowers. During preliminary investigations, sources said, Jaisalmer police have detected his involvement in several loans and recovery processes not only with the SBI but also other banks. Based on the initial investigations, the Rajasthan Police (Economic Offence Wing) have intensified its further investigations. In the SBI case, the CJM Court of Jaisalmer, after a long hearing, agreed that selling the hotel without getting it auctioned amounted to cheating. The Court on October 23 issued arrest warrants against eight people, including Alok Dhir and Former SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhary, following which the Jaisalmer police arrested the former Chairman. According to the police, the hotel group had taken a loan of Rs 24 crore from SBI in 2008 for the construction purpose. At that time, another hotel of the group was running smoothly. After that, when the group could not repay the loan amount, the bank seized both the hotels of the group after considering it as a non-performing asset. At that time, the chairman of the bank was Pratip Chaudhary. The bank then sold both the hotels to a company for Rs 25 crore at a much lower price than the market rate. On this, the hotel group went to court. Meanwhile, the buyer company took over it in 2016 and when this property was valued in 2017, its market value was found to be Rs 160 crore. At the same time, after retirement, Pratip Chaudhary joined the same company as a director to which this hotel was sold. At present, the value of these hotels is being estimated at Rs 200 crore. However the SBI had in the statement said, "It appears from the copies of the proceedings now accessed by us that the Hon'ble Court does not appear to have been briefed correctly on the sequence of events. In as much as SBI was not a party to this case, there was no occasion for the views of SBI being heard as part of this proceedings. SBI would like to reiterate that all due processes were followed while making the said sale to ARC. The Bank has already offered its cooperation to the Law Enforcement and Judicial authorities and will provide further information, if any, that may be called for from their side." Chennai, Nov 7 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin was among the first to wish actor and politician Kamal Haasan on the occasion of his 67th birthday. In a tweet on Sunday, Stalin said, "I express my sweet birthday wishes to my dear friend, 'Kalaignani' Kamal Haasan, one of the finest actors of Indian cinema and the President of the Makkal Needhi Maiam. I wish him good health and urge him to continue his good services." Responding to the chief minister's tweet in Tamil, Kamal said, "To my dear friend M.K. Stalin, who has emerged as a fine example among chief ministers, your wholehearted birthday wishes have added more colour to my birthday." Stalin's Kerala counterpart, Pinarayi Vijayan, also extended his birthday greetings to Kamal Haasan. Taking to Twitter, Vijayan wrote, "Hearty birthday wishes dear @ikamalhaasan. You have always stood by Kerala in our every need. We are proud of your precious contributions to our cinema and culture. I wish you more happiness and success in your life and career." The actor was swift to respond. He tweeted back: "Kerala was my first shelter which fostered me into lead roles in cinema. Apart from that I admire Malayalees and you sir @vijayanpinarayi for being their valorous and benevolent leader. Thank you." It wasn't just the Kerala Chief Minister who greeted the Tamil actor. Malayalam superstar Mammootty also extended his birthday greetings, wishing Kamal Hassan "a great year ahead". Six-time National Award-winning lyricist Vairamuthu too took to Twitter to post his birthday greetings to Kamal Haasan. "Just like what Kalaignar Karunandhi said about MGR, I too can say about Kamal Haasan: 'He has been my 40-year friend'," the lyricist tweeted. He likened the gifted actor to a burning flame that looks to move up, even when a matchstick is held down and asked what could victories or defeats do to such a person. Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu too was among the scores of others who wished Kamal Haasan a happy birthday. He tweeted, "To the epitome of excellence. Wishing you a very happy birthday @ikamalhaasan sir!" The unit of Kamal Haasan's 'Vikram' wished him a happy birthday by releasing the first look of the film on Saturday evening. Bogota, Nov 7 : Colombian authorities have captured the suspected organiser of the attack on President Ivan Duque's helicopter in June, Defense Minister Diego Molano announced. "We tracked him down and captured him. Alias 'Aurelio', the alleged mastermind of the terrorist attack on the helicopter of President Ivan Duque on June 25 in Cucuta," Molano tweeted. A helicopter with the President, several ministers and local officials on board was shot at from the ground when they were travelling in the northeastern Norte de Santander department, reports Xinhua news agency. No injuries were reported. Aurelio is alleged to be a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The guerrilla group was demobilised in 2016 and became a political opposition party, but a small faction of FARC leaders announced a return to armed activity later. Molano said the FARC dissidents want to increase their influence in the region, but the government "will dismantle (them) and regain tranquility and security for Norte de Santander". Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 7 : Congress' Kerala state chief K. Sudhakaran has demanded the resignation of forest minister A.K. Saseendran over the government's decision to allow the felling of trees at Mullaperiyar as requested by Tamil Nadu. The Congress also demanded judicial inquiry regarding the sanction to cut trees at Mullaperiyar for strengthening the baby dam at Mullaperiyar. It may be noted that Tamil Nadu PWD minister S. Duraimurugan while leading a delegation of ministers to Mullaperiyar on Friday had requested the Kerala government to allow sanction to fell trees at the dam site to strengthen the baby dam and earthen dam. The Kerala forest minister A.K. Saseendran had said that he did not have any idea on the order of cutting trees at the Baby dam, and this has provoked the opposition. K. Sudharakan, State Congress president while speaking to media said, "Congress demands the resignation of Kerala forest minister, A.K. Saseendran who has said that he did not know about the order regarding the cutting of trees. The government must order a judicial inquiry on the issue and it seems that Kerala has become subservient to Tamil Nadu in Mullaperiyar." BJP state president, K. Surendran said that Kerala was threatened by the Tamil Nadu government and the state had meekly subdued. The BJP leader also demanded the resignation of the Kerala forest minister. Former Kerala water resources minister, P.J. Joseph while speaking to reporters at Thodupuzha said that the state forest minister does not have any right to continue in office if he was not aware of the decision of a forest officer to allow sanction to cut trees. RSP leader and MP, N.K. Premachandran, a former state water resources minister while addressing media persons at Kollam said, "Kerala Chief Minister has to reply to the people of the state on the matter. He cannot shy away from the issue which is the life and death matter of several lakhs of people of the state. Kerala has become submissive to Tamil Nadu in Mullaperiyar issue". In a major jolt to the Kerala government, a Member of the Legislative Assembly from Peerumedu and CPI leader, Vazhoor Soman said that giving sanctions to cut trees at Mullaperiyar was not advisable and the forest minister should have checked facts before the officer has given sanction to cut trees. The statement from the leader of CPI which is the second-largest constituent party in the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) after the CPM is considered a major shock to the CPM and Chief Minister. However, sources in the CPM while speaking to IANS said that the government would have taken a lenient stand to pave way for a new dam at Mullaperiyar which was the ultimate goal for the government of Kerala to solve the vexed issue permanently. The Chief Ministers of the two states are meeting at Chennai in December for further discussions regarding Mullaperiyar dam. Kerala has been demanding the construction of a new dam at Mullaperiyar instead of the 126-year-old present dam which according to several dam experts has outlived its expectancy period. Recently a report by the UN research department has stated that the present dam at Mullaperiyar has to be decommissioned and a new one be constructed which is not acceptable to the Tamil Nadu side. Glasgow, Nov 7 : Armed with raincoats, umbrellas and colourful banners, thousands of protesters took over the streets of this Scottish city on the official culmination of the first week of the two-week-long 26th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) under the UK Presidency. Throughout the hectic week the weather was an odd combination of dark clouds, pouring rain and blue skies that switched over short periods of time, and ended up with a few rainbows -- an appropriate greeting from Mother Nature, marking its own special day at COP26. Indigenous leaders, as nature keepers, raised their voices inside and outside the COP26 venue, while delegations made a few new commitments to invest in nature-based solutions and greener farming practices. COP26, with a gathering of around 200 governments, is being held in uncertain times of weather-related disasters have increased five-fold in the past 50 years alone. Humanity and especially vulnerable communities are adapting to a new reality of weather extremes. The most important highlights from the first week at COP26 were global methane pledge, global forest pledge, carbon pricing, etc. Climate negotiators told IANS on Sunday the commitments and initiatives seen in the first week of COP26, if fully delivered, would amount to 40 per cent of the emissions cuts needed by 2030 to keep 1.5C alive. The International Energy Agency (IEA) believes the commitments made in the first week could put world on track for 1.8C warming, which means they were short-term actions and credible policies still lacking. According to the UN, there was no clear indication of where talks will lead or how ambitious countries will be in tackling the climate emergency. Ministers arriving early this week will seek to resolve points of contention, with COP26 President Alok Sharma calling this "where the rubber hits the road". The aim is to conclude with agreement on greater emission cuts, stronger efforts on adaptation and resilience, and more climate finance. Many issues must still be worked out. With progress so far being insufficient to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, there is a strong call for countries to update nation climate plans more regularly, even annually. Many countries are pushing for eliminating fossil fuel subsidies and phasing out coal-fired power plants. Negotiations are proceeding on boosting measures for climate adaptation and resilience as well as "loss and damage" compensation for those harmed by climate change. Also under negotiation are contentious provisions on finance, trade and transparency. In the past week, the COP26 Presidency announced that 45 governments, led by the UK, will ramp up efforts to protect nature and shift to more sustainable farming. Over $4 billion in new public sector investment was pledged for agricultural innovation, including climate-resilient crops and regenerative solutions to improve soil health. This would help make such techniques affordable for hundreds of millions of farmers. Canada announced C$1 billion in international support for nature-based solutions, a fifth of its climate finance. It supports an international target to protect 30 per cent of lands and oceans by 2030, and earlier announced it would back a fund for coral reefs. The youth press for action. Presenting a position paper endorsed by 40,000 people, youth representatives urged world leaders to consider young people's demands in climate talks. The paper calls for ensuring the representation of underrepresented groups, recognizing the role of cities in achieving a just transition, and respecting, protecting, fulfilling and promote all human rights in climate action. World leaders have left Glasgow. Attention at COP26 turned to the specifics of moving the climate action agenda, with a focus on how to finance the transition to a greener future. The issue of finance is all encompassing. There is much concern over the failure of developed countries to meet their promise to provide $100 billion a year to help developing countries finance climate mitigation and adaptation. At the same time, there is a broader effort to mobilize vast amounts of private investment globally behind low-carbon and eventually no-carbon growth. In the COP26 onset, there were tough words for, and by, world leaders on why the world needs urgent climate action as the COP26 World Leaders' Summit got underway. "We face a moment of truth," UN Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres pointedly told the 120 leaders who came to Glasgow. "We are fast approaching tipping points that will trigger escalating feedback loops of global heating." Frustration at the slow pace of climate action was a common theme. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK, which is hosting the conference, said, "I was there in Paris six years ago when we agreed to net zero and to try to restrain the rise in the temperature of the planet to 1.5 degrees, and all those promises will be nothing but blah blah blah -- to coin a phrase -- and the anger and impatience of the world will be uncontainable unless we make this COP26 in Glasgow the moment when we get real about climate change -- and we can." Many leaders said Glasgow represents a last chance to make a difference. Many said it needed to be a pivotal moment to set the world on a sustainable trend. The Glasgow Climate Conference officially got underway on October 31 with palpable tension as it has to deliver real progress on climate action with the science showing that time is running out. But collective global ambition and trust remain woefully insufficient. "We are not where we need to be," UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa said at a press conference. November 6 was also Global Day of Action for Climate Justice. In Glasgow an estimated 50,000 people made their way through the city. Climate marches also took place in many other cities around the world. "What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!" echoed throughout Glasgow on Friday as thousands of protesters took the streets during the dedicated Youth Day at COP26. Although the march was initially organized by Fridays for Future, the youth-driven movement inspired by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, people of all ages gathered at George Square to demand climate action. Responding to weeklong developments, Mohamed Adow, Director of Nairobi based think tank Power Shift Africa, shared his concerns with IANS that COP26 is undermining the principles which underpin the UNFCCC. He said: "This week has seen a blitz of announcements from the UK government with pledges and alliances committing to various positive sounding initiatives such as ending deforestation, stopping overseas fossil fuel financing and the absurd claim from Mark Carney that he has mobilised $130 trillion of private finance to tackle climate change. "These announcements may generate headlines but assessing their true worth is hugely difficult, especially at speed during a COP meeting. The UK can claim to be leading a coal phase out and tackling fossil fuels while opening a coal mine in Cumbria and an oil field off Shetland. "If the countries want to be taken seriously on their latest announcements, then they should first halt the new fossil fuel projects they are licensing at home, end fossil fuel subsidies and shift the fossil fuel financing to renewables. And they should include these new commitments in revised and updated NDCs, rather than dressing up empty promises as climate leadership." Taking about the outcome from the ongoing negotiations that will culminate on November 12, Harjeet Singh, Senior Advisor, Climate Action Network International, told IANS the UK Presidency is trying to create through grand announcements. "There are claims of trillions of dollars being mobilised for climate action but inside the negotiations, there is huge resistance to even define what climate finance entails. This allows rich nations to fudge numbers and take no accountability. "At the events, there is a recognition that vulnerable people are facing climate impacts and the need for increasing financial support. But, behind closed doors, rich nations are pressuring developing countries to hold their tongue and avoid setting up a new stream of finance to help communities recover from devastating floods and rising seas," he added. (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in) New Delhi: Addressing the inaugural session of BJP National Executive Committee meet here, party chief J.P. Nadda and Other in New Delhi on Sunday, November 07, 2021.(Photo: Qamar Sibtain/IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi: Addressing the inaugural session of BJP National Executive Committee meet here, party chief J.P. Nadda and Other in New Delhi on Sunday, November 07, 2021.(Photo: Qamar Sibtain/IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi: Addressing the inaugural session of BJP National Executive Committee meet here, party chief J.P. Nadda and Other in New Delhi on Sunday, November 07, 2021.(Photo: Qamar Sibtain/IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi: Addressing the inaugural session of BJP National Executive Committee meet here, party chief J.P. Nadda and Other in New Delhi on Sunday, November 07, 2021.(Photo: Qamar Sibtain/IANS) Image Source: IANS News New Delhi, Nov 7 : Gearing up for the 2022 Assembly polls and next general election, the BJP has decided to complete the formation of booth committees at over 10 lakh polling stations across the country by year end. Addressing the inaugural session of BJP National Executive Committee meet here, party chief J.P. Nadda set the target to complete the process of forming the booth committees. Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that to strengthen the party at ground level chief Nadda has asked to complete the formation of the committees by December 25. "Formation of booth committees have been completed in 85 per cent of polling booths and remaining work will be completed by December 25," Pradhan said. The party has also decided to implement the successful 'page committee' concept of Gujarat across the country. "Page committee will be formed across the country and appointment of 'Panna Pramukh' will be completed by April 6, next year," Pradhan said He said that Nadda also asked for an institutionalised mechanism to listen to the Prime Minister's 'Mann ki Baat' radio programme at each polling booth. "Party chief talked about three works to strengthen the organisation at ground level as BJP has yet to reach its 'Utkarsh' (peak)," he said. Nadda also talked about election results and said that BJP's victory in Huzurabad shows it's rise in Telangana. "Nadda also said that BJP is getting strong in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha to win the next elections," Pradhan said. In his address, Nadda thanked the people of West Bengal who supported the BJP in this year's Assembly polls. "In the 2016 Assembly polls, the BJP's vote share was negligible, now it's 38 per cent. We have got the blessings of Bengal. In political history, such rapid growth in vote share has never been registered. the BJP chief assured people of West Bengal that the party is with them," Pradhan said. Pradhan added that Nadda in his address also mentioned about the repeal of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, which is now on the path of development under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. Talking about the meet, Pradhan said that it is being held in a hybrid mode. "All participants have registered digitally, including Prime Minister Modi, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi are also attending the meeting virtually from their homes," Pradhan said. Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 7 : The Kerala Police on Sunday arrested a Maoist leader at Valapattanam in Kannur district while he was traveling in a vehicle along with two others. He has been handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA). The arrested person who is known by the names Ragavendra, Goutham, and Murukesan, was wanted in a case related to the Maoist conducting arms training in the forests of Nilambur in Malappuram district in 2016. The police said that they had intercepted the vehicle as part of routine inspection and as soon as the police check commenced, the Maoist leader started shouting slogans. Kannur city police commissioner, R. Elango while speaking to mediapersons said: "The police got a tip-off and we took into custody and fount out that he was Ragavendra from Tamil Nadu. He he had two Aadhar cards and on interrogation found him to be a wanted person by the NIA. We informed the NIA immediately and a team from the national agency took him under their custody." Elango also said that the Maoist was not willing to reveal many details on why he was in Kannur as also his past activities. NIA sleuths said that he was one among the 19 Maoist activists charged by the agency in the case related to the hoisting of Maoist flag in the forest and also with conducting arms training. He was also part of a team that engaged in a gun battle with the elite Thunderbolt team of the Kerala Police. Hyderabad, Nov 7 : The Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) is set to hike the bus fares by 25-30 paise per kilometre in view of the increase in diesel prices and continued losses. The proposal to revise the fares was discussed on Sunday by transport minister P. Ajay Kumar with TSRTC Chairman Bajireddy Goverdhan, Managing Director V.C. Sajjanar and other officials. A decision on the proposal will be taken by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. The proposal is likely to be placed before the State Cabinet at its next meeting. Goverdhan told reporters that TSRTC had already submitted its proposal for fare hike to the minister but has now amended the same in view of last week's drop in diesel prices. The price of diesel and petrol was reduced by Rs 10 and Rs 5 per litre respectively as the Centre cut the excise duty. The TSRTC chairman said while framing the revised proposal, they ensured that the common man is not overburdened by the hike. Goverdhan said they discussed the proposed fare hike keeping in view the hike affected by neighbouring States but assured that the increase in TSRTC fares will not be huge. He said the TSRTC will remain in losses even after the hike. According to sources in TSRTC, the proposal is to increase the fare by 25 paise per km for Palle Velugu (rural) services and 30 paise per km for Express and higher services. A similar hike is likely for the city services. The earlier proposal was to increase the fare by 40 paise per km. Officials of the state-owned transport operator say the hike was inevitable to absorb the steep hike in diesel prices in recent months and to overcome the continued losses. During a meeting with the chief minister last month, the officials informed the CM that since diesel price increased by Rs 22 per litre in the last one-and-a-half years, TSRTC had to bear an additional loss of Rs 550 crore. They said along with the increased diesel and petrol prices, the increase in the prices of tyres, tubes and other spare parts of the buses was also pushing RTC into losses. All these increased costs are putting Rs 600 crore additional burden on the Corporation, they said. The TSRTC is reeling under annual losses of Rs 750 crore to Rs 1,000 crore. It is estimated to have suffered losses of Rs 3,000 crore since the Covid-19 pandemic broke out last year. The previous fare hike was in December 2019. The fares were increased by 20 paise per km. New Delhi, Nov 7 : An international media-rights watchdog is calling for an independent investigation into the killing of a Pakistani amateur video reporter who drew attention to hunting trips for Arab dignitaries from the Persian Gulf, RFE/RL reported. The body of Nazim Sajawal Jokhiyo was found near Karachi on November 3, hours after he said in a video posted online that he was being threatened over a previous video he shot that showed poachers organising a hunting party for "foreign guests", the report said. Police said they arrested two men suspected of beating Jokhiyo to death, but Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said in a statement on November 5 that officials must go further and also go after those who gave the orders for the killing. Pakistan is ranked 145th out of 180 countries in RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index. RSF said Jokhiyo went to Jangshahi to cover the arrival of several foreign hunters who had been invited by a member of the Sindh province Assembly to hunt the Asian houbara bustard, a threatened bird species, the report said. Hunting this animal is banned in Pakistan, except for wealthy dignitaries from the Persian Gulf monarchies, according to the Paris-based group. Jokhiyo's video ends when a man is seen approaching the camera and threatening him as he grabs at the device, the report added. Following several threats, the provincial lawmaker of the Pakistan People's Party, Jam Owais Gohram Jokhiyo, invited the amateur video reporter to his country house to "patch up" the dispute, according to RSF, the report said. It said th reporter went there on November 2, the last time witnesses saw him alive. "The brutality with which Nazim Jokhiyo was eliminated is all the more shocking because his murder was premeditated by a parliamentarian who is well-known in the region," said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk. "We call on Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to order an independent investigation to identify the perpetrators and instigators of the murder of Nazim Jokhiyo, who paid with his life for trying to inform his fellow citizens about a local despot's abuses," Bastard added, as per the report. Bhopal, Nov 7 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to address a convention on first-ever 'Adivasi Gaurav Diwas' (Tribal Pride Day) in Bhopal on November 15, during which he is expected to announce 15 developmental schemes for the tribal community. Celebrating the birth anniversary of tribal leader Birsa Munda undoubtedly has political meaning, especially in Madhya Pradesh where 47 out of 230 Assembly seats are reserved for the Tribal community, say political analysts. Preparations are in full swing for the celebration and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has called a meeting on Monday evening to review the arrangements. With this mega event, the BJP will try to strengthen its reach in the tribal community. Talking to IANS, prominent tribal leader in the state Bisahulal Singh said: "Adivasi Gaurav Diwas will be celebrated in India for the first time after Independence. Every year on the birthday of Bisra Munda, several programmes were organised, but those were mainly Adivasi Sammelans. We are happy that it is beginning from Madhya Pradesh." Bisahulal, who is Food and Civil Supplies Minister in the Shivraj Singh cabinet, said the state government has made some changes in the forest scheme wherein people of tribal community will be given priority. "Under the new scheme which is to be announced during the event, the community will be given priority for protection of forest land, selling of woods, among others. Apart from it, all sand mining areas located in tribal majority areas will be given to Adivasi people to run their business," Bisahulal added. He further stated that 47 Assembly seats reserved for ST directly or indirectly affects around 100 more constituencies in the state. Replying to how 'Adivasi Gaurav Divas' is going to help the BJP in the next Assembly elections in 2023, Bisahulal said, "I have been in politics from 1980 and therefore I can say that the party winning maximum ST seats forms the government. In the last elections (2018), Congress had won 31 Tribal dominated seats and the BJP was limited to 15-16 seats, that was the reason Congress could form the government." Meanwhile, Bisahulal, who has been associated with the Congress for years and joined the BJP with Jyotiraditya Scindia, said that tribal people were close supporters of the Congress, but they did not get anything in return in the last 70 years. Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 7 : The Kerala government has frozen the order of the forest department to fell trees at Mullaperiyar dam. There was a request from the Tamil Nadu water resources minister, S. Duraimurugan for felling of a few trees to strengthen the Baby dam at Mullaperiyar. The Kerala government Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) Bennychen P. Thomas had given orders for cutting of trees. Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin had thanked the Kerala Chief Minister on Sunday for the sanction to cut trees near the Baby dam. After the thanksgiving letter of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister came in the open with media carrying the report, opposition came out strongly against the state government and said that the 'state has become submissive to Tamil Nadu in the Mullaperiyar issue'. The Congress state president K. Sudhakaran and BJP state president K. Surendran demanded the resignation of the state forest minister. Senior Congress leader and former state opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala pointed the finger towards the state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and charged that no officer would sign such an order without getting consent from Kerala Chief Minister. Kerala Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), Bennychen P. Thomas has, according to information sent a report to the Kerala forest minister's office stating that he had given sanction to cut trees following a request by the Tamil Nadu government a few months before and that a decision was taken at the Secretary-level discussions between the Forest and Water Resources departments. The stand of Kerala government all along was for the construction of a new dam at Mullaperiyar after decommissioning the present one that is 126 years old. The UN had in a recent report cited that the present Mullaperiyar dam posed a grave threat and that it had outlived its age. The UN had also recommended the construction of a new dam. Glasgow, Nov 7 : With the construction industry has a huge environmental footprint, especially in developing nations like India, where a lot of construction to take place over the next 50 years, timber and bamboo offer a solution to reduce carbon emissions, says an expert. Steel and cement manufacture are deemed to produce around 8 per cent each (i.e. around 16 per cent) of the world's carbon emissions. The nations must find substitutes to these materials. The construction industry has a huge environmental footprint. According to some sources it is responsible for about 40 per cent of the world's carbon emissions between the construction of buildings and infrastructure and operation of buildings, David Trujillo, an assistant professor in Coventry University's School of Energy, Construction and Environment, said. He spoke to IANS in detail about the structural utility of bamboo, and how its use in the construction industry could help to step up efforts to combat climate change. "In developing nations like India, where we would expect a lot of construction to take place over the next 50 years, this is likely to be very significant. We must find substitutes for steel and cement materials," he said in the interview. "In developing countries it is very common to construct buildings out of reinforced concrete and concrete blocks. I believe this is accurate for India also. We must change the way we build." Responding to why the bamboo is an important material, he said timber and bamboo offer a solution to reduce carbon emissions for two reasons: First, transforming them into useful materials requires little energy input. And second, if responsibly grown and harvested, they can potentially act as carbon sinks. "However, in most developing countries we have few established commercial forests ready to be exploited, and we must avoid exploiting primary forests. If we committed to planting timber forests now, it would be at least 25-50 years before we could harvest them. "We cannot wait that long. Many developing countries in the tropics and subtropics have plenty of bamboo resources, this includes India. It is a resource that is ready to be exploited. "And if they do not have them, it will only take about 10 years from green field to highly productive forest. Bamboo forests are easy to exploit, and in fact perform better if they are regularly exploited," the Coventry University researcher told IANS. He was at the 26th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow for delivering a presentation on why bamboo could play a crucial role in the future of the construction industry. On how wide of a scale bamboo could be planted, he replied: "As bamboo can be, and has been, introduced in degraded soils, it seems possible that any increase in plantation and production can be undertaken without displacing primary forests or agricultural land. "Another key benefit is that initial studies seem to suggest that bamboo is more productive per hectare and sinks more carbon, than timber." About the social benefits of bamboo in construction, he said there are many. "Firstly, it creates an additional and continuous source of income for rural communities. Unlike mining, which is capital intensive and concentrated, bamboo exploitation requires little capital and can be spread broadly. "However, there are plenty of opportunities to generate new industries associated with it: preservation, transformation, etc. Modern bamboo housing has excellent track record in disaster resilience (earthquakes and typhoons), low costs and high levels of thermal comfort. "It is expected that construction of multi-storey engineered bamboo frames (for now only a potential and not current technology) would have similar benefits that modern timber structures have: better working environments, lower air pollution during construction, improved working conditions, etc." (Vishal Gulati can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in) New Delhi, Nov 7 : The BJP is likely to make the construction of the grand Ram temple in Ayodhya and 'Jai Shri Ram' the major issues in the next year's Assembly polls in five states, especially in Uttar Pradesh, where it is strengthening its connect with cadre vote bank and is targeting the main opposition -- Samajwadi Party (SP) and its chief Akhilesh Yadav. Talking to IANS, a veteran BJP national leader said: "For us, Lord Shri Ram and the construction of a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya was never an election agenda, but an issue that once isolated us in Indian politics. It is necessary to tell the public about the achievements related to it." Another Uttar Pradesh minister told IANS: "We must tell people that the Supreme Court's historic decision came during the tenure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the construction of the Ram temple during the tenure of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. We also celebrated a record breaking 'Deepotsav' this year. Along with this, it is also necessary to educate people about what happened in 1990 and what can happen if these people come to power again." The BJP's political resolutions reflect its core agenda of promoting Hindutva from the speeches of Prime Minister Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the people during his Kedarnath tour on November 5, had mentioned about Ayodhya. He said: "Just two days ago, the whole world witnessed the celebration of 'Deepotsav' in Ayodhya. Can you imagine how beautiful our ancient cultural form would have been?" Along with this, he also highlighted the rejuvenation of Kashi and the work of Baba Vishwanath Dham which is moving towards completion at a very fast pace. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while speaking at various programmes of Deepotsav, organized in Ayodhya, on November 3, claimed that no one can stop the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya and it will be ready for devotees by 2023. Reminding people of the massacre of Kar Sevaks in 1990, he said, "What was happening in Ayodhya 31 years ago? On October 30 and November 2, 1990, Ram bhakts were fired in a barbaric manner. There was also lathi-charge. Chanting Jai Shri Ram slogan was considered a crime back then." Targeting Akhilesh Yadav's family, he said: "Those who were firing on Ram Bhakts 31 years ago, now bow down before you. Today it seems like if you keep supporting our agenda, the Yadav family will soon become Kar Sevaks to please you." Yogi also assured the people that apart from the Ram Temple, other temples of the state and the devotees of Lord Ram and Krishna, will also be taken care of by his government. He said: "We will shower flowers on the devotees of Rama and Krishna and take care of all the temples in the state." Criticising Akhilesh, Yogi said, "The Akhilesh Yadav government only spent money on graveyards in the state. But the BJP government is focusing on 500 pilgrimages including the Ram Janmabhoomi, Kashi Vishwanath and Naimisharanya Tirth in the state. Out of these, 300 works have been completed and work on another 200 is in progress." Realising that SP is the main contender in the Uttar Pradesh polls, the BJP is leaving no stone unturned to highlight its achievements at the Centre and state before the public and is sticking to its core agenda of Hindutva to beat its opponents. Mumbai, Nov 7 : The Bombay High Court on Sunday set aside a Special PMLA Court order granting 14 days' judicial custody to former Home Minister Anil Deshmukh and remanded him back to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) for five days. The order was given by vacation judge Justice M.J. Jamdar in an urgent filed plea by the ED on Sunday, challenging the Special Court Judge P.R. Sitre's ruling on Saturday, declining the agency's plea for extending Deshmukh's custody by nine more days. Deshmukh's lawyers Senior Advocate Vikram Chaudhri and Aniket Nikam submitted to the court that without getting into the merits or maintainability of the ED application they were volunteering cooperation and not shying away from the investigation, and hence not objecting to the further remand. The ED's lawyers, Additional Solicitor-General Anil Singh and advocate Shreeram Shirsat argued in the Bombay High Court that they were not granted further custody by the Special PMLA Court thus were denied of sufficient and adequate opportunity to probe the case having serious ramifications and when the investigations are at a crucial state. Seeking nine more days' extended custody, they had pleaded in the Special PMLA Court saying that owing to the (Diwali) public holidays, they were unable to procure certain documents, Deshmukh's replies were evasive, and the ED needed to confront him with the other accused involved in the case. Deshmukh, 72, a senior Nationalist Congress Party leader, was nabbed early on November 2 after he was questioned by the ED for over 13 hours on November 1, and sent to 4 days custody of the agency on alleged charges of extortion and money-laundering. The case arises out of the allegations levelled by former Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh -- currently 'missing' -- accusing Deshmukh of allegedly setting a monthly "collection target" of Rs 100 crore from hoteliers to his former aide, now dismissed cop Sachin Vaze, who is in custody. Deshmukh has consistently denied the allegations hurled against him by Singh and Vaze and in a video statement, questioned 'where the former Mumbai top cop was, who is wanted in several cases, who made the accusations and is now gone untraceable'. Simultaneously, his son Hrishikesh Anil Deshmukh -- summoned by the ED for questioning in the same case -- has approached the Mumbai Sessions Court seeking anticipatory bail and his plea will be heard on November 12. San Francisco, Nov 7 : Tech billionaire Elon Musk has said that he is prepared to sell about $24 billion worth of his electric vehicle company Tesla's stocks if his Twitter followers vote for it. According to the auto-tech website Electrek, the Tesla CEO said that it is to address the accusation that he is not paying taxes. Lately, there has been a lot of talk about some of the richest people in the world not paying taxes. Many of the world's richest people have most of their wealth tied to stocks. While their net worth is reported in the billions of dollars and can fluctuate by billions of dollars every month, that value is not liquid unless they were to sell those stocks -- otherwise known as unrealised gains. The Tesla CEO has argued against taxing those unrealised gains, but he has now taken to Twitter to offer an alternative. He says that if Twitter votes for it, he will sell 10 per cent of his stake in Tesla, which is going to have to pay taxes on. The CEO said that he will do whatever the results of the Twitter poll. As of the time of writing, over half a million people voted on the poll and 'Yes' is winning by a significant margin. Currently, 10 per cent of Musk's stake in Tesla is worth around $24 billion, which he is going to have to pay taxes on. If Musk was to sell that many Tesla stocks, it would likely have a significant negative impact on the price, the report said. San Francisco, Nov 7 : US-based search engine giant Google is planning to launch its first foldable phone 'Pixel Fold' and now a new report has claimed that it will use the same 12.2MP main camera that's found on the Pixel 5. According to an APK teardown performed by 9to5Google, Google's upcoming foldable Pixel smartphone will not pack the recently unveiled camera setup of the Pixel 6 series. Another Sony IMX386 is also expected to be used on this device, expectedly for the ultrawide camera. In addition to these two cameras, there is evidence of dual IMX355 sensors, which is the 8MP selfie camera. The Pixel foldable phone from Google is expected to arrive in 2022. Google was expected to announce a foldable during its recent Pixel 6 launch event, but this did not happen. The company recently announced Android 12L, a version of Android 12 optimised for tablets, foldables, and ChromeOS devices. Google plans to release 12L early next year, "in time for the next wave of Android 12 tablets and foldable". In addition to Android 12L, Google also announced new features in OS and Play for developers to better support these devices, reports TechCrunch. These include updates to its Material Design guidance for large-screen devices, but also updates to Jetpack Compose to make it easier to build for these machines and to ensure that apps can more easily adapt to various screen orientations and sizes. Jaipur, Nov 7 : A residential and training complex 'Ahimsa Gram' situated on the Rajasthan-MP border is helping in empowering the poor with skills, jobs and education, thereby helping them join the mainstream of the society. The 'Ahimsa Gram' team has been working hard to realise the dream of father of nation Mahatma Gandhi by empowering people living below poverty line with jobs, education and houses to ensure they contribute to the nation's economy by becoming self-dependent in their domains. Thousands of poor, who were living in pathetic conditions, have been brought here ever since the formation of this 'village' in 2005 which has changed their fortunes. They are now earning decently after being trained here. Their children are also graduates and post graduates and many have good jobs. The women are also contributing to the family expenses by joining self-help group training programmes. All this reflects a story of transformation that has been interesting and amazing. The village has around 100 residential houses available for the poorest of the society and the houses are decent enough with best amenities. Women here can be seen dressed up in Rajasthani attire as they attend their training sessions. "We have been shortlisting people after a comprehensive survey and the poorest of the people are brought here to make them stand on their own. The husband and wives are trained in certain professions where they can do their best. The responsibility of the education of their kids also lies with us. We have a school with state of the art amenities where these kids are studying," says Rajesh Solanki from Chaitanya Kashyap Foundation, the organisation working with a dedicated cause to eradicate poverty. The lifestyle of those staying here can be related to any modern family residing in modern complexes. A yoga teacher visits this complex daily where he trains residents in Yoga. The people living here ensure that their complex becomes sparingly clean. The residents also get their training for various vocations by self-help groups as children of the beneficiaries go to school. Training programmes for women include sewing, embroidery, mehandi, papad-making, dona-pattal, incense sticks making, etc. "When we are satisfied with their ability to get employment, we allow them to leave," said Solanki. Even the men are being taught the skills of employment in the 'Ahimsa Village' and are sent to trade in the nearby markets, adds Solanki. Once the family stands on their feet, they leave the complex on their own and mostly buy their own house, have two-wheelers of their own and adopt a decent lifestyle of any middle class family. The Kashyap Foundation also started a campaign against malnourishment during the Covid period and created a successful model. Speaking to iANS, Kashyap Foundation chairman Chaitanya Kashyap says, "Ahimsa Gram follows many goals of SDG as set by the UN which are -- no poverty, no hunger, good health and well being, quality education, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, etc." Kashyap is MLA from Ratlam district in MP who has relinquished the benefits of being an MLA. "I have said no to my salary as MLA and neither shall I take my pension. I have a larger aim to make an empowered nation and hence am working for the same," said Kashyap to IANS. New Delhi, Nov 7 : The untold story of Commodore Jack Shea, is narrated by his daughter, author Debora Ann Shea, giving a first hand insight into the precarious times post partition. 'Escape from Pakistan' intends to transport readers to 1965 and aims to acknowledge the effort of each officer, known and unknown, who has given their lives for the nation. The book lifts the lid on a story never before made public-the daring escape of a diplomat and his family from Karachi in 1965. But make no mistake: this is more than a pulse pounding thriller. At the heart of the narrative is the tender and inspiring story of a Captain, who masterminded the escape, with brutal consequences to himself. Penned with utmost tenderness by Captain Shea's daughter Debora, this long-overdue tribute to her father who epitomised courage, loyalty and survival against overwhelming odds. At 17, Jack Shea leaves his grandparents' house and joins the Royal Indian Navy. He loses his heart to a pretty young teacher, Dorothy Hope. They marry and raise a wonderful family. His career blossoms. A few months before the Indo-Pak war of 1965, Jack is posted to Karachi, Pakistan as Naval Attache in the Indian High Commission and here is where his story takes a dramatic turn. First Secretary at the High Commission, is actually from the IPS. His role in sourcing vital military information during the 1965 Indo-Pak war brings him dangerously close to being booked for espionage. The Indian authorities know they must move quickly to get him and his family safely back to New Delhi. The man assigned to head the mission: Jack Shea. IANSlife caught up with Shea at the launch to discover more: The Partition is one of the darkest moments in Indian history, 'Escape from Pakistan' traces the untold story of your father Commodore Jack Shea, how difficult was it to put down in words the anguish, anxiety, terror, and fear of the times? Shea: Everybody is aware of the huge and exacting price the Partition of India had on the people of India. Millions of lives were lost, properties were damaged, burnt and looted, women and children were violated, and emotional scars were left for a lifetime of suffering and trauma. Writing 'Escape from Pakistan' was a catharsis for me. It was healing a wound that lived within me for my entire life. It was only after I penned down the story of my father, that the burden lifted off my psyche. I feel liberated now like I have been set free from bondage. A grave injustice was done to my father, and I was seeking validation from the people of India. On reading 'Escape from Pakistan', what would be their reaction? Would they recognise the bravery, courage, and sacrifice of an Indian jawan who put his life on the line for the liberty and security of his people? Writing from an insiders point of view it's difficult to be objective about the incidents that took place? Shea: Writing from an insider's point of view, it is deeply personal because I had a ringside view of the events that unfolded. Even though I was a child and helpless, I was still aware that my father had been attacked, that he lay in hospital clutching on to life by a slender straw for months. It may be accurate to say my retelling is not objective. The incidents are a personal memory, and the book is an exploration of them. The arduous task of officers and their role at the time is often forgotten and goes undocumented.... do you feel this will shed some light? Shea: The arduous task of officers and their role at the time "is not often, but always forgotten". The public is not aware of their sustained efforts; the planning and discipline that is required to orchestrate a Defence Force strong enough to defend a nation such as ours. The skill, strategy and human spirit that runs the defence force is mostly behind the scenes. Stories like 'Escape from Pakistan' illustrate the supreme sacrifice the men in uniform make for their country. It explores bravery and principle like nothing else. In the final analysis, all their efforts are not for any monetary gain, fame or prosperity. Share some of your memories of the time. Shea: My father was always a very handsome man. Even at 80 years old, he could give a young man of 35 a run for his money. So, the memory that crippled me for my entire adult life, was the vision of seeing my father sitting in a wheelchair, slumped to one side unable to hold himself up. His eyes and mouth were lacerated and sutured. He was bruised, pale, and gaunt; hollow, haunting eyes! He was wheeled into the hospital waiting room to meet my brother and I, two months after the attack on him. Another memory of mine was of my brother who was a baby. Only a few weeks old, being handed over through the locked gates to a doctor on the other side. My mother is helpless on this side of the gate. My brother had broken his arm during birth and the arm had been put into a cast. After a few weeks, the cast grew tight around his arm and began to turn blue. Due to the pain, the baby had been screaming nonstop. Even after repeatedly requesting the officer in charge to allow my mother to take the baby to the hospital, he denied her permission. After 24 hours when the baby's condition became critical, my mother approached the officer again. He turned her down again but allowed her to make a telephone call to my father. My father had been detained in the Indian High Commission at the time. He made a phone call to the Seventh Day Adventist hospital, spoke to the gynaecologist who had delivered the baby and managed to convince her to visit Hindustan Court where we were living, and see if she could help my baby brother. These memories are the most disturbing. To see my mother weep helplessly. To see my father battered brutally. Wounds never heal... the scar runs deep in those who have lived it and those who inherited its drama, do you agree? Shea: Wounds never heal especially those of a child; helpless, terrified and anxious. However, the devout and spiritual path both my parent's tread, the values and objectives they taught- led our family out of those bitter times onto glorious future chapters in our individual lives. Chennai, Nov 7 : With Chennai witnessing heavy downpour for the past few days, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Sunday declared two-day holiday for schools and colleges in Chennai, Thiruvallur, Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu districts on Monday and Tuesday. On Saturday night, Chennai recorded the highest rainfall since 2015 as incessant showers lashed the city overnight. Nonstop rain from 8.30 p.m. on Saturday till 5 a.m. on Sunday left the city inundated with water entering homes in several low-lying areas. Addressing mediapersons after visiting Padi, Purasawalkam and Kolathur areas in Chennai, Stalin said that men and machinery were kept ready for any emergency operations following heavy rains. Stalin said that four teams of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed in Madurai and Cuddalore districts for any emergency service. He also said that 50,000 food packets have been distributed in 44 rehabilitation centres since Sunday morning. The Chief Minister called upon the people to hold their travel plans as the weathermen have predicted heavy rains for the next three days. He said that officials have been put on high alert and all the state government departments are working in coordination with each other. The regional centre of the India Meteorological Department has warned of heavy to very heavy rains in Chennai and other parts of the state in the next few days. Kolkata, Nov 7 : Days after a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) leader was shot dead at his home in West Bengal's North Dinajpur district, another BJP leader has been hacked to death at Bhagwanpur in East Midnapore district of the state. While the BJP is holding the Trinamool Congress responsible for the murder, the ruling party has denied the charge. The incident took place on Saturday night when Shambhu Maiti (36), the head of BJP's Shakti Kendra in Chandipur Assembly constituency, was picked up from the road side and hacked to death. His body was recovered from the banks of Keleghai river on Sunday morning. According to the local people, some unknown persons forced Maiti onto a motorcycle and sped away. On Sunday morning, they spotted Maiti's body lying on the banks of the river and informed the police. According to the police, there were sharp cut marks all over Maiti's body. "We have sent the body for autopsy and are waiting for the report. Once the report comes, we will be able to ascertain the exact time and cause of death," a senior district police officer said. The BJP has blamed Trinamool Congress for the incident, alleging that Maiti was killed for exposing the corruption of the ruling party. The local leadership of the Trinamool Congress has denied the allegation, claiming that the incident was a result of BJP's internal feud. "Trinamool is not involved in the incident in any manner," a local leader said. On October 17, Mithun Ghosh (37), the district vice-president of the BJP's youth wing, was shot dead in Itahar area in North Dinajpur district. Ghosh was fired upon by some unidentified miscreants right in front of his residence in Rajgram village. Though he was rushed to the Raiganj Medical College and Hospital, the doctors declared him brought dead. New Delhi, Nov 7 : Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday moved the political resolution, comprising 18 important issues, in the BJP's national executive meet, and it was seconded by the party's Tamil Nadu chief K. Annamalai. Talking to media after the meeting, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said political resolution proposed by Adityanath was passed in the meet. On why Adityanath was chosen to move a resolution, she said: "Yogi Adityanath is a senior leader of the BJP. He is the Chief Minister of the country's largest state, had served as Member of Parliament and done a stupendous job to help people during Coronavirus pandemic. So why he should not have been called to move a resolution?" Sitharaman said Union Ministers G. Kishen Reddy, Anurag Thakur, and Ashwini Vaishnaw, and Chief Ministers Pramod Sawant (Goa), N. Biren Singh (Manipur), Pushkar Singh Dhami (Uttarakhand) and presented their views on the resolution. She said that the resolution noted that on the vaccination front, India's image has strengthened on the world stage, but opposition parties raised questions over it. It also hailed the government for completing 100 crore vaccinations. The resolution lauds Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment for environment for which he raised five-point agenda five 'amrit tattva' (nectar elements), while delivering the 'National Statement' at the COP-26 conference in the UK's Glasgow. 'One Nation, One Ration Card' and fast-paced development in Jammu and Kashmir after abrogation of Article 370 also found a mention in the resolution. It also mentioned PM Anna Yojana, under which 80 crore people were provided free foodgrain. The resolution also entails how youth are getting employment under the various schemes of the Union government, there is no corruption due to Direct Benefit Transfer, toilets in every household and the impact it had on Indian women. It also discussed steps taken by the government to facilitate farmers. It said that under Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana, Rs 1.53 lakh crore was transferred directly to the bank accounts of farmers, MSP increased by 1.5 times, and Kisan Debit Cards were distributed. The meeting also discussed the upcoming Assembly polls and strategy to work at booth levels, and recently held polls in Kerala, Assam, and West Bengal. It denounced the West Bengal violence, saying that the BJP is standing with every party worker and will ensure that the guilty are brought to book by law. Atmanirbhar package and 'Azadi Ka Amrut Mahotsav' also figured in the resolution. On the oppostion's reaction to the government's achievements, Sitharaman said Prime Minister is working to build the nation's image but opposition is doing just the opposite. "The opposition is not working for the people and exploiting situation via Twitter posts," she said. On Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's remark on women reservation, Sitharaman said why he did not do that when his party was in power before 2014. On farmers' agitation against the three farm laws, she said: "We are constantly asking them what are the shortcomings in these laws. We have held talks with them and are always ready to do that." Bhopal, Nov 7 : Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra, who has been in news for the last couple of weeks due to his controversial statements, on Sunday trained his guns on the Gandhi family after Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra shared a picture on "Bhai Dooj". "The Gandhis have never cared about Hindu sentiments or their festivals. "It would have been better if they shared a photo showing brother-sister celebrating 'Bhai Dooj'. But Rahul claims to be a 'Janeudhari' (wearer of sacred thread) only during the elections," Mishra told media persons here. "No one has ever seen a single photo of the Gandhi family praying to Goddess Lakshmi on Diwali." Mishra's comments came after Priyanka Gandhi Vadra tweeted an old picture of her with brother and former party chief Rahul Gandhi on the occasion of 'Bhai Dooj'. A couple of weeks ago, Mishra had attacked Bollywood director Prakash Jha's upcoming web-series 'Ashram 3'. Later, a group of Bajrang Dal activists had vandalised its sets in Bhopal and beaten up its crew members, saying that the web-series is tarnishing the image of Hindus' Ashram system. Last Sunday, Mishra had threatened fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee to take down a mangalsutra advertisement within 24 hours or to face consequences. New Delhi/Chandigarh, Nov 7 : Punjab Congress President Navjot Singh Sidhu on Sunday accused state Advocate General A.P.S. Deol of working for political gains, a day after the latter accused him of taking political mileage. In a series of tweets, Sidhu said: "Mr AG-PUNJAB, Justice is blind but people of Punjab are not. Our Congress party came in power with a promise to give justice in Sacrilege Cases, in which you appeared before the High Court for main conspirators/accused persons and made serious allegations against our Govt. "You (AG) appeared for the accused, now representing the State and very soon you will seek elevation as a judge so that you can decide this case. Being the highest law officer, your focus is on politics and political gains." "Are you acting at the behest of those who appointed you in this constitutional office and fulfilling their political gains? Did you advise the Government to challenge the blanket bail order procured by you or any other adverse order in Sacrilege cases in Supreme Court," Sidhu asked. Sidhu further said: "Leave the politics to the politicians and focus on your personal conscience, integrity and professional ethics, which your job requires. "Today, you are representing the same Government of same political party in power and accusing me of spreading misinformation, whereas, I am fighting for justice in Sacrilege cases and you were procuring blanket bails for the accused persons." "I believe that Ethics is about the way things ought to be, not about the way things are. Ethical people often do more than law requires and less than it allows. When it comes to ethics, motive is very important," he added. On Saturday, Deol had slammed Sidhu, who had demanded his (Deol's) resignation for representing two accused persons in the sacrilege and police firing case. Deol had said that Sidhu was spreading misinformation to gain political advantage. "Sidhu's repeated utterances seek to derail the efforts of the Punjab government to ensure justice in the drugs matter and the sacrilege case," Deol had said in a statement. "There is a concerted attempt by vested interests to malign the functioning of Congress Party in view of upcoming elections in Punjab for their selfish political gain by politicising the constitutional office of the Advocate General of Punjab," he said. Sidhu had objected to the appointment of Deol as state AG and Iqbal Preet Sahota as DGP, citing these as one of the reasons for quitting the party chief's post. Sidhu withdrew his resignation as PCC chief on Friday. Shimla, Nov 7 : A 'Bamboo Village' will come up in Himachal Pradesh's Una district under the National Bamboo Mission with an initial cost of Rs 1.17 crore with technical assistance from Pune-based firm 'Bamboo India', to make a variety of products from the material. The Village would come up at Boul village on 24 kanals (a kanal is approximately 0.125 acre) to promote in the hill state. "A career in bamboo craft would help several artisans realise their dreams in the hill state as the state government decided to set up the first bamboo village in Una district aiming to improve living conditions in remote areas by making use of the natural resources," officials said. "The project aims to boost the livelihood of unemployed rural youths by providing professional training in the art in making hand-fans, furniture, dustbins, tea mugs, wall hangings, show pieces, flower pots, etc by using locally available bamboo, which will help increase their income," said state Agriculture Minister, Virender Kanwar. He said that the state government will organise free training camps in bamboo based handicraft to around 500 villagers/youths to enable the local artisans to adapt their creativity as per the demands of the market and get better prices for their products, and also set up a unit for manufacturing strong, affordable and fancy golden coloured bamboo articles/furniture. The state government has also shortlisted a hybrid species of oxygen releasing Bamboo trees named 'Beema Bamboo' to be planted in a scientific method to get the maximum benefit of oxygen. An 'Oxygen park' with Beema bamboo will be established with estimated cost of around Rs 40 lakh at the same village. The government has approached the Pune-based company, which has rich experience and already engaged in setting up Oxygen Parks in many parts of India, for technical assistance said an official. The state government has planned massive bamboo plantation to get raw material round the year. Local farmers will be given bamboo seeds for free, while bamboo will be planted on open and barren lands under the National Bamboo Mission. Chennai, Nov 7 : Four-time National Award-winning director Cheran has lashed out at the previous AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu for the poor implementation of a project it took up to prevent waterlogging in the capital city of Chennai. Quoting a video clip which showed flooded streets in Chennai after Saturday's downpour, Cheran on Sunday tweeted, "The previous state government drafted plans to prevent waterlogging in the city of Chennai during monsoons and got a sum of Rs 900 crores from the Centre sanctioned for the purpose. Is this the city in which the project was implemented?" The actor-director further urged Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin to first look into any irregularities that might have occurred in this project. Tamil Nadu has been experiencing heavy rains from Saturday night, even as a low pressure is expected to form over the Bay of Bengal around November 9. Several parts of the city have waterlogged roads, with water entering homes in certain parts. The government has announced a holiday for all schools in the districts of Chennai, Kancheepuram, Chengalpattu and Tiruvallur districts in view of the heavy rains. Palghar : , Nov 7 (IANS) A young fisherman from Palghar in Maharashtra was killed and another was injured after Pakistani troops fired at a fishing boat off Okha Coast, Porbandar, Gujarat, officials said on Sunday. The deceased fisherman has been identified as Shridhar R. Chamare (32), a resident of Vadrai, a coastal village in Palghar district. The incident has sparked anger among the fishing community here. "Chamare was working on the boat 'Jalpari' owned by Jayanti Bokhama for the past more than three months," Maninder Arekar, Chairman of Vadrai Fishermen's Cooperative Society, said in a statement. He said that Chamare along other fishermen had gone fishing into the Arabian Sea on Saturday. More details of the tragedy are awaited. The fishermen have demanded that the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat should take up the matter with the Indian government to ensure that the body of Chamare is returned to India with full dignity. They also demanded that an international probe should be ordered into the rash action by the Pakistani troops. The Okha Marine police station has registered a case and is probing the matter. Slamming the incident, India-Pakistan peace activist Jatin Desai said in Mumbai, "Firing is unacceptable...it violates all international conventions. "Under no circumstances traditional fishing boats should be fired upon. It's high time that the governments of India and Pakistan work out a permanent resolution to this issue. Ideally, both should agree to have a 'no arrest policy' also." Srinagar, Nov 7 : A Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist with bullet wound was found in a critical condition in J&K's Shopian district on Sunday. Police sources said the terrorist, who has been identified as Sahil Bashir from Hermain village, was found in a critical condition at his village by the locals. "He has been taken to a hospital by some locals, but it is not yet known how he sustained the bullet injury. He had joined militant ranks on October 12 and was on our list," the police sources said. Hyderabad, Nov 7 : Telangana Prohibition and Excise Department has intensified its probe into the recent seizure of drugs worth Rs 2 crore in Medchal Malkajgiri district near here. The officials conducted raids at the houses of the accused and other premises in Chintal, Bavajipalli and Nagarkurnool. The raids followed the questioning of the accused who have already been arrested in connection with the case. The officials seized Mephedrone from three different places in Medchal Malkajgiri district on October 23 and arrested four accused. The excise officials had seized 4.92 kg contraband and a car. The accused told the investigators that the Mephedrone was meant to be supplied to students and others. The arrested accused have been identified as Pavan Reddy, Kanna Reddy, Mahender Reddy and Ramakrishna Goud. Another accused -- Hanumantha Reddy -- later surrendered before the police. The excise officials are still on the lookout for the main accused, Suresh Reddy. He is suspected to have played a key role in manufacturing and supplying the banned substance. Acting on a tip-off, the sleuths of excise and prohibition team had raided a flat at New Balajinagar in Kukatpally on October 23. They seized 5 gm of Mephedrone and detained Pavan Reddy. Based on the information obtained during his interrogation, the excise officials raided a lodge at Bonguloor Gate and arrested Kanna Reddy. An official said that 921 gm of Mephedrone was seized from him. He told the investigators that the substance was supplied by Ramakrishna Goud of Bavajipally village in Nagarkurnool district. Following this, another excise team went to Bavajipally and arrested Goud. Around 4 kg Mephedrone was seized from him. He also disclosed the names of Hanumantha Reddy and Suresh Reddy as the suppliers. Hanumantha Reddy later surrendered before the police. He was earlier arrested by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) two years ago. The excise officials on November 5 took the three accused into custody for further interrogation. The drug was allegedly being brought from Bengaluru, Goa and Mumbai and supplied to some people in Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana. Meanwhile, the police raided a house at Yapral in Medchal Malkajgiri district, where ganja was being cultivated. Police seized ganja plants raised in seven big pots and arrested a man. The accused had taken the house on rent. He, along with some others, was cultivating ganja at home and selling it to customers. The raids were conducted as part of an intense campaign launched by the police in Hyderabad and other districts against drugs following direction from Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao. Gurugram, Nov 7 : Haryana government's decision to notify a law providing 75 per cent reservation to locals in private jobs is now facing opposition from the industries' lobby. Haryana government's law mandating 75 per cent job reservation for locals will come into effect from January 15, 2022. The law will provide 75 per cent reservation for local candidates in private sector for jobs offering a gross monthly salary of up to Rs 30,000. To raise their concern over the bill, several industry associations, including those in Manesar, Gurugram, Sonipat, Panipat, Panchkula, Rohtak and Faridabad, had approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court earlier. "The associations had gone to the high court against this law before, but the court had said that let it be a gazette notification, after which the court will hear the matter," Manoj Tyagi, General Secretary, IMT Industrial Association, said in a statement. The Industrial Association may again approach the court against this law. "In the eyes of industries and associations, this law is not correct, as it will not benefit the state," the statement said. The law mainly covers private companies, societies, trusts and partnership firms in the state. As per the law, all shops, showrooms and industries in the state, which employ more than 10 people, have to ensure that 75 per cent of their staff are locals. Pawan Yadav, President, IMT Manesar Industrial Association, said, "We believe that locals should be given employment. There are two ways to provide employment -- first, more big industries should be set up here, and second, skill development for locals should be done so that they can get employment automatically." He added that large industries, which have the capacity to provide employment to 10,000 or more people, avoid setting up industries in states where such laws are applicable. Satish Chand, ex-President, IMT Manesar Industrial Association, said that all types of technical skills are not available in Haryana. He also said that decisions like whom to employ, who is suitable for which job etc. should be left to the industrialists, and the government shouldn't interfere in these matters. Yadav said that big industries should be set up in Haryana so that not just 75 per cent, but 100 per cent locals can get employment. "The government should have discussed the matter with the industrialists or industrial associations before passing the law. This law will compel the entrepreneurs to move to other states. There is no need for such reservation law in the private sector," said K.K. Gandi, President, Sector-37 Industrial Association, Gurugram. The representatives of the industrial associations, however, said that while they are not against Haryana government's decision, they can't risk their businesses as they need skilled workers for their production units. They said that at present, 80 per cent of the employees are from other states as the locals are not capable to work in export/garment/auto industries. Chennai, Nov 7 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin was among the first to wish actor and politician Kamal Haasan on the occasion of his 67th birthday on Sunday, November 7. His Kerala and Delhi counterparts, Pinarayi Vijayan and Arvind Kejriwal, were also generous with their praise for the star who's popularly known as 'Ulaganayagan' ('world leader'). In a tweet on Sunday, Stalin said, "I express my sweet birthday wishes to my dear friend, 'Kalaignani' Kamal Haasan, one of the finest actors of Indian cinema and the President of the Makkal Needhi Maiam. I wish him good health and urge him to continue his good services." Responding to the chief minister's tweet in Tamil, Kamal said, "To my dear friend M.K. Stalin, who has emerged as a fine example among chief ministers, your wholehearted birthday wishes have added more colour to my birthday." Stalin's Kerala counterpart, Pinarayi Vijayan, also extended his birthday greetings to Kamal Haasan. Taking to Twitter, Vijayan wrote, "Hearty birthday wishes dear @ikamalhaasan. You have always stood by Kerala in our every need. We are proud of your precious contributions to our cinema and culture. I wish you more happiness and success in your life and career." The actor was swift to respond. He tweeted back: "Kerala was my first shelter which fostered me into lead roles in cinema. Apart from that I admire Malayalees and you sir @vijayanpinarayi for being their valorous and benevolent leader. Thank you." It wasn't just the Kerala Chief Minister who greeted the Tamil actor. Malayalam superstar Mammootty also extended his birthday greetings, wishing Kamal Hassan "a great year ahead". Mohanlal, the other big star of Malayalam cinema, tweeted: "Happiest birthday wishes to you my dear @ikamalhaasan sir! May the Almighty bless you with utmost happiness and good health! Have a great year ahead!" Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who was present with Kamal Haasan when he launched the Makkal Needhi Maiam in Madurai on February 21, 2018, also wished the actor. Kejriwal tweeted: "A very happy birthday to Shri @ikamalhaasan ji. Wishing you a long and healthy life." Kamal responded to his political ally with the words, "Thank you very much honorable @ArvindKejriwal ji. Lots of love to a brother in arms." Six-time National Award-winning lyricist Vairamuthu too took to Twitter to post his birthday greetings to Kamal Haasan. "Just like what Kalaignar Karunandhi said about MGR, I too can say about Kamal Haasan: 'He has been my 40-year friend'," the lyricist tweeted. He likened the gifted actor to a burning flame that looks to move up, even when a match stick is held down and asked what could victories or defeats do to such a person. Telugu superstar Mahesh Babu too was among the scores of others who wished Kamal Haasan a happy birthday. He tweeted, "To the epitome of excellence. Wishing you a very happy birthday @ikamalhaasan sir!" The unit of Kamal Haasan's 'Vikram' wished him a happy birthday by releasing the first look of the film on Saturday evening. Belagavi : , Nov 7 (IANS) Tension prevailed in Maratha Colony in Karnataka's Belagavi district on Sunday after Hindu activists laid siege to a residential building alleging mass religious conversion. The protesters claimed that as many as 200 people, including women and children from rural backgrounds, were put up in the building on the pretext of mass prayer for the purpose of religious conversion. The police had to intervene to bring the situation under control. However, before the police reached the spot, many participating in the mass prayer fled the spot. The angry protesters locked the remaining people in a room, who were allowed to leave only after the police arrived. The Hindu activists claimed that they had information that religious conversions take place in the building every Sunday on the pretext of mass prayers. About 20 policemen have been stationed near the building as a precautionary measure. New Delhi, Nov 7 : Unidentified persons have destroyed a telecommunication tower in a northwestern tribal district of Pakistan, soon after it started providing internet service, RFE/RL reported. The tower in the restive North Waziristan district was destroyed by explosives on Friday, the report said. The tower belonged to China Mobile Pakistan, a 100 per cent owned subsidiary of China Mobile Communications Corporation. The Pakistan-based mobile data network operator does business under the name Zong. No group so far has claimed responsibility for the blast. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), known as the Pakistani Taliban, and other militant groups are known to operate in the area, the report added. A local police officer said the tower had been providing mobile phone signals since 2019. The report said the blast occurred two days after the tower started providing internet service in the area. Local residents had staged protests in the past demanding high-speed internet connection. Pakistani security forces had carried out a massive military operation in North Waziristan in June 2014 claiming that the TTP had been eradicated. However, continued attacks by the militants suggest that the group has returned and poses a threat to peace and security in the area once again, the report said. New Delhi, Nov 7 : Imperial College London has established multiple ties with Chinese military specialists besides forging relationships with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the Daily Mail reported. The report said the university debating whether to 'cancel' a 19th Century scientist over his theories on race has close links with some of the world's most sinister regimes. The Daily Mail on Sunday uncovered more than a dozen projects that show Imperial scientists working on potential military technologies. UK Conservative MP Iain Duncan Smith, co-chairman of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, said: "Imperial is seeking to 'cancel' a world-famous scientist but it has no qualms about forging close links with a Chinese regime guilty of genocide." The Imperial said on Saturday night: "This bizarre attempt to connect Imperial's open dialogue about its history with international scientific research is totally misleading and baseless. Imperial is not 'cancelling' anyone." Imperial is considering a proposal to rename a campus building honouring biologist Thomas Huxley and removing a bust of him. It follows an independent report that claimed an essay by Huxley on the link between race and intelligence 'fed the dangerous and false ideology of eugenics', the repot said. Thiruvananthapuram, Nov 7 : A SC research scholar of Mahatma Gandhi University at Kerala's Kottyam, who has been fasting for the past ten days to seek action on her complaints of casteist discrimination and harassment, on Sunday lashed out at Governor Arif Mohammad Khan, the varsity's Chancellor. Deepa P. Mohan, who was admitted to a hospital after her health deteriorated following the ten days fast but has come back to her protest venue in Kottayam, said that the Governor did not visit her even after being in the same city since the past two days. She also accused the University Vice Chancellor, Dr Sabu Thomas, of misleading the Governor and her Professor Nandakumar Kalarickal of alleged sexual harassment. Reportedly, the research scholar had tried to meet the Governor several times to air her grievances. However, every time she was denied an appointment. She also said that the Governor's statement that both the sides should come to a truce, without studying her issue in detail, was not acceptable. Addressing the media, Mohan said: "How can the Kerala Governor ask me to come to a truce and not take a stand? He himself has said that he has not studied my issue in detail. Then how can he comment without knowing the issue?" She also slammed the ruling CPI-M, alleging that "Minister for Cooperation, V. N. Vasavan had intervened in the matter in favour of Professor Nandakumar Kalarickal. Former health Minister, K.K. Shailaja also put pressure on me to withdraw the case against the professor". "The Kerala Education Minister (R. Bindu) is the wife of CPI-M's acting Secretary and she has thrown her weight behind Kalarickal. Her social media posts supporting me are all false. CPI-M is supporting Kalarickal and has openly stated that he would be protected by the party at any cost." New Delhi, Nov 7 : With an aim to provide better rescue and relief measures to people in the face of natural disasters like floods and cyclones, four additional battalions of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) will be fully operational by the middle of next year with four additional bases in the National Capital Region (NCR), Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The four additional battalions will take the total number of NDRF battalions to 16. After obtaining approval from the Union Cabinet, the Union Home Ministry had in 2018 sanctioned the raising of four additional battalions for NDRF, including two from Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), one from Assam Rifles and one from Border Security Force (BSF). Of the two ITBP battalions, one each will be placed in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh while the other two raised from BSF and Assam Rifle will have their bases in Jammu and Kashmir and NCR, respectively, officials in the force said, adding that most of the battalions under training will complete their specialised course soon and will be ready for deployment. As of now, 12 battalions are fully operational with their bases in Guwahati, Nadia (West Bengal), Cuttack, Velore, Pune, Vadodara, Bhatinda, Ghaziabad, Patna, Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), Varanasi and Itanagar. After the induction of four newly-raised battalions, over 4,500 trained personnel will be added to the strength of NDRF, an official said. Normally, one battalion consists of 1,149 personnel with a specialised search and rescue team, paramedics, electricians, technicians and a dog squad for rescue operations. For better and quick response to natural calamities, the NDRF in 2016 had moved a proposal to create an air wing but it was declined by the government. Air transport is provided by the Indian Air Force in case of immediate deployment. Created in 2006 under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the NDRF under the Union Home Ministry has been the backbone of relief and rescue operations in the country. Be it the floods caused by glacial outburst in Uttarakhand in February this year, Cyclone Yaas in Odisha and West Bengal, Cyclone Taukte or any flood situation arising out of heavy rains in many parts of the country, the forces immediately deployed their battalions for relief and rescue operations. As a part of proactive measures in the monsoon season, 117 self-contained, fully-equipped flood rescue NDRF teams comprising more than 3,000 rescuers have been pre-positioned in various flood-prone areas in 29 states/UTs across the country. The rescue teams were also deployed during the heavy rains in Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and other parts of the country in the months of August and September this year. For rescue and relief work during the recent floods caused by cloudburst in Uttarakhand, 17 self-contained teams of the NDRF were deployed there in consultation with the state authorities, which evacuated more than 1,300 stranded people from Udham Singh Nagar and Nainital besides distributing relief materials to the people. Training being one of the most important attributes for an efficient force, the Centre has set up a National Institute of Excellence for Search and Rescue in Nagpur. With an aim to understand the best practices of disaster relief of other countries, the force also joins exercises with other countries like China, Finland, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. It has also been part of joint training exercises in New Zealand, Switzerland, the US and Tehran to learn the best practices to prevent natural disasters. It also organises various national and international symposium on disaster relief and discusses the impending threats like cascading effects of disaster events in the Himalayan region, including landslides, cloudbursts, earthquakes and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) New Delhi, Nov 7 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has conducted searches at two premises of the accused persons in connection with a case related to extortion by banned outfit People's Liberation Front of India (PLFI) in Jharkhand. On Saturday, the NIA conducted searches at the premises of the accused persons who were associates of gangsters Sujit Sinha and Aman Sahu Gang at Bundu village in Hazaribagh district, the probe agency stated. The case was registered by the NIA on March 4 this year in connection with conspiracy and commission of terrorist acts for extortion and disruption of government activities at Tetariyakhad Colliery in Latehar. The accused persons had destroyed five vehicles at Tetariyakhad Colliery on December 18, 2020, causing injuries to four civilians. The searches conducted on Saturday at the residential premises of the arrested and absconding accused persons led to the recovery of digital devices and other incriminating documents, which have been seized. According to NIA, gangsters Sinha and Sahu had conspired with notorious gangster Shahrukh and another accused Pradeep Ganjhu along with several members of terrorist outfits TPC and PLFI for committing murder, extortion and further generating funds for expansion of their criminal and terrorist activities in the state. "The terrorist gang has been procuring sophisticated automatic weapons, including AK-47, for committing targeted killing and creating terror in the coal transportation areas," the probe agency said. Palghar : /Gandhinagar, Nov 7 (IANS) A young fisherman from Palghar in Maharashtra was killed and another was injured after Pakistan Marine Security Agency (PMSA) troops fired at a fishing boat off Okha Coast, Porbandar, Gujarat, officials said on Sunday. The deceased fisherman has been identified as Shridhar R. Chamare (32), a resident of Vadrai, a coastal village in Palghar district. The incident has sparked anger among the fishing community here. Chamare's body has been brought back to Okha and sent for post-mortem, confirmed the Devbhoomi Dwarka police. A case of murder has been registered in Porbandar as the incident happened in sea beyond 12 nautical miles. More details are awaited. "'Jalpari', an Indian boat, sailed from Okha in Devbhoomi Dwarka district on October 25. The incident happened at around 4 pm on Saturday. One of the fishermen died after being hit by a bullet fired by PMSA troops. The boat returned to Okha on Sunday morning with the deceased and the injured fisherman, both hit by PMSA firing," Dwarka SP Sunil Joshi told IANS. "The GPS tracking device onboard Jalpari will be investigated by the forensic team to find out what exactly happened. Rest of the investigation will be carried out by the Porbandar police," added Joshi. "Chamare was working on the boat 'Jalpari' owned by Jayanti Bokhama for the past more than three months," Maninder Arekar, Chairman of Vadrai Fishermen's Cooperative Society, said in a statement. The fishermen have demanded that the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat should take up the matter with the Indian government to ensure that the body of Chamare is returned with full dignity. They also demanded that an international probe should be ordered into the rash action by the Pakistani troops. Slamming the incident, India-Pakistan peace activist Jatin Desai said in Mumbai, "Firing is unacceptable...it violates all international conventions. "Under no circumstances traditional fishing boats should be fired upon. It's high time that the governments of India and Pakistan work out a permanent resolution to this issue. Ideally, both should agree to have a 'no arrest policy' also." Just four days back, the Indian government had released 10 Pakistani fishermen, who were arrested for illegally crossing over to the Indian territory. Border Security Force (BSF) jawans had handed over the fishermen to Pakistani Rangers at the Attari-Wagah border on Wednesday. New Delhi, Nov 7 : In a report titled 'Clinicopathological Profile of Cancers in India: A Report of the Hospital Based Cancer Registries, 2021, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said that the northeastern states experience higher burden of cancer cases, both among men and women. The cancer experts have also cited the cultural reasons behind the rise in the number of cancer cases in the northeastern states. According to Delhi-based cancer specialist Anshuman Kumar, from the point of view of cancer prevalence, India can be divided into four zones -- North, Northeast, South and West. The northeast part of India is reeling under heavy burden of cancer cases, which can be attributed to the cultural behaviour of the people living in those societies. Talking to IANS, Kumar said that mouth and neck cancers are most common in the northeast which can be attributed to the traditional custom of chewing raw betel nut by people living in the northeastern states. The nut contains several alkaloids belonging to the pyridine group, the most important being arecoline which creates addiction to betel nut. Resultantly, he said, it causes oral cancers in mouth and neck. Kumar said that betel nut, locally known as 'tambul', causes a cancer that creates difficulty in opening the mouth which leads to late detection of the disease, as people consider it normal and don't visit doctors. Late detection is also a reason contributing to the rise in cancer cases in the northeast. Apart from late detection, unequal distribution of centres for treatment and prevention of cancer is also a reason for rising cases, said the cancer specialist. Dermatologist Kabir Sardana from Delhi's RML Hospital told IANS that a skin pigment called melanin forms a UV umbrella and protects people from skin cancer. In the northeastern region, people generally have fair complexion and they commonly reside at high altitude areas, which leads to high UV flux. Hence more skin are damaged, causing cancer. While in south India, the natural skin colour protects them from the rays. However, Kumar holds favourable climactic condition as the reason for lower incidence of cancers in south India. "Gallbladder cancer may be termed as the cancer of north India," said Kumar, adding that in the gagetic belt area from UP to West Bengal via Bihar, gallbladder cancer is more common in women. Heavy metals like cadium, mercury, led and arsenium are found in beyond acceptable levels in the water of Ganga, which is used for irrigation in these areas, causing gallbladder cancer in the region. He also cited the common use of mustard oil in food as an important factor for the rise in the number of cancer cases. Kumar said that cancer cases in India is either under reported or over reported in the absence of decentralised cancer screening system. (Avinash Prabhakar can be reached at Avinashp@ians.in) Bhopal, Nov 7 : A group of activists, which has launched a month-long campaign to highlight the grievances of the victims of the Bhopal gas tragedy, has raised questions over the state government's proposal to build a memorial at the site of the Union Carbide plant. The Bhopal gas tragedy occurred in December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited's pesticide plant in Bhopal. It is considered among the world's worst industrial disasters. The activists associated with different NGOs have termed the state government's proposal to build a memorial at the site of the plant as "a well planned cover-up" of Dow Chemical Company, which purchased Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) in 2001, 17 years after the disaster. "Why is the state government planning to put concrete on land contaminated with chemicals that retain toxicity for over 100 years," an activist asked on Sunday. Rashida Bee, the head of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Stationery Karmchari Sangthan, told IANS that since 1990, as many as 17 reports, including those prepared by the top research agencies of the Central government, have confirmed the presence of pesticides, heavy metals and poisonous chemicals in high concentrations till 3 km away from the abandoned factory site. "Instead of excavating and removing thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste that is the cause for the ongoing contamination of Bhopal's groundwater, the state government is planning to cover the contaminated land with concrete," Rashid said. Elaborating more on contamination of groundwater in the city, activist Rachna Dhingra claimed that research agencies in their reports have confirmed high concentration of six persistent organic pollutants in the city's groundwater. The NGOs claimed that chemicals and heavy metals found by different agencies are known to damage the brain, liver, lungs and kidney, besides causing cancer and other diseases. The NGOs have launched a month-long campaign -- 'Bhopal disaster: 37 years' -- and are raising one question related to the gas tragedy every day. New Delhi, Nov 7 : The meeting of the BJP's National Executive in the national capital on Sunday, was its first "hybrid" meet, a party leader said. Talking to IANS, the BJP's IT Cell chief Amit Malviya said that this was the first such meet, with some leaders at the venue here, and several others attending from various places across the country. All marked their attendance with a digital signature. Those outside Delhi were linked through a two-way communication system, and some of the virtual attendees even gave speeches. Asked how much time it took to arrange the "hybrid" meet, Malviya said they were working on it for the past 10 days. However, he also noted that in the last two years, in view of the Covid pandemic, the BJP had been increasingly turning to technological means to carry out organisational work, and in the recent elections, had conducted virtual rallies, so the use of technology was not a new thing for them. He said that no glitches marred Sunday's programme, in which only 124 members were present in Delhi and rest, including Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who presented the political resolution while participating from Lucknow, other party Chief Ministers, state unit chiefs, and other senior leaders, including veterans L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi. Malviya is also a member of the National Executive and co-incharge of West Bengal. Guwahati, Nov 7 : The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday arrested Ashok Saikia, the eldest son of former Assam Chief Minister Hiteswar Saikia, in a bank loan default case. The CBI team arrested Saikia, the brother of Congress Legislature Party leader Debabrata Saikia, from his residence in Guwahati's Sarumataria in a case related to Rs 9.37 lakh loan taken from the Assam State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank (ASCARDB) in 1996. The case was initially registered at Paltan Bazar police station in Guwahati in 1998 and later transferred to the CBI in 2001 after two complaints were filed with the probe agency. Debabrata Saikia, also Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, told the media that his brother was being victimised for a loan he had already repaid long ago to the bank and he would certainly get justice from the court. The opposition Congress released a letter of the ASCARDB on Sunday where it was shown that Saikia had availed the loan of Rs 9,37,701 from the bank in 1996 for business but in 2015, he had cleared the dues and H.N. Borah, the then General Manager of the bank, had in a letter on October 10, 2015, said the loan had been liquidated under the compromise settlement scheme. Chandigarh, Nov 7 : After neighbouring Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, the Punjab government has now announced to slash the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs 10 and Rs 5 per litre, respectively, effective from Sunday midnight. Talking to mediapersons here after a Cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi said that with this decision, Punjab now has the lowest petrol rate in the region (except in Chandigarh), while diesel price in the state is also much lower than Haryana and Rajasthan. With this decision, the rate of VAT on petrol has been reduced from 27.27 per cent (24.79 per cent plus 10 per cent surcharge) to 15.15 per cent, and on diesel from 17.57 per cent (15.9 per cent plus 10 per cent surcharge) to 10.91 per cent. New Delhi, Nov 7 : The Iranian Agriculture Minister has said that barter trade with neighbours is one of Tehran's top policies, proposing the Pakistani side to use local currencies to solve problems resulting from the foreign sanctions on Tehran, Mehr News reported. A meeting was held between the Iranian Minister of Agriculture, Seyyed Javad Sadati Nejad, and the visiting Advisor to Prime Minister of Pakistan for Commerce and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood in Tehran on Sunday. Sadati Nejad said that Iran and Pakistan can use any opportunity to complement each other. According to him, Iran enjoys the potentiality to export dates and apples to Pakistan and in return, it can import sesame and rice from its southeastern neighbour, the report said. In his remarks, Sadati Nejad pointed to the problems resulting from the anti-Iran sanctions that put hurdles on the way of Iran's trade with neighbours. Iran and Pakistan must use local currency in order to solve the problems caused by the sanctions, the Iranian minister said, the report added. The Agriculture Minister also said that using a barter trade system with neighbours to circumvent the sanctions is one of the top policies of the new Iranian administration, the report said. Dawood, for his part, said that any improvement in trade and economic cooperation with Iran is very important, adding that the Iran-Pakistan trade volume should be expanded, especially in the field of agriculture. Iran and Pakistan play an important role in linking the regional countries of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Tajikistan, the Pakistani official added. Referring to the two countries' potentialities, he said: "Pakistan has rice and Iran has oil and petrochemicals, which we can exchange," the report said. New Delhi, Nov 7 : Maulana Tahir Ashrafi, the special representative of Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on religious harmony, on Sunday criticised the appearance of women in advertisements, saying that "despite having so many good looking men in the country, advertisers still hire women to represent their brands", Geo News reported. Speaking to the media in Lahore, Ashrafi further said that women should not be "unnecessarily featured in advertisements", adding that he is against such practices, the report said. He also talked about the growing menace of sexual crimes in the country and said that the perpetrators must be sentenced to harsh punishments as these crimes cannot be ignored. "The Ulema has a role to play in eradicating obscenity, terrorism and extremism from the country," Ashrafi said. Ashrafi also said that upon the instructions of Prime Minister Imran Khan, Pakistan is internationally combating the rise of Islamophobia. "For this purpose, the government has started reaching out to different Islamic scholars across the globe," Ashrafi said, adding that those who have been posting blasphemous content on websites have been taken into custody, the report said. Srinagar, Nov 7 : Major Gen Prashant Srivastava took over as General Officer Commanding of the Rashtriya Rifles' Counter Insurgency Force Victor, succeeding Major Gen Rashim Bali who moved to Delhi on an important assignment in the Army headquarters, army said on Sunday. Commissioned into the elite Parachute Battalion of the Special Forces on June 9, 1990 after passing out from the National Defence Academy, Khadakwasla, he has attended all important career courses including Defence Services Staff Courses Wellington (Tamil Nadu), the Higher Command Course, and National Defence College (USA). He has an MSc in Strategic Studies and is a Masters of Philosophy to his credit. Srivastava has vast operational experience having served in intense counter-insurgency/counter-terrorist environment in Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, and the North East, as well as holding important staff appointments. He was conferred the Sena Medal in 2011. Chennai, Nov 7 : Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has declared a public holiday on Monday following heavy rains and inundation in several parts of the state including Chennai. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also called Stalin and promised all help for the people of the state. The Prime Minister, in a tweet, said: "Spoke to Tamil Nadu CM, Thiru@mkstalin and discussed the situation in the wake of heavy rainfall in parts of the state. Assured all possible support from the Centre in rescue and relief work. I pray for everyone's well-being and safety". Stalin thanked the Prime Minister. "Thank you Hon'ble PM @narendramodi. Had discussed about TN having exhausted State Disaster Relief Fund (SDRF) for 2020-21 towards COVID relief and requested to release funds from National Disaster Relief Fund (NDRF) of Union Government for this cyclone season," he tweeted. Chennai is reeling under heavy rains with water entering houses in low-lying areas and several people are shifted to rehabilitation camps. Meanwhile, four companies of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are deployed in Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, and Tiruvallur districts. The India Meteorological Department has predicted thunderstorms and heavy to very heavy rains in several districts of Tamil Nadu in the next 48 hours. Fishermen were warned not to venture out into the seas. After 2015, this is the first time Chennai has witnessed such heavy rains inundating the city and water entering homes. Rain continued unabated from Saturday night till Sunday morning. Fire and rescue teams and NDRF teams are being kept ready for any eventuality. Three city reservoirs were opened in a phased manner during the day. Hyderabad, Nov 7 : In a sign of the shape of political developments likely to unfold in the state, Telangana Chief Minister and TRS party supremo K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Sunday blasted the controversial farm laws introduced by the Narendra Modi government and demanded the Centre to repeal the three farm laws. He also accused the Central government of misleading the country over international oil prices. The Chief Minister's tirade came in the wake of BJP's victory over the ruling TRS in the recent high-stakes Huzurabad Assembly bypoll. It was a viciously fought battle which former TRS leader and dismissed state minister Eatela Rajender won as a BJP candidate. Speaking to the media on Sunday, KCR, as the Telangana Chief Minister is popularly known, fired several salvos against the Modi-led Central government. Placing the onus of ensuring food security for the people squarely on the Centre, KCR accused it of adopting a shifting stance on paddy procurement. He said that issues like procurement, storage and export of food grains rest with the Central government. Warning BJP's Telangana unit chief Bandi Sanjay not to provoke farmers to cultivate paddy as a summer crop, KCR said that the farmers are free to cultivate paddy if the Central government is ready to purchase it. KCR also accused the Centre of misleading the country over fuel prices in the international markets ever since the BJP came to power. "The Centre has been speaking untruths on fuel prices for seven years. In 2014, crude oil prices were $105 per barrel. Even when crude prices touched a low of $30, they never reduced fuel prices in the country. The BJP is saying continuously that international oil prices have been increasing constantly," the Chief Minister said. KCR said that despite the Central government increasing fuel prices, the state government has not raised VAT on petrol or diesel. The Chief Minister's comments came at a time when the state's road transport corporation is mulling to hike bus fares to the tune of 25-30 paise per km, citing rising diesel price. The Telangana Chief Minister has maintained a cordial relationship with the Central government till now. However, with the BJP getting aggressive in the state, the two parties are expected to harden their positions in the days ahead. New Delhi, Nov 8 : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s National Executive meeting held in New Delhi has accused the opposition parties of working solely with a hostile mindset. During the political resolution passed in the BJP's National Executive meeting, the saffron party accused the opposition parties of resorting to politics of opportunism. The BJP said while the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has prepared a robust health security cover for citizens of the country through indigenous vaccines, vaccination campaign and public participation. On the other hand, the opposition was busy in making all kinds of malicious efforts, propaganda and conspiracies to derail the mass vaccination campaign against the Covid-19 pandemic. In the political resolution passed in the BJP's executive meeting, the attitude of the opposition parties has been strongly condemned, calling it "irresponsible" and "weakening the democracy". Describing the performance of the BJP in the recently concluded 2021 Assembly elections held in Assam, Puducherry, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala as commendable, the political resolution said the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government was formed in Bihar and the BJP emerged as one of the single-largest parties in the state. Whereas in West Bengal, the BJP gained political ground from only 2 to 77 members in the state Assembly and emerged as the main opposition party in the state. The BJP formed the government in Assam for the second time with an absolute majority and the NDA government was formed for the first time in Puducherry. Apart from this, referring to the excellent poll performance of the BJP in various by-elections and municipal elections held across the country, the party's executive meeting added that these election results prove that the BJP governments are continuously reposing the trust of the people. The political resolution also accused the ruling Trinamool Congress-led government in West Bengal of killing innocent BJP workers and committing several other atrocities on people with a mindset of vengeance and political revenge. In the political resolution passed during the meeting of the BJP's National Executive Committee on Sunday while taking the pledge of victory in the forthcoming Assembly elections, it has been said that the BJP is progressing with a pro-poor and development-oriented governments in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur. The BJP is working on the development works undertaken by its governments and strengthening the party organization. The saffron party is marching ahead with poll victory in all five poll-bound states and several media surveys have made similar predictions. Bulgan Airport, Bulgan, Mongolia [ UGA / ZMBN ] If you are planning to travel to Bulgan or any other city in Mongolia, this airport locator will be a very useful tool. This page gives complete information about the Bulgan Airport along with the airport location map, Time Zone, lattitude and longitude, Current time and date, hotels near the airport etc... 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Lincoln, Nebraska based attorneys, Atwood Law Firm, are personal injury and employment law specialists and have just announced they have won a large case against BNSF Railway Company. The case contested the dismissal of the plaintiff, a BNSF employee, allegedly due to a rule violation and insubordination. The case, case number No. 18-3346, involved the plaintiff, Daniel Monohon, who raised his concern about the safety of wearing a seatbelt while hy-railing. Hy-railing refers to a vehicle that can operate both on rail tracks and a conventional road. The plaintiffs reasoning was that he would be unable to bail from the vehicle if he were to unexpectedly come across a train on the same track. The plaintiff respectfully raised his safety concern with a high-level BNSF manager, which BNSF described as insubordination. In the end, the plaintiff was fired from his job for supposedly failing to follow the rules and for being insubordinate. The plaintiff's report of a safety concern was activity that fell under the whistleblower provisions of the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA), which ensures that employees can report their safety concerns without fear of possible retaliation or discrimination from employers. With the assistance of the Atwood Law Firm, the plaintiff pursued his legal rights concerning the reporting of this safety hazard, as others hy-railing for BNSF had been injured due to the very concern. After a 5-day jury trial in May of 2016, the jury found that BNSF retaliated against Monohon for his reported safety concern. The jury held BNSF was unable to meet the rigorous burden of showing, by clear and convincing evidence, that it would have taken the same unfavorable personnel action against the plaintiff in the absence of his protected activity. The plaintiff was awarded back pay, compensatory damages, front pay, and attorneys fees. In all, the final judgment the plaintiff received was more than $1,000,000. However, the trial court denied Monohons request to be reinstated as required by the FRSA. Following the jury verdict, BNSF filed motions with the trial court seeking to take the jury verdict away from Monohon. The motions were submitted in March of 2017, and on October 1, 2018,, the court reversed its prior holdings and revoked the jury verdict, arguing Monohon was not entitled to it as a matter of law. Monohon appealed to the federal Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, requesting the jury verdict be reinstated. The case was argued and submitted to the appellate court on November 14, 2019. On November 4, 2021, the Eighth Circuit reversed the trial court and reinstated Monohons verdict. The Court of Appeals found that the jurys decision was correct, and the trial court improperly took the verdict from them. Furthermore, the Court of Appeals found the case should be remanded for a redetermination on the issue of reinstatementthe required remedy under the FRSA. The trial and appellate team consisted of Corey Stull and Jeanette Stull, who have a great deal of experience in the courtroom in both state and federal courts. When asked about the outcome, Corey Stull said, We are extremely happy with the Court of Appeals reinstating the jurys verdict for Dan. Significantly, the Eighth Circuit properly found that the FRSA provides protections when railroaders raise concerns of hazardous safety conditions in good faith. This has been a long time coming for Dan, and he patiently waited for the wheels of justice to grind over a 9-year period. We are thrilled that the court finally provided justice for Dan by reinstating the jury's verdict. The Atwood Law Firm has attorneys that are divided into differing areas of expertise, including FELA, personal injury, whistleblower/employment law, and workers compensation. Atwood Law Firm was founded in 2000 by Raymond Atwood Jr. From the beginning, the Firm has worked tirelessly to protect the rights of individuals suffering significant harm and injuries. Atwood Law Firm has a team of award-winning lawyers, and their team is always prepared to meet their clients' needs. They also believe that the size of their firm allows them to have a more personal relationship with their clients and to work together as a team. Traverse City, MI (49684) Today Light rain early...then periods of snow this afternoon. High near 45F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight Overcast. A few flurries or snow showers possible. Low 27F. Winds WNW at 15 to 25 mph. More Information 'American Veteran' screening TRAVERSE CITY "American Veteran" is a new PBS documentary series that presents the veterans experience across American history and explores the present-day divide between civilian and veteran communities. WCMU Public Media is hosting a virtual screening Nov. 8 at 7 p.m. To RSVP and have access to this free virtual event, visit WCMU.org/wcmuevents Call for artwork TRAVERSE CITY Traverse Area District Library invites northern Michigan veterans to submit artwork by Nov. 9. Items should be framed and ready to hang. Drop off at the main circulation desk. The exhibition is displayed Nov. 11-30. Wills for veterans TRAVERSE CITY Grand Traverse-Leelanau-Antrim Bar Association offers free serves for veterans from noon to 4 p.m. Nov. 11 at Traverse Area District Library. Services include wills and durable powers of attorney for estate planning. Volunteers from Munson Healthcare Advanced Care Planning Department assist veterans in preparing advance medical directives, including durable power of attorney (designation of patient advocate) documents. Veterans should bring an ID and proof of military service. This program is not sponsored or endorsed by the library. RSVP to admin@gtlaba.org. Veterans Day screening SUTTONS BAY The Bay Community Theatre shows the documentary Ike, 1941-1945: The Making of an American Hero at 1:30 and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11. This is the only theatrical showing before it moves to PBS. Producer George A. Colburn provides an introduction and answer questions from the audience following both performances. Tickets are $8 for all veterans and premier and sustainer members of the theater. Tickets are $10 for the general public. Veterans Day observation KINGSLEY The Village of Kingsley observes Veterans Day at 10 a.m. Nov. 11 at Veteran's Memorial Park. The event features a flag raising and invocation. Speakers include Rep. John Roth of the 104th District, Kingsley Village Manager Dan Hawkins and local veteran Beau Vore. 'Help A Hero' campaign TRAVERSE CITY Sport Clips Haircuts hosts its "Help A Hero" program through Nov. 13. Customer donations go to scholarships for military service members and veterans. Scholarship applications are accepted until Nov. 15 at VFW.org/scholarship. Waterfowl hunt for vets LANSING Properly licensed resident active-duty U.S. military personnel and veterans can get veterans preference drawings on Nov. 11 at Fish Point State Wildlife Area; Harsens Island Unit of the St. Clair Flats State Wildlife Area; Muskegon County Wastewater; Nayanquing Point State Wildlife Area; Pointe Mouillee State Game Area; Shiawassee River State Game and Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge. Bring proof of military status along with a valid Michigan driver's license or voter registration card. Participants must also possess a waterfowl license and a federal duck stamp. Contact Holly Vaughn at 313-396-3863. Greenville, NC (27833) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High 67F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Overcast. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low around 50F. Winds light and variable. Beckley, WV (25801) Today Cloudy early, then off and on rain showers for the afternoon. High 53F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Rain likely. Low 37F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. Beckley, WV (25801) Today Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 53F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.. Tonight Cloudy with periods of rain. Low 37F. Winds W at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch. Live Nation, the company behind the Astroworld Festival in Houston that ended with eight people dead in what authorities have described as a surge in the crowd, was cited once for worker safety issues at its theater in Wallingford. The Houston Chronicle, a Hearst publication, reported Sunday that Live Nation was cited in 10 OSHA investigations from 2016 to 2019. Live Nation was the promoter Astroworld Festival, a two-day event outside Houstons NRG Park with a sellout crowd of 50,000. The Chronicle reported that eight people were killed and others were injured in a surge in the crowd during Travis Scotts performance. In 2016, Live Nation Worldwide, a subsidiary, was initially fined $27,000 following an inspection by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, records show. OSHA, which opened the case in December 2016, listed three violations, two of which the agency deemed to be serious. Details of the exact nature of the violations were limited. The serious violations involved ladders and scaffolding, according to OSHA records. The other violation was related to general requirements. The OSHA records said the inspection was brought on by a complaint. The records do not list the name of the facility, but provide a Wallingford address of 95 S. Turnpike Road, the same as the Toyota Oakdale Theatre. Town records list Live Nation Worldwide as the current owner of the property. By the time the case was closed in September 2017, the fine was reduced to $14,000. The records do not say if anyone was injured. Live Nation did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday. Following the tragedy, Live Nation released a statement: Heartbroken for those lost and impacted at Astroworld last night. We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation, according to the Chronicle. WASHINGTON (AP) Republicans are increasingly optimistic about flipping governor's offices in key battleground states next year, buoyed by President Joe Biden's sagging approval ratings, Democratic infighting in Congress and better-than-expected results in elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Democrats were already steeled for tough races, but the upset loss in Virginia's governor's race and a close win in deeply blue New Jersey's confirmed the difficult conditions ahead. In both places, the party was largely caught off guard by the potency of culture-war debates over schools and struggled to stop voters once turned off by former President Donald Trump from migrating back to Republicans. Bidens approval is pulling down Democrats everywhere, said Charles Franklin, the pollster at Marquette Law School, which released a survey this week showing Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers ' approval rating had slid even more. Theres no question national forces are playing a big role. Democratic incumbents will be playing defense in much-watched Michigan and Wisconsin, and trying to hold an open seat in Pennsylvania. The three governorships are seen as Democrats best chance to slow the GOPs ascendancy in the Rust Belt. The GOP currently holds the governor's office in 27 states, compared with Democrats' 23. Thirty-six are up next year nationwide. Those races are poised to become expensive and intense contests, as voters and political parties have increasingly relied on state leaders to advance or block consequential policy. Evers and Democratic Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania have emerged as major national figures, credited with stymieing Republican-controlled legislatures' efforts to add restrictions on voting and to curb precautions during the coronavirus pandemic. Democrats see added urgency in holding the three governorships, in part because of their role in presidential elections. Trump and his backers last year pushed swing-state governors to name electors who would cast votes for Trump in the Electoral College, even though Biden won their states. All refused, but a new crop of more Trump-friendly governors could act differently should the next presidential races results be similarly disputed. Flipping Michigan and Wisconsin and winning Pennsylvania Wolf is term limited and can't run again would also likely give Republicans a boost heading into 2024 whether that year's election's results be ultimately challenged or not. Having Republican governors in key presidential battlegrounds like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan can be worth a point or two on the presidential ballot," said Phil Cox, former executive director for the Republican Governors Association, who is advising GOP gubernatorial candidates for 2022. "Republican governors can be difference makers in 2024. Republican strategists say Wisconsin and Michigan are among their best pickup chances next year, along with Kansas a normally deep-red state where Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly narrowly won a three-way 2018 race. Nevada, Maine and perhaps New Mexico could be within reach, they say. GOP candidates across the country will likely try to energize conservative parents by denouncing schools adhering to critical race theory, an academic framework about systemic racism that has become a catch-all phrase for teaching about race in U.S. history. Defending parents' rights to push back against school districts' efforts to teach about things like institutional racism helped Republican Glenn Youngkin win the governor's race in Virginia, a state Biden carried by 10 percentage points just last year, and could further resonate in toss-up states. "When youre talking about governors, youre talking about people who are actually in charge of whats going to wind up in our kids schools, said Rick Hess, director of education programs for the conservative American Enterprise Institute. For senators and members of Congress, its a little more difficult. But this is such a gut-level, values-driven conversation, it will absolutely still motivate. Democrats, meanwhile, see pickup opportunities in open governorships in Maryland and in Arizona, where Biden last year became just the second Democratic presidential candidate to win since 1948. Marshall Cohen, the Democratic Governors Associations political director, said the party is also eyeing Ohio and Texas, where former Senate and presidential candidate Beto ORourke is expected to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Both parties, meanwhile, are also focused on Georgia, which narrowly went for Biden in 2020 and elected two Democratic senators in January. Incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp faces the potential of a primary challenge from a Trump-backed Republican. No one knows what the environments going to be like in the fall of 2022, Cohen said. These races are not being held tomorrow. For now, though, Bidens approval rating has slumped since the early months of his presidency, falling to 48% in an October AP-NORC poll from 59% in July. That, plus the party being slow to pass its domestic agenda, may be a drag on governors' in-state accomplishments. Congress approved a White House-backed $1 trillion infrastructure package late Friday, but it came too late to help the party during elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Many of the things that we are seeing and hearing about in the Build Back Better infrastructure are things that Democratic governors have already been doing in their states, Wendi Wallace, deputy executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said, referencing a spending bill endorsed by the White House which has yet to clear Congress. Our in-state efforts are sometimes overshadowed by whats happening in Washington. Biden's trouble, meanwhile, could increase pressure on Democratic governors facing tough reelection fights to distance themselves from the White House in coming months. That's mostly not happened, though reactions to Biden's vaccine mandate for all Americans who work at companies of more than 100 employees could offer some hints that schisms are possible. Polls show that such requirements are popular among Democrats and unpopular among staunch Republicans but governors races are likely to be decided by independent and swing voters. In Kansas, Kelly argued that mandates like the Biden administrations vaccine requirements for larger businesses tend not to work." Whitmer and Evers have said little about the policy. A former Wisconsin state school superintendent, Evers beat two-term Republican Gov. Scott Walker by fewer than 30,000 votes in 2018. The Marquette Law School poll taken last week showed 45% of respondents approve of Evers performance, a metric weighed down by approval among independents and in line with pessimism among roughly half of registered voters about the direction the state is headed. Still, a majority of registered Wisconsin voters approve of the job Evers has done handling the COVID-19 pandemic, the poll found. Whitmer won her first term comfortably in 2018 and became a national face of imposing restrictions to slow the pandemic's spread last year. But shes softened some in recent months. Democratic strategist Amy Chapman said Whitmer has long known that, given the backlash she and other Democratic governors have faced over efforts to control the spread of COVID-19, 2022 would be a challenge. Whitmer was the subject of multiple threats and a kidnapping plot foiled by federal authorities. I dont think there was ever a presumption in Michigan that this was going to be easy, said Chapman, who was Barack Obamas state director in 2008 and a senior adviser in 2012. The governor has known that she really has to be vigilant about this. ___ Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) John Kerry is everywhere and on the move at a fateful U.N. climate summit. President Joe Bidens envoy at the talks in Glasgow, Kerry steams from side talks with U.S. rivals China and Russia that painstakingly probe for common ground on climate to news conferences extolling progress. Kerry pops into project launches, rewarding CEOs and bankers for emissions-cutting efforts with high-level face time and praise. The lanky envoy smiles for a photo with Indigenous women from Brazil, their feather headdresses barely reaching his chin. Toward the end of the U.N. climate summit's first of two weeks, Kerrys voice grew hoarse from his mission of rallying global climate efforts that are threatening to hit a wall at home. The alternative is you dont do anything, you dont say anything" on climate, Kerry told reporters at the summit. You dont have any promises, you dont have any commitments. And youre sitting there, waiting for the deluge. He was speaking of a climate fight growing more urgent, as global warming from the burning of fossil fuel intensifies, and more fraught, as the United States' own wildly swinging seesaw politics imperil Biden's climate efforts and again threaten global momentum on the matter. With the summit underway, the U.S. House on Friday finally passed a stalled infrastructure bill that contains some important measures to cut U.S. emissions. But Bidens lagging political support, and Republican upsets in off-year elections last week, are heightening uncertainty that the U.S. administration can deliver on some of Biden's biggest climate promises. Kerry, President Barack Obama's secretary of state and a former senator, came back post-President Donald Trump to serve as Biden's climate envoy. The job has entailed apologizing for the global disruption that Trump, who mocks the science behind climate change, wreaked when he pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, which Kerry helped to negotiate. Scientists say the ground lost during the Trump administration leaves this decade a last chance to keep the Earth from warming to more catastrophic levels. Kerry's job now is part diplomat, part cheerleader. At the Glasgow climate conference, as in the months before, Kerry negotiates to nail down every possible bit of new climate effort from countries and businesses then pushes for more. While the U.S. return to global climate negotiations has helped push allies to some deeper cuts on emissions, the world's other big polluters besides the United States China, Russia, India and others are short on emission promises, at best. At 77, Kerry is waging only the latest of his campaigns in a decades-long personal battle to curb the fossil fuel emissions heating Earth. Kerry brings a deep knowledge of what's at stake," said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, and a veteran of climate talks. He brings long-term relationships to these talks, and the spirit of collaboration. Yet, she adds, he "gets limited by what is happening at home. If there's not a credible U.S. plan to meet the targets and phase out fossil fuels, there's only so much, only so far, he can get here," Morgan said. Conservative groups single out Kerry online, making social media memes out of his wealth at Glasgow he introduced a speaker as his neighbor on Martha's Vineyard and supposed love for jetting around the world. Kerry's intentness on diplomacy to try to push and pull coal-loving China into faster emission cuts also brings him into public contrast with Biden and some of Biden's top officials, who have become vocally critical of China. China is currently the world's top climate polluter. The U.S. is No. 2 at the moment, and the world's worst carbon polluter over time. Biden's parting words as he left the Glasgow summit this past week after joining more than 100 other world leaders here were that Chinese President Xi Jinping had made a big mistake in not attending. Theyve lost an ability to influence people around the world, Biden said. Veteran observers of global climate talks speak favorably of Kerry's quieter work as climate envoy. Thom Woodroofe, a researcher on U.S.-China climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said Biden's appointment of the former secretary of state made countries such as China really sit up and take notice with just how significant ... how much importance the Biden administration was going to place on diplomacy and their climate action at home. While Chinese leaders publicly scold and snub members of the Biden administration, China's own veteran climate diplomat, Xie Zhenha, told reporters at Glasgow he calculated he had talked to Kerry 23 times in Kerry's current position. When a news site ran a caricature showing an exaggeratedly chinned Kerry with one hand on the shoulder of the equally exaggerated round-faced Xie, and the other hand cupping the Earth and its future, Kerry had the cartoon framed and presented it to Xie. At the climate summit, Kerry's height makes him an easy spot among the thousands of climate advocates, government officials and reporters at the summit site, which sprawls for more than a half-mile (close to a kilometer). It's a mix of permanent and temporary structures along Glasgows River Clyde that feels like an airport terminal flanked by a military forward-operating base. Kerry appears patient and polite with the random advocates and reporters from around the world who approach him at the summit. Before the summit, climate activists carrying out a hunger strike at the White House gates filmed another Biden administration official impatiently thumbing his phone when they approached him on the need for climate action. Kerry, by contrast, went out and talked to the young climate strikers, telling them about his own environmental activism when he was young. Kerry's first cause after returning from fighting in the Vietnam War was activism for the first Earth Day, in 1970, he says. His wife, Teresa Heinz, says they met at a later Earth Day, in 1990. In 2015, his work in climate negotiations, and the trust Xie seemed to place in Obama negotiators including Kerry, helped seal a global climate deal in which more than 190 nations committed to taking action to cut climate emissions. The irreversible damage being wrought by global warming was even more obvious to all by November 2016, when Kerry made one of his last trips as Obama's secretary of state, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Antarctica. The U.S. presidential election had just handed victory to Trump, who already had pledged to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord and would soon be rolling back U.S. climate efforts in office. Kerry crunched in boots over a frozen sea, faced off with a curious penguin and talked with U.S. scientists there. The South Pole had the purest air in the world, but it, too, was heavily polluted with coal and petroleum waste, scientists told him. The West Antarctic ice sheet was melting from below in the warming waters, breaking off and floating out to sea. It was some of the most stunning wilderness," Kerry recalled last month to The Associated Press, and it was mixed with the negative impacts of human beings. ___ Follow AP's coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) South Carolina voters should have an idea by the end of this week what both their state Senate and House districts will look like when they go to the polls next year. The House committee handling redistricting plans to meet Wednesday and will likely release its map for its redrawn 124 districts based on population growth and changes in the 2020 U.S. Census. TORRINGTON Imagine being homeless and spending your days outdoors, without a coat, gloves, a scarf or a hat things many of us take for granted. In an effort to help people in need, the annual Rally Day to End Hunger and Homelessness in NWCT is set for Nov. 20. The event includes a coat giveaway, plus scarves and hats, mittens and gloves, and donations of these items are needed now. This year, FISH Friends in Service to Humanity of NWCT and United Way of Northwest CT are co-sponsoring the annual giveaway. FISH Executive Director Deirdre DiCara is asking residents to check their closets for donations. Coats are being collected until Nov. 16 at three locations: St. Pauls Lutheran Church, 837 Charles St., where people are asked to leave them in a plastic bag outside the church door; on the enclosed back porch at St. Francis Church of St. John Paul the Great parish, 160 Main St.; or inside the front entryway of the Gleeson-Ryan Funeral Home, 258 Prospect St. People in need of a new coat can visit St. Peters Church Hall, 107 E. Main St., between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Nov. 20. Due to the pandemic we have hesitated, yet I have found a wonderful partner for this year with the St. John Paul the Great Parish in Torrington, DiCara said. Everyone will be required to wear masks and socially distance, controlling spacing as people wait and enter. We know we need to serve those in need of coats as winter approaches. Any surplus coats will be delivered to the Open Door Soup Kitchen in Winsted for distribution. The days other traditional activities - the rally and an open house at FISH and the Gathering Place, and the cardboard box sleep-out, are suspended for now, according to event organizers. And rather than the awareness presentation by providers, a brochure will be given to all attending the coat giveaway, describing the services of the FISH NWCT Food Pantry and Shelter, the United Way of NWCT and 211, the Gathering Place drop-in center for the homeless, Mental Health Connecticut, EdAdvance, the Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation, Prime Time House, Susan B. Anthony, McCall Center for Behavioral Health and the Family Development Center of New Opportunities, DiCara said. It is hoped that the event will bring insight as to how community residents may help to impact and positively change lives for the hungry and the homeless. This annual event, timed in concert with the National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week, is held the week before Thanksgiving, giving all a chance to reflect about what they are thankful for. Make it the perfect time to share compassion with our neighbors who are experiencing economic crisis and desperate need, DiCara said. It is hoped, especially during this global COVID-19 crisis, that the greater NWCT community will take positive actions to eradicate homelessness and hunger. We can make change in our NWCT corner. For more information, call 860-482-7300 or visit www.fishnwct.org or www.northwestunitedway.org. Support local journalism We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story. Versatile star Bhagyashree who impressed fans with her acting prowess with Maine Pyaar Kiya recently made a return to the big screen after a long hiatus with Thalaivii. She was last seen in the 2010 film Red Alert: The War Within. During her recent interaction with Hindustan Times, the actor cited her health condition as a major reason for her absence from the big screen. She even revealed that her condition led her to study more about nutrition and fitness. Giving inside details about her medical condition, the actor recalled the time while she was shooting for her television show Laut Aao Trisha in 2014. Talking about the same, she revealed that during the shoot of the television show, she faced problems in moving her right hand and it took her a year to recover from it. The 52-year-old actor also shared that this life-changing episode opened up a new world for her and she took to studying during that period. Bhagyashree cites health issues that led her to take break from films She then studied nutrition and fitness, virtually, from Stanford University, American Fitness and Professional Associates, and the University of Pennsylvania (UPENN) to know more about her condition. She continues that back then the doctors had suggested surgery but, she was really scared of it. She self-healed, which came as a shock and surprise to them. She later realised that a simplistic way of living can help one heal within their home. Bhagyashree who garnered appreciation for her stint in political drama Thalaivii is looking forward to the release of Radhe Shyam, another pan-India project. "Happy to reach out to people across every nook and corner of the country sans any language barrier", Bhagyashree confessed that her popular film Maine Pyar Kiya was dubbed in about a dozen languages. But, she said that be it Tamil, Telugu or Spanish when she went to Spain a few years ago people recognised her for the film. Nothing else could have made her happier than people recognizing her because of her work. She then realised that multilingual films is her forte. The actor feels that now is the best time for her to return to Bollywood. She feels lucky and blessed that none of her projects can ever replace Maine Pyar Kiya right now. At last, she concluded and said that at this point in time, the money is crazy and she is glad that she made a comeback at the right time. IMAGE: Instagram/bhagyashree.online Chandigarh, Nov 7 (PTI) Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given independent rights to states to promote trade, commerce, education, tourism, art and culture with foreign nations. This has opened new avenues of progress for the states in various fields, he said while interacting with the ambassadors, high commissioners and representatives of seven countries who came to meet him at the Haryana Raj Bhawan here, an official release said. High Commissioner of Fiji Kamlesh Shashi Prakash, High Commissioner of Papua New Guinea Paulias Carni Obe, General Councilor of the Union of Kormos K L Ganjoo, and Burkina Faso's Head of Consular Affairs Collibelli D. Herbe were among those present, it said. The Haryana Governor welcomed all the delegates and said that with visits and meetings on such a large scale, the relation between our country and states with foreign countries will be further enhanced. This will also lead to progress in trade, agriculture, art and culture, education, environment and other areas between other states and countries, the release quoted him as saying. He said with the independence given to Indian states in foreign affairs by the central government, they can directly enter into MoUs with foreign countries. Dattatreya said that there is immense potential for cooperation between the pacific countries and Haryana. From higher education to skill development, IT-enabled services to foodgrain development, Haryana is ready to work in every field and to partner with all countries, he said. PTI SUN VSD RHL (Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com) Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra images have recently leaked online. The photographs appear to be live images of the smartphone, which might include S Pen support. Similar to other Galaxy S series and Note series devices, the Galaxy S22 Ultra seems to have a curved display. Live images of the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra reveal a radical design change for the rear camera panel. Samsung might ditch the huge camera bump customers have seen in the Galaxy S21 series and go for a flat-back design. Previously, it was reported that Samsung might do away with curved screens and focus on flat-screen smartphones. As it appears in the photograph that has surfaced online, the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra does not come with an aggressively curved display. The curvature might be on par with Galaxy Note 10 Plus, but not as much on the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra. In addition, the upcoming S series device resembles the Note series quite closely. Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra images surface online, revealing a flat-back design The images of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra have been leaked by FrontPageTech.com. The images are in line with other renders of the smartphone that have surfaced in recent times. From the front, the smartphone seems to have the design language of a Note series smartphone from Samsung. As mentioned earlier, the front panel is slightly bent at the edges, along with a centrally located hole-punch camera. A chin can also be seen at the bottom of the device. However, the front panel is not the major highlight of the device. The rear panel of the smartphone has been redesigned by Samsung for the upcoming flagship smartphone. The Galaxy S22 Ultra does not have a huge camera bump that ran across all the camera modules and merged into the side panel in previous smartphones. Instead, the cameras are rooted inside the back panel, with separate bumps coming out of the panel for each camera lens. The being said, the smartphone has a rather boxy appearance with nearly straight edges and minimal roundness on the edges of the display. In addition, the S series smartphone might have dedicated space for an S Pen, which use to be the signature feature of Galaxy Note devices. The smartphone is also reported to have a better camera system with a 108MP primary camera. The camera configuration of the smartphone is reported to be 108MP primary, 12MP ultra-wide, 10MP telephoto, 10MP periscope for 10x telephoto. However, Samsung has confirmed the renders of the smartphone neither released an official image or teaser. Hence, the information shall be taken with a pinch of salt. IMAGE: FRONTPAGETECH.COM A 25-year-old Australian woman named Joanne Zhu became a millionaire overnight by winning the Million Dollar Vax lottery. Millions of Australians entered the Million Dollar Vax lottery, which was put up by philanthropists and corporations to increase vaccination rates. As per the reports of Daily Mail, by October 31, about 2,744,974 Australians registered for a chance to win. Zhu, who was astonished when she was chosen as the lucky winner on Friday. The campaign's motive was to raise the vaccination rate in Australia. According to Today Show, she said that she couldn't believe what she was hearing when her name was called as the winner. She also said that she will buy gifts for her family and put the remainder of the money into investments so that she can earn more money in the future. She also intends to travel and treat her friends to a lovely meal. Zhu, who hasn't seen her parents in at least two years owing to the pandemic stated that she really want to let everyone get vaccinated so the borders can open up soon. Zhu received lottery call when she was at work Zhu explained that she received the call from the Million Dollar Vax lottery which was probably Friday, and she was at work at that time so she couldn't pick up the phone. According to Daily Mail, she also said that after that, she contacted them again, couldn't believe what she heard. On the other side of the phone, she was told that she won a million dollars and she was Australia's only one to win that. When the Million Dollar Vax lottery originally opened in early October, the website collapsed after receiving 350,000 entries in the first 24 hours. Over 3,100 lucky Australians have received more than $4.1 million in prizes, including 100 $1,000 gift cards each day, according to Daily Mail. Sydney to lift social distancing restrictions from November 8 Million Dollar Vax Alliance spokesperson Craig Winkler said that they have collectively demonstrated what can be accomplished when Australians join together. He further said that they are ecstatic with Australia's response to the campaign and the excellent impact it has on raising the national vaccination rate and putting them on track to reach 90% vaccination. On the other hand, Sydney will lift social distancing limitations on Monday, November 8, a month after emerging from a nearly 100-day COVID-19 lockdown. According to the officials, nearly 90% of individuals have taken both doses of vaccination. Image: Unsplash Amid rapidly rising coronavirus cases in the country, the Austrian government issued new COVID-19 regulations barring unvaccinated people from visiting restaurants, hotels, salons, or attending public gatherings with more than 25 people. The regulations will come into effect from Monday, November 8, reported The Associated Press (AP). After a meeting with state-level leaders on Friday, November 5, Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg laid down the regulations. "It is simply our responsibility to protect the people in our country," he stated, noting the rising number of cases and overcrowded intensive care units in hospitals. Earlier, people in the country were allowed to visit restaurants, hotels, and other public places provided they had been vaccinated, recovered from the virus, or had a negative test result. For the first four weeks, the government is planning a transition phase to urge those who have not been vaccinated to get the shots. During that time, anyone who has taken at least one vaccine dose and has a valid PCR test result will be allowed to attend events visit public places. However, after the completion of four weeks, only fully vaccinated people will be given relaxations. Notably, similar limitations were issued earlier this week in Vienna, Austria's capital city. If the situation continues to deteriorate, more limitations on unvaccinated people likely to be imposed. Last month, Schallenberg indicated that if ICUs reach one-third of their overall capacity, the government will impose lockdown restrictions on citizens who remain unvaccinated, reported the news agency. 'Austria has one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe' As of now, 66.7% of Austria's population has received at least one dose of vaccine, and 64.5% of people are fully vaccinated, making it one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe. The Austrian government stated that people are eligible for booster shots if six months have passed since their last dose. Calling it a "moral responsibility," Chancellor Schallenberg urged the unvaccinated people to get the shots as soon as possible, reported The AP. Meanwhile, to ramp up the PCR testing, Upper Austria is introducing more at-home PCR tests, known as 'gurgle tests' in the country. In addition, the region is also expected to launch a "vaccination lottery" - modelled after a successful scheme in Burgenland. Under this scheme, prizes will be awarded at random to fully inoculated citizens, reported The Local. (With AP inputs) Image: AP/Pixabay/Unsplash A day after church accepted accountability for decades of child abuse, senior members of the French Roman Catholic hierarchy on Saturday knelt at the shrine of Lourdes in a show of penance. Around 120 archbishops, bishops and laymen had gathered at the unveiling ceremony of a sculpture at the sanctuary of Lourdes after which they bowed in front of the shrine. The clerics were dressed in black outfits, which is deemed mandatory to mourn a demise in Christianity. The public penance seeking took place a day after France bishops finally formally accepted that the Catholic Church bore "institutional responsibility" in many thousand child abuses that took place over decades. The accountability harked back to the 1950s, affecting some 3 lakh minors. The incidents came to the forefront after an independent report was released last month, which spoke of the "veil of silence" spread over the scandal. The report also claimed that the crimes were covered up in a "systematic way" by the church, The Guardian reported. Calling the report shameful and horrific, French top bishop, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort directed church priests to inform police of any child abuse cases heard of during sacrament confessions. He also asserted that henceforth, the church's laws of Republic will be held above "secrecy of confessions, in a way that it creates a free space for speaking before God." The decision came after French interior minister, Gerald Darmanin, reprimanded archbishop Beaufort for claiming that secrecy of catholic confessions was above republic laws. The spokesperson for the French government, Gabriel Attal, had also called out the church echoing Darmamin's statements. Nothing takes precedence over the laws of the Republic in our country, Attal had said, as per the Guardian. Archbishop appeals for forgiveness from people offended by his comments Darmamin was lauded by members of parliament in the National Assembly for his move. "I told him what I say to all religions: there is no law that is superior to the laws of the National Assembly and the Senate," the French interior minister had said, as reported by The Guardian. Following this, archbishop Beaufort issued an apology statement seeking forgiveness from people who were offended by his comments. He also acknowledged the independent report and stated that it was a medium to reflect on the church's practices. Image: AP A humanitarian rescue boat stuck in the Mediterranean Sea carrying 800 migrants received a delivery of food and blankets Saturday while it awaits permission to come to shore. The German rescue boat Sea-Eye 4 set a course for the southern Italian island of Lampedusa on Thursday after picking up 400 migrants from a sinking wooden boat , doubling the number of people on board. Even though they were just hours away from Italys southernmost island, officials at the charity Sea-Eye said Italy has not yet assigned the ship a safe port and that Malta shirked its responsibility by not responding to the wooden boats distress signal in its search and rescue area. Half of those on board are minors, including children under 10 and five pregnant women, the charity said Saturday. Doctors on board are treating 25 people for hypothermia, sea sickness and high blood pressure, along with injuries that doctors say are consistent with torture administered during their escape. We must urgently point out that these people should be given medical treatment on land as soon as possible ... There must be no standoff here, said Dr. Christine Winkelmann, chair of German Doctors charity that also operates the Sea-Eye 4. Supplies were brought by the Dresden, Germany-based charity Mission Lifeline, which said more than 200 cities and towns in German have signaled a willingness to take in migrants. The number of migrants daring the dangerous central Mediterranean crossing is spiking dramatically this year to more than 54,000, but still far off those of 2014-2017, when 120,000-180,000 people reached Italy a year, often in rickety smugglers boats. (Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com) Archeologists in Pompeii excavating a villa amid the ruins of the 79 A.D. volcanic eruption that destroyed the ancient city have discovered a room offers a very rare insight into the daily life of slaves, officials said Saturday. Italys culture minister, Dario Franceschini, said the find was an important discovery that enriches the knowledge of the daily life of ancient Pompeiians, in particular the level of society still little known. The room served as both a dormitory and a storage area, officials from the Archeological Park of Pompeii said. It was discovered in a villa in the Pompeii suburb of Civita Giuliana, just a few steps from where archeologists in January discovered the remains of a well-preserved ceremonial chariot. The room, with just one high window and no wall decorations, contains the remains of three beds made out of wood. The beds were adjustable, with two measuring 1.7 meters (nearly 5 feet, 7 inches) and one just 1.4 (4 feet, 7 inches) meters, possibly indicating that a family with a child had lived there. Nearby, a wooden chest contained metallic objects and textiles that appear to be part of harnesses for horses," according to the archeological park., There also was a wooden steering element for a chariot. Chamber pots and other personal objects were under the beds, while eight amphorae - a type of container - were in a corner, suggesting storage for the household. The villa, with a panoramic view of the Mediterranean Sea on the outskirts of the ancient Roman city, is considered one of the most significant recent finds at Pompeii. It was discovered after police came across illegal tunnels dug by alleged looters in 2017. Archaeologists also have uncovered the skeletal remains of two people, believed to have been a wealthy man and his male slave, who were stricken by volcanic ash attempting to escape death. (Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com) After an apparent effort by migrants to enter the country illegally, one of Spain's busiest airports was shut down for about four hours on Friday, November 5. A plane on its way to Istanbul in Turkey from Morocco was diverted to Spain's Palma de Mallorca following a medical issue was reported aboard, reported BBC News outlet. The report stated that once the plane landed, as many as 21 people rushed across the runways escaping over the outer fence. Although police got hold of a few of them, at least 12 people were still at large as of Saturday, November 6. Meanwhile, the police are also looking into the group's escape from the plane was spontaneous or part of a larger scheme to illegally enter the country, reported the outlet. Illegal immigrants shut down busy Spanish airport Aina Calvo, the chief Spanish government official in charge of the Balearic Islands, described the incident as 'unprecedented' for a Spanish airport. The drama unfolded when emergency responders boarded the Air Arabia Maroc plane to rescue a Moroccan man who had reportedly slipped into a diabetic coma. As they did so, 21 other passengers dashed down the steps and fled, hiding under parked planes. The Moroccan man was released and detained for illegally entering the country after a health check at a hospital revealed he was in good health. Meanwhile, a fellow traveller who accompanied him to the hospital is said to have disappeared, BBC News reported citing Spain's Efe news agency. 'The Guardia Civil detained most of the escapees' The Guardia Civil apprehended most of the escapees, with one arrested walking along the road to Manacor, according to the Majorca Daily Bulletin. Investigators informed Spanish radio station Cadener SER that they believe the incident was staged in order to divert the plane to Spain and illegally enter the European country. It should be mentioned here that as a result of the incident, as many as 60 domestic and international planes were diverted or delayed. A Eurowings flight from Munich arrived at 8:10 p.m. local time, the last flight before the closure. Later, the Air Arabia Maroc plane flew to Turkey with its remaining passengers. (Image: Pixabay/Unsplash/Representative) Magdalena Andersson, who was last week unanimously elected as the new leader of Swedens Socials Democrats (SAP) party, is now a step closer to becoming the countrys first female Prime Minister. Andersson is Swedens Finance Minister and she was the only candidate for the party chairman job. The 54-year-old economist and former competitive swimmer is set to become the first female PM in Swedish history, provided she wins a vote in parliament, the date for which has not yet been set. According to EuroNews, Anderssons election as SAPs leader comes five months after SAP PM Stefan Lofven resigned after losing a vote of confidence in parliament. Lofven was reinstated in July after securing a new coalition. However, he unexpectedly announced in August that he would be stepping down in November. Andersson's challenge as SAP leader Now, Lofven must formally notify the speaker of Swedens Parliament that he is resigning, and propose Andersson as his replacement, who will then form a government. But Andersson will still need to secure the support of the Greens as well as the Left Party and the Centre Party, which had confidence and supply alliances with the Lofven government. If she secures the position of the PM, Andersson will then need to steer her party through the next general election in Sweden, which are scheduled to take place in September 2022. It is to mention that Lofven in 2012 became the head of SAP that currently holds 100 of Parliaments 349 seats. However, the countrys second-largest party, the liberal-conservative Moderates, are hoping to govern after moving closer to the right-wing populist Sweden Democrats. As per the latest polls, SAP is polling at 25.6% - nearly three percentage points lower than the last election, while Moderates have seen support grow by over three percentage points to 23%. (Image: AP) The Conference of Parties (COP26) saw big bang announcements in the first five days of the ongoing summit in Glasgow. From pledging carbon-cutting to aiming 1.5C target, representatives of 196 countries and their stakeholders have announced major vows to contribute to curbing the climate crisis. However, hardline gaps between the developed and developing countries have particularly hindered reaching a consensus on the Glasgow pact text. There is divisiveness on particularly three issues, starting from $100 billion in climate finance as agreed in 2009 and whether the amount will be increased after 2025. Secondly, to reach the target of 1.5C after major economies like India and China announced an extension from 2050 to 2070 and 2060 respectively, to achieve "Net-Zero" commitment. On the issue of climate financing, developed countries have expressed considerable discomfort in agreeing to any independent review by the overseeing organisation, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Calling it a "red line," a senior official from the EU delegation told the media that "the donors (developed countries) of course are deeply uncomfortable about such reviews and number crunching." On the other hand, while the developed nations have failed to deliver the agreed annual climate finance, leaders of developing countries like India have demanded the aid be increased to $1 trillion. South Africa, for example, has said $750 billion will be needed. African countries have been asking for 1.3 trillion dollars, a senior official from a developed nation told at the conference. Meanwhile, there is also fog over the contribution of several large economies, like China's, involvement in the donation. "Will there be an incremental increase or not? And who will be included as donors... There are conversations on including China and Saudi Arabia among donors. I doubt if India will also be included but cannot rule out so there is a second red line," the official added. Lastly, there are also discussions over the nature of finance that will be spent on the climate. It is to be noted that the Glasgow summit, which concludes on November 12, is considered to be the last opportunity to address climate change and enact serious commitments against climate change. India's goal for climate change India made significant announcements related to climate change goals at the COP26 Climate Summit. PM Modi pledged to reach 'Net Zero' carbon emissions by 2070, a decision hailed by environment experts. He also vowed to reduce industrial emissions by 1 billion tonnes by 2030. Moreover, India's new target of 500 gigawatts (GW) energy from non-fossil fuel sources was also noted to be a "significant contribution" to climate goals. Additionally, the PM also stressed the need for greater ambition on technology and climate finance on behalf of smaller countries. Delivering India's National Statement at the COP26 Summit in Glasgow, PM Modi on Monday proposed the "One-Word Movement." Calling for collective participation towards mitigating climate change, the PM also highlighted that "Lifestyle for Environment" should become a mass movement to raise "consciousness" and combat "mindless and destructive consumption." He also called for a "unified approach" to attain multidimensional goals in the field of agriculture, energy, housing, water management, tourism, etc. Image: Unsplash (representative) Leader of the anti-Taliban resistance front, Ahmad Massoud on Saturday arrived in Iran to meet with the Afghan uprising forces leader and former Afghan cabinet minister Ismail Khan to convey the message of the Tajik President Imamali Rahmon and appeal for the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan, Raha Press reported. The head of the mobilization forces from Kabuls western Herat province valiantly fought against the Taliban before the hardline Islamists politically took over the country's rule, briefly capturing him. Khan was later released and is currently residing in Mashhad city of neighbouring Iran. The anti-Taliban resistance front officials have yet to make public comments about Massouds Iran visit, which comes amid the heightened tensions between the Taliban and Tajikistan. The Tajikistani President Rakhmon had earlier clarified that he would not recognize the Taliban government under the current circumstances. He had also blatantly accused the hardline Islamists of human rights abuses and had deployed Tajikistans troops on the shared border with Afghanistan, German broadcaster DW had reported. As heated rhetorics escalated between the Taliban and Tajikistans President, Russia expressed deep concerns, saying: We observe with concern the growing tensions in Tajik-Afghan relations against the background of mutually harsh statements by the leaders of the two countries. Reports have appeared about the deployment of armed forces by both sides to the common border. According to information from the Taliban, tens of thousands of special forces units have been deployed in the bordering [northern] Afghan province Takhar alone," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexei Zaytsev said in a statement. Taliban's acting deputy accuses Tajikistan of 'interference' Meanwhile, the acting deputy head of the Taliban government, Abdul Ghani Baradar, had accused Tajikistan of "interfering" in the internal affairs of Afghanistan, as he warned the Tajik government of the possible repercussions of this act. In an interview with Qatar based TV station, Baradar threatened Tajikistan to get ready with the Newton third law of motion threatening retaliation to the neighbouring countrys action. Furthermore, at UK's Cambridge University, NRF leader Ahmad Massoud batted for an inclusive Afghanistan as he urged for democratic elections, stressing that people must elect their own leaders. History has proven that formation of the nation on the basis of emergent and single character for an entire population of people is impractical, Massoud said. Image: AP/Facebook/Ahmad Massoud The Israeli government passed the national budget for 2021 and 2022, approving $136 bln and $142 bln for years, respectively. Though the minister left no stone unturned to bolster the budget, citizens expressed their anger on social media platforms including, Twitter and Facebook. According to a report by Russian news agency, Sputnik, citizens of Israel expressed their displeasure with the budget as the government has allocated a large chunk of the budget to the Arab sector. Notably, the recent national budget was one of the first budgets that were passed in the past three and a half years. According to the news agency, several ministers also took to Twitter to glorify their decision, however, netizens were quick to troll those ministers. Some social media users also appreciated the ministers for unlocking some of the funds for the development and providing subsidies to Israeli but their number was too less. "The budget of 2022 is not a good one. It has many wrong restrictions. Taxes on plastic disposables, taxes on property, taxes on entering the Gush Dan. Instead of taxes, they can find other alternatives, for example, subsidies..." a social media user was quoted as saying by Sputnik. Another user wrote, "Illogical distribution of funds." Third wrote, "53 billion NIS ($16.7 billion) will be paid as protection money to the Muslim Brothers so that they will keep the chair of (Prime Minister Naftali) Bennett and (Foreign Minister Yair) Lapid stable... overall, a logical budget." Israel's economy facing turbulence It is worth mentioning that the Israeli government has been facing economic turbulence due to the back to back lockdowns invoked to arrest the spread of the COVID virus. Since the pandemic erupts, the country's economy got smashed as lakhs of people lost their jobs while many were pushed to the poverty line. Also, when Prime Minister Naftali Bennett came to power, he promised several lucrative measures to help the people in distress. He promised to lower the high costs of living, lower taxes and make many basics more affordable for the masses. However, the countrymen soon realised his words were just an "expression" to lure citizens support. According to the news agency, the national budget was the last hope for those Israeli who was seeking some relief from the government. According to Sputnik, despite providing relief to its citizens, the Bennett led Israel government raised prices on gas and basic food products, and a similar trend is also expected on mobile phone, electricity, water and municipal costs. These measures resulted in anger and frustrations among Israelis who are already facing several difficulties due to lockdowns, reported Sputnik. (Image: AP) More than 150 Iran-backed Houthi rebels were killed in air raids conducted by Saudi-led military coalition around the northern pro-government bastion of Marib earlier yesterday, a Yemeni-based newspaper The New Arab confirmed on Saturday. This comes just a couple of days after the security officials from both sides speaking on condition of anonymity informed Associated Press that massive casualties were reported in clashes between Yemens government forces and Houthis, majorly on the Houthis side. The latter had launched an offensive on the rivals across 14 districts in Marib this past week. Hundreds of rebel Houthis were injured in the same clashes. On Nov. 6, however, Saudi Arabias state news agency announced that several of the Iranian-backed rebel Houthis were killed in an airstrike led by the coalition, which backs Yemen's internationally recognized government. Saudi Arabian led allied forces toll, meanwhile as of Saturday, remained unclear. More than 2,000 Houthis have been neutralized in the Saudi-led airstrikes in conflict-ridden Yemen since October. "Fourteen military vehicles were destroyed and more than 157 terrorist elements eliminated" in the latest raids, the coalition statement carried by the Saudi state news agency SPA read. Saudi coalition forces airstrike target oil-rich Marib province The airstrikes targeted two regions of oil-rich Marib province, Al-Jawf in the north and the south's Al-Bayda, as well as Sirwah, west of Marib city. Saudi intensified the military offensive against the Houthis after the rebel forces launched a major push to seize the city, making advances. Just last week, Saudi Press Agency reported that at least "11 military vehicles were destroyed and more than 160 terrorist elements eliminated in over 32 airstrikes conducted in Abdiya over the past 24 hours. Although the reported toll could not be independently verified by the agencies on the ground. Over 700 Iran-backed rebels were killed last week in air raids launched in Marib and the Yemeni government's last stronghold in the north, Abdiya, located at about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Marib. Officials told agencies on condition of anonymity that the Houthi rebel forces"kidnapped, imprisoned and abused" members of the Yemeni community who were in support of the pro-government forces. The secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, said on Sunday, November 7 that the drone attack on the Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is an instigation to rebellion linked with foreign think tanks, as per ANI. Al-Kadhimi confirmed on Sunday that he was safe after an exploding drone hit his residence in Baghdads high-security Green Zone. Even Iraqs Interior Ministry has named the attempt on the life of the countrys Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi as a "terrorist attack". Shamkhani said on Twitter, "The attempt to assassinate the Iraqi Prime Minister is a new sedition that must be investigated in foreign think tanks, which for years, by creating and supporting terrorist groups and occupying the country, has brought nothing but insecurity, disagreements and instability to the oppressed Iraqi people." As per the Sputnik report, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said two of the three drones were shot down. One of the drones hit PMs residence in the Iraqi capital, after which he escaped unhurt. However, as per the report, his security guards were left wounded. Shortly after the drone attack at his residence, al-Kadhimi issued a statement to inform that he was not harmed in the incident. Iraqi PM tweeted, I am fine and among my people. Thank God... and I call for calm and restraint from everyone, for the sake of Iraq. The Twitter update was followed by a television appearance, in which al-Kadhimi appeared calm and said, Cowardly rocket and drone attacks don't build homelands and don't build a future. PM @MAKadhimi delivers a brief televised address to the Iraqi people: pic.twitter.com/ETRwv0o17v Government of Iraq - (@IraqiGovt) November 7, 2021 As of now, nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have denounced the attack on Iraqi PM and instigated to rebellion associated with foreign think tanks. Riyadh even blasted the incident as a cowardly terrorist act. Even the United States has denounced the drone strike targeting Iraqi PM residence. The US deplores the attack on al-Kadhimi In a statement, United States State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, We are following the reported drone attack targeting the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister Kadhimi. We are relieved to learn the Prime Minister was unharmed. This apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn, was directed at the heart of the Iraqi state. He also informed that the US is in close contact with the Iraqi security forces and has offered to assist in the investigation into the drone attack on al-Kadhimi. Al-Kadhimi is a former intelligence chief and was sworn into office in May 2020. It is pertinent to note that the attack on his residence came amid the ongoing stand-off between security forces and pro-Iran Shiite militias. The supporters of pro-Iran militants have been reportedly demonstrating outside the Green Zone in Baghdad for nearly a month after rejecting the results of Iraqs parliamentary elections, which witnessed them losing two-thirds of their seats. Image: AP The Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu inaugurated a new consulate in Sri Lanka, highlighting Turkey's intention to promote cooperation in the economy, culture, and education. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated that Turkey aims to develop holistic connections with Asia, which has emerged as the centre of global economic power, according to the Anadolu Agency. The FM's Twitter announcement, after being translated, read, 'Today #SriLanka We opened the Alanya Office of the Honorary Consulate of Antalya. Honorary Consul Ali Kamburoglu will contribute to our bilateral relations.' Bugun #SriLanka'nn Antalya Fahri Konsoloslugunun Alanya Ofisini actk. Fahri Konsolos Ali Kamburoglu ikili iliskilerimize katk saglayacak. #YenidenAsya girisimimiz cercevesinde dost Sri Lanka ile isbirligimizi daha da ileriye tasyacagz. pic.twitter.com/n90NOIKwD0 Mevlut Cavusoglu (@MevlutCavusoglu) November 6, 2021 Cavusoglu emphasised the importance of honorary consulates in diplomatic engagements, citing the Ottoman Empire's establishment of the first Turkish diplomatic contact with Sri Lanka in 1864, according to Anadolu Agency. He spoke about the two countries' expanding bilateral ties, saying that they have become stronger since the 2004 tsunami, following which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a visit to the country. He went on to say that after Sri Lanka won independence in 1948, Turkey was one of the first countries to be recognised as a country in the subcontinent. The foreign minister also discussed the country's financial links with Lanka, stating that the two countries had set a target of half a billion dollars, but the current amount stands at around USD102 million in the first half of 2021. 'Economic connections based on "specialised products" would be unsustainable' According to the agency, Cavusoglu suggested that maintaining economic connections based on "specialised products" would be unsustainable. He also advised that the health and tourism industries incorporate and study the relationships. 'Turkey will further develop our cooperation with friendly Sri Lanka in the framework of our Asia Anew Initiative,' Cavusoglu said in a tweet. Inaugurated today the Alanya Office of #SriLankas Antalya Honorary Consulate. Honorary Consul Ali Kamburoglu will make a positive contribution to our relations. Will further develop our cooperation with friendly Sri Lanka in the framework of our #AsiaAnew Initiative. pic.twitter.com/6ntkX1c6eQ Mevlut Cavusoglu (@MevlutCavusoglu) November 6, 2021 Sri Lanka's Ambassador to Turkey Mohamed Rizvi Hassen was quoted as saying by Anadolu Agency, "Your generous gesture toward Sri Lanka reflects our two countries historical brotherly relations. I must say Turkey is a true friend." According to the agency, the SL ambassador further stated that, by launching the consulate, Sri Lanka hopes to increase trade, investment, tourist, and cultural contacts, as well as people-to-people contact with this Turkey. The Antalya region offers numerous prospects that might unite the Sri Lankan business community. The initiative to open this office provides an opportunity to investigate unexplored prospects in Antalya for the benefit of the people of Turkey and Sri Lanka. (With inputs from ANI) Image: Twitter In a first since the Talibans Kabul takeover on August 15 and US complete troop drawdown, Afghanistans Interim Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi is expected to make a visit to Islamabad to reset the relations between the Islamic Emirate and the Republic of Pakistan, ANI reported on Saturday, citing Islamabads local newspaper The Express Tribune. Sources told The Express Tribune that Muttaqis visit was on the cards and leadership on both sides in Kabul as well as Pakistan were in constant touch to finalize the details. Afghan foreign minister, who is being invited to Pakistan along with other officials, is expected to discuss a trove of bilateral issues. Amir Khan Muttaqi was invited by the Imran Khan administration last month when Pakistans Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi visited Kabul. While Muttaqi will visit Islamabad with several other Taliban officials, his visit will not imply the formal recognition of the Taliban government, sources told The Express Tribune. Although Pakistan will one of the few countries to maintain their diplomatic mission as well as an envoy in Kabul. Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi became the first official political guest of the Taliban since the country fell into the rule of the globally recognized terror faction. Imran Khan's stooge reportedly facilitated negotiations between the Taliban and Hazara and Tajik leaders. Both ethnic groups practice Shia Islam and have faced long-term discrimination and abuse in predominantly Sunni Afghanistan. The talks between the two sides will cover the entire spectrum of bilateral relations and focus on ways and means to deepen cooperation in diverse areas, Pakistan's foreign office at the time had stated in an official statement, accessed by PTI. Pak's FM Qureshi meets with Afghan PM Mohammad Hasan Akhund Qureshi was accompanied by the ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed to meet with Taliban officials of Afghanistan's interim government. He met with interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan Mohammad Hasan Akhund, deputy PM Abdul Salam Hanafi and the interim foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, with whom the former held dialogue regarding strengthening bilateral cooperation in trade and economic departments. Meanwhile, the Afghan foreign minister Muttaqi welcomed the Pakistan delegation in Kabul. He reportedly said, The talks between the two sides will cover the entire spectrum of bilateral relations and focus on ways and means to deepen cooperation in diverse areas, news agency PTI reported, citing the Pakistan foreign office. The Pakistan Hindu Council will organize a grand function on Monday to celebrate Diwali at a century-old temple in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which was vandalized and set on fire by a mob led by a radical Islamist party last year, a media report said on Sunday. Pakistans Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmad has been invited by the Council to celebrate the festival of lights at the Teri Temple in Karak, the Dawn newspaper reported. The grand function to celebrate Diwali is being organized by the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC), which will also host a large number of pilgrims from the Sindh and Balochistan provinces. PHC patron-in-chief and member of the National Assembly Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani said that the presence of senior officials during the celebration would give a strong message to the miscreants that their nefarious designs would be foiled, the report said. To provide facilities to those arriving from Sindh and Balochistan to participate in the annual fair at Teri, the Council has requested the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) to provide boarding and lodging facilities to around 1,500 pilgrims at Hassanabdal. The pilgrims have started arriving at Hassanabdal from where they will proceed to the Teri area of Karak on Monday and return the same day. The shrine is associated with a saint, Shri Param Hans Ji Maharaj, in the Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the temple was established in 1920. However, it was vandalized by a mob led by a local cleric belonging to the Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl last year. On the orders of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, the temple was restored. The apex court also ordered the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government in October 2021 to recover Rs 33 million (USD 1,94,161) from the culprits involved in vandalizing the century-old shrine. In December last year, over 1,000 people led by some local clerics belonging to the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) instigated the villagers to demolish the temple and as a result, people led by local seminary students attacked the temple. The Supreme Court was informed that 109 people involved in the incident had been arrested. Earlier in 1997, the shrine was first attacked and severely damaged, and the PHC head Vankwani had approached the apex court in 2015 seeking help to restore the holy place and restart the annual pilgrimage to the place. At that time, local clerics were creating hurdles to holding a religious congregation for the Hindus, while the followers of Shri Paramhans Ji tried to build the temple at the place but it was not allowed, Vankwani had told Dawn. After the Supreme Court issued directives to the provincial government to restore and preserve the Teri temple, the Pakistan Hindu Council started holding the annual fair in 2015. Since the temple is being managed by the local Hindu families, it comes administratively under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government and not under the ETPB control, according to the report. Hindus form the biggest minority community in Pakistan According to official estimates, 75 lakh Hindus live in Pakistan. However, according to the community, over 90 lakh Hindus are living in the country. The majority of Pakistan's Hindu population is settled in Sindh province where they share culture, traditions, and language with Muslim residents. They often complain of harassment by extremists. As many as 460 Afghan children have lost their lives in their homeland due to unceasing violence in the first six months of this year, reported the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). Citing the latest killing which took place on Thursday, UNICEF stated that nine members of one family, including four girls and two boys, were killed after "an explosive remnant of war detonated inside a home in Kunduz," reported TOLO news. Highlighting the decades-old conflict, UNICEF stated that the lives of thousands of people in Afghanistan have been affected due to war. Recently, a 6-year-old-boy named Hibatullah lost his leg during the conflict in Nangarhar, the young kid became a victim of a clash. He was hit by a bullet and later, his leg was amputated. He is now dependent on an artificial leg. Hibatullah's father, Abdullah said, "My son was hit with a bullet in a clash in Nangarhar. He was hospitalised for a long time, and then his leg was amputated". He further said that the child is now under treatment by the Red Cross and that they made an artificial leg for him. Nine members of one family, including four girls and two boys, were reportedly killed yesterday morning when an explosive remnant of war detonated inside a home in #Kunduz, said Alice Akunga, #UNICEF Acting Representative in Afghanistan. Read more. https://t.co/OOvwRLI4zd UNICEF Afghanistan (@UNICEFAfg) November 4, 2021 The situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating day by day, and after the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan, the country has turned into an extremely chaotic place, with a major economic crisis and instability, along with a food crisis and other prevailing issues. An Afghan therapist, Mohammad Fahim, stated that 10 to 15 children every day, who are brought to him for check-ups, struggle with brain freeze. He said that the situation in Afghanistan is very dangerous and also blamed the war for the worsening health of children. The detritus of war devastating young lives, again. Another sad day for the #children of #Afghanistan@UNICEFAfg sends its condolences to all affected by this tragedy. https://t.co/dg1BfHK0Mf Sam Mort (@SamMort9) November 4, 2021 In view of the ongoing situation in Afghanistan, UNICEF has expressed concern. According to a report published by TOLO news, the chief of communication advocacy for UNICEF, Samantha Mort, stated, "We are also concerned about the number of children killed by explosive devices so far this year. "The death of one child is heartbreaking". Over decades, children residing in Afghanistan have been struggling with malnutrition and poverty, and the situation in the war-ravaged Afghanistan is continuously worsening, stated UNICEF. With Inputs from ANI Image: ANI Afghanistan's hospitals and aid groups are wrestling with swiftly rising malnutrition as the country's collapsing economy leaves millions unable to afford food. At the Mirwais Hospital in the southern city of Kandahar, beds are filled with children suffering from malnutrition, some of them dramatically emaciated, their bones protruding under their skin. The head of the hospitals' pediatric ward, Dr. Mohammed Sadiq, told Italian broadcaster Sky Italia that the number of cases of malnutrition admitted to the facility had doubled in October, compared to previous months. International aid groups have been rushing food and medicine to the hospital. But Sadiq said the dramatic jump in cases means the supplies they sent that were intended to last six months are "not sufficient now ... it goes for three or four months." He did not specify the number of cases admitted in October. Afghan families have been struggling to put food on the table, in part because of a punishing drought, but also because of the meltdown in the economy in which many Afghans have gone unpaid for months and prices for basic goods have spiraled. The World Food Program and the U.N. children's agency warned in early October that at least 1 million children in the country of 39 million are at risk of dying of severe acute malnutrition without immediate treatment. At least 14 million people already face acute food insecurity, and 95% of households in a recent WFP survey said parents are eating less and skipping meals so their children can eat. Still, an estimated 3.2 million children under 5 are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition by the end of the year, the agencies said. Sadiq said the dramatic jump the past month was in part because the end of the 20-year-war in Afghanistan has made it easier for patients in villages and towns around the province to reach the province (Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com) Canadian retail giant has decided to remove all the remaining inventory made at a factory in China which is suspected of using forced labour from North Korea, said companys press release following a CBC report that brought new information to light. The Canadian company, Reitmans said in a statement published on Friday evening, stressed that its previous audits of the factory in China had not found evidence of any guest workers or forced labour. The statement followed CBCs story that detailed, through undercover investigations, showed that the Dandong Huayang Textiles and Garment Co, was using North Korean guest workers. The report stated citing experts that said that city of Dandong, located on the border of North Korea and China, has a long history of employing North Korean workers at their respective factories including Dandong Huayang. Reitmans has said that it has a policy against using forced labour. In a statement that followed the media report, the Canadian company said, Reitmans (Canada) Limited takes all requirements of corporate social responsibility very seriously, and how our designs come to life is important to us. Reitmans said, We require all of our suppliers to sign and abide by the terms of our Supplier Code of Conduct and Traceability Program and to adhere to a comprehensive audit program that is based on corrective action, transparency and partnership. Our Supplier Code of Conduct prohibits the use of forced labour throughout our supply chain. For several years, we have purchased products from Dandong Huayang Textiles and Garments Ltd. All of our past audits at the factory where our products were manufactured, including the most recent one conducted without notice by an independent accredited audit firm in December 2020, did not identify guest workers or forced labour, it added. We became aware at the end of 2020 Reitmans also addressed, That said, at the end of 2020, we became aware through credible media reports of allegations surrounding Dandong Huayang Textiles and Garments Ltd. We have taken these allegations of the presence of North Korean workers seriously and have been cautious. At the end of 2020, we decided to act proactively and terminate our business relationship with Dandong Huayang Textiles and Garments Ltd. which is no longer a supplier to Reitmans (Canada) Ltee. CBC report highlights new information. We are shocked by these new allegations of the presence of North Korean guest workers at what appear to be factories of Dandong Huayang Textiles and Garments Ltd. In this context, we believe we made the right decision at the end of 2020 by proactively stopping issuing purchase orders with this supplier. In addition, we have decided to remove all remaining inventory of the 4 Penningtons and 2 Reitmans styles from this supplier that had been ordered over a year ago. We will donate it to local charities, the company added. Image: Unsplash/Representative On Saturday, Costa Rica became the first country in the world to make COVID vaccinations mandatory for children. In a statement, health officials asserted that the anti-coronavirus shots would be compulsory for everybody under the age of 18 years, as reported by PerthNow. Notably, the Central American country has already enlisted certain vaccines including those against chickenpox and polio as compulsory for children under the law. Parents and guardians, as well as various government agencies, are urged to act to ensure that children and teens receive their inoculation within "a timely manner," the statement read. Meanwhile, a discreet report by BBC revealed that the country has already inked a deal with vaccine manufacturers Pfizer/BioNTech to secure 3.5 million doses. The administration is planning to start its vaccination campaign for children from March next year for which it has already reserved 1.5 million of the procured jabs. Since the outbreak, Costa Rica has registered a total of 562,316 cases out of which 7,134 have died. Meanwhile, more than 53% of the countrys population has been fully vaccinated. Additionally, roughly 73% of teens between 12 and 19 have been inoculated with at least one vaccine shot. US approves Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for kids below 12 years A White House statement earlier this week announced that the US will commence its vaccination programmes for kids between ages 5 and 11 years from next week. However, it was up to a panel of medical experts to decide if the anti-COVID shots should be made available to all school-going children or not. On Tuesday, the team belonging to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deliberated upon the same, discussing at length whether the jabs would be beneficial to all 28 million children in the country. A final recommendation from the body came hours after, giving a final clearance to the Pfizer/BioNTech shots. At an earlier press briefing, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients announced that all children belonging to the age group between 5 to 11 years will be able to receive Pfizer/BioNTech doses at paediatrician offices, medical clinics, pharmacies and community health centres. Theres plenty of supply of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and we look forward to parents having the opportunity to vaccinate their kids, he told reporters. Representative Image: AP Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense on Sunday, November 7, announced that 16 Chinese fighter jets had entered the country's Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) the day before, Deutsche Welle reported. The number of aircraft launched into the air defense zone is the highest since early October when the People's Liberation Army (PLA) sent roughly 150 warplanes into the zone in five different drills. The ADIZ is designated airspace for national security purposes, but it is not defined in international treaties. Taiwanese authorities reserve the right to require aircraft entering the ADIZ to identify themselves and their intended destination. The ADIZ stretches hundreds of kilometres from Taiwan's shore and even extends into sections of mainland China. It is far larger than Taiwan's sovereign air space, which reaches only 12 nautical miles from the coast. Although China has flown a number of aircraft into the ADIZ on a regular basis in recent weeks, the warplanes have not entered Taiwan's sovereign airspace. On Saturday, the ministry claimed it gave radio alerts and used air defence systems to monitor the aircraft. The jets entered the ADIZ off Taiwan's southwestern coast, similar to prior invasions. Earlier that day, on October 31st, Chinese warplanes flew into the island nation's Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ). According to Taiwan News, Beijing dispatched at least six People's Liberation Army (PLA) Shenyang J-16 fighter jets, one KJ-500, and a Shaanxi Y-8 anti-submarine warfare plane that entered the ADIZ (MND). This was China's sixth incursion in October. The Chinese flights inside the ADIZ on Saturday came a day after a three-day visit to Taipei by a European Parliament group. The seven members of the parliament's committee on foreign intervention in democratic processes paid a visit last week in response to a resolution passed last month calling for the body to "intensify EU-Taiwan political relations." EU lawmakers said the visit was not intended to provoke China, which considers self-governing Taiwan to be part of its territory and views any attempt to strengthen bilateral ties between Western nations and the administration in Taipei as a provocation, AP reported. PLA is utilising AI to mimic war games for invasion operations against Taiwan According to a report by Georgetown University's Centre for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), the PLA is utilising Artificial Intelligence (AI) to mimic war games for invasion operations against Taiwan. According to the paper, China will continue to invest in AI in order to disrupt US military information systems, as well as to erode the US superiority in undersea warfare. The paper, titled 'Harnessed Lightning: How the Chinese Military is Adopting Artificial Intelligence,' claims to have analysed roughly 350 AI partnerships between Chinese troops and state-owned defence firms with the goal of implementing AI by 2020. (With inputs from agencies) Image: AP Two months after taking over power in Afghanistan, the Taliban on Sunday expressed their intention to build their own air force. Speaking to a leading daily, the Taliban said that presently the insurgent group uses the previous government's force, but once their regime is established fully, they will build a new, full air force. The insurgent group added that they would set up all the departments and try bringing back professionals previously associated with the air force. Taliban express their intention to build their own Air Force in Afghanistan "We are trying to use the previous government's air force - the professionals that they had - and make sure they all return. The best policy for us is - whatever department is needed; we are going to have it," a spokesperson for the Taliban's Ministry of the Interior, Qari Saeed Khosty said. Another person associated with the Taliban said, "No doubt, a full air force will be built soon - once the regime is fully established. It is not fully established yet." The Taliban had captured 9 main airbases throughout the nation together with the strategic provinces of Khost, Kunduz, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Herat, thus foiling the US plans to destroy what was left on the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul earlier than its departure on the finish of August. Several Black Hawk helicopters and A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft were seized by the Taliban. Black Hawk helicopters can reportedly cost up to $21 million while a Super Tucano attack aircraft can cost up to $21.3 million. Key PC-12 intelligence places had also fallen into the hands of the insurgent group. Aircraft like the C-208 light attack aeroplanes. which are capable enough to carry Hellfire missiles, anti-tank missiles and other weaponry can go for $12.1 million each. The spokesperson for the Ministry of Protection, Enayatullah Khwaraizmi stated, "The plane that required small repairs have been fastened, and people with major issues are within the course of being revived now." Khwarizm added that it is vital for the new Afghan military- including the air force to be fully independent. The continuous urge to become a self-independent force comes in the backdrop of the economic crisis gripping the country after the international community froze the financial aid to the war-torn country. Image: AP Social media users took to Twitter to slam Vietnam public security minister General To Lam after a video showcasing the minister enjoying gold-plated steak by celebrity chef Nusret Gokce, known as "Salt Bae" went viral, reported BBC. The minister was reportedly trolled after he was filmed savouring food beyond his " monthly limits". According to BBC, General To Lam went to Salt Bae restaurant (Knightsbridge Steakhouse)-- which is one of the expensive hotels in the world-- to enjoy the gold-plated steak after attending the UN Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow. The Vietnam minister was reportedly accompanied by his delegation who went along with Lam to attend the Climate Summit. The matter came into light after the Turkish chef Nusret Gokce posted a video on his TikTok account in which he could be seen serving the dish with his signature style. The celebrated chef has reportedly 11 million followers. Though BBC in its report did not mention the exact price of the gold-plated steak, the reviewers told the media outlet that the costs range from 850 to 1,500 (Rs 85,000 - Rs 1,50,000). Notably, this is the only cost of the "expensive" dish that was served to the minister, the restaurant also charges 15% extra to their customers as services taxes. Watch the video of Lam enjoying Gold-plated Steak here: Bo truong Bo Cong an Viet Nam To Lam uoc Salt Bae che bien va ut cho an mon bo dat vang tri gia len en 45 trieu ong/phan trong mot nha hang cua ong nay o Luan on. Cung ban voi ong To Lam la Chanh van phong Bo Cong an To An Xo. pic.twitter.com/hGZZqGbJZr Duy Binh (@DuyBnh61157516) November 5, 2021 The monthly salary of the minister ranges from $600 to $800 It is worth mentioning that Vietnam, being a poor country has already been facing serious problems related to the economy. Therefore, relishing such an expensive food item by the minister whose monthly salary ranges from $600 to $800 (Rs 44,000 - Rs 59,000) is a matter of shame for those who are still struggling to get even a meal of single time. However, it was not yet clear who paid the bill, social media users were quick to suggest the minister with some other options that could be both "delicious" and "affordable". Watch the reactions of Vietnamese Citizens here: Just wondering who takes care of the bill as his monthly salary is VND 15.347.000 = USD 676.53 according to the decree 38/2019/N-CP. Hao Nguyen (@NguyenJustaguy) November 4, 2021 You go such length to defend an official, look at item 15 in general secretary Trong's 19 commandments of what a communist cannot do. To Lam is on a diplomatic/business trip, accepting such an expensive dinner might constitute a conflict of interest. pic.twitter.com/QWfGQf98ke TTXVH (@ttxvh) November 5, 2021 Your guess is as good as mine. You can say the Vietnamese people eventually pay this (via tax). But I can also say that the Brit do that. Until we have a physical bill and a full detail on the payer (borderline doxxing), we cannot know things for sure ComradeH (@ComradeH2) November 5, 2021 In Vietnam, an average Vietnamese citizen earns around $230 (Rs 23,000) per month, according to the 2021 General Statistics Office report. It is worth noting that the country has developed at a very fast rate in the past three decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic and back to back lockdowns has slowed down the pace. According to official figures, industrial output in August fell 7.4% from a year earlier, and exports dropped 5.4%, while retail sales of goods and services fell 33.7%. Image: Twitter/@DuyBnh61157516 Olavidia, a soft goat's cheese from the Spanish producer Quesos y Besos (Cheeses and Kisses) won the title of World's Best' Cheese 2021, reported CNN on Thursday. The media report said that the award was proffered to Olavidia during the 33rd World Cheese Awards held during the ongoing International Cheese Festival in Oviedo, Spain. The report claimed that the soft goat's cheese topped the list of 4,079 entries from 45 countries who were participated to claim the coveted title of "best cheese" in the world. It is worth mentioning Olavidia got 103 votes, defeating the second-place finisher, a soft cheese from France's Fromagerie Berthaut hit with the spirit Marc de Bourgogne, with 98 votes, that had been ahead until the very last minute, reported CNN. World's best' cheese 2021 winner has only 6 employees While announcing the results, Jason Hinds, a British Judge said that the Olavidia's cheese had a rich, creamy texture, seductive and a flavour that was round and warm. "I just wanted to go to bed with it," Hinds was seen saying to his colleagues. Meanwhile, Silvia Pelaez, the owner of the Spanish cheese producer told CNN that they have only six employees working in the factory. He informed that the cheese is officially known as Lacteos Romero Pelaez and mainly deal with export orders. "We are a small humble cheesemaker in Jaen-- a city in southern Spain best known for its olives. Daily labour has its reward," Pelaez was quoted as saying by CNN. Cheese Festival organised after two years According to CNN, the judges also noted that the cheese has a noticeable black stripe in the middle, which the organiser said the cheese was 'culminated with penicillium candidum and olive stone ash.' While some of the judges noted that the black strip was due to the ash. The media report said nearly 250 judges, including food scientists, cheese sellers, chefs and sommeliers attended the World Cheese Awards. Notably, this was the 33rd time when such a festival was organised in Spain. However, the past two years were the only exception when the festivals were not organised owing to COVID-19 restrictions. Image: Instagram/quesosybesos United under the slogan "Stop the electricity scam", hundreds of people marched through Barcelona on Saturday, protesting against rises in the price of electricity. Consumer prices in Spain increased in October by the highest rate in 29 years as a result of soaring electricity costs, preliminary data from the National Statistics Institute show. The institute, known by its Spanish acronym INE, said consumer prices rose 5.5% in October compared to the same month in 2020. Despite drastic measures that have pitted the Spanish government against big electricity firms, regulatory changes so far have not contained the rising utility bills that the country's residents and companies are seeing as a result of a global wholesale energy price crunch. INE said that apart from the cost of electricity, increases in fuel and gas prices also fueled the monthly consumer price hike. Spain's consumer prices went up 4% in September compared to the same month in 2020. (Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com) Dozens of couples in the Bolivian capital of La Paz got married on Saturday in a mass ceremony offered by authorities to reduce the cost of the festivities. The 30 couples, some dressed in Indigenous formal attire, gathered in the field of a small stadium. Some of the couples said they had postponed a long time awaited ceremony. "We had to get married, but with the quarantine and the pandemic we've delayed it," said Maribel Morales. Social services reduced the normal price of the paperwork by half and donated champagne and the cost of the musicians' services, who performed a waltz. The event was the first mass ceremony after some COVID-19 restrictions had been lifted in Bolivia. (Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from a syndicated feed; only the image & headline may have been reworked by www.republicworld.com) John Kerry, President Joe Biden's envoy at the Glasgow talks, rushes from side discussions with US adversaries China and Russia that carefully seek common ground on climate to news conferences proclaiming progress. Kerry attends project launches, thanking CEOs and bankers for their efforts to reduce emissions with high-level face time and praise. With the summit underway, the United States House of Representatives enacted a long-stalled infrastructure plan on Friday, November 5, which includes some significant steps to reduce the US. emissions. At the Glasgow climate conference, as in previous months, Kerry negotiates to secure every new amount of climate action from countries and corporations and then pushes for more. While the United States' return to global climate negotiations has pushed partners to make deeper cuts in emissions, the world's other major polluters China, Russia, and others remain, at best, short on emission promises. Kerry, President Barack Obama's secretary of state and a former senator returned after Trump's election to serve as Biden's climate envoy. The role has involved apologising for the global disruption caused by Trump, who dismisses climate science when he withdrew the US from the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which Kerry helped to negotiate. According to scientists, the ground lost during the Trump administration means that this decade represents the last chance to preserve the Earth from rising to catastrophic proportions. Veteran observers of global climate meetings praise Kerry's more low-key approach as climate ambassador. Kerry's focus on diplomacy to attempt to push and drag coal-loving China into faster emission cuts puts him at odds with Biden and several of Biden's senior officials, who have grown loudly critical of China, the world's top carbon polluter. The United States is ranked second-worst. Federal Appeals court freezes Biden's vaccine mandate for businesses A federal appeals court, on November 6, Saturday, temporarily blocked US President Joe Biden administration's vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more employees. The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency stay of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration's order that those workers be vaccinated by January 4 or face mask restrictions and weekly tests. The 5th Circuit, situated in New Orleans, said it was postponing the federal vaccine requirement due to "grave statutory and constitutional issues" brought by the plaintiffs. Monday, November 8, is the deadline for the government to respond to the move for a permanent injunction, followed by the petitioners' response on Tuesday. At least 27 states filed lawsuits contesting the regulation in multiple circuits, some of which were made more conservative by President Donald Trump's judicial nominees. The Biden administration has advocated for extensive vaccinations as the quickest approach to halting the pandemic, which has claimed over 750,000 lives in the United States. The government believes the mandate, which carries penalties of roughly $14,000 per infraction, would withstand court challenges, in part because its safety requirements preempt state laws. (With inputs from agencies) Image: AP The recently issued mandate by the Biden administration for the COVID-19 vaccination of workers in big enterprises with 100 or more employees was temporarily suspended by a federal appeals court on November 6, Saturday. The fifth circuit court of appeals in the United States issued an emergency suspension of the National Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (Osha) demand which requires employees to be inoculated by January 4, as well as wearing masks and weekly testing is necessary, as per the Guardian. The decision to suspend the vaccine mandate just came within two days after the US government released the regulation. On Friday, the five republican-governed attorney generals of Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Utah, along with a number of private corporations, filed lawsuits in the United States appeals court opposing the requirement. 'There are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate' As per CNBC, following this, the federal court ordered on Saturday that the vaccination and testing mandates will be delayed awaiting review because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate. Stuart Kyle Duncan, Kurt Damian Englehardt, and Edith Hollan Jones were the three judges who have imposed the ruling. The President Joe Biden administration has till November 8, evening to reply on the current suspension. Meanwhile, Jeff Landry, Attorney General of Louisiana stated that the suspension would prevent Joe Biden from going on with his unconstitutional overreach. Quoting a statement of Landry, the Guardian reported, The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution. Furthermore, the Biden administration's new mandate is widely regarded as the most ambitious attempt to vaccinate the working class. Officials from the Biden office believe that if the idea is successful, it will go a long way toward stopping the pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 750,000 Americans. According to the Associated Press, the laws, which were initially introduced by US President Joe Biden in September, would affect 84 million workers in medium and big businesses. OSHA recommendations for the vaccine mandate In addition, according to OSHA, the mandate states that the companies who will not follow the requirements might face fines of more than $14,000 per violation. Employees must either get two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one dosage of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by January 4th, the instructions suggest. OSHA's recommendations were created under emergency authority in order to protect workers from a possible health hazard. According to OSHA, the immunisation mandate is anticipated to save more than 6,500 lives and prevent more than 250,000 hospitalizations over the next six months. (Image: AP) They say armed conflict and political instability have contributed to the rise. A girl stands in the yard of a IDP camp in the Sri Sri Moha Dev Bari Hindu Temple in Sittwe, western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Sept. 21, 2017. The number of rape cases, including those involving children, has been on the rise in Myanmars western Rakhine state for the past few years amid armed conflict and ongoing political instability in the region, according to local aid groups. Six child rape cases were reported in 2018, five in 2019, 20 in 2020, and five in the first half of 2021, according to Legal Clinic Myanmar, High Court lawyer Mya Thuzar from the Rakhine state branch office of the Legal Clinic Myanmar in Sittwe told RFA on Thursday. More and more child rapes are occurring, and it is very troubling for children, said Oo Khin Thein of the Sittwe-based Rakhine Youth New Generation Network. We are worried because we are seeing a lot of fighting and political instability and, in the midst of it all, the complications of the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials from the Legal Clinic Myanmar and the Rakhine Pioneer Womens Group, both based in Rakhines capital Sittwe, said military conflicts, political instability, and insecurity in refugee camps housing tens of thousands of displaced people have been factors in the growing number of sexual assaults involving women and children. Civil society groups have expressed concern about the lack of security in the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps amid the ongoing political unrest. Children are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault because they can be easily approached by adults in the camps, Mya Thuzar said. A lack of law enforcement in some areas of the state and a belief among some culprits that they will not be arrested if caught are other factors at play in the rise of numbers of sexual assaults, she said. The main reason for these rape cases is due to the lack of respect for childrens rights, Mya Thuzar said. Another is that children are easier to approach, and some people are not aware of the provisions of the law, she said. Furthermore, there are no [legal] protection mechanisms for children to prevent this from happening. The minors who were sexually assaulted from 2017 onwards were all between the ages of 18 and 12, and those suspected of assaulting them have never been caught, she said. There were six cases in 2020 in which the suspects fled to avoid arrest. Thein Kyaw Mya, director of the Pee Pin Yin IDP camp in Mrauk-U township, told RFA that a nine-year-old girl was raped there on June 4. The little girl was asleep with another girl in our camp, he said. The father of the girl arrived at about 10 o'clock and took the visiting girl outside, but not his daughter. He offered her snacks and pocket money, and then took her to a field where he raped her. Soldiers from the rebel Arakan Army arrested the man the following evening, though it is not yet known what action will be taken against him, Thein Kyaw Mya said. In May a young ethnic Khami woman sheltering at the Gandhari IDP camp in Buthidaung township was reportedly raped when she and her mother went to clear an area of forest for farming about a mile west of the camp, Development Media Group (DMG) reported. Authorities later detained Futu Ali, 54, from Ywamagonnar village at the Taungbazar police station, DMG said. More than 40,000 women displaced by armed conflict between the AA and Myanmar military since 2018 still live in IDP camps in Rakhine state, according to the Rakhine Ethnics Congress, an NGO based in Sittwe that tallies IDPs. Calls for action The Arakanese Womens Association-USA issued a statement on June 9, calling for the Rakhine Peoples Authority set up by the AA as a quasi-government in charge of judicial and administrative functions in the state to take action against the perpetrators of the rape cases in Mrauk-U and Buthidaung townships. The group said it was providing aid to the families of the two people who were allegedly assaulted. Nearly 30 women had been raped in the state between this January and June, according to the Rakhaing Womens Initiative Organization (RWIO), a community group. RWIO chairwoman Saw San Nyein Thu said authorities must arrest perpetrators quickly and take action to prevent further sexual assaults. We are very worried about what might happen next, she said. The main thing is for the authorities to take really serious action against the perpetrators in a timely manner. In addition, we, as a society, should all look after our women and act together so that perpetrators can be brought to justice, Saw San Nyein Thu added. There is a need for more public education to end violence against women. Rakhine State Attorney General Hla Thein told RFA that authorities are investigating sexual assault cases that have been submitted to the court in accordance with the law and that perpetrators are being charged. If we find child rapists, we prosecute them in accordance with the law, he said. Same thing with ordinary rape cases. The courts are meting out effective sentences. The legal community is working together with the state and various law enforcement agencies to ensure the effective prosecution of cases of violence against women, he said. Myanmar government statistics indicate there were 1,405 total rape cases in the country in 2017, up from 1,110 the year before, though Legal Clinic Myanmar director Hla Hla Yee suggested in an AFP report in March that the figures could be much higher in the country of 54 million people. About two-thirds of the crimes were committed against children, the report said. Civil society groups say that a significant number of sexual assaults likely are unreported, so that actual figures are much higher. The rape of a woman outside of marriage carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail, while the rape of a girl under the age of 12 carries a sentence of 20 years to life in prison, though few offenders serve full terms, Hla Hla Yee told AFP. The Myanmar parliament issued an updated draft of the National Prevention and Protection of Violence Against Women law in January after years of back-and-forth over the legislation. The draft is still pending parliamentary adoption along with revisions to the Constitution and Penal Code recommended by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), according to a report issued to the U.N. Security Council in March. CEDAW is the body of independent experts that monitors the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1979. Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. Students are attending classes while local schools remain closed due to armed conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic. A teacher (R) helps students with an assignment at a school set up by educators who participated in the civil disobedience movement against the Myanmar junta, at an IDP camp in eastern Myanmar's Kayah state, Aug. 13, 2021. Teachers who joined Myanmars civil disobedience movement following the military coup in February have set up a school for children displaced by conflict in a temporary camp in a rebel army-controlled area of eastern Kayah state near the Thai border. The internally displaced persons (IDP) camp where the school is located hosts more than 1,000 civilians, mostly ethnic Karennis, who fled their homes to escape fighting between the Myanmar military and Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) troops since May. The KNDF is a new network of civilian resistance fighters that includes existing ethnic armed groups in the state and Karenni organizations. Violent clashes between rebel and junta forces erupted in Kayah states Loikaw, Demoso, and Shadaw townships after the military coup on Feb. 1 overthrew the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. Some 100,000 residents have fled their homes amid fighting in the state, taking shelter in Buddhist monasteries or in nearby hills and jungles. The Education Department of the Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), the dominant ethnic political organization in the state, opened the school to provide uninterrupted instruction to the children, said Hsu Bu Rel, the departments vice minister. Children displaced by the conflict have not been able to attend classes for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic, which hit Myanmar in March 2020 and now is in its third wave. They then lost a second year of education because of political unrest in the country, Hsu Bu Rel said. We want the IDP children in our camp to have an opportunity for schooling, he told RFA. In addition, this school gives us opportunities to learn from the CDM [civil disobedience movement] teachers and to try out the new curriculum and teaching methods of the Karenni Education Department. For security reasons, RFA is identifying the location of the camp school only as being in a KNPP-controlled area near the Thai border in Kayah state. School principal Hla Moe Myint said more funding is needed for educational materials for the IDP children, school buildings, and additional teachers. Teachers can perform fully only if they have these materials in hand, she said. There are so many needs. Besides, we want to set up a library as they [the teachers] have expected. We have difficulties in fulfilling their needs. Teacher Hsu Khu Rel said the school serves students from grades one through 11 and uses both a national curriculum and a new one created by the Karenni Education Department. Another teacher named Josephine said many educators from government schools, who walked out of work to join the CDM protests against the junta and fled arrest in their hometowns have joined the school. They have different teaching methods and a different schooling system, she said, pointing to the teachers more sophisticated grading system that makes it tougher for students to pass tests because it is not based on traditional rote learning. About 265 students had enrolled in the IDP camp school by the end of June, though additional ones were incoming, teachers said. Eighth-grader Cherry Phaw said she was pleased to continue her education at the school. For more than two years I couldnt go to school, she told RFA. We were on the run whenever there was fighting, so I couldnt go to school. I am grateful to the teachers for enabling me to learn in school. I am happy here. Thoe Mel, the parent of students who attend classes at the school, said she is glad that she could enroll her children in school at a time when other schools across the country are closed because of ongoing crackdowns by the military regime and the COVID-19 pandemic. My children havent gone to school for two years, she said. I am so happy now they are going to school. I am very optimistic. Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Ye Kaung Myint Maung. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. May Hnin Aye was gunned down by three assailants believed to be working for the military regime. Myanmar teacher May Hnin Aye, her husband, and their son (L) appear at their home in Homalin, northwestern Myanmar's Sagaing region, in an undated photo; May Hnin Aye appears in an undated photo. When May Hnin Aye, a middle-school teacher and mother of a one-year-old son, joined a movement to protest the junta that took over Myanmar last February, she lost her job and source of income and was forced to flee her home in Homalin, a town in restive Sagaing region with several military bases. She moved in with her parents in the Kawya area to the north and found work as an online vendor. As she worked peacefully to pressure the military to give up power, May Hnin Aye was still able to provide financial support for her family and also helped a former student in needan example, a former colleague said, of her generosity and resourcefulness. But personal business brought her back temporarily to Homalin last month, and on Oct. 24, as she and her husband were sitting on their veranda, three men dressed in civilian clothes got out of a white car and started shooting. The men chased the couple as they ran into the house. Bullets struck May Hnin Ayes arm, thigh, and chest, killing her, said Kyaw Win Sein, her brother-in-law and a protest leader. No one else was hurt. May Hnin Aye was one of more than 200,000 educators across Myanmar who walked off their jobs to join the Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM) after the military wrested control of the country from its democratically elected government in a Feb. 1 coup. Doctors, nurses, engineers, and bankers have also joined the movement, featuring work stoppages aimed at forcing the junta to reverse course. During the past few months, the military regime has been targeting CDM members in a violent crackdown on striking workers and protesters. The junta has pressured some teachers and others to return to work, though many continue to take part in anti-government protests. Friends and relatives believe that May Hnin Aye was targeted not for her involvement with CDM, but rather as part of a politically motivated act of vengeance due to her association with Kyaw Win Sein, a well-known student activist wanted by the military junta as a suspect in the killings of pro-military militia members. On the morning of the May Hnin Ayes death, Maung Mawt, a suspected military informant identified by locals as a leader of the Pyu Saw Htee group in Homalin township, was shot dead. Pyu Saw Htee is a group reportedly formed with support from the military to counter the anti-regime resistance movement in Myanmars Sagaing region and elsewhere. We believe it was a plot by a Pyu Saw Htee faction and the military because they acted so boldly and calmly, said Kyaw Win Sein, a former chairman of the Mandalay University Student Union, a group that has produced several protest participants. Kyaw Win Sein denied that he had any involvement in the killings of the Pyu Saw Htee members. Myanmar teacher May Hnin Aye in an undated photo. Credit: May Hnin Aye/Facebook Her death is a huge loss The shooting of May Hnin Aye wasnt the first act of violence against the family. On Oct. 18, junta forces burned down his familys convenience shop in Homalin Market, Kyaw Win Sein said. Homalin police say they are investigating May Hnin Ayes murder. But in the two weeks since, no one has been arrested for the crime. The whole town knows who killed her, Kyaw Win Sein said. One of the attackers was plump, had long hair, and appeared to be a town local, he said. Currently, there is no justice, he said. When this revolution is over, we will file charges against these perpetrators. May Hnin Aye had graduated from Monywa University and worked as a middle-school teacher at a government-run school in Parhok village, which borders the Sagaing region and neighboring Kachin state. A former colleague, who declined to be named for safety reasons, said her death was a huge loss for the community. May Hnin Aye was always active and could take the lead in all activities, the colleague said. She had provided as much support as possible to the poor students in school. She also motivated others to give support to the needy. I feel so sorry that this killing happened at such a time, the source added. It should not happen again. Our CDM heroes, our teachers, have already given up their careers. They shouldn't be giving up their lives like this. At least three schoolteachers participating in the CDM have been killed to date and more than 100 arrested, according to the Bago Township Basic Education Teachers Union. At her parents request, May Hnin Aye was buried in her home village of Kawya. Nine months after the military coup, junta forces have killed 1,242 civilians and arrested at least 7,038, according to the Bangkok-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners mostly during crackdowns on anti-junta protests. Reported by RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khin Maung Nyane. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin. NEAR HAJNOWKA, Poland -- Raqi Srour spent his days making frantic phone calls at a hotel near the Polish border. His wife, Safa, spent hers cowering in a frigid forest ditch just 3 kilometers away, trying desperately to evade Polish Army patrols. If they saw each other, theyd risk placing her life in even greater danger. Srour, a 25-year-old nurse who received asylum in Germany in 2016, was welcome in Poland. His wife, father, sister, brother, uncle, and cousin -- who flew to Belarus from their home in war-torn Syria and crossed into Poland aided by Belarusian border guards -- were not. They had wandered through the Polish wilderness for two weeks, with hardly any food or water, sleeping in swamps to avoid detection. Twice, they were discovered and pushed back into Belarus by Polish border guards, forced to begin the arduous trek from scratch. But with nighttime temperatures now approaching freezing, Srour knew that he faced an awful choice. Leaving Safa and his family members in the forest for much longer could be fatal. At least 10 migrants had already died attempting the same passage. But trying to smuggle them out and drive them to Germany, where he hoped theyd receive asylum, would risk their arrest in an area of Poland that has been turned into a militarized zone as the number of migrants crossing from Belarus, encouraged by the authoritarian regime of Alyaksandr Lukashenka, has skyrocketed. Im at my wits end, Srour said in German one morning this past week, after local activists in the town of Hajnowka had staged another failed nighttime attempt to bring his family to one of the safe houses organized by locals, who risk incarceration for helping refugees. But I am ready to move mountains to ensure my family is safe. The migrant crisis along Polands border with Belarus is a humanitarian time bomb ticking on the EUs eastern edge. Thousands of asylum seekers have flown to Belarus in recent months, encouraged by expedited visa processing and growing numbers of daily flights from countries such as Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Cameroon. Though the vast majority continue toward Poland, many have sought entry into neighboring Latvia and Lithuania, also EU members. Its part of a state-sponsored scheme that rights workers and EU officials say amounts to a hybrid war waged by Lukashenka in retaliation for Western sanctions imposed on his government after he claimed a landslide victory in an August 2020 election widely considered rigged and launched a brutal crackdown on protests against his continued rule. The main goal is to punish Lithuania and Poland for their backing of the opposition, said Artsyom Shraybman, a Belarusian political analyst living in exile. Lukashenka figures he has nothing to lose. Numbers surged when tensions between Minsk and Europe escalated in May, after Belarus forced a Lithuania-bound commercial airliner to land in Minsk so that authorities could arrest a dissident blogger on board. And even as conditions become deadlier, the influx continues: Polands Border Force has recorded more than 30,000 attempts to cross since August, including 17,300 in October alone. Officials in Berlin say almost 7,000 of those people have tried to enter Germany. On October 21, outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged new sanctions on Lukashenkas regime, which is supported by Russia, for what she called state-backed human trafficking. Poland has responded by declaring a state of emergency on its border with Belarus and moving 10,000 troops into the area to stop the migrants from entering and capture those who slip through the net. The government of the nationalist Law and Justice Party has approved a $407 million budget for a border wall to be built in the coming weeks. Rhetoric on both sides has escalated. Polands Defense Ministry has repeatedly accused Belarusian soldiers of threatening to fire on Polish troops. In late October, Lukashenka claimed that Poland was using the migrant crisis as an excuse to build up forces. We'll wait for a while, well warn them. And then we -- and especially Russia -- have plenty of stuff to move closer to the border, he said. The Polish governments line on keeping migrants out has been met with eager support from the far right and a backlash from liberals. Protesters have marched through Warsaw and other cities chanting, Stop torture on the border! The government has responded with what critics say is disinformation aimed at whipping up popular anti-migrant sentiment. In September, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski showed lewd photos allegedly found on migrants mobile phones, which turned out to be fake. In October, state TV reported on a purported drive-by shooting by migrants in Sweden and suggested that such things happen across Europe almost every day. The featured footage was actually from a fictional Netflix serial. While the crisis has resonated across Poland, its in the east that life has been upended. Locals in Hajnowka and other towns near the border are subject to regular police checks during routine trips to work or the grocery store. Army trucks course through the streets, carrying troops who pack local hotels before duty on the border. I feel like I live in a war zone, said Kasia Wappa, a Hajnowka resident who helps migrants. And the only people moving around at night are refugees, smugglers, and activists. Many risk arrest to help, citing a moral code that they say is lacking in their governments actions. Theres the hotel waitress who scours local roads looking for police checkpoints ahead of an attempt by activists to spirit a family of asylum seekers out of the woods; theres the taxi driver who transports migrants who make it into town, facing hefty fines and a criminal record if hes caught; and there are the many full-time volunteers like Wappa who spend their days and most of their nights bringing food and clothing to the migrants. The people they encounter on the way are on the edge of hypothermia and starvation. But for most, its not water or clothing that will ultimately save their lives. Activists say the item they plead most desperately for are power banks: Having an operable mobile phone while languishing in the woods is the only way to alert activists to your location and let your family know youre still alive. When they are dying, they can at least call the police, says Nawal Soufi, an Italian-Moroccan rights activist who has been traveling along the border. The stories the migrants tell are almost always the same. They pay up to several thousand dollars to tour companies with ties to the Belarusian authorities, which organize a flight and a visa, a short hotel stay in Minsk, and transfer to the Polish border. At the border, Belarusian officials cut the concertina wire at night to allow select groups of migrants to slip through. Once they are on Polish territory, they are either intercepted by the Polish Border Force and pushed back across the border -- a practice prohibited by international law but approved by Polands parliament last month -- or they roam the forest until they get a signal from a smuggler and rush to a waiting car. If they are caught and pushed back into Belarus, many say they are beaten by Belarusian border guards and forced toward Poland again, often spending days in the barren strip of no-mans-land between the two countries. Some pay hefty bribes to be driven back to Minsk, where they either resume the entire journey or return to the countries they had, in many cases, spent their life savings trying to leave. I spent four nights in a swamp, and 10 days without water, said Karrar, an Iraqi Kurd traveling with his pregnant wife, who said he had spent $6,000 getting to Poland and been pushed back seven times by border guards. They treat us like animals. Srours family, who flew from Damascus to Minsk on October 20, was twice pushed back after venturing kilometers into Polish territory. His father, who is 70, said they spent more than five days without food before locating a package of supplies left by activists. Srours 37-year-old brother Raad, who traveled with them, was mauled by a police dog on October 25 and taken to Hajnowka hospital, which discharged him on November 3, almost certainly into the hands of border officials. At the time of publication, his whereabouts were unknown. Srour managed to personally deliver supplies to his family on two occasions. Each time, the entire group shed tears, embracing him as he made promises he couldnt be sure of keeping. On November 3, he took a shaking Safa by the hand and led her away so they could be alone, holding her hand as he whispered in her ear. Like hundreds of other migrants who flew to Belarus looking for a better life, Srour and his family had envisioned a relatively easy journey to Germany, encouraged by upbeat posts on Arabic-language Internet forums. He and Safa first met as teenage classmates in Daraa, and they hoped to have an official marriage ceremony upon her arrival in Germany in October, attended by relatives and Srours German host family. Everything was different in my imagination, he said on November 4. And now she and I suffer, despite being 2 miles apart and hardly able to see each other. This is impossible to put into words. A U.S. diplomat is scheduled to hold meetings in Sarajevo amid growing concerns that the Serbian-majority entity that makes up part of Bosnia-Herzegovina could secede from the Balkan country. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar will head to the Bosnian capital on November 7, days after the top international official in the country warned of the "existential threat" from separatist actions by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik. Escobar told RFE/RL in an interview ahead of his trip that he wants the people of Bosnia to know that the international community is united to ensure that "commitments to the peace and security of the people in the region are met," adding, "We're committed that there will not be a war." Dodik has recently threatened to withdraw the Serbian territory from national institutions such as the tax authority, medicines agency, and -- most importantly -- the military. Escobar said that any moves to undermine the Dayton peace accords that ended the Bosnian War in the 1990s and established the countrys political structure were "very detrimental and very destabilizing to the region." The reasons behind Dodik's move to weaken central institutions are corruption and Dodik's attempt to "look for ways to protect his power and his money," Escobar said. He added that only Bosnia is experiencing rising political tensions. The rest of the region "is focused on European integration and economic development." The United States has previously said there is no constitutional way for the Serbian-majority entity to unilaterally withdraw from the national institutions. In a report to the UN Security Council this week, Christian Schmidt, the chief UN envoy to Bosnia, issued a stark warning about Dodik's actions and said the Dayton agreement was at risk of unraveling unless the international community took measures to stop Serb separatists. The Alliance for Peacebuilding (AfP), a Washington-based global network working to end violent conflicts, said the diplomatic community is failing to resolve the crisis in Bosnia and the U.S. State Departments response to the situation is insufficient. The U.S. and the international community must act now to prevent violence and conflict and build sustainable peace in [Bosnia] and the entire region through all available diplomatic and development tools, the alliance said in a news release on November 5. The alliance also said Dodik "is empowered by support from nationalistic politicians in Zagreb, Croatia, as well as by Russian diplomats seeking to diminish the sovereignty of [Bosnia] and prevent the country from joining NATO." Dodik on November 6 welcomed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to Republika Srpska. Orban and Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto arrived in Banja Luka before going to a nearby town to meet Dodik and Radovan Viskovic, the prime minister of Republika Srpska, for lunch. Dodik later told public broadcaster RTRS that the politicians discussed the current situation in Bosnia. I told him that there is a lot of political spin and misinformation about us -- about Serbs destroying the territorial integrity of Bosnia, which is something we are not doing, Dodik said. Dodik said he hasnt been doing anything that would undermine the Dayton accords. With reporting by RFE/RLs Balkan Service Hundreds of supporters of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili rallied on November 6 in the town of Rustavi, near the prison where he is being held. Saakashvili has been on a hunger strike since he was jailed on October 1, just hours after returning to the country after an eight-year absence and just ahead of local elections on October 2, which his United National Movement (ENM) has since called rigged. According to the country's Central Election Commission, the polls were free and transparent. Saakashvili was convicted in absentia in 2018 for abuse of power during his presidency, charges he says were politically motivated. Iran has begun annual war games, state TV reported on November 7, less than a month before a scheduled fresh round of talks on reviving the landmark Iran nuclear deal. The report said navy and air force units as well as ground forces were participating in a more than 1 million-square-kilometer area east of the strategic Strait of Hormuz. Nearly 20 percent of all oil shipping passes through the strait to the Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean. Fighter jets, helicopters, military transport aircraft, submarines, and drones were also expected to take part in the drill. It wasn't immediately clear how long the exercise would last. Dubbed Zolfaghar-1400, the war games are aimed at improving readiness in confronting foreign threats and any possible invasion," state TV said. The drill comes amid efforts to resuscitate the 2015 deal between Iran and world powers. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement in 2018, but Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia have tried to preserve the accord. The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, promises Iran economic incentives in exchange for limits on its nuclear program, and is meant to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb. President Joe Biden has said he is willing to rejoin the pact if Iran returns to full compliance, but indirect negotiations between Tehran and world powers that started in April in Vienna were put on hold in June after the Islamic republic elected hard-liner Ibrahim Raisi as president. Iran said on November 5 that it had increased its stockpile of 60 percent-enriched uranium to 25 kilograms, an almost four-fold increase from the level reported in June. "So far, we have produced 25 kilograms of 60 percent uranium, which, except for countries with nuclear weapons, no other country is able to produce," Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said. Kamalvandi added that Iran's stockpile of 20 percent-enriched uranium has reached over 210 kilograms, well beyond the 120-kilogram target set by parliament. The nuclear agreement, which offered curbs on international sanctions in exchange for Iran limiting its nuclear program, caps the purity to which Tehran can refine uranium at 3.67 percent -- enough for civilian nuclear energy and far below the 90 percent purity needed for an atomic weapon. Iran has denied seeking nuclear weapons and said its breaches are reversible if Washington lifts sanctions and rejoins the agreement. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amirabdollahian, have called for the Iran nuclear deal to be restored to its original form. "The parties focused on the situation around the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear program and the prospects for resuming the Vienna negotiations on the JCPOA," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on November 6 after a telephone call between the two top diplomats. "They called for restoring the nuclear deal in its original balanced form, approved by the United Nations Security Council. They confirmed that it was the only way to ensure the rights and interests of all parties to the comprehensive agreement." After months of delays, the European Union, Iran, and the United States announced last week that indirect talks to resuscitate the deal would resume November 29 in Vienna. With reporting by AP Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an attack by an armed drone on his residence on November 7 amid escalating tensions over the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results. The Baghdad residence inside the city's fortified Green Zone was hit by a rocket attack early on November 7, the prime ministers office said in a statement. Kadhimi was unharmed in the attack, which the statement said was a failed assassination attempt. The Green Zone is the location of Iraqi government buildings and embassies. The government statement provided no further details, and there was no claim of responsibility. Kadhimi called in a tweet for calm and restraint from everyone for the sake of Iraq. He later appeared on Iraqi television seated behind a desk and looking calm and composed. Cowardly rocket and drone attacks dont build homelands and dont build a future, he said. U.S. President Joe Biden offered his support to the Iraqi leader. "I strongly condemn the terrorist attack targeting the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister al-Kadhimi," Biden said in a statement. "I am relieved the prime minister was not injured and commend the leadership he has shown in calling for calm, restraint, and dialogue to protect the institutions of the state and strengthen the democracy Iraqis so richly deserve." In a briefing on November 7, Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the attack and indirectly blamed the United States. He said to be aware of the conspiracies that target the security and progress of Iraq, without elaborating. Several hundred supporters of pro-Iranian factions in Iraq have been protesting near one of the entrances to the Green Zone over the results of parliamentary elections on October 10. Fresh demonstrations were held earlier on November 6, a day after a protester was killed and dozens were injured in a clash with police. The protesters reject the results of the elections, in which they were the biggest losers. They burned a portrait of Kadhimi, whom they called a "criminal, at their November 6 demonstration. Preliminary results from the elections saw the Fatah Alliance -- the political arm of the pro-Iran multiparty Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary network -- lose a substantial number of its parliamentary seats. The group's supporters have denounced the outcome as "fraud" and have been camping near the Green Zone for more than three weeks. With reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP Moscow plans to relocate more than 150,000 residents into new high-rise buildings by 2024 as it accelerates the pace of the demolition of dilapidated, Soviet-era homes. More than 300 new homes containing 5 million square meters will be built under the citys renovation program from 2022 through 2024, Andrei Bochkaryov, deputy mayor for construction, told the media on November 7. He said 155,000 residents -- roughly 1.2 percent of the city's more than 12 million population -- will be relocated into the new buildings. Last month, Bochkaryov said that 154 homes totaling 2 million square meters had been built over the past four years under the program, with more than 54,000 people relocated. At the moment, 150 buildings are in the construction phase and another 150 are in the planning stages, he said. Many of Moscows Soviet-era high-rise homes were cheaply built, offering residents little comfort, and are also notoriously energy inefficient. Russian prosecutors in the souther region of Rostov have opened a criminal investigation into the torture of inmates at a prison hospital, local rights activists said. Igor Omelchenko, the chairman of the local Public Monitoring Commission, told Meduza news agency that the case was opened in September and focuses on the torture of prisoners at Interregional Tuberculosis Hospital No. 19. Omelchenko said he was questioned by investigators on November 5 as a witness in the case and said that more than 60 victims are willing to testify in court. Natalya Merkulova, the chairwoman of the commission, said that prisoners were tied to their bed for days. Russia law only permits prisoners to be tied down when they are receiving a medical injection. Their organization first came forward with concerns about the torture of prisoners at the tuberculosis hospital in September 2020, but Omelchenko said the former regional prosecutor refused to open a case. A new prosecutor took office in February and agreed to open a criminal case. In a recent post on its Instagram page, the commission blamed the atmosphere of torture on the previous prison leadership and claimed that officers and workers who took part in the mistreatment were fired. The investigation in Rostov comes amid an explosive revelation of endemic torture in Russias prison system. A former inmate who was allowed to work with a penitentiarys computer system downloaded dozens of videos of torture at various prisons in Russia and distributed them to media. He is currently seeking asylum in France after Russia issued a warrant for his arrest. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has called the presence of the U.S. Navy in the Black Sea a provocation after another ship entered the strategic waters. This is an almost constant attempt to test us, to check how ready we are, how much we have built the entire [defense] system off the Black Sea coast, Shoigu told state TV on November 7. Shoigu said other countries are doing it as well but did not name any nation in particular. Russia claimed in June that it fired warning shots at a British naval vessel that passed through Crimean waters. The Black Sea has become a hot spot in relations between the Kremlin and the West after Russia annexed Crimea, a move that gives it access to the peninsula's Black Sea coast. Most countries do not recognize Russias annexation and continue to seek permission from Ukraine to traverse the waters near Crimea. Members of the U.S.-led military alliance, NATO, border the Black Sea, including Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. U.S.-friendly nations including Ukraine and Georgia also border the sea. The United States holds naval training exercises with allies and partners in the Black Sea and also regularly patrols the waters. Shoigu said Russia was keeping an eye on the USS Mount Whitney of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, which entered the Black Sea on November 4. The U.S. Navy said the USS Mount Whitneys operations in the Black Sea demonstrate U.S. and NATOs commitment to the region. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has dismissed a letter written by several U.S. lawmakers criticizing the growth of corruption and decline of media freedom in the Balkan nation during his leadership. Vucic said he doesnt fear a U.S. asset freeze because, he claimed, he doesnt own assets abroad. He also said he would repeat his semilegal purchase of ventilators for the country if necessary. The United States will not find any assets outside the country, Vucic told media on November 7 when asked about the congressional letter. Seven U.S. lawmakers -- all Democrats in the House of Representatives -- called on U.S. President Joe Biden to push Vucic to combat corruption and attacks on freedom of the press and impose asset freezes against certain Serbian individuals, if necessary. The November 5 letter -- which was issued following a trip to Washington by Serbian opposition leader Dragan Djilas -- criticized Vucics self-declared quasi-black market purchase of ventilators last year, as well as the governments preferential treatment of media favorable to its policies, as emblematic of corruption and declining press freedom. The lawmakers also said the dealings of the majority state-owned Telekom Srbija have been shrouded in secrecy. Telekom Srbija has been scooping up media and cable companies, strengthening the states control over the sector. The company has been accused of overpaying for some of the acquisitions. We urge you to consider using [executive sanctioning power] where appropriate to push for a more transparent and accountable Serbian government that respects democracies, human rights, and the rule of law, the lawmakers said in their letter. Vucic, who came to power in 2017, is up for reelection next year. The lawmakers urged the administration to hold Serbia accountable to the highest standards of free and fair elections, including the campaign period ahead of the election and the vote count itself. KYIV -- Ukraine has received nearly 3 million doses of Modernas COVID-19 vaccine through a UN fund amid a surge in new cases in the country. UNICEF, also known as the United Nations Children's Fund, delivered the anti-virus medication on November 7. The deliveries are part of a UN program aimed at helping stop the spread of the virus in countries that dont have the financial resources to buy them. Ukraine has now received more than 7.4 million free doses under the UN program. The deliveries come as the country faces its worst wave of the pandemic. Ukraine registered more than 17,000 new coronavirus cases on November 7, more than double the number from just two months ago. More than 440 have died over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll from the virus to more than 72,000. Ukraine has imposed restrictions again in several cities, including the capital, Kyiv, amid the latest wave. Richmond, KY (40475) Today Rain. High near 55F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch.. Tonight Showers early, then partly cloudy overnight. Low 32F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%. News featured popular urgent Rockdale County proposing a budget of $83.1 million for 2022 Staff Photo: Larry Stanford Rockdale County Assembly Hall CONYERS The Rockdale County Board of Commissioners is proposing an $83,160,501 general fund budget for 2022. The proposed budget is $1,757,926 greater than the current revised 2021 budget of $81,402,575, and includes $2.8 million in ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds. The overall county budget is $150,545,807 and includes the Water Resources Fund, Storm Water Fund, and Special Revenue Funds and Debt Service Funds. Finance Director Mark Lewis, who came to Rockdale County in June from Oregon, following the countys 10-month search for a new chief financial officer, presented the proposed general fund budget. Lewis said budget highlights include: No tax increases In August the BOC approved, for the second year in a row, taking the property tax rollback rate, which keeps property taxes at the same rate they were the year before. The BOC has warned that it will not be able to take the rollback rate again next year. No use of reserve funds to balance the budget. More focus on use of technology. More focus on COVID vaccinations. More focus on economic and infrastructure development. Taxes make up 64% of the revenues in the budget, with HOST revenues paying 25%, charges for services paying 6%, fines and forfeitures paying 3%, ARPA funds paying 1%, and licenses and permits paying 1%. Salaries and benefits make up the majority of the general fund expenditures at 65%. Purchased and contracted services are 22%, supplies are 9%, and indirect costs are 4%. Public Safety, which includes the Sheriffs Office, Fire Rescue, E911, EMA, EMS, Coroner, and Animal Services, has the largest operating budget of $40,733,654, with the Sheriffs Office taking 61% of that. General Government, made up of the Board of Commissioners and 12 departments, gets the next highest portion at $24,370,356. The Maintenance Department gets 24% of it, followed by Finance at 22% and Technology Services at 17%. Court Services receives $8,959,897, with the Clerk of Courts getting 27%, followed by the District Attorney with 21%. Cultural and Recreation, which is made up of Parks and Recreation, Libraries, and Senior Services, receives $5,474,219, with Parks and Recreation receiving 65%. Transportation receives $3,622,374. Following the presentation, Post 2 Commissioner Doreen Williams noted that without the ARPA funds, the 2022 budget would be lower than the current budget. I just did a quick calculation, she said. You know the budget last year was $81.4 million and this year it is $83.1 million. But we have $2.6 million ARPA funds, so I subtracted those ARPA funds from our budget this year, which leaves us with $80.3 million. So without those ARPA funds, our budget is lower than last year. Post 1 Commissioner Sherri Washington stated that the rollback property tax rate the BOC took in August at the request of residents had an impact on this budget in terms of personnel and services and said the county may have to cut some things they done in the past in order to maintain personnel and deliver services. I dont want people to think that everything is rosy in this budget, because it is not, because we made the hard decision to take the rollback rate, and that is also going affect what we can do for our personnel in the future, Washington said. That means that were still below market rate in our pay rates. Were not going to be able to get people up to market rate this year, and thats disheartening. Commission Chair Oz Nesbitt Sr. agreed with Washington that not being able to pay employees the market rate in salaries is very critical in the current workforce climate. We were already trying to find qualified, competent talent before the pandemic, Nesbitt said. Now people are going to have a lot more options, and its really going to make it tough when were not able to keep our employees at market rate, because theyre going to look at what theyre getting paid here in Rockdale County, theyre going to compare it with other entities, counties and businesses, and people have to bring food home and put it on the table, and theyre going to make a decision. My prayer is that we dont lose qualified folks here in Rockdale County. But there is an impact in listening to our citizens regarding the rollback, and we cannot continue to move in that same direction, or there will be an impact on the delivery of services. Theres no way around it. Corliss Turner was the only citizen to speak at the public hearing, and she pleaded with the BOC to bring more commercial businesses into the county rather than continue to put the tax burden on residents. Following is the remaining schedule for the budget hearings: Tuesday, Nov. 9, 10 a.m. First reading of the 2022 Appropriations Ordinance. Tuesday, Dec. 14, 10 a.m. Second reading and adoption of the 2022 Appropriations Ordinance. These meetings will be held in the Assembly Hall located at 901 Main St. in Conyers. A copy of the proposed 2022 Appropriations Ordinance is available for inspection on the Rockdale County Website at www.rockdalecountyga.gov. Rocky Mount, NC (27804) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High 64F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers after midnight. Low 48F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. Rocky Mount, NC (27804) Today A mix of clouds and sun early followed by cloudy skies this afternoon. High 64F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy with occasional showers overnight. Low 47F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. Rutland, VT (05701) Today Mostly cloudy skies with a few showers this afternoon. High 49F. Winds SSE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 30%.. Tonight Periods of rain. Low 42F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. The mayor of Poway is proposing the city build granny flats at its own expense in the backyards of willing property owners as part of a novel way to address the regions affordable housing crisis. Mayor Steve Vaus says the program, dubbed HOMES (Homes On My Extra Space), could become a model for other cities seeking to boost their housing stock to serve low-income renters and homeowners. He is suggesting the city, one of the wealthier communities in San Diego County, begin with five to 10 units as a pilot project. Its an idea, Vaus said, that could potentially expand Poways affordable housing options at a greatly-reduced cost without compromising the character of our neighborhoods. Critics, however, questioned whether the idea was feasible, whether it was a good use of taxpayer money and whether it would create a NIMBY backlash. Others said building a few granny flats was just a gimmick to dodge meaningful ways of increasing affordable housing. Advertisement While I appreciate their trying to increase supply, the idea you can subsidize your way out of this mess is ridiculous, Chris Thornberg, founder of Beacon Economics, a Los Angeles economics consulting company. The City of Poway, the state of California, doesnt have enough money to fix this. Putting a few granny flats in backyards isnt going to cut it. Its too little. Under the proposal to be considered tonight by the Poway City Council, the city would build and pay for the accessory dwelling units in the backyards of property owners who agree to rent them for a specific term, probably in the 10-12 year range. A nonprofit would act as the property manager for the units, screening qualified, low-income tenants and collecting rents. The rental income would be split three ways -- with the property owner getting a third, the nonprofit management company getting a third, and the city getting the rest. At the end of the 10- to 12-year period, the granny flat would be owned by the private property owner without additional costs or obligations. Vaus said he has been told such granny flats each the size of a studio or one-bedroom apartment under 1,000 square feet -- could be built for less than $100,000. Granny flats are being encouraged by the state now, just in terms of general housing, and I thought, why dont we build some ourselves and use them for affordable housing, Vaus said Monday. Early reaction on social network sites raised a variety of objections. Joe St Lucas, a close observer of Poway politics and government, said he was bothered that taxpayer money would be given to homeowners to build an addition. So not only will the homeowner get rent from the unit for 10-12 years, but (they) then get a $100K addition for FREE!!! he wrote on the South and North Poway Votes Facebook page. Others said the proposal seems to favor wealthy Poway residents who have plots large enough to support a granny flat. According to the website statisticalatlas.com, Poway has the highest median household income of all cities in San Diego County, except for the coastal municipalities of Del Mar, Encinitas and Solana Beach, at just under $99,000. The median price of a home in Poway was $770,000 as of December 2018, according to CoreLogic, an analytical property data firm, which is higher than most cities but for the same coastal communities. Poways wealth is concentrated in the northern half of the city where many expensive estate-like homes line well-manicured streets. Those properties are where the granny flats would most likely be built simply because the properties are large enough to support them. The regulations allow them pretty much anywhere, with setbacks, but I would think it would be more appealing to folks with a little more space, Vaus said. City Manager Tina White said the idea is very, very unique. Its going to generate more questions than answers for the other council members and the public, she said. Poway has a number of affordable housing projects in the city with another on the way and a second in the planning stages. Right now, the city claims 692 units citywide, White said. But traditionally, there has always been detractors of affordable home projects, which have always been built in the southern part of the city. Thornberg laughed at the granny flat concept. He said a few granny flats dont even come close to meeting the housing needs of the state and the San Diego area. As opposed to trying to pay poor people to live in backyards, why dont you go and look at land use and allow the development and building of apartments and increase the housing stock? Thornberg said. He said many cities are finding themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rock, he said, is the state which is finally saying enough is enough and starting to sue people, and the hard place is the citys own NIMBY issues. A lot are trying desperately to find something they can lob out there that make it look like theyre doing something without really doing something. Other social media chatter questions who would want a granny flat with low-income housing in their backyards, and even if they did, how would their neighbors react? Poway City Councilman John Mullin said he was intrigued by the idea, but doesnt know how to feel about it yet. I applaud (Vaus) creative thinking and I think its at least worth looking into, Mullin said. There are some that say its a good idea to spread the creation of affordable housing throughout the city, but I can see a number of reasons well, its going to take some investigating. The largest owner-operator of affordable housing units in Poway is Community Housing Works, which owns six affordable housing projects in the city. Its CEO, Susan Reynolds, said she thinks Vaus idea to take this next step to encourage granny flat construction for affordable housing is a great start. I think asking that question is a very powerful beginning and the mayor has a very creative way of how to approach it, she said. Granny flats or mother-in-law units are small, stand-alone housing structures built next to existing larger homes that have their own bathrooms and cooking areas. The county of San Diego, the City of San Diego and several local cities, have relaxed regulations to encourage granny flats. Recently, Encinitas took action to encourage more granny flat construction by agreeing to waive building fees for accessory dwelling projects and to reduce building setback limits so the flat can be placed close to the edge of a property line to increase open area in the middle of the property. Last month, the county Board of Supervisors voted to spend $11 million on a five-year trial program to waive fees to encourage granny flats construction in the unincorporated parts of the county. The program immediately waives building permit fees, on-site wastewater fees and development impact fees, which include transportation fees to add roads and infrastructure, fees to build parks, and drainage fees, for homeowners who want to build granny flats. The cities of San Diego and Oceanside also loosened regulations on accessory dwelling units in 2018. None, however, take the additional step, as Poway is considering, of having the governmental agency build the structures. The council will discuss the issue tonight at a meeting that begins at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at 13325 Civic Center Drive, Poway. jharry.jones@sduniontribune.com; 760/529-4931; Twitter: @jharryjones Sanford, NC (27330) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High 62F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Cloudy with rain developing after midnight. Low 46F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 80%. Thank you for reading! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Maggie Macaulay is the owner of Whole Hearted Parenting, offering coaching, courses and workshops. Contact her at 954-483-8021 or Maggie@Whole Hearted Parenting.com. Visit her website at Whole HeartedParenting.com. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology described their recently published study as the first serious attempt for understanding what it means for both humans and machines, specifically robots, to have social interaction. As specified in a TechCrunch report, politeness does not quantify too much when programmed to get from point A to point B. However, if robots are to play an augmented role in human society, questions appear about how they will get along with others, particularly humans. In the new research paper, Boris Katz, MIT CSAIL research scientist, said robots will live in this world soon enough, and they indeed need to learn how to communicate using human terms. He added these robots need to understand "when it is time to help" and when it's time for them to find out what they can do to prevent an occurrence from taking place. ALSO READ: Infrastructure Technology Can Add the Sense of Touch to AR and VR Experiences 'Realistic and Predictable' Interactions Between Robots The validity of such a claim may be up for a heated discussion. The problem it is attempting to address on a daily stage is undoubtedly roboticists will increasingly regard it as robots start playing an outsized role in people's lives. To develop what the study authors deemed "realistic and predictable" interactions between robots, the authors carried out tests in a simulated environment. In this simulation, one robot is watching another perform a task, tries to identify the goal, and either try to help or impede it in that particular task. In a statement, Ravi Tejwani, a fellow project said, they have opened a new mathematical concept for how the interaction between two agents is modeled. A Relatively Simple 2D Simulation Tejwani explained that if one is a robot and wants to go to "location X, and I am another robot." He sees that the other robot is trying to go to location X; he can show cooperation by helping get to location X quicker. That might mean he continued the fellow project lead, moving X closer, finding another better X, or taking any kind of action needed to take at X. The researchers' new formulation enables the plan to explore the "how"; they specify the "what" in terms of what social interactions mathematically means. The framework is currently a relatively simple 2D simulation. The researchers are moving ahead with the 3D edition while adding a neural network-based reboot planner to enhance the speed with which the robots are learning from such actions. Robots Trained to Socialize A TechXP report specified that in a Bengaluru school, disruptive technologies such as Artificial Intelligence or AI are "infiltrating classrooms or humanoid robots" that teach students and interact with them in the same way that teachers do. According to the Indus International School Chief Design Officer Vignesh Rao, their robots teach approximately 300 children in Classes 7 to 9 each day, in five disciplines and four sessions by turn. The said robots are talking to the pupils and answering queries about the courses, Rao explained. Nonetheless, the five-foot-seven-inch robots, wearing the conventional female outfit, do not replace genuine educators. They supplement them instead in exhibiting examples in the subjects and answering frequently asked questions from understudies. Related information about robot-human interaction is shown on Bani Anvari's YouTube video below: RELATED ARTICLE: Robotic 'Third Thumb' Impact People's Brains, Allows a Person to Do More Check out more news and information on Robotics in Science Times. After receiving an offer in 1977 to become the next president of Scottsdale Community College, the late Dr. Art DeCabooter told his wife, Mary: Well, well try it for a year or so. If we like it, well stay and buy a bigger home with a pool. If not, well go back to the Midwest. NEWARK, N.J. (AP) On a recent sun-drenched morning, the staccato rhythms of a jackhammer ricocheted off buildings as a work crew dug into a Newark street to remove an aging pipe that carried water and potentially a poison to a small apartment building. The new pipe is copper. The old one was lined with lead, which can be harmful to human health even at minute levels. The water service line was one of more than 20,000 made with the toxic metal the city began replacing in 2019 amid public outrage over revelations about high lead levels in the tap water in schools and homes across the city. Less than three years after the work began, the replacement project, initially projected to take up to 10 years, is nearly complete. City residents who switched to bottled water during the crisis are breathing and drinking easier. Newark, once castigated and sued over its sluggish response to the problem, is being held up as a potential national model. Im just happy that its happening and that its finally getting taken care of so we finally get to drink tap water again, Newark resident Cesar Velarde said as he watched the crew work. I have three cases of bottled water right now. I dont drink faucet water no more because of this. The pipe replacement project has been a vindication of sorts for Mayor Ras Baraka, who faced mounting public pressure in 2018 after the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, sued, claiming New Jersey's largest city had failed to adequately monitor lead levels and had downplayed the problem to residents. Deteriorating lead-lined pipes, some a century old, are a problem in many older U.S. cities, a recent example being Benton Harbor, Michigan. But Newark's replacement project proceeded faster than expected, thanks to an infusion of state and local funds and an amendment to state law to protect homeowners from having to bear the cost. Ill feel better when we're completely finished, but I'm excited that were at the end of this thing. It'll be a huge milestone for us," Baraka said last week. Newark's efforts led to the lawsuit being settled last January, and drew praise from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Its a pretty significant turnaround from the early days when the city was denying they had a lead problem, Erik Olson, NRDC senior strategic director for health, said. We are pointing to it as a model for other cities to follow. Theyre doing it much faster than other cities have even tried to do. The NRDC estimated recently that there are as many as 12 million lead service lines in the U.S. Nearly half of all states dont even track the number of lead lines within their borders, they found. Lead in drinking water has been linked to developmental delays in children and can damage the brain, red blood cells and kidneys. The challenge of removing lead from drinking water in the U.S. came into sharp focus after the Flint, Michigan, scandal in which city leaders switched water sources in 2014 to save money. That led to criminal charges, though many later were dropped, and a $641 million settlement for the residents of the poor, majority Black city. The $1 trillion infrastructure plan passed by the House on Friday night and now awaiting President Joe Biden's signature includes $15 billion to replace lead pipes. Several hundred lead lines remain to be replaced in Newark, many connected to buildings that were not accessible earlier in the project. The process can take up to five hours, though many replacements take less time because they involve smaller pipes that can be pulled out and replaced by making a smaller cut in the curbside, said Mark Wleklik, foreperson for Underground Utilities, a company that has done thousands of pipe replacements in Newark. More than 70% of Newark residents are renters, and many of the buildings are owned by limited-liability corporations based elsewhere that can be hard to track down, said Kareem Adeem, director of the citys water and sewer department. Its hard to chase an LLC down to Texas or Missouri or Louisiana or California, Adeem said. The renters always want the line to be replaced, but they dont own the property. That led the Newark City Council to pass an ordinance allowing tenants to provide access to buildings. An amendment to a state law paved the way for public money to be used for the replacements which can cost thousands of dollars per home and Newark was able to borrow $120 million. All those efforts allowed the city of more than 310,000 people to accelerate its line replacements to as many as 120 per day. The city also created a program that trained about 75 unemployed and underemployed residents to work on the line replacement crews, Adeem said. Looking back, Baraka described the confrontation with the Natural Resources Defense Council as tough, tense, with no love lost, but he admitted learning some lessons. We were so busy trying to fight the NRDC, we were having conversations with them and not with the residents, he said. We thought they were wrong and wanted to oversee the city, and we already had oversight. So we were trying to fight that as opposed to being on the offensive and saying, We have this problem, lets go out and fix this. For some, praise for the Newarks accomplishment needs to be taken in context. Yvette Jordan, a teacher and chairperson of the Newark Education Workers Caucus, which joined the lawsuit brought by the resources council, said it was no coincidence that many of the city's actions came at a time when Baraka was seeking reelection and Newark was in the running to become home to Amazon's second headquarters. This showed us that the community must rise up and say something, said Jordan, whose own home showed high levels of lead in its drinking water at one point. Without the community screaming and yelling and saying, We need this, nothing is going to happen. The state and federal government also have to say, Were going to do this and have the political will to do it. Without that political will, without the stars aligning, I dont think you would see Newark as this national model." ___ This story has been corrected to show that the name of the organization that sued Newark is the Natural Resources Defense Council, not the National Resources Defense Council. BEIJING (AP) An early-season snowstorm blanketed much of northern China including the capital Beijing, prompting highway closures and flight and train cancellations and delays. Temperatures plunged to freezing and below as a cold front moved from west to east. A steady, blowing snow fell Sunday in Beijing, the nearby city of Tianjin and northeastern China after hitting parts of Inner Mongolia and other western regions the previous day. The National Meteorological Center issued an orange alert for snowstorms, the second highest level in China's four-tier warning system. Accumulations of more than 30 centimeters (11 inches) were forecast in some areas. Beijing was hit hardest Sunday morning. Several highway sections were closed, bus service was suspended on more than 160 routes and flights were reduced at the city's two major airports, state media said. High-speed trains to Tianjin and Shanghai were canceled or delayed. The skies cleared in the Chinese capital in the afternoon as the storm moved farther east. The snow was a welcome sight at the skiing venues for the Beijing Winter Olympics, which will be held in February next year. Beijing typically has a dry climate, and most of the snow for the competitions is expected to be artificial. The city also said that snow from neighborhoods with COVID-19 cases would not be removed, state media reported. They did not say why, but China has adopted unusually strict measures under a zero-tolerance approach to curb the spread of the virus. In Inner Mongolia, flights were canceled Saturday at the airport in Hohhot, the capital of the Chinese region, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. Also, some expressways were temporarily shut in Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, and farther to the west in Shanxi province, Xinhua said. MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega sought a fourth consecutive term in elections Sunday against a field of little-known candidates while those who could have given him a real challenge sat in jail. Voting was orderly and speedy as voters noted the absence of long lines at more than 13,000 polling places around the country. Voting closed Sunday evening without reported incidents. But U.S. President Joe Biden strongly criticized the vote as a pantomime election that was neither free nor fair, and most certainly not democratic. The run-up to the vote was more eventful. The opposition denounced more arrests of its leaders and activists around the country on the eve of the election. On Sunday, Ortega railed against alleged interference from the United States. The opposition had called on Nicaraguans to stay home in protest of an electoral process that has been roundly criticized as not credible by foreign powers. The election will determine who holds the presidency for the next five years, as well as 90 of the 92 seats in the congress and Nicaraguas representation in the Central American Parliament. More than 4.4 million Nicaraguan age 16 and above were eligible to vote. Ortegas Sandinista Front and its allies control the congress and all government institutions. Ortega first served as president from 1985 to 1990, before returning to power in 2007. He recently declared his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, his co-president. In June, police arrested seven potential presidential challengers on charges that essentially amount to treason. They remained in detention on election day. Some two dozen other opposition leaders were also swept up ahead of the elections. The other contenders on Sunday's ballot were little known politicians from minor parties seen as friendly with Ortega's Sandinista Front. On Saturday, the Blue and White National Union, an opposition alliance, issued an alert after at least eight of its leaders were abducted by the regime in illegal raids Saturday afternoon and evening. The Civic Alliance, another opposition coalition, reported harassment, surveillance, intimidation, assault, attacks, illegal and arbitrary detentions of some of its leaders around Nicaragua. The heads of the police and army said the vote was occurring without incident. Voting through the morning appeared to be calm and without long lines. Voter Mayela Rodriguez found her local voting center at a school in Managua virtually empty. In past years it was really full, she said. Before you had to (wait) in a big line to come here and now, empty. Around midday, Ortega spoke live on television after voting he held up his inked finger. He blasted the United States for interference in Nicaragua, noted there had been alleged fraud in the last U.S. election, reminded that those who stormed the U.S. Capitol were called terrorists and remain jailed. He repeated his claim that the U.S. government supported huge protests in Nicaragua in April 2018, which he has called an attempted coup. They have as much right as we do to open trials against terrorists, Ortega said. The immense majority of Nicaraguans are voting for peace and not for war or terrorism, he said. In a statement released around the close of voting, Biden called the process rigged and said the U.S. would use the tools at its disposal to hold the Nicaraguan government accountable. The Ortega and Murillo family now rule Nicaragua as autocrats, no different from the Somoza family that Ortega and the Sandinistas fought four decades ago, Biden said. One of the first to vote Sunday was Foreign Minister Denis Moncada at a secondary school in the capital. The majority of Nicaraguans are going to elect today Commander Daniel (Ortega), comrade Rosario (Murillo) and the deputies," Moncada said to pro-government news outlets. He said the peaceful vote sends a message to the world powers that Nicaraguans are dignified patriots and we are not going to bend to their threats, sanctions and non-recognition of the elections. Presidential candidate Guillermo Osorno of the small Christian Path party voted early Sunday. He promised that if he defeated Ortega he would change the electoral system and allow election observers. Meanwhile in Costa Rica, hundreds of Nicaraguans living in exile there protested against Ortega's government, calling Sunday's vote an electoral circus and demanding the release of political prisoners. We are protesting against the fraud and asking for justice for those killed, said Kevin Monzon, a young influencer who fled to Costa Rica in late September after receiving threats. With little doubt as to the presidential election result, focus is already turning to what the international response will be as Ortega seeks to tighten his grip on power. The United States and European Union have imposed sanctions against those in Ortegas inner circle, but Ortega responded only by arresting more of his opponents. On Friday, a senior U.S. State Department official, who spoke with reporters on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S. government was willing to consider additional targeted sanctions, but had tried to avoid measures that would more broadly impact the Nicaraguan people. It is very hard when you have a government that has very minimal goals that include remaining in power at any cost and disregarding the will of their own citizens or the needs of the citizens to retain that power, the official said. The Organization of American States will hold its annual general assembly in Guatemala later this week. Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico were among seven countries that abstained from a vote on a resolution last month in the OAS condemning the repression in Nicaragua. The Supreme Electoral Council said the first partial results would be released around midnight. Provisional vote totals were expected Monday. Some 30,000 police and soldiers were deployed to secure voting, according to the government. International observers present for past Nicaraguan elections were not present. Instead, the government accredited 232 electoral companions, mostly from leftist governments and parties. Among them was Dmitry Novikov, representative of Russia's Duma. He visited several polling places and in a news conference said he observed respect for the principal of non interference" and criticized European leaders who questioned the election. Gerardo Berthin, director of Latin American and Caribbean programs for the democracy promotion organization Freedom House, said Sunday the vote was going as scripted by Ortega. This is what they want in terms of showing people voting, even though we know that they have lists actually of people who work for the government and they are checking whos going and who is not, Berthin said. ___ Associated Press writers Christopher Sherman in Mexico City and Javier Cordoba in San Jose, Costa Rica, contributed to this report. BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) A proposal to use $150 million in federal stimulus money to build another pipeline to carry natural gas from the Bakken region to eastern North Dakota will be on the table as state lawmakers convene at the Capitol. Lawmakers plan to divvy up $1 billion from the federal American Rescue Plan Act during the special session, which opens Monday, and the money that leaders hope to set aside for pipeline grants could make the prospect of such a project more attractive to developers. 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. London, KY (40741) Today Partly cloudy early then becoming cloudy with periods of rain this afternoon. High 56F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch.. Tonight Cloudy with occasional rain...mainly this evening. Low around 35F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Thank you for reading! You have reached your 30-day limit of free access to SentinelSource.com, The Keene Sentinels website. If you would like to read two more articles for free at this time, please register for an account by clicking the sign up button below. We hope you find The Sentinels coverage of the Monadnock Region valuable. We rely on our subscribers to bring you strong local journalism and hope you will consider supporting our work by taking advantage of this special subscription offer here. For Tonya Muhammad, who runs Lil Critters Family Daycare in Hawthorne (Los Angeles County), spring 2020 was, in a word, horrible. The early rush on cleaning supplies meant that she and her husband had to crisscross Los Angeles to find disinfectant. But that wasnt the worst of it. Muhammads assistant left, fearing for the health of her grandmother, whom she lived with. That was in March 2020, and Muhammad hasnt been able to find a replacement. Without the watchful eyes of a second adult, shes had to reduce the number of kids she looks after from 14 to six, and has gone from a 24-hour day care to operating from 6 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. She estimates that her income from the day care has fallen by more than half. California lost about 27,800 child care workers between February and April of 2020 or roughly a third of its workforce according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. From then through September of 2021, about 19,600 have come back. Still, the workforce is about 10% smaller than it was pre-pandemic. Even before the pandemic, however, there wasnt enough child care available in California to meet families needs. Labor issues that long bubbled below the surface are now driving acute staffing shortages: low pay, long hours and limited benefits. That makes it hard to earn a living in the industry that supports the rest of the economy. Child care providers find themselves stretching across a gap between what parents are able to afford and the wages they need to offer in order to attract and retain staff. The state of California plays a role here: It reimburses some child care providers who care for low- and moderate-income families, at rates advocates argue have long been too low. In June, a new union representing home child care providers who work with families receiving state subsidies won workers a 15% raise from the state. Still most California child care is provided through the private market. And that system has failed miserably, says Elena Montoya, a senior research and policy associate at UC Berkeleys Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. The current (labor) shortage is a result of placing the burden of paying for child care on parents, rather than acknowledging that child care is a public good, she said. A pandemic was the last thing child care providers needed. Some child care workers quit to take care of their own school-age children, who were suddenly stuck at home. Others left because they were worried about being exposed to the virus. Parents pulled their kids out of day care, leading to budget shortfalls and closures. Federal and state relief funds did help keep child care facilities open. A survey of early childhood educators conducted by the National Association for the Education of Young Children in early summer found that nearly half of the 1,200 respondents in California said they would have had to close were it not for the aid. But the federal funds, said Montoya, are a short-term stopgap to avoid the total collapse of the system. Lots of child care facilities cant fill their job openings. Child care workers earn lower wages than pre-K teachers, who in turn make less than kindergarten teachers, according to data from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at Berkeley. Weve undervalued and underpaid caregiving, said Kristin Schumacher, a senior analyst at the California Budget and Policy Center, for as long as its been a career choice, and this has sexist and racist roots that can be traced back to slavery. The lower pay for child care workers also creates a racial pay disparity among early childhood educators, since Black and Latina women are more likely to work with infants and toddlers than their white peers, says Montoya. Researchers at the Berkeley center calculated that nationally, Black early educators are paid on average 78 cents less per hour than their white counterparts. The wages are so low that many child care workers have side gigs or second jobs to make ends meet. The low wages also mean that child care workers end up on public assistance. In 2018, the Berkeley center found that 58% of child care workers families in California are on one or more public assistance programs, like CalFresh. Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts. One factor holding down child care providers wages: the state reimbursement rate for care to low- and moderate-income families. The state uses two rates, depending on the subsidy program. One, known as the regional market rate, is used to subsidize care for parents who have lower incomes and are working or seeking employment. That rate is based on a state study of what child care providers in different regions charge families. But the market rate isnt necessarily representative of how much child care providers actually need; it reflects what they think they can reasonably charge parents who are already, in many cases, paying more than they can afford. The regional market rate also is often out of date. The state conducts the market analysis every couple of years; right now, California is reimbursing some child care providers based on numbers from 2018. Child care has been underfunded for so long, said Nina Buthee, executive director of Every Child California, that rate increases need to be huge to make a difference. Making the system whole in California would cost about a billion dollars, she said. Harmit Pabla, who owns Genius Kids, a child care center in Sacramento County that serves more than 100 kids, has had six of his staff of 16 leave over the last year. Three left for reasons directly related to the pandemic, and three found different jobs. Hes getting inquiries from parents about openings, but he said hes not accepting more children because he cant find staff. Muhammad is planning her exit. Once she winds down her child care business, shell be relying on her other gigs consulting, a child care course and book she wrote, a hotline she runs to answer providers questions, speaking gigs and more. It will take some time to make sure those projects bring in enough steady income. I wish it was yesterday, she said, but Im giving myself a year. Grace Gedye writes for CalMatters, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics. Regarding Progressive prosecutor quits, joins D.A. recall (Bay Area, Oct. 24): Heather Knights column omits crucial facts. First, not a single person was interviewed regarding Brooke Jenkins self-description as a progressive prosecutor. I am certain there are some who would beg to differ. She is certainly effective, that is not the same thing as being progressive. Second, I assisted the lawyer who defended Daniel Gudino. What is omitted from Knights piece is that Gudino, first diagnosed in 2013, had a documented history of mental illness and hospitalizations. Three psychiatrists said he was not guilty by reason of insanity at the time. Third, Ms. Jenkins first agreed to let the judge try the sanity phase, but when she realized the judge probably was going to find Gudino not guilty by reason of insanity, she reversed course and said she wanted a jury to try the sanity phase. It was only after the 7-5 hung jury that District Attorney Chesa Boudin stepped in. Fourth, the ex-husband of Gudinos late mother, his brother and sister all wanted Daniel to go to state hospital. The voices of the family and Gudinos public defender are absent. Fifth, Ms. Jenkins was copied on the email asking her supervisor and Boudin to stipulate to not guilty by reason of insanity rather than retry the sanity phase. Finally, prosecutors under Boudin are winning murder verdicts. (The Gudino guilty verdict was the second guilty verdict in a murder case in 30 days.) It is a disservice to Chronicle readers to publish on topical issues that are coming before voters without a portrayal of all the facts. Rebecca Young, senior trial attorney, homicide unit, San Francisco Public Defenders Office Real estate agents earn it Regarding On real estate sales tech disruptions fall not a shock (Open Forum, Nov. 5): As a recovering Realtor, I got a big chuckle from the opinion piece by Matthew Fleischer on how he beat the Redfin algorithm and got a great price for his Los Angeles property. Often, my friends have bewailed their experiences as buyers or sellers, vowing that the real estate industry is ripe for disruption. But it just aint so. As the Redfin employee assured Fleischer, noncorporate parties to real estate transactions are emotional. At minimum, the agent must do hand-holding. In some cases, I have had to consult a psychologist when my clients appeared to be having a mental breakdown over the pressures of the deal. Human real estate agents are needed. This is not to excuse the reprehensible history of the industry the redlining, racism and self-dealing. Where I take issue with Fleischers assessment regarding the 5%-6% standard commission typically divided by two, for the sellers and buyers agents. Folks, those agents earn every penny. After one memorable short-sale, I did the numbers and saw that I had earned $1.28 per hour. Apparently 80% of real estate agents quit within two years. After 10 years I retired, when my daughter exclaimed, Mom, this business is toxic for you! Amelia Marshall, Oakland Stop the time changes Lets make Sunday, Nov. 7, the last time we have to go through this insane ritual of changing the time on our clocks by one hour. In November 2018 over 59% of voters approved Prop. 7 to encourage the state Legislature to approve changing the time in California to permanent Daylight Savings Time and then send that legislation to Congress to approve. The Legislature did not do their part. If you want to be done with changing your clocks twice a year, please contact your state senator and Assembly representative to implore them to take up this legislation. Or better yet, approve a bill to exempt California from daylight savings, which can be done without Congressional approval. Lets end this madness now. Charlotte Seekamp, South San Francisco Make him St. Posey One knelt before the altar, the other behind the plate. However, I am more comfortable with the canonization of Buster Posey by Giants fans than with that of Junipero Serra, who was, after all, a padre. There are few ways to die that elicit as much fear as being burned alive. Still, a handful of people have purposely set themselves ablaze, not as an act of suicide, but as the most powerful political statement a human being can make. The most well-known of these incidents happened in the middle of a busy intersection in downtown Saigon on June 11, 1963, when Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc sat cross-legged and motionless as his flesh melted from his bones. President John F. Kennedy announced soon after: No news picture in history has generated so much emotion around the world as that one. You might not be aware that a similar incident happened here in the United States on June 26, 2018, when a 58-year-old Air Force veteran and Veterans Affairs Department health care patient named John Watts walked onto the front lawn of the Georgia Capitol building in Atlanta, doused himself in gasoline and ignited a homemade vest fixed with highly flammable fireworks. Gasoline burns at temperatures up to 1,800 degrees. Third-degree burns begin when the skin is exposed to temperature exceeding 160 degrees. (The white phosphorus mortar rounds that our country dropped on people in Afghanistan and Iraq burned at over 5,000 degrees.) Watts died later the same day at Grady Memorial Hospital with third-degree burns over 90% of his body. He couldnt speak a single word before he passed. His Veterans Affairs medical records have never been released to the public and his family has never spoken about Watts grievances with the department. But I know why John Watts is dead. I know why he did the same thing that an average of about 20 veterans do each day, according to a recent study conducted by researchers at Brown University. Since the War on Terrorism began in 2001, there have been 30,177 veteran suicides, compared to 7,057 soldiers killed in combat. Something to think about before you or your child sign that dotted enlistment line: a soldier, sailor, airmen or Marine is four times more likely to die by their own hand than by the enemys. Of the 15 federal executive branch departments, Veterans Affairs received the third-most funding in 2021 at $243.3 billion behind only the Defense Department and the Department of Health and Human Services. This department is singularly tasked with handling veteran affairs including taking care of the health and mental health of those injured during their service. So how is an entity that receives close to a quarter of a trillion dollars a year letting our veterans die in such staggering numbers? If my experience is any indication, incompetence bordering on criminality is the answer. I left the military in May 2006 after serving in the infantry for four years and doing three tours with the Armys 82nd Airborne Division. I began receiving regular care from the VA almost three years ago for combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder. It hasnt gone well. Im the first to admit that I waited way too long to seek the help I needed the very day I left active duty. But I was intently discouraged from doing so. In the last few weeks before my end of service date, my platoon sergeant, first sergeant and company commander all stressed the importance of getting one last physical evaluation. Any problems residing in the mind were looked upon, at best, as an inevitability of the profession we all knowingly signed up for. But none of us really knew what we were getting ourselves into. I volunteered to fight what I thought were legitimate terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks. I didnt volunteer to shoot farmers or stage raids at weddings and funerals. I didnt sign up to invade and illegally occupy Iraq. I didnt volunteer to run assassination missions during my last tour in Ramadi. I didnt sign up for what the United States asked me to do. Yet, for years, I fought the notion that I needed help. For whatever reason, perhaps institutional conditioning, I thought it my duty to silently live with what I had done. It was only after three of my veteran friends took their own lives and after countless nights of considering doing the same that I finally sought help through the Oakland Veterans Affairs office. But, as I learned, asking for help from the VA didnt actually mean I would get it. It took a little over a year before I was even evaluated for PTSD, after which point Veterans Affairs admitted I had the disorder but deemed it unrelated to my combat experience. This was before President Obama eventually made the process for veterans claiming PTSD much easier. In the Bush years, you had to have Cormac McCarthy levels of macabre in your service record to be diagnosed with the disorder. The questionnaire to determine if I was ill gave me three blank pages to write about my experiences. That wasnt even close to enough so I wrote about what I considered the three most traumatic incidents in my military career. On the first page, I wrote about when my squad was ambushed in Ramadi, and my vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive and immediately disabled. The ensuing 30-minute firefight was part of a coordinated enemy attack. Trapped and immobilized by an enemy lying in wait, those were undoubtedly among the most terrifying moments of my life. The second page was dedicated to the time I saw five of my fellow soldiers burned alive in a Humvee when the incendiary grenades inside cooked off, quite literally melting everyone inside. I dont remember if the third page was dedicated to the beheading of our Afghan interpreter in 2003 or to the boy we shot on his way to our medical tent after a stray mortar round ripped a hole through his intestines. Whatever I wrote about, it apparently wasnt enough for the VA. Maybe I should have mentioned the kidnappings. The illegal killings. The way our convoys never slowed down after running over children. Or the young girls soliciting their starving bodies for food. Maybe then, Veterans Affairs would have classified my PTSD to be combat related. It took years before my appeal was eventually accepted, and my disorder was found to be service connected. This meant I could finally get free treatment from the VA. Fast forward a few years, and Im on a cocktail of four psychiatric medications that keep me in the delicate balance I need to live a life resembling a normal human being. My panic attacks and anxiety are so bad that I actually need two medications to ensure that I dont suffer from shock-induced seizures. I always thought these facts would supersede whatever bureaucratic nonsense might stand in the way of picking up my prescriptions. But last month, when the Korean War veteran in front of me was told he would have to wait to receive his blood pressure medication because their system was having problems I knew I was in trouble. Even after the spindly old man in brown slacks explained that two days without his pills left him at a high risk of death from heart attack or stroke, the disinterested cherub-faced pharmacist, who had quite obviously never served a day of his life in the military, said without ever looking up: Were doing the best we can. He then raised his head from the safety of his plexiglass partition with his cell phone resting in his left hand and gave what could only have been interpreted as a grin. I wont name names, but the young man wore a name tag that pedantically announced himself as a recipient of an MBA, a degree that could not be less related to administering health care and medications to veterans. If the Oakland VA intends to run its office like a business, it is an epic failure. Instead, they have created an environment of overworked and underpaid staff members who have relinquished whatever sense of duty they may have once had in favor of going through obligatory motions. And thats fine if you work at Taco Bell or Walmart. But its not OK if you willingly accept the responsibility of caring for the people who have sacrificed the most. On this particular day, the office made a mistake for which they refused to accept responsibility, and I refused to bear the burden of their mistake. They tried to wait me out. I had an hour-and-a-half break in the middle of my day and they used every bit of that time ignoring me and everyone else in the growing line snaking down the hall behind me. The MBA eventually sauntered to the window where the prescriptions are handed out and told me hed be right back. He didnt return for 48 minutes. I waited as long as I could before I had to go back to work. As I left, the police showed up. Well, one officer. Approaching my car on foot, he waved for me to stop. I rolled down my window and we greeted each other. You know there is a serious problem when my associations with the police who were called to investigate me are immeasurably better than with the employees of the Veterans Affairs office. The gracious officer asked me where and when I served. We then shared in a laugh that the pharmacist had alerted him for the simple reason that I forcibly knocked on their door on my way out. While the officer joked about the idea of knocking on a door being an illegal act, I couldnt help but think how grossly irresponsible it was for them to call the police on a patient in these circumstances. I couldnt help but think what might have happened had I been a few more days off my pills, or sadly, if I wasnt a clean cut professionally dressed white man. The officer sympathized with my plight and took down my information. He gave me his name and told me to return to the VA after I was off work, and to give him a heads up on his cell phone. Hed personally retrieve my medications and deliver them to me by hand. That evening, he did exactly what he said he would do and I walked away with a feeling that at least some public service members actually care about the people they volunteered to serve. I wonder what happened to that old Korean War veteran in front of me that day? Did he make it long enough for a fix to the clerical errors that deprived us of our medications? What would my fate have been if I hadnt been so stubborn? If I hadnt refused to leave without the medications my doctor prescribed me? How long would I have waited with gritted teeth, hoping my physiological dependence didnt cause me to stroke out? And if I did die, or if that old Korean War vet died, who would tell our stories? Would we ever be known to our country as anything more than a single black mark on a piece of white paper? The war didnt kill us. But I often fear the VA will. Joseph Holsworth is a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is the author of two novels and holds a masters in fine arts in writing from California College of the Arts. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors controversial decision to reject a 495-unit apartment complex has become a key issue in what will become one of the hottest races in the Bay Area and likely California over the next few months: the special election to replace David Chiu in the Assembly. For San Francisco voters, the question provides a crucial way to differentiate between the two big-name candidates in the race Supervisor Matt Haney and former Supervisor David Campos both of whom are progressive Democrats, likely to agree on many of the decisions theyd be faced with in the Assembly. They are on opposite sides of this project. For every other Californian, it is a gut check for what to consider when responding to one of the states biggest problems: the high cost of housing. Haney supports the South of Market project, which would be in his district. It would have provided 73 affordable units on-site and 45 off-site on a piece of land on Stevenson Street that is currently a valet parking lot for Nordstrom shoppers. He pointed out that it included units for families, is a few blocks from BART and construction, would have provided 1,000 union jobs. No, its not perfect, he told me. But these are the types of tough decisions you have to make during a crisis. As my colleague Heather Knight pointed out, no proposal for a 100% affordable project at the site exists. We have a homelessness crisis, a housing affordability crisis and a climate crisis. All of those things require us to build more housing, Haney said. We need more affordable housing for sure, and this project has over 100 units of that. And we need more housing at all levels. Right now, this is a Nordstrom valet parking lot. Its not serving any purpose for the community, Haney said. Campos disagreed. He said his views on building housing have evolved since he served on the Board of Supervisors from 2008 to 2016 and proposed a moratorium on the construction of market rate housing in the Mission District. (The board rejected it.) Now, he points to how he shepherded the building of 4,500 units of supportive and low-income housing when he served as Santa Clara Countys deputy county executive a few years ago. I have changed in the sense that I have a better understanding of the need for all kinds of housing because of the work in Santa Clara County, he said. Instead, Campos said his opposition to the Stevenson project is rooted in something more personal. He was born in Guatemala and came to the U.S. when he was 14 years old, carrying his 5-year-old sister on his shoulders as he, his mother and another younger sister crossed the border illegally. They joined his dad, and the five of them settled in a one-room apartment in South Central Los Angeles smaller than most peoples living rooms, Campos told me. The place was plagued by mold, rodents and roaches. The neighborhood outside was dangerous too. Campos said he was mugged several times on the way to school and back. The family worried constantly about his mother, who worked at night as a janitor. But his family didnt complain. Like many poor and immigrant families with few housing options, they were afraid to speak up especially after they saw their neighbors get evicted after complaining. Campos said he saw his familys experience reflected in the low-income neighborhoods around San Franciscos Sixth Street, near where the proposed project was located. People talk about this being a parking lot, and yes, it's a parking lot, Campos told me. And we definitely need to have housing built on that parking lot. But there is a very real fear of displacement of the people who live around it. And these are folks who are very low income who are struggling, and in many respects remind me of my family and my experience, he said. That human element is being lost, said Campos, who is vice chair of the California Democratic Party and is on leave from his job as chief of staff for San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin so he can focus on the race. It was wrong to frame the boards opposition as being anti-housing, he said. I dont think that it's anti-housing to be anti-displacement. Campos said he didnt have an exact number on how many people could be displaced through the gentrification that he believes the project will bring. In a post on his campaign site last week, he wrote that the surrounding neighborhood is home to one of the remaining Filipino-American communities in San Francisco. Haney said he respects (Campos) journey. And while Im not suggesting I have a similar story, he said he moved 12 times before he was 15 years old, while being raised by his mom in the East Bay, sometimes because the rent went up. Our experiences are different, but I have experienced housing insecurity in the rental market and the instability that it can cause, said Haney, who if elected would be one of few renters serving in the Legislature. He lives in a rent-controlled apartment in the Tenderloin. If people have gentrification concerns, Haney said, they should help by building more housing and neighborhoods across the city and the state. That doesn't mean we stop this project. Haney said that most of the low-income people living in the surrounding neighborhoods are in protected housing situations. They live in either supportive housing or rent-controlled units. Rent in these buildings is not able to shoot up because of a new housing development across the street, Haney said. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a former San Francisco supervisor who has been one of Sacramentos leading advocates for finding ways out of the housing crisis, agreed that low-income residents living near the proposed project would be protected. While Wiener said he has a lot of respect for David they have known each other for 28 years since their days at Harvard Law School we just have a disagreement on this one. He sides with Haney. What causes gentrification and displacement is when you have a profound housing shortage and the cost of housing goes through the roof, Wiener told me. Continuing San Franciscos dysfunctional approach to housing will continue to lead to displacement and gentrification. Two of the lesser-known candidates in the race agreed that Stevenson should have been approved. Thea Selby, a City College of San Francisco board trustee and small business owner, pointed out that San Francisco is expected to be required to build roughly 82,000 housing units over the next decade and about 40% must be low-income, according to regional housing targets. We have to change the way were thinking about things and figure out how were going to get to yes, Selby said. Bilal Mahmood, a startup founder, said that like Campos, he identifies with the plight of immigrants. His parents and grandparents immigrants from Pakistan and brother jammed into a one-bedroom Stanford student housing apartment while his father studied at the university for a couple of years on a student visa three decades ago. Affordable housing was necessary to enable his family to survive those early days, Mahmood told me. If my parents came here today, they would not be able to afford the cost of rent. But, Mahmood said, the thing to emphasize here is that were talking about a parking lot. Not an existing building, not an existing apartment. Im obviously very concerned about gentrification as well, but thats not an issue here. Wiener hasnt backed a candidate in the race. But he is sure that housing will be part of this race from beginning to end, as it should be. Its such a huge issue. Not just in San Francisco, but throughout the state. Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli Filipa Ioannou/The Chronicle San Franciscos Hayes and Ashbury streets rang with gunfire late Saturday, marking the second time in three days that an area near the citys Haight-Ashbury neighborhood witnessed a shooting. According to San Francisco police, officers responded to a call of shots being fired at 11:21 p.m. and were met by a victim who had interrupted an alleged residential burglary in progress. The brutal murder of a Bay Area woman, unsolved for over 40 years, is being actively investigated again in Hawaii. Valerie Ann Warshay, 26, had recently earned a master's degree in exercise physiology from Columbia and moved to California to accept a job with the state park system. She was living in El Granada near Half Moon Bay when she decided to take an extended hiking trip to Hawaii. "She was a crazy fanatic hiker, a very physical sort of person," her boyfriend told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald at the time. "We hiked the entire coast from where we are in Santa Cruz and god knows how many miles through the mountains." In late March 1978, she arrived on the Big Island for her solo vacation. But Warshay, a social butterfly, soon made many friends as she journeyed around Hilo. During the day, she would take hikes up Mauna Loa and other beauty spots, and at night she would return to her campsite at Harry K. Brown Park in Kalapana; park rangers noted she was always careful to have the proper permits. On the night of April 22, Warshay spent the evening with some newfound friends at Kamoamoa, where they partook in a "jam session for music lovers," as the Tribune-Herald put it. Around 10 p.m., she headed back to her campsite. She was approached by two men who asked her if she would stay out with them, but she reportedly declined. In the morning, a young girl picnicking with her family discovered Warshay's unclothed body at her coconut grove campsite. Warshay was dead from severe blows to the head; her belongings were found nearby, suggesting robbery was not the motive. In 1980, Hawaii media reported police were "certain" they'd solved the murder. "Police feel certain they know who killed Warshay," the Tribune-Herald reported. "Their suspect has since been convicted in another murder of a young woman and is serving a life sentence in Oahu Prison." That suspect was Stephen Ray Simpson, who lived in Fern Forest at the time of two 1978 murders on the Big Island. Simpson was found guilty of strangling Hilo College student Mary Catherine Drapp, but he was never put on trial for Warshay's slaying. Now, Hawaii police are seeking any new leads in the case. Anyone with information or who met Warshay during her 1978 hiking trip are asked to contact Detective Derek Morimoto at 808-961-2380 or via email at Derek.Morimoto@hawaiicounty.gov. Individuals wishing to remain anonymous can call the Crime Stoppers number at 808-961-8300. In 2006, my mom had the idea that she would try all of the flavors on the board at Mitchells Ice Cream over the course of the summer. It was bold because there are 40 different flavors at any given time at the beloved ice cream parlor at 688 San Jose Ave., and since we lived nearby, it wasnt out of the question. She tried but failed. Thats OK, though, because Mitchells Ice Cream has been around since 1953, and they have been making their ice cream the same exact way since day one. The flavors that she missed out on are mostly still there, and if they aren't, others will suffice. But one flavor that will never leave the board is mango. Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE Mitchells was the first ice cream shop to bring Filipino and other Southeast Asian flavors to San Francisco, bringing with it a customer base that has supported them through thick and thin. Mango was the draw, but an influx of Filipino immigrants in the 1970s was the catalyst that made Mitchells what it is today. We really skyrocketed, co-owner Brian Mitchell said. Production just tripled. Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE Located on the ground floor of a three-story apartment building, today Mitchells is known for its tight store quarters as much as it is its ice cream. Its common to see a line formed around the block while patrons take a numbered ticket and wait for their number to be called before piling into the store like sardines to yell out their order at an ice cream scooper. In 1865, the Mitchell family traversed the country from New York to California and finally settled in San Francisco. The first family business was a dairy farm on the westerly hills of Noe Valley, but after Edward Mitchell died near the turn of the 20th century, his wife sold the dairy farm and got into the apartment business. She designed the building that still houses Mitchell's to this day. Two of her children, Jack and Larry, had a penchant for ice cream from a young age. Their favorite parlor growing up was the now-defunct Garretts on Alemany Boulevard. In 1953, they decided to take that love and turn it into a business. In those days, the dairy companies would help small parlors get off the ground by teaching basic recipes and introducing the owners to different flavor profiles. Brian Mitchell said he thinks that on opening day, Mitchells had between 12 and 15 flavors. They were the basics chocolate, vanilla, mint chip, strawberry but in 1965, the brothers would start experimenting, debuting mango and other flavors popular in Southeast Asian cuisine thanks to a regular customer. Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE Emerson Clark got to know Larry and Jack, and he offered them something they didnt know they would want a connection to the Philippines and other countries around the South China Sea. As an import broker, Clark introduced the brothers to the owner of Gina Corporation (which Brian Mitchell still buys from). He brought them mangoes, purple yam (or ube), young coconut (or buko) and other fruits from that part of the world. "Instead of saying 'No, not interested,'" Mitchell explained, "they said, 'OK, well try the mango." Initially, it was not a moneymaker. But by 1970, sales of the tropical flavors spiked as droves of people arrived in San Francisco from the Philippines between 1965 and 1974. The U.S. Immigration Act of 1965 removed stringent caps on immigration by country of origin, allowing people from the Philippines to create a new life for themselves in America, three decades after they were effectively banned from migrating. Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE By 1977, Filipino immigrants had created a small community for themselves in the Excelsior district for themselves, according to SFHeritage.com. The Excelsior, only a short distance from Mitchells, was an easy drive down the southern end of Mission Street, below Cesar Chavez, then known as Army Street. They found out we had their native fruits, and then we had a whole new clientele group, Mitchell explained. And let me tell you, they bought in force. My dad and uncle had hit a vein. They said to themselves Were onto something. Business became so good that Mitchells began wholesaling to a select group of Filipino-owned mom-and-pop stores and restaurants. Everyone in the San Francisco Filipino community wanted Mitchells ice cream. To them, it tasted like home. Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE Even as a small, family-run business, the Mitchell family has never skimped on quality. In ice cream production, it all comes down to butterfat. While most ice cream parlors use 14% butterfat to save on cost, Mitchell said, Mitchells uses 16% butterfat. Even when the butter market skyrocketed over the years, we never compromised, Mitchell said. Our customers know the creaminess. Thats what were known for. If you change it, thats how you lose your customers. The other secret that has kept them alive? Staying small. There were so many [other] ice cream shops that tried to expand with two or three stores, but they all fell by the wayside, Mitchell said. Thats why we remained small. We do good volume, we just keep at it so we can take care of our customers and our crew. Patricia Chang/Special to SFGATE Marlon Payumo is part of that crew. He emigrated from the Philippines to the United States in 1987. He is from Subic, in the Zambales province, and he made his way to San Francisco in 1988 and found Mitchells shortly thereafter. It was his first job in his new city. Now the general manager, Payumo worked his way up from the bottom of the Mitchells organization through hard work and loyalty. Its a lot of hard work, which Im used to anyway, Payumo said, but I feel like Ive been acknowledged. They acknowledged me and my hard work. Payumo even met his wife at Mitchells Wanda is also a general manager within the company. Days before this interview, Brian Mitchell, his sister Linda (also a co-owner) and other members of the management team treated the Payumos and a few others to a dinner at House of Prime Rib for their decadeslong service to the family company, including more than three decades for Payumo. The secret to Mitchells longstanding success isnt chocolate, strawberry and vanilla. Its buko, the family commitment to the legacy started by Jack and Larry Mitchell; ube, serving some of the creamiest ice cream in San Francisco thanks to the higher butterfat content; and mango, the Filipino community that adores Mitchells. BALTIMORE (AP) Two weekend homicides were reported in Baltimore, police said, adding to a recent string of violence within Marylands largest city. Police said officers found a 40-year-old man with gunshot wounds on the citys west side late Saturday afternoon. He later died at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Medical Center. Officers were alerted to gunfire in the area through the citys electronic shot location system. JACKSON, Miss. (AP) Mississippi is running behind many other states in deciding how to spend billions of federal dollars for pandemic relief. Congress allocated $1.8 billion for Mississippi through the American Rescue Plan, and the first half of the money arrived in the state treasury in May, weeks after legislators finished their 2021 session. The federal government says American Rescue Plan money may only be spent on certain expenses. Those include public health, including COVID-19 mitigation; addressing economic harms that the pandemic has caused for businesses; replacing state government revenue that was lost because of the pandemic; providing premium pay for essential workers; and investing in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure. Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said it's imperative that the money go to transformational projects." The legacy for the Legislature this year, and for everybody that's in it or works there, is how we spend that money, Hosemann said Oct. 28 at Hobnob, a gathering hosted by the state Chamber of Commerce, Mississippi Economic Council. Cities and counties are also receiving millions of federal dollars for pandemic relief. Hosemann said spending the money effectively could help businesses prosper today and ensure children have someplace to come home and work" once they're grown. If we do this right, if we're able to match our cities and counties with things that go in the ground, not for one or two years but for one or two generations, we will have a tremendous asset going forward, Hosemann said. Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley, a Democrat, wrote in a recent newspaper column that Mississippi needs to invest pandemic relief money in projects that could boost people's quality of life, including expansion of broadband access and improvement of water systems. Like all programs, theres some wiggle room on expenditures, but now isnt the time to get cute and cocky with these dollars, Presley wrote. He said frontline pandemic workers deserve extra pay, and the state should help businesses hurt by a decrease in tourism. These funds have a very limited focus and leaders must be extra responsible with them, realizing that they are one-time funds that may never come around again, Presley wrote. We simply cannot bend over backwards to skirt and stretch guidelines for a wish list of questionable pet projects while ignoring the real intent of the funds. Hosemann has appointed a Senate subcommittee to lead discussions on spending the pandemic relief money. He named Republican Sen. John Polk of Hattiesburg as chairman. The other members are Republican Sens. Dennis DeBar of Leakesville, Walter Michel of Ridgeland, Rita Potts Parks of Corinth and Bart Williams of Starkville; and Democratic Sens. Albert Butler of Port Gibson and Hillman Frazier of Jackson. Senators will work with House members on any spending plans. Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn has made clear that he also wants the pandemic relief money to go toward projects that provide long-term improvements not short-term fixes. Even as legislators prepare to spend the federal money, they are starting to work on the state budget for the year that begins next July 1. That brings a complex series of questions about priorities, including promises by many leaders to increase teachers' pay. Without even taking the federal pandemic relief money into account, Mississippi has had robust state tax collections in recent months. According to the Legislative Budget Office, tax collections exceeded expectations by more than $258 million for the first three months of the budget year, which began July 1. Hosemann told the Hobnob audience that the bounce in state tax collections is awesome. In the next breath, he warned: It wont last. ____ Emily Wagster Pettus has covered Mississippi government and politics since 1994. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus. NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) The withered carcasses of livestock are reminders that drought has descended yet again in northern Kenya, the latest in a series of climate shocks rippling through the Horn of Africa. As world leaders address a global climate summit in Glasgow, pastoralists watch their beloved animals suffer from lack of water and food. Yusuf Abdullahi says he has lost 40 goats. If they die, we all die, he says. Kenyas government has declared a national disaster in 10 of its 47 counties. The United Nations says more than 2 million people are severely food insecure. And with people trekking farther in search of food and water, observers warn that tensions among communities could sharpen. Wildlife have begun to die, too, says the chair of the Subuli Wildlife Conservancy, Mohamed Sharmarke. The heat on the ground tells you the sign of starvation were facing, he says. Experts warn that such climate shocks will become more common across Africa, which contributes the least to global warming, but will suffer from it most. We do not have a spare planet in which we will seek refuge once we have succeeded in destroying this one, the executive director of East Africas Intergovernmental Authority on Development, Workneh Gebeyehu, said last month while opening a regional early warning climate center in Kenyas capital, Nairobi. Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta agreed. Africa, while currently responsible for a negligible amount of total global greenhouse gas emissions, is under significant threat from climate change, he said at the centers opening. The continent is responsible for just 4% of global emissions. Kenyatta was among the African leaders speaking at the global climate summit as they urged more attention and billions of dollars in financial support for the African continent. ___ Follow AP's climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate ATHENS, Ga. (AP) Athens PRIDE is set to return with a week of events after having been canceled last year because of the coronavirus pandemic. The festivities kick off Monday and wrap up Nov. 14 with a big outdoor celebration at Terrapin Beer Company, the Athens Banner-Herald reported. The traditional parade was canceled early in the planning when the coronavirus delta variant was surging. SYDNEY (AP) Police in western Australia on Sunday called off a search for a swimmer who was attacked by a shark. The wife of Paul Millachip, 57, said she was with him at the Port Beach in the suburb of Perth on Saturday morning when two teenagers on a boat witnessed the shark attack. It came out of the blue. But it did happen, you just have to deal with it, the wife said, asking not to have her name published. She praised the teenagers who tried to help. When the shark attacked a second time, they raced their boat and alerted other swimmers to get out of the water. Police said earlier the attack may have involved more than one shark, but witnesses said it appeared to be a 4 1/2-meter (15-foot) great white. Police said there was an extensive marine search for the father of two, which turned up a pair of goggles believed to belong to him. A family is now grieving, a man has lost his life. Its a terribly sad situation, West Australia Premier Mark McGowan said. The most recent fatal shark attack in Australia was on Sept. 5 in New South Wales state on the eastern coast. SAN DIEGO (AP) Communities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are preparing for heavy traffic and long waits at ports of entry on Monday when the U.S. will reopen its land borders to nonessential travel after almost 20 months of COVID-19 restrictions. Travel across land borders from Canada and Mexico has been largely restricted to workers whose jobs are deemed essential. New rules will allow fully vaccinated foreign nationals to enter the U.S. regardless of the reason. MADISON, Wis. (AP) Prosecutors trying to convict Kyle Rittenhouse of murder have been working to paint him as an inexperienced teenager who misrepresented his age and medical training to other armed civilians in his group on the night he shot three men during a protest against police brutality in Wisconsin last year. Assistant District Attorney Thomas Binger has drawn out testimony during the first week of Rittenhouse's trial from several witnesses, including two military veterans, saying the Illinois teen appeared inexperienced, that he falsely claimed that he was old enough to possess a gun and that he was a certified medic when he was really just a lifeguard. Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor and attorney in Chicago who isnt involved in the case, said Binger is trying to show jurors that Rittenhouse didn't know what he was doing and that they shouldn't believe his self-defense claims. In terms of how he reacted, they want to show it in context that he's young and he's not experienced and would be more likely to perceive (the protest) as a more threatening situation (than an older person), Turner said. A younger guy is going to think this guy is going to hurt me when really it's not true. Rittenhouse brought a semi-automatic rifle to the protest in Kenosha in August 2020. The city on the Wisconsin-Illinois border was in the throes of several nights of chaotic demonstrations after a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, who was resisting arrest during a domestic dispute. Rittenhouse was 17 years old at the time and said he had gone to Kenosha to protect downtown businesses from looters. Just before midnight, he shot Joseph Rosenbaum, killing him, after Rosenbaum chased him into a parking lot. Bystander video shows a crowd chasing Rittenhouse down the street. In a matter of seconds an unidentified man tried to kick him in the head, Anthony Huber hit him in the head with a skateboard and Gaige Grosskreutz charged him with a pistol. Rittenhouse fired at the man who kicked him but missed, shot and killed Huber and wounded Grosskreutz in the arm. Prosecutors have charged Rittenhouse with multiple counts, including homicide and being a minor in possession of a firearm. Rittenhouse has argued that he shot the men in self-defense. That means his attorneys must persuade jurors that he reasonably believed his life was in danger and that the amount of force he used was reasonable. Binger maintains that Rittenhouse was the aggressor and overreacted to the situation. Ryan Balch, a former U.S. Army soldier who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, testified Thursday that he traveled to Kenosha on the night of the shootings armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a pistol to help protect businesses, and that he met Rittenhouse there. Balch later told FBI investigators that Rittenhouse seemed very interested in him and his military deployments. He said Rittenhouse told him that he was 19 and a certified emergency medical technician; he was actually a lifeguard at a recreational complex in nearby Pleasant Prairie, which is between Kenosha and Rittenhouses hometown of Antioch, Illinois. He seemed like a young and impressionable kid, Balch said. He seemed a little under-equipped and under-experienced as well, which is one of the reasons we kind of stayed with him. Balch did not say why he felt Rittenhouse was under-equipped. Balch said he kept an eye on Rittenhouse throughout the evening, protecting him as Rittenhouse walked around shouting that he was a medic and could help anyone who was injured. Balch recounted one protester insulting Rittenhouse with profanity and Rittenhouse yelling back I love you, too, ma'am. Balch said he told him not to respond because it would only antagonize the crowd further. That's when I told him, 'hey, don't say that,' Balch testified. It can cause somebody to escalate the situation if they feel like you're making fun of them a little bit. So, just wasn't needed. Former Marine Jason Lackowski testified Friday that he also traveled to Kenosha armed with a semi-automatic rifle and a knife to protect businesses. He said Rittenhouse introduced himself and said he was an emergency medical technician. Rittenhouse didn't say how old he was, but Lackowski testified that he thought Rittenhouse was at least 18 because minors can't possess firearms in Wisconsin and he thought a person had to be 18 to get an EMT license. He went on to testify that Rosenbaum was acting belligerently," tried to start fights with Lackowski's group and asked members of the group to shoot him. He said he didn't consider Rosenbaum a threat to him or anyone else, however. Richie McGinniss, a videographer for the conservative website The Daily Caller, testified Thursday that he met Rittenhouse while documenting the protest and asked him how old he was. I believe the response was something along the lines of Im an adult,' McGinniss said. I actually told police the night of that I believe that he was in his mid-20s. But I believe I said exactly that he had a baby face. Rittenhouse's attorneys pushed back at any suggestion that Rittenhouse overreacted to a non-threat. They noted that Lackowski's encounter with Rosenbaum occurred in a group setting and that he never faced Rosenbaum one-on-one like Rittenhouse did. When defense attorney Corey Chirafisi asked Lackowski if he would feel threatened if Rosenbaum charged him at full speed and tried to take his gun, Lackowski responded, Yes. But Rittenhouse's team left unchallenged the testimony that Rittenhouse had lied about his age and his medical certification and that he appeared inexperienced. Turner, the Chicago attorney, said the defense may be content to let jurors believe Rittenhouse is basically just a kid. If I was defending this case, I would be happy with that because it's true. He's young and inexperienced and that goes to your intent to kill because you perceive a situation as being dangerous, Turner said. His youth actually helps him. If it's an older person, then they think this guy knows better. ___ Associated Press reporter Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report. ___ Find APs full coverage on the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse at: https://apnews.com/hub/kyle-rittenhouse SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) Lawsuits against Illinois over required COVID-19 vaccination were accumulating and the reason was clear: the legal claims leverage of the state's Health Care Right of Conscience Act in stating religious objections to the shot and in appealing sanctions, including losing a job, that come with refusal. Democrats who control the General Assembly went to work last month to change that, but publicly sidestepped the lawsuits as the reason. They said their action had nothing to do with curtailing religious freedom. Anyone fired from a job after rejecting vaccination for religious reasons can file a lawsuit under one of at least four different federal statutes, they said. People will be able to claim a religious exemption well after the effective date of this law..., Senate President Don Harmon, a sponsor of the change, contended in debate. The religious exemption exists in federal law and is unaffected by this. But constitutional scholars question how accessible they are. The Civil Rights Act is the focus of religious objections to the vaccine, but it can present a high bar in the face of a deadly pandemic. The other laws cited by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker's office prohibiting employment discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act or those protecting age or genetic information would likely not recognize a religious objection to the COVID-19 vaccine, they say. The Constitution's Free Exercise clause is another area of scrutiny. It is the subject of cases arising in Maine and New York that challenge forced vaccination. Both are close to Supreme Court review. The state's Health Care Right of Conscience Act, approved in 1978, has long been considered protection from repercussions against physicians who refuse on moral grounds to perform abortions. The Democrats' clarification, which has yet to be sent to Pritzker for his OK, would ensure that the law's prohibition on penalties for religious objections doesn't apply to COVID-19 vaccine refusal. Lawsuits across Illinois nine alone so far in which the state is a defendant and two involving private parties that the state attorney general is monitoring challenge penalties for rejecting inoculation based on the conscience act. But like Harmon, the House sponsor, Rep. Robyn Gabel, an Evanston Democrat, maintained a hands-off approach to religious-freedom challenges. The amendment ... (states) that nothing in this section is intended to affect any right or remedy under federal law..., Gabel said. The religious accommodation exemption under federal law is still available for employees who have religious objections to vaccines. But federal provisions have been interpreted narrowly. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of religion, said Nelson Tebbe, professor of law at Cornell University. But an employer need not comply if it could harm other employees which mixing with an unvaccinated colleague clearly could, he said. As for the ADA, Tebbe said, I dont know that a religious objection could count as a disability. Katherine Franke, law professor at Columbia University in New York, whose areas of specialty include gender and sexuality law and rights and religion, noted that whether a religious exemption would hold up under the Civil Rights Act has not been tested in court. But she clearly ruled out the Age Discrimination in Employment and the Genetic Information Discrimination acts, two federal laws Pritzker's office cited as applicable. There might be a better reception for exemptions in the Free Exercise Clause, whose influence has grown with COVID-19's spread. At a joint U.S. House subcommittee hearing late last month on vaccine requirements and accompanying employer accommodations, Douglas Laycock, a University of Virginia professor of law and religion, testified, "Vaccination is an easy case for refusing exemption. ... Serious threats to human life present compelling government interests." And the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed, starting as long ago as 1905 "at least until our current political polarization, Laycock added. That track record is under scrutiny in Maine and New York, where federal courts have thus far upheld vaccine mandates for health care workers in New York and hospital and nursing home employees in Maine without offering exceptions for religious exemptions. In the Maine case, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected emergency intervention. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, appointees of former President Donald Trump, advised caution in granting extraordinary relief in a first-of-its-kind case. Religious claimants say, 'If you can take alternate measures with respect to people who have medical reasons not to get vaccinated like wearing masks and getting tested then you should be able to apply those measures to religious claimants as well, Tebbe said. ___ AP Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York contributed. ___ Follow Political Writer John OConnor at https://twitter.com/apoconnor ___ Select COVID-19 vaccination lawsuits based on the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act: https://bit.ly/2ZViieC ___ This story has been updated to correct that legal scholars question the accessibility of federal religious exemptions in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, not that exemptions exist in federal law. MACON, Ga. (AP) A group of women met for the first time a decade ago at an open house event at the Islamic Center of Middle Georgia. Christian women attended the event in hopes of meeting some Muslim women to learn about their faith. They met. They talked, and they decided they needed to meet regularly to discuss their faith and how its impact on the Middle Georgia community. Starting with 10-15 women around a table, the group shared meals together as they had intentional conversations about their faiths. As the group grew, they became known as the Womens Interfaith Alliance of Central Georgia, which has around 500 members on its Facebook group. We live in a global community that is increasingly becoming more connected. So, learning about each other, learning to form relationships with each other, learning to coexist in appreciative, intimate ways is very important for the peace and harmony of human societies in general, especially so here in the South, said Eman Abdulla, one of the founding members of the group. As WIA grew, they opened their doors to women of all faiths, including women from the Jewish, Hindu and the Bahai faith, and after the coronavirus pandemic started, they have had women in different states and even countries join their Zoom meetings. Its like modeling kind of a practice and a way of living cohesively and harmoniously that is doable. Its transferable also to other places where diverse people come together, Abdulla said. WHERE THEY ARE NOW Although WIA started as Christian and Muslim women meeting to eat, it grew to include multiple faith traditions quickly. One of the primary, foundational things of our group is that were interested in acquiring an appreciative knowledge of other faith traditions, and we want to do this through friendship and education and service, and so all of the things that we do, whether its in the social context where we come together and talk about a specific topic and learn like that or whether were serving in the community, we try to organize all of our activities around those three things, said Debbie Krafft, a founding member of the group. The group has a book club and a study group and they have hosted several events, including a poetry night and a health fair, Krafft said. Because they have gathered together to share food from their different religions, WIA created a cookbook with recipes from all of the different faith traditions. The biggest challenge the group has faced has been figuring out how to have these intimate conversations with a growing number of people, Krafft said. Youve got to feel comfortable and safe. When we stopped being around one table and suddenly were in a room that had 10 or 15 tables, we decided to put about six people at each table, but we want to have diversity so we have to mark seats, Krafft said. Aqsa Rehan, a part of the groups leadership committee, said she joined the group just after its inception. Before she joined WIA, Rehan said she was feeling a little lost and was having a hard time figuring out her purpose. While she was in Pakistan, her husband called her to let her know the Islamic Center of Macon had been vandalized. When I came back in December, I was, I was thrilled to have these ladies, plus many more different churches came to the mosque and supported us like never ever before I have seen in my life. That was so touching, Rehan said. Flo Martin, who is also on the leadership committee, asked Rehan if she wanted to host one of their meetings at the Islamic Center of Macon, and Rehan jumped at the opportunity, she said. She was told to prepare for 25-30 women, but around 75 people came to the event, Rehan said with a smile as she remembered how they had to keep adding tables and chairs to accommodate everyone. Before the group, Rehan said she never knew anything about other religions, she said. The biggest part we want to teach is that we are more similar than we are different, Rehand said. MORE SIMILARITIES THAN DIFFERENCES Members of the group have dealt with resistance from their families about the idea of interfaith fellowship, Abdulla said. Theyre facing resistance from their families and community to the idea of interfaith contact, which its like kind of fossilized stereotypes and misconceptions that kind of make it like flirting with the enemy or something, Abdulla said. Contact and experience and intimacy would actually do wonders if you just make it happen. Being a member of the WIA has opened up Abdullas faith and made it more inclusive, she said. It opens up venues and horizons for a better future for all of us. If we really intend to, if we willingly and purposefully pursue this choice of living together harmoniously, we can do it. Its not impossible, she said. The Tower of Babel is not our destiny. We can all communicate even if we have different languages. We can still communicate. We can coexist. We can cooperate. We can make the world a better place. Hina Banit, a member of the leadership committee, said meeting and learning from women of different faiths makes her a better Hindu. I think a lot of people fear what they dont understand, and once youre open to the idea and youre saying, Okay, theyre not so different,... I think that opens up our boundaries, she said. Racha Aimach, a founding member, said hatred is born of ignorance, and it is important that people learn and grow together. We are looking for peace and cooperation. So, this is a small environment, my Atlantis. I can call it the perfect city where everybody has his own set of beliefs, but he has respect and knowledge and understanding for the other party, she said. Our interfaith group is really a great representative of why God created us all different. At the same time he expected us to respect each other, live in peace and love each other. Learning about Christianity and Judaism, Aimach said she learned more about Islam because stories in the Quran are also in the Christian and Jewish religious texts. Its very informative, elaborating, and also gives you a better quality of your own faith. Even though you are learning more, more about other traditions, it just gives you a greater value of life I think, she said. Betty Taylor, a member of the leadership committee, said after a career working with Middle Eastern countries, the rhetoric about Muslims in America following the 9/11 attacks really bothered her. Its breaking down some of those beliefs that people have that are wrong, and its an opportunity to form real friendships, she said. Its breaking down barriers to more show us all as the same. We just happen to be women who have a different faith than others, but that doesnt interfere with the friendships that can develop, and also to recognize that by learning about other faiths, we become stronger in our own. HOW TO JOIN? Aimach said a common thought about interfaith groups is that everyone is trying to convince each other to join their faith tradition. Interfaith communities should not be about that. It should be about communicating, expanding your wide horizon of knowledge because knowledge is the first thing that you use for peace, she said. Krafft said they have an atheist woman in the group who asked if she could attend the meetings to learn about the different religions. She said, I love to come to your meetings because you have interesting conversations and no one tries to convert me. She really appreciates that, Krafft said with a laugh. The only prerequisite for joining the group is to have an interest in learning and respect for other peoples beliefs, she said. Those who would like to get involved with the group can join their Facebook group and sign up for their email list, she said. Although the group is not a registered nonprofit, they have several service activities including volunteering at Daybreak in Macon. STRENGTHENING IN FAITH Marlene Humphry, a member of the leadership committee, said she was asked to present to the group about her Jewish faith, and because she started practicing the religion later in life, she showed them the book she used when she first started learning about the religion: Judaism for Dummies. Humphry has learned more about her faith since joining the group because she had to learn how to express her faith to other people, which raised questions she hadnt thought about before. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Humphry admitted that she became immersed in how Muslims were being portrayed and she felt guilty after meeting with the Muslim women in the group Thats why this group has been so meaningful to me because I learned that there are bad people in all religions. There are good people in all religions, she said. I apologized to my Sisters of other faiths in tears because I hated that I had had those thoughts, but yeah, I was willing to admit that I was wrong and Im glad that I found this group because they are like a family. Flo Martin, a member of the leadership committee, said as a Christian in a predominantly Christian nation, she had a false belief that everyone knew about the religion. When questions started being asked about Christianity, and being able to put some of the misconceptions behind that no we all dont think the same way, and that theres a huge spectrum even within our different faiths of Christianity and even within the denominations, she said. Martin hopes the group can continue to serve the community, help inspire others to create more groups around the country and hopefully start a youth group in Middle Georgia. What we have discovered is its not so much that we are women of different faiths, but we are women of faith, of different traditions Its not like a civic interfaith kind of womens group. Its women who are able to say, This is an important piece of who I am is being a person with faith and of faith and living my faith, she said. AKRON, Ind. (AP) A hit and run in northern Indiana killed a 12-year-old girl and left a 15-year-old boy injured, according to authorities. The Fulton County Sheriffs Office said dispatchers received a call around 7:30 p.m. Friday about children walking on State Road 19, north of County Road North. The caller said one may have been struck by a passing vehicle. The vehicle that allegedly struck the children didn't stop and wasn't at the scene when first responders arrived. First responders found the boy who had been struck by the rearview mirror and was hospitalized for injuries. After a search, authorities then found 12-year-old Brelynna Felix. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Family members said they were siblings. The kids were just going out to get snacks like theyve always done, Ali Steyn, the victims aunt, told WNDU-TV. Its something that they do all the time. They walk the street to go get snacks and stuff like that." A 26-year-old man, Gage Rogers, was taken into custody and faced preliminary charges of leaving the scene of a fatal accident and leaving the scene of an accident resulting in serious bodily injury. A list numbed for Rogers could not be located Sunday. It was immediately clear if he had an attorney. SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Armed with paddle boards and tools to scoop up mud and other sediment, University of Utah professor Jaclyn Winter and the doctoral students in her lab venture onto the Great Salt Lake in the hope of finding life-saving medicines. Its not as simple as shoveling natural materials from the salty water into a prescription bottle at the pharmacy, but thats where the research starts. The team brings the sediment back to the lab, processes it and puts it into petri dishes so Winter and her team can identify microorganisms -- particularly bacteria and fungi -- that could hold the keys to a new curative, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The study of pharmaceuticals from natural products isnt new -- penicillin and other antibiotics are derived from living organisms -- but looking for products in the Great Salt Lake is, said Winter, a medicinal chemist. Natural products are a key cornerstone in drug development and drug discovery, she said. The researchers are looking at both the microorganisms and the chemicals they produce, Winter said. The materials are tested to see if they may destroy other germs. If they do, they could be harvested from nature, from microorganisms grown in a lab or the chemicals may be synthetically created to produce pharmaceuticals, Winter said. There are other ways the lab can find uses of the microorganisms. Researchers can alter their genetic material to boost production of helpful chemicals, increase the effectiveness of the organism or reduce harmful side effects. Once we have that genetic material, we can tweak it, Winter said. The lab is looking at a variety of uses for these organisms. They could become medicines, they may be useful at containing heavy metals or toxins, or they may even be used in cosmetics. Were looking at the Great Salt Lake and our research from a lot of different aspects, Winter said. Winters lab isnt the only group of scientists looking at the Great Salt Lake. Westminster Colleges Great Salt Lake Institute, founded in 2008, supports research and community engagement with the lake, even helping Winters lab navigate the lake when they collect sediment samples. We created this institute to kind of connect people to the lake through research and education, institute coordinator Jaime Butler said. The institute strives to understand the effects of the drying Great Salt Lake, Butler said. The lake, which is environmentally and economically important to Utah, is shrinking quickly as water use on the Wasatch Front decreases flows into the lake and hotter temperatures cause more evaporation. Water levels on the southern portion of the lake in July dipped lower than they ever have since data collection began in 1875, and theyve only gotten lower since. A dried-up lake would have myriad consequences. Butler, a bird and insect researcher, said its habitat, which is the home of more than 380 bird species over the course of a year, would be lost. Heavy metals once trapped at the bottom of the lake could be blown up in windstorms, potentially poisoning residents. The research done in Winters lab highlights another value of maintaining the lake by identifying the multitude of human benefits that can be derived from the lake. There is hope, Butler said. Though serious conversations about water conservation should have begun years ago, she said, efforts among advocacy groups, businesses, researchers and government agencies are moving the needle to preserve the lake. We do have people that have been working on these issues for a long time, Butler said. Were set up for success in Utah, as far as working together. BRADFORD, Pa. - Dustin Snyder was tired of the low wages, the 60-hour workweeks and the impossible-to-please customers, and so in early September the assistant general manager at a McDonald's here drafted a petition that laid bare months of building anger and frustration. "We are all leaving," his petition threatened, "and hope you find employees that want to work for $9.25 an hour." Nearly all of his two dozen employees had signed it. A few added their own flourishes. "We need a RAISE," one scribbled next to her signature. "Piss off," wrote another. Dustin, 21, could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he fed the petition into the fax machine in the McDonald's office, punched in the number for his bosses 80 miles away in Buffalo and hit send. Another low-wage worker rebellion in a season full of them. A once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, a debilitating recession and trillions in government aid had caused something to shift in the world's largest economy. Hourly wages for fast food workers rose nearly 14% last year, the fastest growth on record. All over America people were quitting jobs at record rates. Even in a place such as Bradford, with its shrinking population and 30% poverty rate, low-wage service workers sensed that they finally had a little power. Soon after Dustin sent the petition, the phone was ringing, and the regional supervisor in Buffalo was demanding to know who was behind it. Dustin's first instinct was to panic and plead ignorance. An hour later he called and confessed. "I was trying to get better pay for my people," Dustin said. "There are better ways to go about this," the regional supervisor replied. She had been thinking about boosting pay at the Bradford McDonald's, she said, but she was not going to give into threats or give up control. Because of the petition, no one was getting a raise. If the workers did not like it, they could quit. Days earlier Dustin had accepted a job at a lumber mill that paid $11.50-an-hour, or 60 cents more than he made as assistant general manager. But he did not really want to quit McDonald's. He liked his co-workers, who had become some of his closest friends, and he liked being a leader. He just wanted some affirmation and a little more money, both for himself and his team. Dustin asked his employees to gather around him in the kitchen. Egg McMuffins sat half made on the counter. A clock on the cash register that tracked the restaurant's drive-through times and transmitted the data back to corporate ticked away the seconds since their last completed order. "Why would you want to work for a company that doesn't value you?" Dustin asked. He turned to one of the restaurant's longest serving employees. "You've been here for five years," he said. "What have you got for it? Nothing." The workers, clad in their uniforms, ball caps and nonslip shoes, stared at him, unsure what they were supposed to do next. Dustin explained that he was leaving and locking up the restaurant. If they followed, he promised he would help them all find better jobs. "How many of you want to go with me?" Dustin asked. Initially, there was silence. Then seven of the nine raised their hands. Two who decided not to join took seats at a table in the empty restaurant. The rest tossed aside their headsets and abandoned their posts at the drive-through and registers. Instead of racing to serve customers, they began making food for themselves: a Quarter Pounder, a large fries, an iced caramel coffee with whipped cream and extra pumps of caramel. Dustin's anxiety, which had been building since he sent the fax, began to ebb. His co-workers were ebullient. "It's a walkout," one yelled as they headed out into an economy where low-wage workers, long-accustomed to feeling scorned, ignored and invisible, were realizing they suddenly had some agency. - - - In the restaurant's windowless back office, Dustin was calling Stephanie Kelley, the Bradford McDonald's general manager, to tell her what was happening. "What if no one goes with you?" she asked. "Everyone already said they were," Dustin replied. Stephanie, 36, had recently accepted a job at a bank in town and, like Dustin, was finishing out her final two weeks. She'd spent nearly a decade at the Bradford McDonald's, working her way up from the bottom to the restaurant's top job. To join the protest was to throw away a reputation for hard work she had fought to build. To stay home was to abandon her employees. "It won't look good to get fired from McDonald's," she told Dustin on the phone. "I've already made up my mind," Dustin replied. The discontent driving the Bradford workers and so many others had been there for years, an ever-present aspect of an economy that could be especially cruel to anyone without an education. The pandemic - the fights with customers over masks and the fears of falling sick - added to the strain. But it was the labor shortages, which extended to just about every part of the country, that caused workers' long-suppressed anger to burst into the open. Unlike the strikes of an earlier era, most of the walkouts included no picket lines. Rarely did the workers even make demands. "WE ALL QUIT SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE," read the message last June on a Burger King marquee in Lincoln, Neb., where, according to the workers, the air conditioner had been broken for weeks and the temperatures in the kitchen soared past 90 degrees. Sometimes, workers left behind notes for bosses and customers that resembled parting primal screams: "We will not work for a company that DOES NOT care!!!" employees at a Del Taco in Circleville, Ohio, wrote. "The staff at this location has walked out because we were being treated poorly, overworked and underpaid," read a message from the employees of a Biggby Coffee in Toledo. Often the dashed-off notes became hits on social media, passed along by equally fed-up workers. Sometimes they would show up in a short segment on the local television news, before fading away. Definitive numbers on these small-scale walkouts do not exist. The Bureau of Labor Statistics only tracks major stoppages that involve more than 1,000 workers. But Mike Elk, a labor reporter and founder of paydayreport.com, has compiled a database of 1,600 walkouts since March 2020 that included as many as 100,000 workers. Stephanie was now deciding whether she wanted to be one of them. Like her staff, she had come to feel "degraded" and "belittled" by her bosses and some of the customers. The franchise owner had set the Bradford McDonald's starting wage at $9.25 an hour, while new workers at his McDonald's less than 20 miles away in Olean, N.Y., where the minimum wage was higher, were earning $15 an hour. The low pay had made it almost impossible for Stephanie and Dustin to retain workers and keep the restaurant running. Stephanie's call with Dustin lasted only about a minute. She decided she could not let Dustin and their day-shift crew "do it alone." She hung up and texted the night shift staff. "I want you all to know that everyone on the day shift just walked out and quit," she wrote. She said she was joining the walkout - "Effective 10:51 a.m. I no longer work at McDonald's" - and encouraged the rest of the staff to quit too. "I believe that you all are worth more than anything they're giving you," she continued. "I am proud of all of you. Every single one of you. Whether you quit or not, I am proud of you." Then she drove to the McDonald's where she saw cars backing up in the drive-through. Most of the workers were gathered in the parking lot, laughing and smiling. The worker who had been with the restaurant for five years was sobbing. She had been swept up in the initial excitement of the walkout but was now worried about finding a new job and paying her rent. She was terrified of losing her subsidized apartment. "We will help you get a job that pays better," Dustin reassured her. He and Stephanie were going to drive everyone to the Burger King, two miles away, where Stephanie knew the general manager and the pay started at $10 an hour. Before Dustin locked the doors, he realized there was one last thing he wanted to do for his McDonald's customers. He could not find a pen so he snatched a blue highlighter from the back office. "Due to lack of pay we all quit," he scribbled. In the parking lot, a half-dozen employees were waiting on him for rides to Burger King. The line of cars full of hungry and angry customers now wrapped around the building. "Hey! We just want a Quarter Pounder and fries," a man called out to Dustin from his car. "Well we just want to be paid more and treated better," Dustin replied. - - - Dustin and his co-workers had come to feel that no one understood what their jobs and lives were really like. The biggest frustration was the pay, which had been $8.25 an hour until the franchise owner boosted it by $1 a few months into the pandemic. "We understand these are tough times," Enrico Francani, the owner wrote in a letter to the staff, explaining the increase. "How can you say you understand tough times when you're only playing people $9.25 an hour?" Dustin recalled thinking. The restaurant continued to lose long-serving shift managers throughout 2021 to entry-level jobs at Walmart ($13.75 an hour) and Tim Hortons ($12 an hour). The departures hit the restaurant especially hard at the beginning of the month, when disability checks arrived and customers had money to burn on burgers and fries. "Can anyone go into work right now? They're down 6 shifts and drowning," Stephanie wrote on the employee group chat on Sept. 1, four days before the walkout. A few minutes passed with no response. "Anyone??" she asked again. The only thing that seemed to matter to the corporate office were the numbers: revenue, drive-through times and the weekly tally of complaints. Once, Dustin worked 30 hours straight to prepare the restaurant for a health inspection. It passed, but the criticism from the bosses about the restaurant's cleanliness and his inability to retain employees continued unabated. Heavy turnover led to more mistakes and longer wait times for customers, who took their frustration out on workers who already felt stigmatized by their fast-food jobs. "The hate is towards the wrong people," said Caitlin Cox, a shift manager, newly pregnant with her second child. "It's ridiculous." She was certain that customers, who regularly belittled the staff for enforcing mask mandates or botching orders, would judge her harshly for having a baby while "flipping burgers." And she had come to dread the thought of working at McDonald's while she was visibly pregnant. The owner, ferried by his driver, typically visited the Bradford location just once a year, employees said, and not even that often once the pandemic hit. Dustin believed that Francani was relying on his Pennsylvania restaurants - with their low salaries - to offset higher costs in New York where he had to pay his McDonald's workers $15 an hour. Francani did not respond to a list of detailed questions regarding his Bradford location. In a statement he said that he had initiated a series of "listening sessions" with workers and was adding paid sick leave and raising starting wages in Bradford. "We're very grateful for the outstanding efforts of the McDonald's Bradford team," he wrote. McDonald's USA issued a statement in which it said it was "disappointed" by the poor treatment that employees endured at the Bradford restaurant: "The allegations shared in this reporting are deeply troubling and have no place in a McDonald's-branded restaurant. Quite simply, they are unacceptable." Dustin understood that Francani was entitled to pay his Bradford workers more than 60% less than his nearby New York employees. "It's a good idea, but you're hurting people," he said. "At what price is it enough? At what point is it just not worth it? What's the cost of another human being to you?" - - - These were some of the questions that people in Bradford were fighting about in the immediate aftermath of the walkout. Less than an hour had passed before someone snapped a picture of Dustin's sign on the drive-through speaker and posted it in a Facebook group called "B----ing Bout Bradford." Most of those weighing in on the McDonald's walkout were service workers: certified nursing assistants, waitresses, security guards and store cashiers who were barely scraping by themselves. Theirs were the voices of a place whose best days seem behind it. On Bradford's mostly empty Main Street, Art Deco, Italianate and Neo-Classical buildings loom as a reminder of an earlier era when the city was home to wealthy oil barons and hungry entrepreneurs. The Zippo factory, opened in 1932, still ships its iconic windproof lighters all over the world. But the region has been bleeding manufacturing jobs and people for years. "Do you have the next great idea?" asked signs from the Bradford Area Alliance offering a $20,000 prize to help seed a local start-up. Set amid abandoned storefronts, the question came off as a plea. Some speaking out on "B----ing Bout Bradford" blasted the work stoppage as an act of entitlement - another sign of America's moral decay and waning work ethic. "You got what you deserve when your paycheck came in," wrote a 41-year-old father of two young boys. "Probably didn't deserve that because it sounds like you were just there putting in time with bad attitudes instead of working to make your situation better." Other commenters on the post called fast food "a high school job," whose long hours and low pay were supposed to spur young workers to strive for more. Dustin and his crew, they said, should "go back to school," "quit making excuses," get a second job or move to a city with higher wages and more opportunity. Or they complained about the service at the McDonald's ("I've never one f---ing time got my order right! Not once!") and derided the penmanship on Dustin's hastily scribbled sign. ("Maybe they should be home practicing their handwriting skills.") The McDonald's workers' demands to be seen and heard had broken some unspoken rule; their anger seemed to threaten Bradford's social order. Others countered that big companies, such as McDonald's, had a moral obligation to pay their employees enough to survive. "We have families and bills and can't even get through with the pay we get," wrote a cashier at the Bradford Dollar Tree. And they called for a higher minimum wage to match the $15 an hour that workers were making in New York. Just like the critics, the walkout's defenders cast the protest as a symptom of a much larger societal disease, made worse by the labor shortage and the long pandemic. "People in the service industry are done with the disrespect," wrote a local physician. "I don't think it's just about the money. . . . Whether it's about flipping burgers or saving lives they crave gratitude and validation. Society has become so intolerant. So disrespectful. So judgmental. So cruel. Let's change it." Soon some of the McDonald's workers were weighing in to explain themselves and defend their colleagues. "You have NO RIGHT to talk down on those workers when they take a stand and have had enough," wrote John Lockwood, who had worked at the restaurant for 20 years and had quit earlier that morning. "If you don't know what's going on behind the scenes, keep your f---ing mouth shut." - - - Of the Bradford McDonald's workers who remained after the waves of spring and summer attrition, five had intellectual or physical disabilities that made it hard for them to find work at a better pay, Dustin said. Two were 17-year-old girls who had quit school and were homeless. In the immediate aftermath of the walkout, one of those teenage girls, Shakira Griffin, was waiting in the McDonald's parking lot for Dustin to give her a ride to Burger King, where she planned to fill out an application. She phoned her boyfriend and her mother. Neither answered. A few hours later, she texted both to let them know about the walkout. "Steph and Dustin is helping us get jobs," she wrote. Shakira had started at McDonald's in March after her mother lost custody of her and her father and his new girlfriend had kicked her out of their house. Before she dropped out of high school in the spring, her teachers had tried to look out for her as best they could. Her favorite, a special-education teacher, had slipped her $25 to buy some bras and on her birthday, gave her a dark, green American Eagle hoodie that hung loosely on her skinny frame. "I could tell you that it wasn't cheap!" said Shakira of the sweatshirt that she wore everywhere. Like so many of her colleagues, Shakira had grown accustomed to being told she was not good enough: by teachers, fellow students and even her parents. Now she was jubilant. "I was doing stuff with people besides arguing," she said of the walkout. "I was standing up for myself and what I deserve. I've never done that before." By nightfall a crew of $15-an-hour McDonald's workers had arrived from New York and reopened the drive-through, though the rest of the restaurant remained closed. The Bradford workers were still buzzing with excitement. "Let's all stand outside the mcdonalds and riot. Hahaha," one crew member wrote on their chat. "I love all you guys. You are amazing," another added. "We'll be friends forever," wrote Matthew Arndt, who was developmentally delayed and autistic. "Remember my door. My heart is open." Six years earlier, Matt had taken a Greyhound bus to Bradford from Tacoma, Wash., to visit a woman he met while playing a video game called "Second Life." The woman turned out to be married. Now, Matt, 32, lived with her, her husband and another developmentally delayed woman in a rotting brown and yellow two-story rental, which had no working furnace, black mold and bedbugs. Matt was the only one in the house with a job, and they had all come to depend on his salary to survive. He had not been back to see his father or siblings since arriving in Bradford. His job at McDonald's was his refuge. His co-workers had become his family. Sometimes he and the rest of the night shift crew would finish work around 2 a.m. and walk two miles to the Sheetz coffee shop, where they would talk and eat mozzarella sticks, boneless chicken bites and burritos until dawn. Matt texted his colleagues that the regional supervisor had called him and was trying to entice him to stay, but that he was not going to betray his friends. "She's desperate now," he wrote. "Yeah," agreed Shakira, who also had received a call. "She really is desperate." The workers continued texting for several more hours. They complained about the people in town who were deriding them for walking out. "People think fast food workers are lazy," one former crew member wrote. "All they want is their muffins and nuggets." "Yeah, we ain't people," another replied. They traded gossip about which workers might be staying. Several noted hopefully that the drive-through line at Burger King seemed longer than usual and that maybe the shutdown had scared some McDonald's customers away. Someone suggested they rename their McDonald's group chat. Matt came up with the idea that they immediately and unanimously decided to adopt: "The McRejects." - - - Dustin rose at 4 a.m. and headed out the door to his car, still clad in his camouflage pajama pants and a hoodie. A month had passed since the walkout. It was his day off, but he had promised two of his former McDonald's crew members, who he had helped land jobs with him at the lumber mill, that he would drive them to work every day. Neither had cars. "Jesus it's cold out this morning," Dustin's first pickup of the morning said as he slid into the passenger seat. "I left my window open last night and just about froze my balls off." "Yesterday was colder," Dustin replied as he steered through Bradford's empty streets. The "check engine" light on his dashboard glowed. Most of the McRejects found new jobs for higher pay at Burger King, Dunkin' and the Save-A-Lot grocery store. Shakira landed a $10 an hour position stocking shelves at a Crosby's convenience store and was living with her boyfriend's family. Matt and his best friend from McDonald's, David Putnam, were making $12 an hour at Tim Hortons doughnut shop. The extra money meant David, who was raising his 2-year-old son on his own, no longer needed donated food from the "Blessing Box" near his house. He had recently even been able to treat his mother and stepfather to dinner at the Hunan Buffet across the parking lot from his new job. Matt's finances were still tight. One of his housemates had recently been kicked off disability, and he was using his extra pay to help cover her portion of the rent. After just three weeks at the lumber mill, Dustin got a $1 raise to $12.50-an-hour, part of a companywide pay hike. He hoped the money would help him finally afford his own place. For the moment, he was paying his mom, who was on disability, and his stepdad, who did not work, about $850 a month to live in his childhood bedroom. The money helped to cover their rent and the food stamps they lost due to Dustin's income. By this point in his life, Dustin had hoped to have moved out of his childhood bedroom. Shortly after high school he left Bradford in search of a better life in Maine, where he had helped a family from his church start a new congregation. He had considered going to college to become a pastor. "I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and it felt meaningful," he said. But he did not have the money for school and fell out with his church. Lately, he said he felt as if he was "just kind of floating." On this day, floating meant grabbing a few hours of sleep, playing video games and then heading back to the mill around 4 p.m. to take his friends home. They tossed their helmets and lunch pails in his car's trunk. The smell of sawdust clung to their clothes and filled Dustin's car. One of his friends was complaining about the job, which required them to stand in one spot for 10 hours a day lifting and stacking wooden boards. "Ugh, the repetition," he said. "It just repeats and repeats and repeats." "You gotta look at it a different way," Dustin countered. "It stinks because it is the same thing every day. Yeah, it's boring. But it's a good paycheck, and they treat you with respect and like a human being." Most of the workers in Dustin's section had been at the mill for only a couple of months, and Dustin attributed the heavy turnover to the tedious nature of the job. He tried to fight off the boredom, as best he could, by asking questions about the different kinds of wood they processed and how the different machines worked. He chatted up the fork lift driver who had been at the mill for almost three decades and was making $30 an hour. If he could just make it to three months, Dustin knew he would qualify for a $300 bonus, a 401(k) and health insurance - something he had been without for more than three years. "It's super easy," he said of the lifting and stacking. "You barely move." The downside was the monotony, which was numbing in a way that McDonald's had never been. Weeks passed and Dustin found it hard to stop thinking about his old job. He missed the friendships he'd built at the restaurant. He missed the challenge and satisfaction that came with helping his intellectually disabled workers master a task. He missed being a leader. When Dustin ran into one of the McDonald's Sunday regulars, who gathered at a back table to gossip and complain about their shrinking pensions, he quizzed him about service at the restaurant. The man grumbled about the rising price of coffee and the "haughty" new staff at the restaurant. "We didn't get paid enough," Dustin replied, "but we tried to treat you well." Whenever Dustin passed the McDonald's, he would take note of the number of cars lined up at the drive-through. "I think they're losing customers," he would often say. About six weeks after the walkout, Dustin noticed that the owner had changed the sign on the restaurant's marquee. "Hiring starting at $10," it now read. The 75-cent raise was all that he and his staff had really wanted and all that they had been fighting for. But, to Dustin, it still felt like a "slap in the face." His former bosses seemed to be sending him a message that their fight was never really about pay. It was about status and power and proving to Dustin and the others that, despite their modest gains and whatever changes might be taking place in the U.S. economy, they were still replaceable. Dustin did not regret the walkout. He had "refused to bow down to the big scary corporation," he said. He had rallied his friends and helped them find similar work at higher pay. Dustin's lumber mill job would do for now. Maybe the meaning he had been searching for would come later. - - - The Washington Post's Jennifer Jenkins and Andrew Van Dam contributed to this report. IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) As a child, Alicia Velasquez used to sit by her fathers side and watch him do beadwork, stringing the beads and weaving them in and out. Her father, who is Apache, would be calmed by the practice, Velasquez recalled. He called it medicine. When Velasquez began facing challenges in her life, she also turned to beadwork to center herself. And, through it, created her own business. Velasquez, who is of Apache and Yaqui descent, is an artist and owner of The House of Dotizhi, located at 327 Kirkwood Ave. in Iowa City. The boutique, gallery and studio opened Monday, which also marks the start of Native American Heritage Month. The month is meant to celebrate Indigenous cultures and traditions, as well as contributions made by Indigenous people. The Iowa City Press-Citizen reports that inside the boutique are colorful, beaded earrings, turquoise rings and other pieces of jewelry, all made by Velasquez. One wall in The House of Dotizhi displays framed pieces of art created by Velasquezs daughter. Velasquez started Dotizhi, pronounced Dot-Cluh-Gee, in 2019 as an online business. When she moved to Iowa City with her family last December, she began participating in art shows, including one in Des Moines and another organized by Summer of the Arts. People were responsive to her work, wanting to know more about her culture. That interest spurred Velasquez to seek a physical location. She began working out of a small office, so that clients could meet with Velasquez to plan out their custom pieces. Velasquez soon grew out of that space, leading her to the location on Kirkwood Avenue. As she stepped into the new space, The House of Dotizhis focus grew as more people began expressing interest in Native American art. Velasquez already knew one artist: her daughter, Eliana. I just wanted to make jewelry, Velasquez said of Dotizhis evolution. But then Im like, OK, I have this platform. I have a platform and how can I use that to help not just me but the community? Eliana Velasquez has been drawing since she was a child, using a variety of mediums like graphite and pastels. Eventually, she hopes to use oil paints. But it can be difficult for her to be in large crowds as a result of her autism, her mother said. The House of Dotizhi proved to be an opportunity for Elianas artwork to be displayed and sold without causing her stress. Im trying to represent our culture in new ways, in accurate ways, because its not represented enough, Eliana Velasquez told the Press-Citizen, explaining she is both excited and scared to have her artwork displayed. Velasquez realized her daughter isnt the only artist that may want to focus more on creating and less on the business side of things. So Velasquez intends for The House of Dotizhi to be a space where Indigenous artists can display and sell their artwork. My goal, with the art gallery portion of this space, is to be able to invite different Indigenous artists locally first before I branch out to other states. But I really want to bring the platform here to Iowa, she said. According to Velazquezs website, Dotizhi is the western Apache word for turquoise. Velasquezs father always told her that Apache women are strong. That sentiment stuck with her as a mother of four. With my brand, thats what I preach to women or men, she said. Its like, remember your strength, remember your beauty and remember your worth. Velasquez learned silversmithing from Indigenous elders as she moved around America. Born and raised in California, she later lived in Arizona, Idaho, Oklahoma and now, Iowa City. These elders saw something in her, Velasquez said, and handed down their practices. They continue to observe and evaluate her work to make sure she is doing it correctly. Velasquez uses minimal tools as a silversmith, creating all of her jewelry by herself and making just enough so that nothing goes to waste. If one of her pieces doesnt sell, Velasquez will take it apart and create something new out of it. Sometimes when Im sitting there creating (a) piece, Im like, Wow, I have the opportunity to carry on a tradition thats been around for a very long time, she said. Now that Velasquez has The House of Dotizhi, she is hoping another Indigenous person will visit and express interest in learning silversmithing and beadwork so that she can hand down those techniques the way they were handed down to her. The stones used in Velasquezs pieces come from Idaho by Indigenous elders who hunt for rocks. According to Velasquez, they recite a prayer to thank Mother Earth for allowing them to take the stones. The dirt displaced in taking the stones is always put back. These rock hunters send Velasquez only the stones she needs for her work. Velasquez has to show she actually sold the pieces as opposed to holding onto the stones. Velasquezs turquoise comes from a friend in Oklahoma whose father had collected the stone over the years. Using this source means Velasquez doesnt have to go into the earth and get more, she said. Plus, their expertise ensures the turquoise Velasquez uses is real. Its just trying to keep to my vision of keeping everything sustainable, no mass production, and thats why its slow fashion, she said. LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) A Kansas man has been accused of allowing children in his care to be sexually assaulted by a former landlord in exchange for rent. A Douglas County judge recently ruled that Cormick Ferrell, 42, of Lawrence should stand trial on two counts of aggravated human trafficking in connection with the alleged assaults that took place between April 2014 and August 2017. The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the children were 6- and 7-years-old at the time the alleged assaults began. LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. (AP) Authorities are investigating a homicide after a man was found dead in the parking lot of a Sonic restaurant in suburban Kansas City. Police in Lee's Summit, Missouri, found the man after gunshots were reported in the area Saturday evening, the Kansas City Star reports. He was identified as 51-year-old Randall Lord of Kansas City. BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) A Minot woman accused of crashing into a motorcyclist at more than 100 mph and sending him under the wheels of a semitrailer two years ago has been charged with attempted murder. Dazechnae Willis, 28, was arrested in Colorado and extradited to North Dakota. Authorities issued an arrest warrant for her on Oct. 13. Her two young children were passengers in the vehicle she was driving. When Mark Zuckerberg announced ambitious plans to build the "metaverse a virtual reality construct intended to supplant the internet, merge virtual life with real life and create endless new playgrounds for everyone he promised that youre going to able to do almost anything you can imagine. That might not be such a great idea. Zuckerberg, CEO of the company formerly known as Facebook, even renamed it Meta to underscore the significance of the effort. During his late October presentation, he effused about going to virtual concerts with your friends, fencing with holograms of Olympic athletes and best of all joining mixed-reality business meetings where some participants are physically present while others beam in from the metaverse as cartoony avatars. But its just as easy to imagine dystopian downsides. Suppose the metaverse also enables a vastly larger, yet more personal version of the harassment and hate that Facebook has been slow to deal with on todays internet? Or ends up with the same big tech companies that have tried to control the current internet serving as gatekeepers to its virtual-reality edition? Or evolves into a vast collection of virtual gated communities where every visitor is constantly monitored, analyzed and barraged with advertisements? Or foregoes any attempt to curtail user freedom, allowing scammers, human traffickers and cybergangs to commit crimes with impunity? Picture an online troll campaign but one in which the barrage of nasty words you might see on social media is instead a group of angry avatars yelling at you, with your only escape being to switch off the machine, said Amie Stepanovich, executive director of Silicon Flatirons at the University of Colorado. We approach that differently having somebody scream at us than having somebody type at us, she said. There is a potential for that harm to be really ramped up. Thats one reason Meta might not be the best institution to lead us into the metaverse, said Philip Rosedale, founder of the virtual escape Second Life, which was an internet craze 15 years ago and still attracts hundreds of thousands of online inhabitants. The danger is creating online public spaces that appeal only to a polarized, homogenous group of people, said Rosedale, describing Metas flagship VR product, Horizon, as filled with presumptively male participants and a bullying tone. In a safety tutorial, Meta has advised Horizon users to treat fellow avatars kindly and offers tips for blocking, muting or reporting those who don't, but Rosedale said it's going to take more than a schoolyard monitor approach to avoid a situation that rewards the loudest shouters. Nobodys going to come to that party, thank goodness, he said. Were not going to move the human creative engine into that sphere. A better goal, he said, would be to create systems that are welcoming and flexible enough to allow people who dont know each other to get along as well as they might in a real place like New Yorks Central Park. Part of that could rely on systems that help someone build a good reputation and network of trusted acquaintances they can carry across different worlds, he said. In the current web environment, such reputation systems have had a mixed record in curbing toxic behavior. It's not clear how long it will take Meta, or anyone else investing in the metaverse, to consider such issues. So far, tech giants from Microsoft and Apple to video game makers are still largely focused on debating the metaverses plumbing. To make the metaverse work, some developers say they are going to have to form a set of industry standards similar to those that coalesced around HTML, the open markup language thats been used to structure websites since the 1990s. You dont think about that when you go to a website. You just click on the link, said Richard Kerris, who leads the Omniverse platform for graphics chipmaker Nvidia. Were going to get to the same point in the metaverse where going from one world to another world and experiencing things, you wont have to think about, Do I have the right setup? Nvidias vision for an open standard involves a structure for 3D worlds built by movie-making studio Pixar, which is also used by Apple. Among the basic questions being resolved are how physics will work in the metaverse will virtual gravity cause someones glass to smash into pieces if they drop it? Will those rules change as you move from place to place? Bigger disagreements will center on questions of privacy and identity, said Timoni West, vice president of augmented and virtual reality at Unity Technologies, which builds an engine for video game worlds. Being able to share some things but not share other things is important when youre showing off art in a virtual home but dont want to share the details of your calendar, she said. Theres a whole set of permission layers for digital spaces that the internet could avoid but you really need to have to make this whole thing work. Some metaverse enthusiasts whove been working on the concept for years welcome the spotlight that could attract curious newcomers, but they also want to make sure Meta doesnt ruin their vision for how this new internet gets built. The open metaverse is created and owned by all of us, said Ryan Gill, founder and CEO of metaverse-focused startup Crucible. The metaverse that Mark Zuckerberg and his company want is created by everybody but owned by them. Gill said Metas big splash is a reaction to ideas circulating in grassroots developer communities centered around decentralized technologies like blockchain and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, that can help people establish and protect their online identity and credentials. Central to this tech movement, nicknamed Web 3, for a third wave of internet innovation, is that what people create in these online communities belongs to them, a shift away from the Big Tech model of accumulating energy and attention and optimizing it for buying behavior, Gill said. Evan Greer, an activist with Fight for the Future, said its easy to see Facebooks Meta announcement as a cynical attempt to distance itself from all the scandals the company is facing. But she says Meta's push is actually even scarier. This is Mark Zuckerberg revealing his end game, which is not just to dominate the internet of today but to control and define the internet that we leave to our children and our childrens children, she said. The company recently abandoned its use of facial recognition on its Facebook app, but metaverse gadgetry relies on new forms of tracking people's gaits, body movements and expressions to animate their avatars with real-world emotions. And with both Facebook and Microsoft pitching metaverse apps as important work tools, there's a potential for even more invasive workplace monitoring and exhaustion. Activists are calling for the U.S. to pass a national digital privacy act that would apply not just to todays platforms like Facebook but also those that might exist in the metaverse. Outside of a few such laws in states such as California and Illinois, though, actual online privacy laws remain rare in the U.S. WAUWATOSA, Wis. (AP) A shooter wounded two officers as they investigated a report of shots fired inside a Wisconsin hotel, police said. The officers responded Saturday night to the Radisson Hotel, Wauwatosa police said in a news release. Witnesses and guests told the officers that gunshots had come from the 2nd floor, police said. The officers were shot when they went to investigate. Both sustained injuries not considered to be life threatening. The suspect was arrested but was not immediately identified. Additional officers performed a sweep of the hotel and no other injuries were reported, police said. The Milwaukee Area Investigative Team was expected to handle the investigation. Boston (AP) Police in Boston say an officer shot and killed a man after he allegedly stabbed another officer in the neck. Authorities say officers from the Boston Police Department were responding to a report of domestic violence at a home in south Boston early Saturday evening when they encountered the suspect in a stairwell. SOUTH BARRINGTON, Ill. (AP) After buying and revamping a chocolatier in South Barrington, a suburban businessman now plans to expand to Barrington. Mauricio Andrade of North Barrington owns the chocolate shop Cocolotte in the The Arboretum of South Barrington, off Higgins Road and Route 59. The business used to be Anna Shea Chocolates, which Andrade acquired in March. The name Cocolotte comes from combining Andrades daughter Chloes nickname, Coco, and his other daughters name, Charlotte. Andrade set off to transform the shops decor as well as its offerings, the Daily Herald reports. Formerly dark and frilly, now it has a white color scheme and white marble glass displays, like a jewelry store, he said. Andrade said he retained all of the previous employees, who continue to use the same recipes to make chocolates and bonbons. He is also expanding the lineup of housemade sweets. Anna Shea sold cupcakes and gelato bought from other companies, Andrade said. Cocolotte makes its own cupcakes and will launch its own gelato, he said. In January, he hopes to add in-house macaroons and more pastries, like eclairs. They (Anna Shea) had high-quality products and we are going to add more high-quality, he said. We decided to do our own, because we want to stand by the freshness and the quality. Meanwhile, Andrade is also working on opening a new location in Barrington, in the former Carpet Mill building. The Barrington village board recently granted a special use for the property, allowing it to become a retail chocolate shop in the front with preparation and shipping areas in the back. Andrade said he hopes to open around June. Suzanne Corr, president and CEO of the Barrington Area Chamber of Commerce, said the group is planning a ribbon-cutting for the South Barrington Cocolotte at 4 p.m. Dec. 7. Who doesnt love chocolate? Corr said. Were always happy to see people succeed. Chocolate and fancy chocolate and gift chocolate is something that seems to be on everybodys list through the entire year. Andrade has a unique story: He was born in Brazil and met his Filipina wife while living in the Philippines. The couple moved to Las Vegas, where they lived for 15 years until Andrade retired from a company that builds slot machines. They moved to North Barrington in 2016. We decided to move because Vegas is not a nice place to raise a family, he said. We were looking around and we found the suburbs in the Chicago area -- and we fell in love. Andrade said he did some consulting and eventually decided he wanted to start making gelato, which he loves. He took several trips to Italy in 2018 and early 2019 to research old family recipes in gelato shops in small towns, he said. When you get near (these shops) you say, What is this smell? It smells like strawberry. When they make a flavor, everybody around the store for 100 feet can smell it, because the smell is unbelievable. Andrade said he had signed a contract with a mall in the North suburbs to open a gelato kiosk, but the plan was derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. I said, I need to start over after the pandemic, he said. Then, I saw that Anna Shea was for sale and I said, Wow, lets go there. GREENVILLE, S.C. (AP) On a balmy October afternoon, Kay E. Woodward stood outside Spartanburgs J.W Woodward Funeral Home with an urn in the crook of her elbow and another arm outstretched towards a family. A familiar sight for a family business, the oldest Black business in the city, has been a community mainstay for over a hundred years. Thomas Massey, one of the funeral directors, joined her outside not too long after. In Pickens County, miles away in another community crutch that has been around for nearly a century, Chris Robinson, dressed in black and not a hair out of place, quietly rounded the corner in the Robinson Funeral Home. He had just come back from a funeral service. Woodward, Massey, and Robinson have helmed funeral services and have always stood at the last stop. In conversations about COVID-19, each described a two-year fog. They talked about how they had to get creative with live streams and webcasts, what they did to help families mourn outside in tents, in newly-built open-air sites, beside gravesides mixing grief with newer fixtures at a funeral: masks and distance. But unlike last year, since each of their first confirmed COVID-19 funerals in April 2020, this year is different. There are vaccines, they said, and deaths have declined. And just when they thought things were starting to get better, it started all over again. Steadily, while overseeing back-to-back services and urging members in Spartanburg and Easley, two COVID-19 hotspots in South Carolina, to mask up and vaccinate, they assumed a new role educating families about the importance of precautions and vaccinations and observing a new facet of how COVID-19 changed the process of grieving. I dont think we ever get tired of trying to educate, Woodward said. CELEBRATING LIVES AND PROVIDING A MEANINGFUL SERVICE CHANGED FUNERAL WORKERS Somewhere between 50 feet to 80 feet, thats the distance Woodward once sprinted from the back of the chapel to the front to stop people from hugging each other, a soft no, no, no, not too far behind. Massey confirmed this. People would try to lean over and console each other, she said. And you just cannot do that. Woodward said that the family was escorted out and had an attendant to ensure people didnt go over to hug and shake hands or kiss the family. While she understood embracing in sadness was a natural instinct, there was a pandemic she couldnt ignore. Sometimes were probably not real popular, she said. But the concern for safety is not amiss. A February 2020 funeral service in Albany, Georgia, had become the epicenter of a big coronavirus cluster. There were nearly 500 confirmed coronavirus cases in just two months, and by April 1, 2020, at least 29 coronavirus-related deaths were reported around the town in Dougherty County. In September of this year, Spartanburg County had the highest hospitalization rate in the U.S, with a rate of 38 COVID patients per 100 beds, reported The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Robinson had signs put up with safety precautions and said he was in touch with healthcare professionals in nearby nursing homes and regional hospitals. Robinson served three locations, one in downtown Easley, one on Powdersville Road, and one in Clemson. At its height during August and early September this year, he said that he observed the mental drain on people. Healthcare professionals had to become family and said goodbye to patients because loved ones could not enter the hospital, he said. He saw anger, of course, but he understood that too. It came from not being able to be by their loved ones sides, he said. Not knowing. He knew families who had members who were doing well only for their health to take a turn for the worse the very next day. Since each of the municipalities had different guidelines, with Clemson, for instance, operating under a mask mandate until Oct. 18, Robinson talked to families and discussed how they wanted to conduct funerals and noticed an increase in private visitations. He said the funeral home and its staff had to remain cautious to keep everyone safe through it all. The virus is still out there, and you have to be careful of who might have been exposed, he said. Indeed, discussing precautions and safety protocols with a grieving family is an interaction that grief researchers have tried to understand. Disenfranchised grief, where family members feel shortchanged when theyre unable to grieve the traditional way, could lead to complicated grief a state in which one is locked in perpetual sorrow and unable to heal, often leading to concerning, more dangerous behavior. The changing face of grief has propelled the funeral industry to go beyond its roots in face-to-face interaction and community healing. Last year at the beginning of the pandemic, Robinson, who is associated with the National Funeral Directors Association, an advocacy and education organization, said that the NFDA sent letters to the federal government to prepare for a supply of personal protective equipment. Throughout the summer, the organization advocated for the expansion of PPE beyond healthcare settings. This, he said, helped funeral homes cope with the pandemic. Recently, Robinson attended an NFDA convention in Nashville, Tennessee, the first in-person event for the organization in quite some time. Naturally, he said, the pandemic had changed the way funeral directors lived their own lives. Thomas Massey agreed. As a young man, Massey was taught to shake peoples hands, and it was a gesture that was second nature to him as a funeral director, he said. But when the delta variant caught Spartanburg in its grip, Massey wondered how to keep himself safe. I just cannot hug anyone anymore, he said. Perhaps this came from a different kind of isolation, Woodward wondered, one that was different from the type of isolation experienced by those whose life had come at a screeching halt and were forced to confine themselves in their homes. Funeral home workers never stopped working through the pandemic. We do not have a situation where we can work from home, she said. Nothing is the same, and no one can do things the same way, she said. SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) Sioux Fall Police are investigating an overnight shooting with multiple victims. The Argus Leader reports officers responded to the shooting about 2:45 a.m. Sunday. Police say in a statement officers found several victims with gunshot wounds who were taken to local hospitals for treatment. No other details of the shooting were released. Police say Minnesota Avenue will be closed from 14th Street to 17th Street for several hours on Sunday morning while the shooting scene is processed. TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) The late Vivian Malone Jones stands tall in the University of Alabamas history as the first Black person to graduate from the Tuscaloosa campus. The 1965 graduate also had deep ties to another Tuscaloosa campus, Stillman College, where she lived while she was a student at UA. In a ceremony Thursday, Stillman College President Cynthia Warrick and the chief executive officer of YWCA USA signed a memorandum of understanding to build a YWCA facility on the Stillman Campus. Warrick announced that the name of the facility will be the Vivian Malone Jones YWCA at Stillman College. She credits staying on this campus and in the West End community for her being able to graduate from the university in those times, Warrick said. Additionally, the university hired a driver who was a student at Stillman to take her to and from Stillman. She had a room in Winsborough Hall. She ended up marrying her driver, Mack Jones. He graduated, went to Emory (University) and became a physician. Stillman plans to remove two existing residence halls, both of which are contaminated with asbestos and lead paint in order to make room for the YWCA facility. Williams Hall and King Hall have been unoccupied for several years and will have a hazardous materials mitigation and demolition via an Environmental Protection Agency Brownfields Assessment cleanup grant. During her career, Malone Jones worked as director for the EPAs Environmental Justice program. The Mobile native died in 2005. Warrick, noting the lack of recreation facilities available in the West End community, said the new facility will fill a major gap in the community as well as at the college. Stillman has nearly 800 students but has only a single gym and no recreation facility for students or staff. Warrick said part of the motivation in forming the agreement with the YWCA is to provide recreation opportunities for students and to help the college recruit. I spent every summer in YWCA camp so I know how important it is to the community in bringing the YWCA to Tuscaloosa and to Stillman College. Its going to make a difference and a significant impact on West Tuscaloosa, Warrick said. It will mean a lot to our community. Stillman and the West End need a comprehensive recreational facility. Elisha Rhodes, the YWCAs CEO, said the facility will help fulfill the communitys needs. I remember how I entered the YWCA and the resources they provided for me as a Black kid from inner-city Brooklyn. YWCA was founded for young women, Rhodes said. They created a space for young women to thrive, to create their own future. Partnering with Dr. Warrick and Stillman College creates an opportunity for us to move forward the legacy of the organization and also bring the resources this community desperately needs. Another major issue Warrick said the YWCA will fill is the desperate need for on-campus child care for students. Child care is a huge void in this community. I have young students, old students that have children, faculty and staff with children. We saw with COVID this was a real challenge to ensure that those children had somewhere to go. We had faculty and staff bringing their children to school. We had students with their babies in classrooms, Warrick said. Rhodes said the YWCA brings a great many services to a community beyond recreation. In addition to providing child care, YWCA also helps with housing, food support as well as other services designed to lift underserved communities. We know there are many systemic barriers that continue to plague the community we currently sit in, said Rhodes. It is our unique responsibility to create solutions, to dismantle the systemic barriers not only the students, but the external community faces. Part of Warricks vision when taking the job to lead Stillman College in 2017 was to integrate the college and the West End community. Stillmans going to be in the community and the community at Stillman. Thats part of why this partnership is so important because we will bring these services to Stillman and the whole community, Warrick said. The YWCA provides community services with the special mission of elevating women and addressing racism issues. Rhodes said it is the largest provider of gender-based services for victims of domestic violence. The organization also helps with workforce development programs and housing needs. Essentially, what we do is when we see a community need, which typically is in underserved communities and lets call it what it is, Black and brown communities, we partner with the communities. We dont tell communities what they need. We partner with them so they get the resources they need to move from a space of surviving to thriving, Rhodes said. The facility will be a multimillion dollar project and Warrick expects to begin fundraising at the first of the year, though she said donations are welcomed now. The school is now working with architects to form the plans for the new facility as well as for the renovation of Winsborough Hall, the residence hall Malone Jones lived in. The college plans to convert Winsborough into housing for senior citizens. The YWCA is already managing housing in five Alabama counties from their location in Birmingham. Stillman will be partnering with them to manage the housing for those who will live in Winsborough Hall. It will also open opportunities for students in a variety of academic disciplines to work with the the senior citizens. The project will be funded through federal grants, corporate donations and private donations. Warrick said anyone wishing to donate to the project can contact her at Stillman College or Rhodes at YWCA. Online donations can be made through give1876.stillman.edu or www.YWCA.org. Glasgow, Scotland (AP) One phrase, really just a number, dominates climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland: The magic and elusive 1.5. That stands for the international goal of trying to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Its a somewhat confusing number in some ways that wasnt a major part of negotiations just seven years ago and was a political suggestion that later proved to be incredibly important scientifically. Stopping warming at 1.5 or so can avoid or at least lessen some of the most catastrophic future climate change harms and for some people is a life-or-death matter, scientists have found in many reports. The 1.5 figure now it is the overarching objective of the Glasgow climate talks, called COP26, conference President Alok Sharma said on the first day of the conference. Then on Saturday he said the conference, which takes a break on Sunday, was still trying to keep 1.5 alive. For protesters and activists, the phrase is 1.5 to stay alive. And 1.5 is closer than it sounds. Thats because it may sound like another 1.5 degrees from now but because it is since pre-industrial times, its actually only 0.4 degrees (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from now. The world has warmed 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The issue isn't about the one year when the world first averages 1.5 more than pre-industrial times. Scientists usually mean a multi-year average of over 1.5 because temperatures while rising over the long term like on an escalator do have small jags up and down above the long-term trend, much like taking a step up or down on the escalator. But its coming fast. Scientists calculate carbon pollution the burning of fossil fuels can produce before 1.5 degrees is baked in. A report a few days ago from Global Carbon Project found that theres 420 billion tons of carbon dioxide left in that budget and this year humanity spewed 36.4 billion tons. Thats about 11 years worth left at current levels which are rising not falling the report found. To get there, scientists and the United Nations say the world needs to cut its current emissions by about half as of 2030. Thats one of the three goals the U.N. has set for success in Glasgow. Its physically possible (to limit warming to 1.5 degrees), but I think it is close to politically impossible in the real world barring miracles, Columbia University climate scientist Adam Sobel said. Of course we should not give up advocating for it. A dozen other climate scientists told The Associated Press essentially the same thing that if dramatic emission reductions start immediately the world can keep within 1.5 degrees. But they dont see signs of that happening. That 1.5 figure may be the big number now but thats not how it started. At the insistence of small island nations who said it was a matter of survival, 1.5 was put in near the end of negotiations into the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement. It is mentioned only once in the deals text. And that part lists the primary goal to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The 2-degree goal was the existing goal from 2009s failed Copenhagen conference. The goal was initially interpreted as 2 degrees or substantially lower if possible. But in a way both the 1.5 and 2 degree C thresholds are somewhat arbitrary, Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson said in an email. Every tenth of a degree matters! The 2 degrees was chosen because it is the warmest temperature that you can infer that the planet has ever seen in the last million years or so, University of East Anglia climate scientist Corinne LeQuere, who helped write the carbon budget study, said at the Glasgow climate talks. When the Paris agreement threw in the 1.5 figure, the United Nations tasked its Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC to study on what difference there would be an Earth between 1.5 degrees of warming and 2 degrees of warming. The 2018 IPCC report found that compared to 2 degrees, stopping warming at 1.5 would mean: Fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases. Half as many people would suffer from lack of water. Some coral reefs may survive. There's less chance for summers without sea ice in the Arctic. The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting. Seas would rise nearly 4 inches (0.1 meters) less. Half as many animals with back bones and plants would lose the majority of their habitats. There would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts. For some people this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt, report lead author Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald said at the time. That finding that theres a massive difference to Earth with far less damage at 1.5 is the biggest climate science finding in the last six years, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Director Johan Rockstrom said in an interview at the Glasgow conference. It gets worse and worse as you exceed beyond 1.5, Rockstrom said. We have more scientific evidence than ever that we need to really aim for landing at 1.5, which is the safe climate planetary boundary. Once we pass 1.5 we enter a scientific danger zone in terms of heightened risk, Rockstrom said. In a new IPCC report in August, the world hit 1.5 in the 2030s in each of the four main carbon emissions scenarios they looked out. Even when scientists and politicians talk about 1.5 they usually talk about overshoot in which for a decade or so the temperature hits or passes 1.5, but then goes back down usually with some kind of technology that sucks carbon out of the air, Stanfords Jackson and others said. As hard as it is, negotiators cant give up on 1.5, said Canadian Member of Parliament Elizabeth May, who is at her 16th climate negotiations. If we dont hang on to 1.5 while it is technically feasible, we are almost criminal, May said. ___ Follow APs climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. BRISTOL, Va. (AP) Two state historical markers recalling a Bristol civil rights leader and the Lee Street Baptist Church were dedicated last week. One of the markers, installed at Cumberland Square Park facing Lee Street, recalls the life of Charles Spurgeon Johnson. The marker describes Johnson as a sociologist, author and civil rights leader. He was the son of a 42-year pastor, Charles Henry Johnson, of Lee Street Baptist Church, which is recognized in its own new marker at the park. With a cold drizzling rain, dozens gathered Oct. 30 under the canopy of the Bristol City Courthouse at the corner of Cumberland Street and Lee Street the namesake of Lee Street Baptist Church. The Bristol Historical Association, the markers sponsor, hosted the event, which featured city leaders, ministers, historical preservation leaders, as well as Jeh Johnson, former secretary of Homeland Security and a grandson of Charles Spurgeon Johnson. Both markers were approved for manufacture and installation earlier this year by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources. The markers manufacturing costs were covered by the sponsor. There are currently more than 2,600 official state markers in the state, and most are maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, by local partners in jurisdictions outside of VDOTs authority such as the city of Bristol. The Bristol Herald Courier first covered Johnsons story in December of 2017 and in editorials urged the community to remember the civil rights leader. The articles described Johnson as Bristols most famous unknown son. The article challenged the community to honor Charles Spurgeon Johnson, said Sid Oakley with the Bristol Historical Association. Oakley said a group of individuals were meeting at the time to discuss the first Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration in Bristol. The group decided that a state historical marker for Johnson was just what the historic group needed to do. The markers are the first in Bristol to recognize an African American resident, Oakley said. This has been the most ... enjoyable experience of my life, Oakley said of the process to install the markers. Jeh Johnson, the former cabinet secretary, spoke briefly on behalf of the family. He said his family is proud and thankful that the city has worked to install the markers, and they are pleased with the work put into the project. Johnson identified several Johnson descendants in the crowd during the event. Colita Fairfax, a member of the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, which is authorized to designate new historical markers, said she made sure to participate in the gathering. She said she felt a connection with Charles Johnsons work. After several speeches by Oakley, Jeh Johnson, Fairfax, Bristol Tennessee Mayor Mahlon Luttrell, Bristol Virginia Vice Mayor Neal Osborne and singing by the Lee Street Baptist Church choir, the Historical Association unveiled the two markers. THE JOHNSONS When Charles Henry Johnson moved from Richmond, Virginia, to Bristol, which served as a railroad town, in 1890, he became the minister of a little wooden church started by 39 freed slaves. A few pastors had come through the church, which was organized 25 years earlier, but Johnson stuck, according to a Dec. 17, 2017, article in the Bristol Herald Courier. He transformed the church, which, according to a news report from more than 75 years ago, had been in the midst of some confusion. It quickly became the hub of Bristols Black community and, just two years after Johnson arrived, outgrew the small building. The congregation moved to a new location on Lee Street, which became the churchs namesake. Current Lee Street Baptist pastor W.A. Johnson, no relation to Charles Johnson, told the Bristol Herald Courier that the church had at least 700 members. The church later moved to its current location on West Mary Street. (It had) a bigger sanctuary than this church, W.A. Johnson said. (Charles) Johnson was the one who put it on the map. In their book about Johnsons son, Charles Spurgeon Johnson who left Bristol to become a prominent sociologist, a pioneer in the field of race relations and the first Black president of Nashvilles Fisk University Patrick J. Gilpin and Marybeth Gasman describe Charles Henry as a young and energetic minister, according to former Bristol Herald Courier reporter Alyssa Oursler. He transformed the rowdy railroad camp of Bristol into an orderly and thriving community, they wrote. But charisma wasnt all that set him apart. He was a high-caliber fellow, Johnson said. He was educated. You didnt have much of that anywhere in the South in 1890 (after) just 30 years of freedom. He was one of the pioneers. Johnson was said to have ended lynching mob killings of Black people in Bristol, too. His confrontation of a mob, Gilpin and Gasman wrote, didnt save that victim but did prevent a repeat of the injustice. He remained the pastor of Lee Street Baptist until his death in 1932. After six decades at Lee Street, the original brick-veneer Lee Street Baptist Church, which was weakened by periodic flooding of adjacent Beaver Creek, was razed. In 1966, the congregation moved into a new building on West Mary Street. MARKER TEXT Dr. Charles Spurgeon Johnson (1893-1956) Charles S. Johnson, sociologist, author, and civil rights leader, was born in Bristol, son of a 42-year pastor of Lee Street Baptist Church. He attended Virginia Union University and the University of Chicago and served in combat during World War I. A scholar of race relations, he was the primary author of a seminal analysis of the Chicago race riots of 1919. He became the first director of research at the National Urban League and was a driving force behind the Harlem Renaissance as editor of Opportunity magazine. At Fisk University, Johnson led the social sciences department, published widely, and established annual Race Relations Institutes. In 1947 he became Fisks first Black president. LEE STREET BAPTIST CHRUCH In 1865, at the dawn of their freedom from slavery, 42 former members of the white-led Goodson (now First) Baptist Church organized the Anglo African Baptist Church. The congregation met in a series of buildings until, under the leadership of the Rev. Charles Henry Johnson, they built a new edifice just across the street from here in 1905. The Rev. Johnson served the church, later renamed Lee Street Baptist, until he died during his 42nd year as pastor in 1932. After six decades here, the original brick-veneer church, weakened by the periodic flooding of adjacent Beaver Creek, was razed. In 1966, the congregation moved into a new building at 1 West Mary Street. CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) It may not turn you into a cyborg or the Six Million Dollar Man, but it could help you walk straighter and ease skeletal back pain. University of Virginia physicians have begun using a new, 3-D-printed, titanium back spacer designed to fit individual patients suffering from spinal deformities, whether from natural causes or traumas. The spacer is designed to realign the spine to a more normal position and allow bone to grow through it to create a natural fusion in the spine. Carlsmed, Inc., which creates the device, known as the aprevo implant, announced the first successful use of the implant in February of this year during a surgery at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center. UVa physicians are also early adapters of the device and were involved in its research and creation. Its a spacer and its currently approved for spine deformity cases, which are basically misalignments of the spine, said Dr. Justin Smith, a professor of neurosurgery at UVa Medical School and director of UVa Medical Centers spine division. Smith said surgeries to correct misalignments often require cleaning out the remnants of spinal discs, natures spacing devices in the spine. Titanium rods, screws and either plastic or titanium spacers are used to shore up the spine and to realign it. The idea is to put the spine right, add spacers to keep it straight and to have the body grow bone over the hardware to create a strong support where the disc once was. Were often putting rods and screws in to reconstruct the spine with the goal of getting the bones that the rods and screws span to knit together solid as one, or to fuse, Smith said. The problem is that the rods and screws we put in are metal, and metal is imperfect. If the bones dont knit together solid across those (devices), then the metal has to carry the bodys stress indefinitely. The metal can then fatigue, fracture and fail or the screws can pull out or rods can crack. An estimated 6 million adults have mild to severe spinal deformity and 1.6 million seek treatment for the condition, either surgery or other treatment, each year. Prior to aprevo, most spacers were off-the-shelf, devices made from surgical plastics and metals in particular sizes. While those implants have different heights to fit different length spines, theyre basically pre-formed blocks. Aprevo is different, said Smith, who worked with Carlsmed to develop the device. They make it fit the exact shape of the surface of the bones above and below it so when it goes in, it hugs the bone above and below and has the maximum amount of contact, he said. It gives the best chances of healing and creating a solid fusion over time. Smith said CT scans and standing X-rays of a patient are sent to Carlsmed, a San Diego, California-based medical technology company. The company uses the scan and X-ray images to create a 3-D model and designs the implant based on the model. The modeling is accurate down to the bumps and texture of the surrounding bone. The company plans out how the alignment of the spine should be and then designs the spacers to go between the bones to help maximize the correction of the spine, Smith said. Sometimes the implant will be a wedge shape instead of a block to help maximize the correction of the spine. The company then uses 3-D printers to make the patient-specific designed implant out of titanium. Theyre often unusually shaped. The surfaces are often irregular and rough and mimic the boney surfaces, Smith said. Then the company sends the design to the 3-D printer where they can print any shape they want. In 2019, Carlsmed completed a merger with a Seattle-based spine imaging system company to create the medical industrys first personalized surgical workflow platform. Imaging for severe spinal deformities is primarily used for diagnostic purposes only, Mike Cordonnier, cofounder and CEO of Carlsmed said in the 2019 announcement. This enables creation of devices and surgical plans in a build-on-demand business model. This technology leap addresses a giant opportunity to use meaningful data for improved patient care. In December 2020 the device and company received approvals from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Two months later, it was being used in surgeries. Its kind of an exciting advancement, Smith said. In the past we just put in a block that did not necessarily provide optimal correction of the deformity did not really contact the bones optimally and didnt really favor the healing process like the new implant does. The technology to make the implants was not readily available until the development of 3-D printing for titanium structures, Smith said. To be able to 3-D print titanium cages is relatively new. Its been around for a just a few years, he said. Before that technology we couldnt really create the unusual surfaces and shapes that match each individual patient. Smith said the device promotes fast healing and recovery and creates fewer complications from surgery and reduces the need for additional surgery The two goals of spinal deformity surgery are to get realignment and ultimately get the bones to heal together solid, and this actually helps with both of the goals, he said. Its an exciting advance and its pretty exciting that UVa is on the forefront of it. In July, the company announced it was working with the International Spine Study Group Foundation to study adult spinal deformity and collect data on surgical treatment with similar devices. Long term outcomes data will be collected to determine how much, if any the devices improve patient outcomes and reduce surgical complications. There is a general trend to more personalized care in medicine. It makes sense that implants we would use for spinal surgeries to become more personalized as well, Smith said. I have a feeling more and more surgeons are going to be using the implant. The technology is good and its going to prove beneficial. RENO, Nev. (AP) The extended studies program at the University of Nevada, Reno is launching the first online courses in the state to obtain non-credit certificates in cannabis education ranging from business to horticulture and medicine to help meet demand for jobs in an area that sponsors say is growing like gangbusters. Each certificate program includes three eight-week online courses offered through Green Flower, a cannabis career training company. The four programs cover the business of the marijuana industry; agriculture and horticulture; law and policy; and health care and medicine. Its a new era, said Jodi Herzik, interim vice provost for Extended Studies. The industry is changing, she told the Reno Gazette Journal. You cant just have former potheads running the counter, you have to have educated professionals. Legal cannabis sales exceeded $1 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 in Nevada, where about 10,000 people work in the industry, the Nevada Dispensary Association reported. Weve been very careful to stress that this is strictly education about the industry because theres a need, Herzik said. With the impact of COVID-19 being displaced, and people looking for new career paths, we thought this might be the right time to try this program, she said. Jobs in that area are growing like gangbusters. Theyre high-paying jobs too. Legal cannabis supports 321,000 full-time jobs nationally, growing faster than any other industry in the country, according to the Leafly 2021 Jobs Report. Such growth has created a large and growing job market, and a tremendous opportunity for people in Nevada to find rewarding careers, said Daniel Kalef, Green Flowers vice president of Higher Education. Marijuana is still illegal at a federal level, and that includes direct research, consumption and any other direct use. A majority of states, however, have legalized marijuana in some capacity. Nevada was the third state to approve cannabis for medical use with the adoption of the Nevada Medical Marijuana Act in 1998. Nevadans voted to legalize cannabis for adult recreational use in 2016. Herzik said the university hasnt promoted the program heavily so as to have a soft launch this month, allowing the school to ensure its a good fit and doesnt need any tweaking. About 30 to 40 prospective students have expressed interest so far, many from the Las Vegas area and a few from other parts of the country, she said. The first session of online courses begins Nov. 15. The cost is $2,950 per certificate, but the university is offering a special one-time $500 discount for students who enroll in the November launch. Payment plans are available. Students will develop a portfolio of case studies and projects that can be used to demonstrate sector-specific cannabis knowledge, Herzik said. Upon successful completion of the program, students will earn a certificate of completion from UNR. Courses begin in six start dates a year and are scheduled to accommodate working professionals, she said. Enrollment is open at https://cannabiseducation.unr.edu. BEDFORD, Va. (AP) A woman armed with a handgun after exiting her burning home in western Virginia was fatally shot by officers early Sunday, according to Virginia State Police, which is investigating what happened. Chelsae L. Clevenger-Kirk, 29, of Goodview, died after being fired upon by Bedford County sheriffs deputies and a Department of Wildlife Resources officer, a state police news release said. IN SUMMARY UN nations have pledged to reduce climate-changing methane and forest destruction within 10 years. California has been trying to handle both problems, with limited success. By Rachel Becker and Julie Cart CalMatters Nations around the globe this week have pledged to tackle two thorny and critical threats to Earth's climate: methane, which is the most potent planet-warming pollutant, and widespread destruction of forests. Both of these are major contributors to climate change that California has tried -- yet struggled -- to address. More than 100 countries inched toward progress on tackling climate change by signing an international pledge, launched Tuesday at the United Nations' climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, to slash methane pollution by nearly a third over the next ten years. The nations also promised to end worldwide deforestation -- a widespread practice that warms the planet -- in the same time period, an ambitious goal that would be backed by nearly $20 billion in public and private funds. President Joe Biden paired the pledges with an announcement of an expansive strategy to cut methane, following the lead of states, including California, that began crafting policies to stop it from seeping into the atmosphere years before. "It was remarkable to be able to already have a great outline of a methane action plan," National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy said at the international summit. "We can do this because of the work that has been done by everyone else." California has long-standing rules tackling methane from landfills, the oil and gas industry, dairies and other major sources. But it's also home to a large natural gas storage facility that had a major leak starting in 2015. State officials voted today to increase natural gas storage at the facility while they evaluate how to shut it down. California's methane emissions largely haven't increased over the past decade, but they also haven't dropped significantly -- signaling the challenge ahead for governments that signed on to the pledge. The pledge from the UN nations "is sort of the lowest common denominator that you could get everyone to agree to," said Arvind Ravikumar, a research associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. "That said, 30 percent does not mean it's easy." When it comes to forests, California is losing the ability of its trees to store planet-warming carbon. The state's forests are no longer burned or razed to clear land for agriculture, as is common in the developing world, but large tracts are burning nonetheless -- from wildfires. "The role of nature has been underappreciated as a part of our climate solution," California Resource Secretary Wade Crowfoot said in an interview. "The world's forests are burning up," he said. "In the Southern Hemisphere it's through a policy of land clearing, in California our forests are burning as a result of climate change or forest management." Cows and landfills Methane, the key ingredient in natural gas, is a shorter-lived but more powerful greenhouse gas than the more-infamous carbon dioxide. It makes up about 10 percent of greenhouse gases that people pump out across the United States, but accounts for about 30 percent of today's warming. It's largely regulated by the federal government, except where states have stepped in. Biden's new plans include proposing a rule under the Clean Air Act to cut methane pollution from new and existing oil and gas facilities, and finalizing another that would increase oversight of certain natural gas pipelines. The White House also said state agencies would ramp up incentives and other efforts to curb methane from landfills and agriculture. The Environmental Protection Agency's draft oil and gas rule, expected to be finalized by the end 2022, is one more example of the regulatory whiplash that industries have faced over the past five years. No sooner had President Barack Obama finalized in 2016 the first-ever federal rules to directly regulate methane from new and modified oil and gas sources, than President Donald Trump's administration began trying to undo them. Congress undid the Trump administration's rollbacks this year, and now even more stringent rules are set to take their place. "On methane, specifically for oil and gas companies, they have seen quite a bit of change in Washington," Lauren Sanchez, senior advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom on climate, told CalMatters from Scotland. "What California brings is kind of a consistency in message and, for them, consistency in business direction." The California Air Resources Board is still figuring out how the federal proposal and California's existing methane rules overlap, said Carolyn Lozo, who leads the air board's oil and gas and greenhouse gas mitigation branch. "In many ways, the state methane rule has very similar controls to what the EPA proposal has," said Lozo. Since the landmark California Global Warming Solutions Act passed in 2006, the state has adopted a number of methane policies -- rolling out requirements for methane capture at landfills, increasing oversight and monitoring to prevent leaks in natural gas pipelines and storage facilities, and setting a statewide target to cut methane pollution 40 percent below 2013 levels by 2030. The air board adopted regulations in 2017 requiring regular monitoring, leak detection and repair at both new and existing oil and gas facilities, and set emissions standards and other requirements for certain oil and gas equipment. The rules expanded on a patchwork of existing policies to prevent toxic compounds and gases escaping from wells enacted by some air districts, which can also reduce methane emissions, Lozo said. "We need to dig down a little deeper and see, is there a delta? Is there a place that we need to shore up the state regulation?" Lozo said. Kevin Slagle, a spokesperson for the influential Western States Petroleum Association, said it's too soon to contrast California's program and the yet-to-be finalized EPA rules, which he said they will review. Echoing the American Petroleum Institute, he said, "we support the direct regulation of methane from new and existing sources and are committed to building on the progress we have achieved in reducing methane emissions." More controversial is California's approach to regulating methane from the dairy industry, which accounted for nearly half of the state's methane emissions in 2013. California's regulators tackle those emissions entirely with incentive programs, funding efforts to harness and convert methane emissions from manure into fuel. Environmental justice groups say these incentives encourage the persistence of large-scale farming operations near communities. "The state has pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer and ratepayer money into programs that benefit the factory farm and gas industries and that do not address either the air quality or water quality or climate crises impacting San Joaquin Valley residents," said Phoebe Seaton, co-executive director of Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. "It's past time to take our dairy problem seriously." Like California, the Biden administration's plans rely largely on voluntary incentive programs for agriculture. "USDA does not regulate greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector," said Mirvat Sewadeh, a spokesperson for the United States Department of Agriculture. "Our climate strategy is farmer, rancher and landowner-led and will ensure that rural America plays a key role in our transition to cleaner sources of energy." That's a problem, said Jamie Katz, staff attorney at the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability. The Biden administration is "failing to learn from the mistakes that California has made over the last decade." And methane pollution continues. Cows' digestive tracts produce methane, and the gas released by their belches is unregulated in California, which could hinder future methane reductions. And an aerial survey reported massive plumes of methane released by some landfills. Still, California's climate regulators say there's more progress ahead. State law requires diverting 75 percent of all rotting, methane-spewing organic waste from landfills by 2025. California's air board announced a collaborative plan to launch a flock of carbon-sniffing satellites to detect methane and other gases. More incentive-funded manure-digesters are expected to come online, and scientists are working to crack the problem of bovine belches. "What we need to do is really deploy more dairy digesters, cap more fugitive methane emissions, move off of fossil natural gas -- which will hopefully reduce our fossil fugitive methane emissions as well," said Matthew Botill, chief of the air board's Industrial Strategies Division. "And doing that, over this next decade, is really pivotal." Protecting forests to protect climate Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a Democrat from San Jose, says the state hasn't gone far enough to address deforestation, including on an international scale. He sponsored a bill that would have required companies doing business with the state to certify their products were not harvested from areas where tropical deforestation occurred. The legislation passed but was vetoed by Newsom last month. Kalra said he welcomes the international pledges to end deforestation and attention to the problem, but said, "we can do more." "A lot of countries make pledges, and you don't see much follow up. I'm not interested in pledges, I'm interested in action to save this planet." Land use practices, including agriculture and burning forests for development, account for about 23 percent of total annual greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It's a circular problem: Burning forests to clear land releases carbon. And losing trees means losing their ability to pull carbon from the atmosphere. California policy makers came to the same conclusion. An executive order signed by Newsom last year made it a priority to harness natural landscapes to promote biodiversity and "accelerate natural removal of carbon and build climate resilience in our forests..." The initiative is still in draft form but much of the focus is on forest loss through wildfires and will set goals for carbon storage in forests and soils. The state has increased its measurements of both carbon stored - or sequestered - in California's forests and the alarming increase in emissions from severe fires. "Our challenge in California is to restore the health of our forests to enable them to be carbon sinks instead of carbon sources," Crowfoot said. Matthew D. Hurteau of University of New Mexico has been studying forests in the southern Sierra Nevada, measuring climate change and fire and their impact on healthy forest function. His research has been used as the underpinning for much of California's forest and fire management policy. "California has a forest loss problem," he said. "These significant tree-killing wildfire events are happening in the context of ongoing drought and high temperatures. It impedes the ability of new trees to grow." He modeled historical, low-severity burns that occurred every 17 years. Those moderate fires took out smaller trees and emitted carbon, but that was offset by the surviving larger trees, which absorbed the carbon from the fires. "The big trees are where the carbon uptake happens," Hurteau said. He said the practice by fire agencies of thinning forests with low-intensity burns that target the removal of smaller trees achieves the twin goals of making forests more fire-resistant and maintaining their ability to store carbon. Using forests and other lands to address the climate crisis is overdue, he said. "We've paid lip service to the role of natural systems in helping to regulate the climate," he said. Copyright 2021 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area. Copyright 2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. IN SUMMARY Global supply chain problems have led to a massive backup at Southern California ports. California lawmakers are asking experts about what the state could do to help -- including locating temporary storage, growing the truck driving and warehouse workforces, suspending regulations and creating a new inland port. By Grace Gedye CalMatters If you've never really thought about California's ports or the global supply chain before the past month, that's normal. But they're having problems now, driven by the pandemic, and it's causing a shortage of everything from computer chips to kitchen supplies. California's problem is a national one, too: The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together bring in 40 percent of all goods shipped to the U.S. by water. So now everyone from port directors to President Joe Biden is interested in fixing the situation. The backlog's origin story is complicated. Early in the pandemic, factories had to shut down or reduce their output. Shipping companies reduced their schedules, assuming people would be buying less stuff. Protective gear was sent to locations across the globe that don't export many goods, so some of those shipping containers didn't get returned. Then, people did buy stuff -- a lot of stuff. Warehouses struggled to hire enough workers to keep up with demand and they started getting backed up, leaving containers full of new goods at the ports, where they started to create traffic jams, said Chris Tang, a professor at UCLA's Anderson School of Management who studies supply chain issues. This week, California lawmakers talked with experts and stakeholders about what the state could do in the near term to resolve the backlog, and in the longer term, to prevent similar backups in the future. "I mean, the simple answer to this crisis is that people stop buying stuff, but that's not going to happen," said Assemblymember Patrick O'Donnell, a Democrat whose district includes both the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. "So we need to respond, and we need to respond quickly." Already, federal, state, and local policy makers have taken action. On Oct. 13, Biden announced the Port of LA would operate around the clock, a decision that came after the Port of Long Beach also decided to extend its hours. A week later, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing state agencies to look for land that could be used as temporary storage, identify freight routes that should be exempted from vehicle weight limits and identify training partnerships with private industry for port and logistics workers. In late October, the federal Department of Transportation said it would offer billions of dollars in loans to shore up California's port and supply chain infrastructure. At the local level, authorities have allowed containers to be stacked four high, rather than the usual two, and said companies would be fined for leaving containers too long at the ports. But, experts say the backlog may not be resolved until sometime next year. In the meantime, loitering ships are causing pollution and businesses across the country are facing shortages. "It has become clear that this is a multifaceted problem, and it will require multifaceted action," said O'Donnell at the hearing. "There is not one switch you can flip." So what can the state of California actually do to help? Find land that can temporarily store containers Dee Dee Myers, director of the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, said the solution she'd heard most frequently is for the state to identify parcels of land, either inside or outside port complexes, that can be used as additional temporary storage for containers. Myers said the agency now has a list of several dozen potential sites, though there are complications for each. The government has a deadline of Dec. 15 to complete its survey, though they may be done sooner, Myers added. Using other locations as temporary storage is something that private marine terminal operators have been doing for some time, said Robert Leachman, a professor in UC Berkeley's Industrial Relations and Operations Research program. It makes sense, he said, as a short-term solution. But leaving goods strewn across Southern California could create new problems, such as how best to retrieve them later and negotiate with communities opposed to having a ton of big rigs coming and going, experts said. Grow the truck driving workforce Contributing to the backup is a shortage of truck drivers. Truck drivers are independent contractors and are paid per delivery rather than by the hour, Leachman said. When they're stuck waiting at the ports for hours to get their container, it means they're working more hours for the same take home pay. Fewer drivers are willing to take that deal. There's also a shortage of warehouse workers. "The jobs are hopelessly unattractive so we can't get enough people to fill them," Leachman said. He thinks wages will need to rise to fill those positions. California transportation secretary David Kim said he's met with the White House, the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, California's Labor and Workforce Development Agency, and the Department of Food and Agriculture to discuss driver recruitment and retention. The federal transportation department will also be working with states to expedite the licensing process for truck drivers. The state can work with universities and community colleges to provide technical training and build the pipeline of people prepared for trucking and logistics jobs, said Nick Vyas, a professor at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. But in the longer term, if it's hard to interest enough workers in these kinds of jobs, automation may be part of the solution, he said. Tang agrees. In the short run, there's a huge need for truck drivers, but, said Tang, "I think that the long term prospects for truck drivers (are) not good." Suspend regulations and laws A coalition of more than a dozen business groups sent Newsom a letter requesting that he suspend several regulations and laws to help solve the supply chain issues. Among their proposals: - Suspend a variety of environmental regulations and pollution laws; - Suspend the state's landmark worker status law passed in 2019 that reclassified many independent contractors as employees; - Suspend a new law passed this year which requires warehouses to disclose to workers any quotas or work speed standards. A quick response came from Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, the San Diego Democrat who introduced both worker laws. She pointed out that the independent contractor law does not currently apply to truck drivers; a battle over an exemption for the drivers is currently wending its way through the legal system. Additionally, the warehouse law isn't slated to go into effect until January of 2022, leading Gonzalez to call the proposals "deceptive." She also said the shortage of truck drivers has been decades in the making, driven by deregulation of the industry and decreasing working conditions. "Instead of offering good-faith proposals that address the underlying problems contributing to labor shortages and congestion at our ports, the industry-backed proposal is a thinly veiled attempt to cut costs on the backs of essential workers and skirt future enforcement efforts," she wrote. When asked if the administration would reconsider laws regulating warehouses, Myers didn't offer a conclusive response. "I think we're willing to look broadly; I think there's some things that we won't be willing to change," she said. She also said the administration may relax regulations such as some weight limits for trucks. An inland port? Another, longer term solution suggested was the creation of an inland port -- sometimes called a dry port -- to function as a distribution point for incoming goods. Inland ports are connected to sea ports by road or rail. "An inland port in the Central Valley would do wonders in terms of relieving choke points, and facilitating the movement of cargo from the San Pedro Bay ports up to northern and central California by truck or rail," said Transportation Secretary Kim at the hearing. He said a proposal is currently being developed by the Fresno Council of Governments, which has secured a $1 million grant from the federal Transportation Department to study the idea. This would alleviate some of the pressure at water ports, Vyas said. But Leachman is dubious of the value of a new inland port. It would require building additional terminals for cranes to unload containers, he said, which is costly. He contends those investments could be better made elsewhere. If a new inland port was built somewhere in the middle of the state, like Fresno, it could result in a lot of extra miles for truck drivers. Most of the distribution facilities are in the Inland Empire and near Southern California ports. "If you end up needing to go to those warehouses anyways, it's sort of wasted miles right? You go to Fresno, they're going to have to double back to Ontario or Pomona," Leachman said. So how much can the state really do? In short, not a lot, Vyas said. The California ports are just one point in the very long supply chain -- stretching from manufacturers across the globe, to consumers in small Midwest towns and large East Coast cities. California's state government has limited influence on the international actors involved, and the millions of consumers across the U.S. who order goods. There aren't quick fixes for growing the warehouse and truck driving workforces. But the issues could be resolved before too long anyway: Tang expects things will calm down by February or March of 2022. Copyright 2021 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area. Copyright 2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. IN SUMMARY California's official unemployment rate is 7.5 percent. But a newer method of measuring unemployment reveals a far larger portion of the state is struggling to find full-time employment that pays enough to cover the cost of living. By Jesse Bedayn CalMatters Officially, California has 1.4 million unemployed residents, but a new study that takes into account people who can't find jobs that pay above poverty level says the number of "functionally unemployed" is three times higher at 4.8 million. The analysis by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, an organization focused on studying the economic well-being of middle and lower-income Americans, found 25.7 percent of California workers are functionally unemployed, meaning they are seeking, but unable to find, full-time employment paying above the poverty level. That's compared to the state's 7.5 percent unemployment rate. "Policy leaders, by these headlines and statistics, have been deluded into thinking things are better off than they are," said LISEP chairman Gene Ludwig, who served as U.S. Comptroller of the Currency under President Bill Clinton. The organization's new, more inclusive analysis is part of a broader movement to revamp outdated methods of gauging poverty and unemployment. The chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, wrote in February that "published unemployment rates during COVID have dramatically understated the deterioration in the labor market." And a report released earlier this year from United Ways of California, an antipoverty advocacy organization, used a "real cost measure" to estimate that 3.5 million working households in the state don't make enough to meet their most basic necessities. For Ludwig, the problem comes down to the government's current definition of employed. The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics defines a person as employed if that person works at least 1 hour during its 7-day survey period. "You were counted as employed, even if you were desperate to have a full-time job," Ludwig said. To capture a more detailed view of the functionally unemployed, LISEP researchers included anyone unemployed, those working part-time but seeking full-time employment and people making below $20,000. Luis Philipe Ruiz Gonzalez is one of those desperate for a full-time job. After weathering the pandemic broke and living out of a motor home with his wife, the 66-year-old applied without success for a number of jobs, including at SolarCity and San Mateo County Health. In August, he landed a part-time job delivering paint up and down the San Francisco Peninsula 7 hours a day from Tuesday to Friday. That month, he and his wife moved into his son's old apartment, with half the rent paid by his son, a personal trainer. "I am happy because I am working part time," said Gonzalez, "but the problem is income, it's not enough to survive." While Gonzalez likes the paint company, which pays him $21 an hour, rent takes half of his wages and the rest doesn't stave off pangs of hunger at night. Gonzalez sometimes lines up at San Mateo County charity Samaritan House for fish, fresh produce and dried goods. "When you are a partial employee," he said, "you can't survive." California's unemployment rate hit a high of 16.3 percent in May 2020 and the state has recovered 63.5 percent of jobs lost due to the pandemic. But Gonzalez's struggle to find enough work is not reflected by California's standard employment measurements, making him functionally unemployed. "It is worth examining how we capture and report these figures," said Alissa Anderson, senior policy analyst at the California Budget & Policy Center, "because they affect how policy choices are made and support is provided for families and households." LISEP researchers also found that women had a functional unemployment rate nearly 9 percent higher than men in September 2021. It's a stark comparison to the .5 percent lower unemployment rate among women offered by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even LISEP's functional unemployment numbers are a low estimate. While researchers used $20,000 as the poverty line, the Bay Area's high rents require that some families make over $100,000 to stay afloat, according to United Ways of California. "We are headed down a path that, if we don't deal with these problems," Ludwig said, "we will see serious social unrest." This article is part of the California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequality and economic survival in California. Copyright 2021 Bay City News, Inc. All rights reserved. Republication, rebroadcast or redistribution without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. Bay City News is a 24/7 news service covering the greater Bay Area. Copyright 2021 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited. When it comes to how much commission you pay the agent or agents who helped you sell your home, that will vary. But it often boils down to a percentage of the home's sales price. So on a home that sold for $450,000, a 6% commission equals $27,000. Half of the commission you pay goes to the listing agent, and the other half goes to the buyers agent. Of course, as with any rule, there can be exceptions. (Note: As with all real estate commissions, amounts vary and are not standardized or mandated at a specific percentage.) And when it comes to land, an agent's commission may not be based solely on the land's sales price. As a result, the fee a seller pays an agent can vary widely. That's because there is a host of differences between selling a home and selling land. The biggest variant? There's a more limited pool of buyers for land purchases than for homes. And that factor alone calls for an agent to adjust the normal sales approach. In addition, people looking for land are often hoping to develop a property or to build a home, which whittles down potential buyers even further. Here are the main things to take into consideration when selling your land so you'll have an idea of how much of a commission you might pay. The sales commission on land, explained As with home sales, the commission rate for land is typically set by the listing agent and paid for by the seller. Yet there's a wide range of what the commission on a land sale can be. For instance, on a plot of land costing $250,000, sellers could pay anywhere between $12,500 to $25,000 in commission, according to John Myers, real estate broker and owner of Myers & Myers Real Estate in Albuquerque, NM. Other agents may charge a flat fee, depending on the land's acreage and the particular brokerage firm they work for. Some brokerages may also charge some type of transaction feewhich covers document storage and management costsin addition to the commission or flat fee. Beyond the price of the land The primary factor used to determine an agents commission is usually the price of the land listed in an accepted offer. But agents also base their expected commission fee on several additional elements. These include how much work they expect to undertake in selling the property and how long they predict the sale will take. Commission rates can also vary by location or the type of land. For example, vacant land may be easier to sell than land that needs to be cleared. A higher sales price for a piece of land may also affect the commission. If youre selling land worth $1 million, a 6% commission would work out to $60,000. If the land is worth only $60,000, a 6% commission would be $3,600. Yet both pieces of land could require the same amount of work to handle the transaction. And in that case, agents may expect a higher commission on a less valuable property to make it worth their while. Understand the risks involved Risk is another factor real estate agents take into account when setting their commission, says Myers. The higher the risk for the real estate agent, the higher the commission. Selling raw land can come with a higher risk than selling a home. That's because buyers purchasing raw land are often looking to build a home. And developing raw land can involve a variety of issues and complications that might throw a wrench in those plans. As a result, agents sometimes need to do quite a bit of legwork to ensure the land is buildable, from obtaining septic information to testing the groundwater. "Agents can be sued for making incorrect disclosures, intentional or unintentional, says Myers. So sellers and listing agents had better be experts when it comes to availability of utilities and services to the land. They should also know who is responsible to pay for utility connections." Shop around for agents If you're hoping to sell a parcel of land and want to know what the commission might be, its always a good idea to shop around for an agent. Ask for estimates from several agents so you can compare not only their commission rate but what services they offer in exchange for payment. Speak with several different real estate agents, ask them how much they charge and what they do to earn that commission, says Joshua Hanoud, a real estate agent with Tropic Shores Realty in Spring Hill, Fla. Base who you hire on the responses that you get. Some agents are worth more than others. And choose the most qualified one Just remember, as with anything else, you often get what you pay for. And you may not want to sacrifice experience and expertise to save a few commission percentage points. There could be lower rates available, but the important thing is not what you pay, but what you receive in return," says Jim Basquette, a real estate agent with Huff Realty in Cincinnati. "Getting the right agent is more important than getting the lowest rate. So if youre looking to sell a piece of property, make sure you work with a real estate professional who knows the ins and outs of land sales in particular. While their commission should certainly factor into your decision, choosing the wrong agent could cost you more down the line. The post Selling Your Land? Here's Everything You Need To Know About the Real Estate Commission appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com. What is iBuying? In a nutshell, it's a relatively new and different way to buy and sell homes thats been in the news lately. If youre a home seller who wants to sell your home fast and with minimal fuss, selling to an iBuyer is certainly one option worth considering. Today, there are many different ways to sell a house, so it's best to start by reviewing all your options (which are described in the Seller's Marketplace at Realtor.com). Traditionally, selling a house requires a number of stepslike making repairs, staging your home so that it looks its best, holding open houses, soliciting offers, negotiating with home buyers, and signing a purchase agreementplus overcoming any roadblocks along the way. Even if you hire a real estate agent to help you navigate this process, selling a house can take time and work, and some maneuvering before you cross the finish line. Selling real estate to an iBuyer, though, is typically a more streamlined transaction. Heres how the process usually works: You go to an iBuyers website, plug in your home's address, and fill out a questionnaire about your home. Within about 24 hours, you will receive a cash offer on your home. (The i in "iBuyer" stands for instant," which is why they're also called "instant offers.") From there, you can decide whether or not to move forward with the deal. Depending on your preference, the transaction can close in a matter of days. The big downside of iBuying is that all this convenience may come at a price. Selling to an iBuyer may mean you make less money on your sale than through the traditional routeworking with a real estate agent who preps your home for sale and negotiates the best offer. Wondering whether selling your home to an iBuyer is right for you? Here, weve outlined the pros and cons of iBuyers and instant offers, to help you as a homeowner to make the right decision. How iBuying began Opendoor, which was launched in 2013, was the first major iBuyer to market. Since then, a number of others have entered the business. This includes new online companies like Offerpad and Knock, as well as some traditional real estate firms and brokerages, like Keller Williams and Coldwell Banker. Nonetheless, the industry leader Opendoor has expanded to over 40 cities across the United States. (Here's a full list of where it operates.) Even in cities with the highest percentage of iBuyer transactions such as Phoenix, iBuyers comprise only about 5% of all sales. Still, some experts say iBuying will continue to grow, up to a point. What we see happening is iBuying will expand to more markets over time, says Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM Data Solutions, a nationwide property database. Consumers will become more educated as to what iBuying entails, and local real estate professionals will increasingly try to get in front of iBuying and walk a seller through the process. Nonetheless, even once the iBuying industry has matured, Barber says he does not see iBuying ever accounting for more than 15% of all real estate transactions, since it will only appeal to certain types of sellers. How iBuying works How iBuying works anyaberkut/iStock; realtor.com Simply put, iBuyers are companies that have the financial means to buy homes in cash. To formulate an offer, iBuyers typically rely on similar properties in your local real estate market, or comps, much as a real estate agent would in order to formulate a listing price on a home (or an offer). After a home is purchased by an iBuyer, in most cases these companies will do some renovation work to optimize the resale price, then list the property on the multiple listing service (MLS). Some iBuyers hire third-party real estate agents to sell their homes, while others employ their own on-staff listing agents. Generally, these listings indicate in their description that the seller is an iBuyer. Instant offer options iBuying and other forms of instant offer programs work in a variety of ways that resolve several distinct pain points that home sellers can encounter. Here are three leading approaches, and the sellers they're best suited for: Type 1: Traditional iBuying Best for: Home sellers who need to sell their home fast Let's say you've been hired for a job in a new city and need to sell your home within a week. A traditional iBuyer can get the job done. With a traditional iBuyer (like Opendoor), you get a cash offer on your home within a day or two, and you can use that influx of cash either to rent or to buy a new place elsewhere. Type 2: Trade in Best for: Home sellers who want to buy and sell at the same time Home sellers who want to sell their current home and buy a new one often struggle to time these two events simultaneously. That's where the trade-in approach of certain iBuyers (like Knock) can help. In a nutshell, they'll make an all-cash offer on a new home you want. If the offer is accepted, you move into your new home, and the iBuyer works on selling your old house. Once it sells, it settles any costs incurred prepping your old home for sale, and then transfers your new house to your name. Type 3: Bridge financing Best for: Home sellers who want to buy and sell at the same time but maximize profits This type of iBuyer (like Homeward) is similar to a trade-in, in that the iBuyer fronts you the money to purchase a new house. The difference is that if your offer is accepted and you move in, you then lease the house from the iBuyer and list your old home using a traditional real estate agent. If your old home doesn't sell within a certain period (typically six months), the iBuyer will buy it off you at a pre-agreed price, giving you the capital you need to end your lease and get a traditional mortgage for your new home. Advantages of selling to an iBuyer Selling to an iBuyer PashaIgnatov/iStock; realtor.com iBuyers and instant offers can present many advantages to home sellers: Speed According to recent Realtor.com data, the median home spends 43 days on the market from the time it's listed until the owner hands over the keys. Selling to an iBuyer is a much faster process that can happen in a handful of days. Sam Khater, chief economist at the government-backed mortgage company Freddie Mac, says iBuying is somewhat analogous to selling a vehicle to CarMax. Its a way to dispose of your asset very quickly, he explains. Prior to CarMax, you had to shop around to sell your car. Now, in a similar way, iBuying allows you to quickly sell your home without going through the grueling process of trying to find a buyer. Convenience The traditional path of selling your home involves a range of inconveniences, like keeping your home mess-free, and leaving itoften at the last minuteduring home showings and open houses. iBuyers eliminate these hassles. Obtaining an offer from an iBuyer can take as little as a few taps on your computer or smartphone. According to Brian Bair, founder and CEO at the iBuying firm Offerpad, selling a home to an iBuyer is an enticing option for consumers who have become accustomed to on-demand, tech-enabled services that allow them to buy and even sell what they want quickly and easily. Flexibility and control Although iBuying transactions tend to happen fast, that doesn't mean they have to, if you prefer to stick around in your house for a while. When sellers use iBuying, they choose their own convenient closing date, a date which they can change as needed, Bair says. They can even choose to stay in the home for a few more days after closing if necessary. As such, selling to an iBuyer can also be a great option for people who want to avoid the awful juggling act of buying and selling a house at the same time. Sometimes, this means that they need to move out and rent a place before theyve bought their next home. On the other hand, home sellers who purchase their next home before selling their current one have to juggle two mortgages, which can put a serious strain on their finances. By selling to an iBuyer, you can avoid stretching yourself too thin financially, and time your move at a time that makes sense for you. Certainty Selling your house to a regular home buyer involves assuming some risks and uncertainty; the deal could fall through for a number of reasons. For instance, the buyers might back out if they are rejected for a mortgage, or if their home appraisal comes in low and they can't pay the difference. But the risk of a deal falling through with an iBuyer is rarein fact, it almost never happens. Youre getting a guarantee that the deal will close, says Barber. Having that kind of assurance is invaluable for many home sellers. The caveat? Most iBuyers will send a home inspector to your house to verify its condition before purchasing it. Once the home has been inspected, the iBuyer may lower the offer price orif the house is in really sorry shaperescind the offer altogether. So make sure to be upfront during your iBuyer application process about the condition of your house. Disadvantages of selling to an iBuyer Although iBuyers have many advantages that appeal to home sellers, they have their downsides, too. Here are a few of them: Lower profit Like any business, iBuyers need to make a profit. As a result, people who sell their home to an iBuyer often end up paying for that convenience, netting less money. With iBuying, youre typically selling your home at a discount, Barber says. Khater agrees: Any time youre trying to sell [your home] quickly, youre probably not getting top dollar. The reason for this is that iBuyers charge a fee for taking a house off your hands, and prepping it for sale. That fee averages around 6% to 8%, but could be lower or higher based on how long they estimate it will take to sell your home. In fact, one small MarketWatch study of 26 home sales to iBuyers found that these home sellers make, on average, around 11% less than owners who sell to a traditional buyer. So, lets assume your home has a market value of $400,000. Based on MarketWatch's research, the instant offer youd receive from an iBuyer could potentially be about $356,000, which is a sizable $44,000 less. Granted, home sellers who sell their home by hiring a real estate agent will also pay a fee for that service, too, in the form of a commission. There is no set amount for commissions and they vary widely, but just to give you an idea, a 6% commission amounts to $24,000 for the listing agent, which is then split with the buyer's agent and broker. However, one study from Collateral Analytics found that on average, home sellers will pay between 13% and 15% more in fees to an iBuyer than they would to a traditional listing agent. Plus, great real estate agents will work hard to earn their keep and get your home sold at top dollar. They can help you price your house, create a comprehensive marketing plan, stage your home, hold open houses, communicate with prospective buyers, negotiate offers, and put out any fires that might erupt along the way. To some home sellers, all that help is worth every penny. There is value to working with [an expert] when youre making one of the biggest transactions in your life, Khater says. Here's more on how to find a real estate agent in your area. Limited availability Right now, iBuying is still fairly new and an experiment in progress. Many iBuyers operate only in select cities. One study found that iBuying tends to flourish in Sun Belt cities, including Phoenix, Atlanta, and Dallas-Fort Worth, where housing stock is fairly new, affordable, and similar in size and ageall of which tends to lead to more reliable comps and predictable home prices (and profits for iBuyers). Furthermore, some iBuyer firms will purchase only homes that meet certain qualifications (e.g., properties in decent condition) or homes within a certain price range. Khater says that iBuying works best for homeowners who are selling an ordinary home in an area with a lot of homogeneity. Translation: iBuying doesnt typically account for unique home qualities that add significant value to a home, such a historic home with 19th-century hardwood floors that have been impeccably maintained. Similarly, iBuying offers cant put a price tag on intangibles, like a houses beautiful mountain view, when assessing a homes value. These limitations with iBuyer valuation algorithms aren't bad just for sellers, but also for the companies doing the iBuying. In fact, some firms that have enthusiastically jumped on the iBuying bandwagon have later backtracked due to their inability to reliably forecast home values accurately enough to easily net profits. Nonetheless, the iBuyer space is still evolving, so only time will tell how successful it is. Is selling your home to an iBuyer right for you? Ultimately, whether or not you should sell to an iBuyer boils down to this: With iBuying, youre typically selling your home at a discount, but what youre getting in return is speed and certainty, says Barber. If those benefits are more important to you than getting the highest sum of money for your home, iBuying is a viable option. If profit is your chief priority, though, a traditional home sale is probably your best bet. The post What Is an iBuyer? A Guide to iBuying: The Pros, Cons, and Costs appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com. The third season finale of Netflixs hit series Stranger Things left the Hawkins crew on a shaky note, with the fate of Jim Hopper (David Harbour) unclear and the close-knit group of friends parting ways after a summer spent facing off with the Mind Flayer. Now, a new teaser trailer released on the five-year-anniversary of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp) initial disappearance finds Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) and the Byers family relocating from Indiana to uncharted territory: the fictional town of Lenora Hills in sunny southern California, where the series will continue to unfold. Spanning nine episodes, the upcoming fourth season is expected to arrive sometime during the summer of 2022. Now in high school, Eleven is anxiously counting down the days until spring break, when she will reunite with Mike (Finn Wolfhard). She doesnt let on that shes struggling to fit in among her new classmates: I think I have finally adapted, she writes to him in a letter. I even like school now. I have made lots of friends. Even so, I am looking forward to spring break. Mostly because Ill get to see you. Jeremiah Burnhams A Place in California plays in the background, at first lending a romantic, dreamy soundtrack to her voiceover. But the song takes on a haunting tone as the seemingly innocent coming-of-age backdrop gives way to scenes of helicopters, car chases, explosions and an eerie-looking doll that Joyce (Winona Ryder) uncovers in their new home. While the clip tells us very little about whats to come in the new season, a looming sense of supernatural horror is never far from Stranger Things colorful 80s nostalgia. Most of the regular cast will return, including Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas Sinclair (Caleb McLaughlin), Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton), Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) and Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke). But a few new faces will also appear this season, including Game of Thrones Tom Wlaschiha and Freddy Krueger himself, A Nightmare on Elm Streets Robert Englund. As far as we know, Stranger Things wont make its way to the Bay Area, but an immersive hourlong attraction themed after the series will bring the Upside Down to an undetermined location in San Francisco next summer. Project Title The political economy of Chinese engagement in Eastern African tobacco industries Funder Social Science and Humanities Research Council Project Team Dr. Julia Smith (PI) and Jennifer Fang, MPH (Collaborator) Background Tobacco is an important agricultural crop in a number of Eastern African economies, such as Malawi where it is the largest export. Tobacco trade is also important to the Chinese economy, where the state-owned tobacco company contributes 7-10% of annual government revenue. Chinese engagement in African tobacco industries, and tobacco exports from African countries to China, are both growing. Through agricultural support initiatives China provides loans, inputs and training to tobacco farmers in Eastern Africa, purchases land for farming, and has invested in the development of manufacturing facilities. Anecdotal evidence suggests access to loans and inputs through Chinese programs have improved the livelihoods of tobacco farmers in Eastern Africa. However, questions have also been raised about who within the countries benefits most from the tobacco trade, particularly as the majority of farmers continue to live in relative poverty. Tobacco production has been linked to food insecurity, contradicting Chinas commitment to strengthen African food security. Consequently, tobacco production raises a number of key development questions, including how increased investment in tobacco impacts other development and health initiatives. Aim To document Chinese engagement in Eastern African tobacco industries in order to generate further research questions regarding implications for sustainable development. Objectives Gather and assess evidence of Chinese tobacco related trade, investments and aid projects in Eastern Africa Map the political relationships between the Chinese National Tobacco Corporation and Eastern African state actors Explore and document the social, economic and environmental impacts of Chinese engagement in the regions tobacco industry Contact Dr. Julia Smith - jhs6@sfu.ca The committee -- to be composed of researchers of the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) and other aerospace experts -- will comb through data to fix technological glitches ahead of a second launch in the coming months, officials of the state-run institute said late on Friday. Seoul, Oct 23 (IANS) South Korea has said it will set up a committee to closely look into what went wrong in a mission to put a dummy satellite into orbit with its first homegrown space rocket. Nuri, also known as the KSLV-II, flew to a target altitude of 700 kms but failed to put the dummy satellite into orbit, as its third-stage engine burned out 46 seconds sooner than expected. Aerospace experts said a possible malfunction in the valves or the pressure system may have led the third-stage engine to burn up sooner than planned but stressed that determining the exact cause requires further data analysis, reports Yonhap news agency. "It's possible the valve that controls the fuel shut down sooner than expected for various reasons, like a sensor malfunction," Kong Changduk, professor of Aerospace Engineering at Chosun University, said. "But if we can analyse the problems in the launch and fix them, I believe we'll have no problem launching the Nuri next year." South Korea plans to launch the Nuri rocket in May next year as part of its four other scheduled launches until 2027. President Moon Jae-in has called the launch "a very creditable achievement," though it did not perfectly reach the goal. Aerospace experts described this week's mission as a major advancement in South Korea's space programme, which began in 1990. They said the Nuri rocket marked significant progress from South Korea's rocket launches in recent years, noting Nuri successfully completed all flight sequences using domestic technology. So far, only six countries -- Russia, the US, France, China, Japan, and India -- have developed a space launch vehicle that can carry a more than 1-ton satellite and have the technology to develop 75-ton liquid engines. South Korea, a relative latecomer to the global space development race, has recently ramped up efforts in its space programme, with plans to launch its first lunar orbiter next year. --IANS na/vd The big four banks will not appear before the Senate inquiry into the effectiveness of the countrys anti-money laundering regime, despite being individually invited to discuss the level of investment needed to avoid systemic breaches of laws to prevent financial crime. Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, ANZ Bank and the National Australia Bank are responsible for reporting the bulk of suspected criminal activity passing through Australias financial system and were each invited by the legal and constitutional affairs committee to participate in public hearings starting Tuesday. Labor senator Deb ONeill says it is disappointing the major banks will not appear before the inquiry into Australias anti-money laundering regime. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The Senate approved a motion by Labor Senator Deborah ONeill in June to launch a formal inquiry into the effectiveness of laws, regulators and companies tasked with preventing financial crime. The committee has since called on a range of law enforcement, academic and industry participants to participate in two days of public hearings. The banks have declined individual invitations to appear before the committee and will instead be represented by the Australian Banking Association (ABA), a lobby group representing 21 Australian banks. CBA and ANZ declined to comment on the non-attendance. A spokesman for NAB said executives were unable to attend because the hearings coincided with NABs full-year results, scheduled for Tuesday, but added the bank is happy to engage with the inquiry at another time. BHP, the nations largest mining company, is continuing to reduce its exposure to fossil fuels with a deal to sell two Queensland coking coal mines to ASX-listed Stanmore Resources. The deal, under which Stanmore has agreed to pay $US1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) to acquire BHPs 80 per cent stake in the BHP-Mitsui Coal joint ventures Poitrel and South Walker Creek mines in the Bowen Basin, marks the latest step in the companys push to better-align its portfolio with global decarbonisation efforts. The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance is Australias largest producer and exporter of metallutgical coal. Credit:Nic Walker As the world decarbonises, BHP is sharpening its focus on producing higher-quality metallurgical coal sought after by global steelmakers to help increase efficiency and lower emissions, BHP head of Australian mining Edgar Basto said. This transaction is consistent with BHPs strategy, delivers value for our company and shareholders and provides certainty for BHP-Mitsui Coals workforce and the local community. Woodside is planning to risk sanctioning its $16 billion Scarborough LNG project in December without having the major regulatory approvals in place, according to an analysis the Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) will send to investors. The analysis comes as Woodside is reportedly negotiating with US-based Global Infrastructure Partners to reduce the financial burden of Scarborough by selling equity in an expansion of the Pluto LNG plant that will process the gas. Momentum behind legal challenges to fossil fuel projects is growing and the lack of one critical approval could throw the company-defining project into disarray. Woodside is seeking to expand its Pluto LNG plant in Western Australia to process gas from its Scarborough field. Credit: Supplied. CCWA policy director Piers Verstegen said the project still required approvals from at least five regulatory authorities. Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate run by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, has reported a sharp decrease in earnings in the third quarter, reflecting the turbulent financial markets as well as a slowdown in the US economic recovery with a spike in COVID-19 cases. Profits fell by one-third to $US10 billion ($13.4 billion), down from $30 billion ($40.2 billion) in the same three months of 2020, when the economy was still in the process of reopening from pandemic shutdowns. Berkshires bottom line was dragged down by its giant investment portfolio, which fell 85 per cent from a year ago. But profits at Berkshires operating businesses, which include a railroad as well as a variety of manufacturing and retail businesses that mirror the broader US economy, also disappointed. Income there rose just 18 per cent from a year ago. That was much less than the 40 per cent jump that some analysts had predicted and slower than the 21 per cent increase in profits those operating businesses had in the second quarter. Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett, left, with long-time business partner Charlie Munger. Credit:AP In addition, Berkshire recorded nearly $US800 million in losses from insurance underwriting, as claims from bad weather, including Hurricane Ida, increased. And while the income from premiums at its popular car brand Geico rose in the quarter, its losses from accident claims rose even more as drivers returned to the roads. It also noted that the average claims were higher because of the increase in the valuation of used vehicles. Senator Kristina Keneally and former Q&A host Tony Jones feature on Julian Morrows affidavits. Credit:Joe Benke The long running legal battle between two equally forthright television executives is about to hit court. Julian Morrow, a founding member of The Chaser and the brains behind The Checkout consumer affairs show, his production companies The Checkout Pty Ltd and Giant Dwarf is fighting prolific producer Nick Murray and the Cordell Jigsaw production house in a contract dispute and defamation action. The trial is due to start before Justice James Stevenson in the NSW Supreme Court on November 29. Uber Eats in some popcorn. Sue Chrysanthou SC is acting for Morrow, while Benjamin Katekar SC is acting for Murray. The expensive legal battle reminds this column of the film Heat, where Robert De Niro and Al Pacino play two opponents locked in a death struggle, while observers look on and think both men are actually pretty alike. Morrow has collected 26 affidavits sworn by a range of TV personalities attesting to his good character. It is a fair bet that some might end up as witnesses in the trial. The NSW government faces an 18-month delay to the remainder of its $2.88 billion fleet of new intercity trains arriving from South Korea due to production problems and disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic. The setback comes amid a prolonged standoff between the government and the rail union over the role of guards on the trains, which has delayed the entry into service of more than half of the 21 new intercity trains already in NSW. The first of the intercity trains were meant to begin carrying passengers from Sydney to the Central Coast and Newcastle by late 2019, followed by the Blue Mountains in mid-2020 and the Illawarra this year. Then-NSW Transport Minister Andrew Constance aboard one of Sydneys new intercity trains in April last year. Credit:Nick Moir Questioned by Labors Daniel Mookhey about whether the delay to the delivery of the fleet from Korea was up to a year, Transport Asset Holding Entity chief executive Benedicte Colin told budget estimates last week that she thought we are talking potentially of longer delays. Every year except this one I will inevitably be on the phone to a friend or relative and mention the imminent HSC exam period and the impact it is having on work practice papers up the wahzoo if Im teaching year 12, a weird calm if Im not. We will reminisce about our own HSCs, and how good it felt when the exams finally started, and the very much pre-Marie Kondo sparking of joy with the disposal (or sale) of our study notes as each exam was completed. The class of 2021s HSC journey has been a marathon. Credit:Wolter Peeters Sometimes, friends even ask to see the exam papers I mean, could they still answer a question on the extent to which detente contributed to the end of the Cold War, or whether theyve remembered any of their 3-unit maths knowledge? Not this year. Because if I tell someone when the HSC starts (Tuesday, in two sleeps time), their response will be I know, I cant believe it! Those poor students! The 2021 year 12 cohort has been collateral damage in the battle to keep us all safe. Never before has a group of students had a five-term year. Fatima Alizada had feared the worst for her husband at the hands of the Taliban after he survived a deadly bomb explosion outside Kabul airport in Afghanistan. After a number of aborted attempts to escape, her husband Mohammad made it to Sydney on October 12 after leaving from Pakistan. The couple were reunited on October 25 after Mohammad spent two weeks in hotel quarantine. They are now living with Fatimas parents in western Sydney. I feel relieved, Fatima said. I am so happy. I wont have to worry any more. It was so difficult. He had some trauma after the explosion happened at Kabul airport. He had nightmares, but he is okay now. A Sydney businessman due to stand trial over his alleged involvement in one of Australias biggest drug importations is back behind bars after his bail was revoked because he posed an unacceptable flight risk now that international borders are open. Savas Guven, 41, a property developer from Mosman, is accused of playing a pivotal role in two drug importations in 2013-14. Savas Guven pictured during a break in proceedings outside Parramatta District Court on Friday before he was returned to custody for posing an unacceptable flight risk. Credit:Nick Moir He secured bail in February while borders were closed after successfully arguing he was unable to prepare in jail for a trial that was due to begin in June. He posted more than $7 million in surety. Details of the Crowns successful application to have Mr Guvens bail revoked on Friday can be reported after the Herald succeeded in an application to have a non-publication order lifted on details of his upcoming trial. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Weeks after COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the streets of Lakemba remain quiet on a late weekday morning. The suburb is part of the mega council of Canterbury-Bankstown, one of many in western Sydney dubbed LGAs of concern in July and placed in strict lockdown for months. With council elections less than a month away, Lakembas residents will join 5.2 million people across the state in trekking to polling stations or casting postal or electronic votes. Hard-hit areas such as Lakemba will help determine the shape of councils that will guide the recovery effort. Yet, the elections are far from the minds of many locals. There is no money. We need some help, says Alex Al Lminshaw, the manager of a Lakemba grocery store whose turnover slumped by up to 60 per cent during the near three-month lockdown. Lebanese bread delivery driver Amien Tanana says many people are just focused on survival. Credit:Rhett Wyman Further along Haldon Street, Amien Tanana is delivering Lebanese bread to a shop in the heart of Lakemba. Most people around here dont care [about the elections] all they care about is how to survive, he says. We are too busy working, and we have a lot of things on our mind. People dont worry about [council politics] much. Honestly, nothing will change. He is among the people that incumbent councillors and others standing in the December 4 elections will need to woo. Councils such as Canterbury-Bankstown and Liverpool have stepped up post-lockdown recovery programs to stimulate business activity and support local not-for-profit groups. For the past decade, Tanana has been delivering bread to shops across western Sydney, including Canterbury, Lakemba, Greenacre and Parramatta, giving him an insight into how businesses and locals are faring. Advertisement Haldon Street in Lakemba. Credit:James Brickwood The pandemic has forced him to travel further to distribute bread because customers are buying fewer loaves than before. It feels like people dont have that much money any more because people have lost their jobs, he says, pointing to a pile of bread which is less than a quarter of its normal size. This shop used to be really busy its really bad. Lakembas main shopping strip of Haldon Street is well known for the annual Ramadan night markets, which bring a festival atmosphere. The night markets have been cancelled for the past two years due to the pandemic. While some are apathetic or focused on rebuilding their lives, other locals are willing to voice their concerns. Lakemba butchery manager Sam Chami accuses the local council of neglecting the upkeep of his street near the suburbs train station. They are not upgrading this local area. If they dont give us what we want, we wont vote for them, he exclaims. Loading More than a year late and twice postponed due to the pandemic, the polls for 124 councils across the state on December 4 will be like none others in recent decades due to the continued impact of COVID-19. In addition to the election of councillors in all 124 LGAs, voters in 35 council areas will cast a mayoral ballot, including the City of Sydney, Fairfield, Hunters Hill, Liverpool and Hornsby, where former Howard minister Philip Ruddock is seeking another term as mayor. The lockdown catapulted incumbent mayors in western Sydney onto the national stage as the city was divided in two: between the LGAs of concern and more affluent areas in the east which avoided curfews, police helicopters regularly buzzing overhead and other tight restrictions. Canterbury-Bankstown Labor mayor Khal Asfour, who was a panelist on ABC TVs Q+A program during the height of the lockdown, joined counterparts such as Cumberlands Steve Christou and Fairfields Frank Carbone in making regular appearances on TV news bulletins. Advertisement While their profile was boosted, the pandemic is making campaigning difficult, especially for new candidates and independents who cannot rely on support of the major parties. It has also created headaches for the NSW Electoral Commission, which has been forced to hire thousands of extra staff and hundreds of additional polling venues to ensure crowds adhere to restrictions. The commission has imposed measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission, including extending a ban on handing out fliers and other political material within six metres of polling venues to 100 metres. While candidates will step up their pitches to voters over the next four weeks, their promises will quickly meet the cold, hard reality of councils whose finances have been battered by the Black Summer bushfires in 2019-20, followed by the onset of the pandemic which continues to weigh on budgets more than 18 months later. The Green Wattle Creek fire in Orangeville in December 2019. Councils have had their finances battered by the Black Summer bushfires and the pandemic. Credit:Nick Moir Professor Joseph Drew, an expert in local government from the University of Technology, says the financial sustainability of councils is dire, especially in rural and regional areas, as well as those merged in greater Sydney in the past five years. We have got financial stress, and its not being helped by the coronavirus pandemic, he says. How many councils have to go broke before the state government realises that there is a serious problem? What people dont realise is that it absolutely destroys communities when it happens democracy is suspended. Loading His research has revealed that operating costs for merged councils in NSW rose by 11 per cent as a direct result of amalgamation in the three years after they were forcibly joined in 2016. Many of those councils now find themselves in a dire situation because the state government insisted on freezing rates revenue following the amalgamations, he says. I am surprised we had the financial crisis as quickly as we did with Central Coast Council, but there is a whole heap that could topple over any day. Many rural and regional councils struggle financially because they rely on Commonwealth grants and have small rate bases due to their tiny populations, while facing large costs from providing roads and other infrastructure and services over vast distances. Advertisement Professor Drew, who recently wrote a book Saving Local Government, fears that many people will turn up at polling booths on December 4 without knowing what they are voting for. Many of the merged councils have yet to harmonise their rates and fees, or put in their rates variations. Most people in local government elections are talking about issues which are state government or federal government issues. Some information needs to be in voters hands when they make a decision in a booth, he says. Loading He believes financial sustainability and how councils will pay for promised projects should be the primary focus of campaigns. People whinge about rates they dont think about financial sustainability. No one is talking about how to pay for the spending, he says. No one thinks financial sustainability is important until there is another Central Coast that falls over. LSI Consulting, which has analysed local government for three decades, says councils have gone backwards over the past two years. The vast bulk of the 20 merged councils in NSW made a loss last year, a worrying about-turn on 2018 when most made a surplus. LSI principal Ian Fahy blames the deterioration in the finances on the council mergers costing more than expected. People dont really tune into council finances. But if anyone looked at them, it is A Nightmare on Elm Street. You would be screaming from the rooftops, he says. It is a really dysfunctional sector. If anyone looked at [council finances], it is A Nightmare on Elm Street. You would be screaming from the rooftops Ian Fahy, LSI Consulting principal Fahy warns the pandemic will further dent council finances, especially councils such as North Sydney and the City of Sydney which have a large reliance on own-source revenue from car parking fees and other services. Advertisement The importance of the local government sector is often understated, considering councils in NSW employ about 50,000 staff, and are a big player in local economies. In some regional towns, they are the biggest employers. They are also the closest to the punters, versus the guys in Macquarie Street and in Canberra, Fahy says. More than five years after the Baird governments controversial amalgamations, concerns about the merger of councils still linger. Inner West residents will be polled on December 4 on whether the council should revert to its former local bodies of Ashfield, Leichhardt and Marrickville. Lane Cove resident Rachel Daniels says councillors approach to development will influence how she votes on December 4. Credit:Dean Sewell One of the top issues in Sydney will be the pace and extent of development. It is certainly on the mind of voters such as Lane Cove resident Rachel Daniels. Within the last couple of years I have never seen so many unit developments being built in Lane Cove, she says. I am not anti-development, but I just think the council has been very underhanded with the developments that they have tried to push through. Loading Daniels says councillors approach to development on the lower north shore will have a major impact on how she votes. With a lot of the locals around here, I think it will influence who they vote for ... and what the councillors have voted for and against in relation to development applications and the growth of Lane Cove, she says. University of Sydney senior lecturer in politics Stewart Jackson agrees that concerns about the extent of development in council areas such as Parramatta will influence the outcome of elections. There have been a lot of development issues which have been vexing peoples minds, he says. Advertisement Over the last 20 months, weve learnt new behaviours, and as we come back into the office or approach the opportunity to come back, some of it is about having to relearn behaviours again hence the uncertainty that surrounds that, he says. Paul Guerra says his Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry staff will work three days in the office each week. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui Mr Guerra wants his 150 city-based staff to come back from November 24, and asked them what they felt would work. They navigated a new dress code we said activewear is not appropriate, but jeans and T-shirts, were kind of happy with that, but if youre dealing with a client you need to dress as the client would expect. We trialled two, three and four days in the office. Some people nearly killed me when I went to four! ... we settled on three. My view was that we wouldnt come back five days a week, as people wanted an opportunity to get a bit more work-life balance. When asked which one day staff would all be willing to come in, they chose Monday. They said, We think the traffic is lowest on Monday. Kate and Craig Volk, who run the financial planning business RetireInvest in Berwick, have seven staff including themselves, and among them are all three categories outlined by Ms Andrews and Mr Guerra. Maddie Williams, a RetireInvest paralegal worker in her 20s, was alone most work days in lockdown as her partner was permitted to work on site. She cant wait to go back. Im pretty excited about going back, Im not gonna lie, she says. At home its much easier to stay back late and do some extra hours: at the office you switch off as you drive home. Maddie Williams is keen to get back to her office work pattern. Number one is the social connection; just having people around, someone to chat to over that divide or two metres away. You can just have a random chat, it might be meaningless, but its that personal connection ... for me thats important. She loves the divide between work and home. At home, its much easier to stay back late and do some extra hours; at the office you switch off as you drive home. Colleague David Locco, also a paralegal, has been living my best life during lockdowns. He loves being able to spend more time with his two-year-old son, Quentin. Kate and Craig Volk at the office of their small financial firm RetireInvest. Credit:Chris Hopkins Im quite neutral. The work from home has been really good. You save on travel, the element of autonomy is very beneficial. Im refreshed mentally, getting some exercise in and getting a lot of sleep. The lifestyle factors are all quite positive ... but being out of the office, you miss out on some of the culture. Loading Co-worker Kerri Davey, a single mother whose parents and former partner do not live nearby, is hesitant due to the risk of bringing the virus home to her young children. My concern is I go back to work and Im exposed to my clients as well as other staff; weve got people coming in and out, she says. Ive got two children in primary school and one in childcare and none of them sit in that vaccination space. My concern is weve got our little family of four exposed, I feel uncomfortable about that. Last year it was much simpler as we were coming back to zero cases. The Volks believe the pandemic has changed the relationship between employers and employees and have made an effort to care for their people, sending grazing hampers and massage vouchers to their homes and checking in to gauge how they are doing. The couple have accepted what Ben Bars, chief executive of the Sydney-based workplace culture consultancy We Are Unity, says is the way ahead. There is no one size fits all. Theres a rising tension between employee and employer because over the last 18 months, Australians have fundamentally changed the way we live. Its employers duty and responsibility to understand how peoples lives have changed, says Mr Bars. They must sympathise and empathise. Having the right conversations, taking peoples feelings and desires into account, will work much better than focusing on how do I get people back into the office the stereotypical CEO approach of thinking about outputs, versus outcomes, he says. As well as attempting to understand how the physical, mental and financial health of people is going, the question every company needs to ask itself is, do our people trust us? Weve got to focus on mental health first: its been tough for everybody. To get bums back on seats, its nudges, its baby steps its going from one extreme to the other. Struggling tourism operators say they are turning away visitors who have been vaccinated overseas because theres no easy way to prove their immunisation history. The Victorian Tourism Industry Council and Restaurant and Catering Australia are lobbying the federal government to develop a more straightforward system and have warned the situation will worsen as Australia reopens its borders to international tourists. Michael Johnson, owner of Moonlit Sanctuary in Pearcedale, says he had to knock back two groups of visitors last week who were vaccinated overseas because their records werent updated in the Services Victoria app. Credit:Scott McNaughton Tourism operators are already seeing people coming to their venues with international vaccination certificates, but they cant accept them, the councils chief executive Felicia Mariani said. This is a critical issue now. It must be resolved. Christmas is a time for our local traders to make up for what has been the toughest trading period for them, she said at a press conference on Sunday morning. It is important that all of these initiatives are aimed at making sure were generating economic value for our local traders. Vaccinated Melburnians eat out again as the city reopens. Credit:Getty [The voucher scheme] has been very successful, the data shows it made the foot traffic increase three times faster than in previous bounce-backs. Cr Capp encouraged Victorians to get their second vaccination dose so the state could reach its next milestone of 90 per cent fully-vaccinated At that point masks would no longer be required in offices which Cr Capp said was a major deterrent to workers returning to the city. Tourism and Major Events Minister Martin Pakula said the return of theatre shows such as Frozen and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child would turbo-charge the citys return after lockdown six, and there was great cause for optimism. Much of the states ambulance capacity hits code orange The Victorian ambulance union has warned that the heavy strain on paramedics will continue, after a code red emergency was almost called on Saturday night due to hospital ramping and high caseloads. A Department of Health warning, seen by The Age, said Ambulance Victoria was expecting a major impact on normal business delivery on Saturday, with the potential for a code red situation. They have exhausted their ability to meet demand, the note from the State Emergency Management Centre said. While a code red was not called overnight, much of Victoria was considered code orange, with paramedics under significant strain due to additional coronavirus cases. A code red was called during the thunderstorm asthma crisis in 2016, with a similar situation occurring in December last year after a glut of acute calls for assistance. Danny Hill, the secretary of the Victorian Ambulance Union, said the state would see much more strain on the system, with high COVID-19 case totals and the cumulative effects of people deferring health care during the pandemic. There will be more code orange and potentially code red occurring ... the staff are just completely burnt out, theyre tired and theyre exhausted, he said. Victorian Ambulance Union secretary Danny Hill. Credit:Simon ODwyer Its a bit of a perfect storm with not enough crews available to respond to the workload thats coming in. We need to see people getting back into seeing their GP regularly. Get on top of your health and hopefully dont let yourself get into a situation where youre calling triple zero at 2am. A spokesman for Ambulance Victoria said while they expected patient demand to have an impact on their services on Saturday night, the proactive steps we took prevented the need for maximum escalation. Our paramedics and patient transport workers are working extremely hard to manage the increasing demand while prioritising care to the sickest Victorians, the spokesman. Mr Andrews urged people not to call triple zero unless it was an emergency due to the incredible demand. There is a bit of pressure in the system at the moment, that will pass in time ... as we see COVID demand come off. 1173 new cases The announcement came as Victoria recorded 1173 new coronavirus cases and nine deaths on Sunday morning, with the peak pharmacy body suggesting Australians will be receiving vaccination boosters for years to come. Victorias Department of Health said over 83 per cent of eligible Victorians were now fully vaccinated, with Australia reaching the vaccination milestone of 80 per cent of those over 16 years old double-jabbed on Saturday. There are now 568 people in hospital across the state, with 96 in intensive care and 63 on ventilators. More than 56,600 test results were returned across Saturday, with 13,913 vaccination doses administered in state-run centres. Victoria now has 16,413 active cases of the virus. The average age of Australians in an intensive care unit (ICU) due to COVID-19 has dropped significantly, with the median age now sitting at 53 years. During the first wave of infections in early 2020 the median age was 64. We think thats probably a reflection of Delta, said Aidan Burrell, an intensive care doctor at The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne. Delta is affecting the younger people who, in general, have fewer comorbidities. The intensive care data has been collated as part of an ongoing Australian study called SPRINT-SARI with COVID-19 data from 64 intensive care units. Annual COVID-19 injections will become an integral part of the national vaccination program and COVID-19 will need to be fought like other viruses which have been around for decades, according to the Pharmacy Guild. Pharmacy Guild president Trent Twomey said there would be a need for booster shots for the foreseeable future to protect Australians against the coronavirus. The question is what booster and what interval we need to get that booster, whether its every six, nine or 12 months. Those decisions need to be based on evidence and facts and at the moment that is an evolving space, he said. Loading Mr Twomey added it will probably take until 2023 until we reach some sort of steady state vaccination program that would involve one annual booster shot for the population, much as the flu shot has become annual. A reliance on technological advances to cut emissions in the federal governments net zero plan means Australia needs to significantly lift its investment in research and development, with the sector looking for a $2.4 billion fund ahead of next years election. On top of a wishlist that science and technology leaders are releasing on Monday is the fund to turn promising scientific and engineering advances into commercial-scale technology. Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow that scientists and engineers would drive Australias path to net zero emissions. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen The federal governments net zero by 2050 plan leans heavily on advances in technology and the development of new ones. Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor, who is returning from the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, says the approach is winning out in the way countries are looking to limit warming. There is no greater example of the two-tiered integrity system in Australia than the case of federal Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar. State politicians, be they former premiers such as NSW Liberal Gladys Berejiklian or factional heavies such as former Victorian Labor minister Adem Somyurek, risk public anti-corruption hearings and can lose their jobs if credible evidence of corruption or abuse of public office arises. Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar. Credit:Alex Ellinghauusen In these public coercive hearings, state politicians are forced to answer questions truthfully on oath, forgoing their right to silence, albeit protected by the knowledge their answers cannot be used against them in a later criminal or civil case. If they lie, they risk being charged. But the worst a federal politician can expect if they get caught up in alleged wrongdoing is a light-touch probe by a career bureaucrat who has none of the powers of the state anti-corruption commissions. Theres no phone tapping, no search warrants, no public hearings or coercive questioning. The NSW government is taking the lead in a new collaboration with the ACT and South Australian governments to solve the practical and economic challenges of how Australia can reach net zero emissions. While the federal government formalised its position in October to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, states and territories had already long agreed to the target. NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean will lead a new group of state and regional governments collaborating on ways to cut emissions. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer Some have also set more ambitious short-term targets, with NSW, Victoria and South Australia pledging a 50 per cent reduction on 2005 levels by 2030. The ACT has committed to a 50-60 per cent cut from 1990 levels by 2025. The federal governments official target remains a 26-28 per cent cut on 2005 emissions by 2030, although its new plan projects actual cuts could be as much as 35 per cent. Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar argued strongly that a Finance Department report into allegations he was involved in rorting public resources for political purposes be kept secret. The department has revealed in response to a freedom of information request by The Age and Sydney Morning Herald that Mr Sukkar, a federal minister and Liberal Party conservative faction leader, had made strong representations that release is not authorised. Michael Sukkar. Credit: The main reasons provided for refusal of the request were that release would breach legal professional privilege, that the report contained material obtained in confidence and that it could breach personal privacy. Overall, the department said releasing the report would on balance, be contrary to the public interest. The investigation was requested by Mr Sukkar after he was accused in August 2020 of encouraging an improper scheme in which factional operatives were given taxpayer-funded jobs in Mr Sukkars office and the office of fellow Victorian Liberal MP Kevin Andrews in 2017 and 2018. Queensland had two new COVID-19 concerns on Sunday evening as those on board a flight from Melbourne to Brisbane were being urgently sought because a passenger may be COVID-positive. The passenger is now in Brisbane hotel quarantine. Residents of the Gold Coast, the Whitsundays and Cairns may be especially vulnerable to COVID once the borders open. Queensland and Victorian health authorities were urgently trying to locate passengers on Jetstar Flight JQ 562 from Melbourne, which landed in Brisbane at 2.10pm on November 5. At the same time, Queensland has confirmed six new COVID-19 contact locations in Cairns and Mission Beach after a 21-year-old woman who flew to Cairns from Adelaide and was originally not considered to be infectious in the community was confirmed on Sunday afternoon as being a positive case. Taiwans delegation to the UN climate change summit has called for Australia to legislate its net-zero by 2050 commitment, warning the Coalitions plan remains vulnerable to the whims of future governments. Speaking from Glasgow, the acting head of Taiwans delegation Tze-Luen Lin, also said it was time for Taiwan to be admitted as a full member of the UN climate change conference and that climate co-operation could be a way to start more dialogue with China. Prime Minister Scott Morrison told the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow that scientists and engineers would drive Australias path to net zero emissions. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen It is not good to exclude Taiwan, Lin told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. It is a pity. We are a major manufacturing hub and play a crucial role in the global supply chain. We know we can be a very constructive player in climate action. We can provide technology and financial experience. The Taiwanese delegation flew to Glasgow as a non-government organisation. The team is shut out of any formal negotiations because of objections from China, which regards the democratic island of 24 million as a breakaway province. Glasgow: Australia could be pressured to improve its 2030 emissions reduction target as soon as next year, according to a summary of negotiating points released by the presidency of the United Nations climate talks in Glasgow. The document was released on Sunday morning as negotiators took a rest day after sessions continued late into the night during the first week of the talks, which are expected to conclude on Friday. Delegates gather inside the venue on another day at the COP26 UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Credit:AP A key goal of the conference is to tighten global emission reductions by 2030, according to the document, which notes thatparties who have not yet submitted enhanced NDCs [Nationally Determined Contributions] are expected to do so in 2022. Under the terms of the Paris Agreement, which Australia signed in 2015, NDCs are voluntary emissions reductions goals which signatories are expected to formally submit to the UNs climate body and then improve upon every five years. This is known as the ratchet mechanism and is designed to steadily increase reductions goals in the hope of stabilising the climate. Rome: Archaeologists at Pompeii have unearthed 2000-year-old extendable beds likened to Ikea furniture for the ancient world. The beds, made of wooden planks that could be adjusted according to the height of the person sleeping in them, were found in a cramped room that was once inhabited by slaves. Archaeologists at Pompeii have discovered a room that served as both a dormitory and storage area, which officials said Saturday offered a very rare insight the daily life of slaves. Credit:Pompeii Archaeology Park It offers a rare insight into the hard lives of the people who lived on the very lowest rung of ancient Roman society. The room contains a chamber pot and a cluster of eight amphorae, as well as three rudimentary beds two for adults and a smaller one for a child. While two of them are about 1.7 metres long, one bed measures just 1.4 metres and may therefore have belonged to a young man or child, archaeologists said as they announced the discovery. The slaves room is part of a once-lavish villa known as Civita Giuliana, located on the outskirts of Pompeii, which was buried in ash and volcanic debris when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD79. Baghdad: A drone laden with explosives targeted the residence of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi in Baghdad early on Sunday in what the Iraqi military called an attempted assassination, but said Kadhimi escaped unhurt. Two Iraqi officials said that seven of his security guards were injured in the attack which occurred in Baghdads heavily fortified Green Zone area. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to give official statements. I am fine and among my people. Thank God, the prime minister tweeted shortly after the attack. He called for calm and restraint, for the sake of Iraq. Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has survived an assassination attempt by an armed drone. Credit:AP He later appeared on Iraqi television, seated behind a desk in a white shirt, looking calm and composed. Cowardly rocket and drone attacks dont build homelands and dont build a future, he said. New York: Multiple unfounded bomb threats were made over the weekend at Ivy League campuses, university and law enforcement officials said. Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities had alerted students to threats on Sunday (Monday AEDT) and deemed campuses safe a few hours later. Evacuations were ordered in some buildings on the campuses. Students were told to avoid campus until local police investigations concluded. Two days earlier, a bomb threat at Yale forced the evacuation of several buildings as well as nearby businesses in New Haven, Connecticut. The university resumed normal operations on Friday evening. Columbia University in New York City. Credit:Bloomberg Brown University, in Rhode Island, another Ivy League school reportedly announced a bomb threat. ~ Mismanagement of Government funds and lack of Procurement brought on Higher Supervision --- Dr. Michel Petit.~ MARIGOT:-- Despite the roadblocks these past days on the French side of the island many people especially several men and women that were part of previous administrations and political parties managed to reach the Marigot waterfront on Saturday evening to witness the historic launch of the Rassemblement Saint Martinois( RSM). RSM will be contesting the March 2022 Territorial Elections. Unique in its own way because the main members that made up the RSM are those that contested previous elections under other political parties. New to the political arena is well-known gynecologist Dr. Michel Petit. Among them are former Presidents Frans Gumbs and Alain Richardson, long-time Territorial Councilor Louis Mussington, Julien Gumbs, Daniel Arnell, Bernadette Davis, George Gumbs, Jeanne Vanterpool, and several others that have come together to bring about change in the local government. The forming of RSM and uniting all politicians is an initiative of George Gumbs a known figure on Saint Martin. Of the five speakers was Dr. Michel Petit who explained his main reasons for entering the political arena since leaving his professional career as a gynecologist just over a year ago. Dr. Petit said it is no secret that Saint Martin is not doing well and that there is convincing evidence that allows him to conclude that the main problem is the despotic authoritarian leadership of the Collectivity under its President. He said a totalitarian way of governing is detrimental to the territory which has led to the fragmentation of the executive and territorial council. Members of the Council have openly criticized the President and accused him of favoritism, lies, squandering of public funds, and abusing of the administrative apparatus. Dr. Michel Petit said that the President has demotivated and demoralized the civil servants, leaving them with a sense of disrespect since they are not being heard. This attitude of the President has brought about prolonged strikes that have severely affected the public services. He further stated that the Presidents friends and advisors have been leaving one after another and this is an indicator of an end of the reign." The well-known businessman said that the uneasiness and badly functioning Collectivity has spiraled into a major dysfunction since the management of public procurement and tenders are now at a standstill while these are critical elements of the local economy. Petit said just recently the project prepared by the controversial Directress General of Services was annulled by the Prefecture since proper procedures were not followed in the preparation of such a project. He said the French government took back funds that were allocated to Saint Martin because it was not utilized in the allotted time frame and there are millions of Euros withheld because of poor planning and failure to comply with the law. These things Petit said can no longer be left unanswered. The Prefet of Saint Martin recently announced the appointment of a special task force that will supervise all public procurements and tenders and proposals will be made to the local government while they will be reminded of the law. He described the current government as incompetent, and that Saint Martin is witnessing higher supervision as a result of poor performance from the executive and territorial council as such he had no choice but to join the political arena, under the RSM umbrella. Louis Mussington in his address said that the politicians that came together to form RSM made one grave mistake in 2016 when they all contested the territorial election under different political banners. He said this worked against them and the only one that gained was Team Gibbs. He credited George Gumbs for his wisdom in bringing all politicians of the past together. Mussington said this is something the people have been asking of them for years now. Gumbs, he said managed to get them to put aside their political differences and gave them the opportunity to forge their ideas and knowledge together that will benefit the people of Saint Martin. Former President Alain Richardson also expressed the same sentiments and promised that they will work hand in hand in the interest of St. Martin and its people. While the official launching of the RSM took place on Saturday, November 6th, 2021, the list of candidates that will be contesting the March 2022 Territorial Elections was not presented. Former President Frans Gumbs said the list is still being prepared. Click here for more photos of the launch. Somerset, KY (42501) Today Rain likely. High 59F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch.. Tonight Rain early. Decreasing clouds overnight. Low 34F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Weather Alert ...BRIEF WIND GUSTS NEAR 50 MPH THROUGH MID AFTERNOON... A sharp cold front continues to move southward across the state of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Gusty winds have continued to gust behind the front and will continue for the next few hours, lasting until early to mid afternoon. These gusty winds could blow around unsecured objects. Tree limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result. New York (UN), 6 November 2021 (SPS) - The Polisario Front representative to the United Nations (UN), and responsible for coordination with the Minurso, Sidi Mohamed Omar, met on Friday with the personal envoy of the UN Secretary General for Western Sahara, Staffan de Mistura, on a visit to New York, on the prospects of the peace process in Western Sahara. The meeting, which took place at the headquarters of the United Nations General Secretariat, was an opportunity for Mr. Sidi Mohamed Omar to inform Mr. Staffan de Mistura on the position of the Polisario Front vis-a-vis the prospects of the peace process in Western Sahara. The UN SG had announced on 6 October the appointment of Mr Staffan De Mistura to replace Mr Horst Kohler, the former German President who resigned from his mission in May 2019. In a statement issued following the appointment of Mr. De Mistura, the Polisario Front recalled that this appointment "comes at a time when the UN peace process in Western Sahara has experienced, from 6 September 1991 to 13 November 2020, extremely dangerous developments. "Morocco has undermined the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) as established in Security Council resolution 690 (1991) and relevant resolutions, torpedoed the ceasefire and once again declared war on the Sahrawi people," the Polisario Front said. "The Polisario Front, which has demonstrated through concrete actions its genuine commitment to a peaceful and lasting solution for the decolonisation of Western Sahara, stresses that no genuine, credible and viable peace process, which would serve the cause of peace, security and stability in the region, will be possible as long as the occupying state of Morocco persists, with impunity, in its illegal actions and its attempts to impose by force a colonial fait accompli in occupied Western Sahara." It also reaffirmed that "the only way" to achieve a peaceful, just and lasting solution guaranteeing the decolonisation of Western Sahara is for the Sahrawi people to freely and democratically exercise its inalienable and non-negotiable right to self-determination and independence in accordance with international legality and the relevant United Nations and African Union resolutions. The Polisario Front had furthermore stated that it "looks forward" to discussing with the new Personal Envoy of the UN SG how he plans to carry out his mission to enable the people of Western Sahara to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence. 062/T After a pandemic-induced collapse in prices, the cost to heat a home in Connecticut with heating oil or propane has soared back and is likely to be even higher than the pre-coronavirus levels as colder months arrive. Heating oil in Connecticut cost an average of about $3 per gallon in the last week of October 2019. In the same week this year, it was up to $3.41. In October 2019, propane was about $2.60. This year, the average is up to $3.65, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Residential heating oil consumers can expect a 40 percent rise compared to last year and a 15 percent increase over last five years average, according to a Friday news release from Gov. Ned Lamonts office. Connecticut and its residents, like everyone else around the United States and the world, are unfortunately seeing the impact of rising energy prices, Lamont said in the news release. The release also pointed to several programs designed to reduce utility and heating costs for Connecticut residents including a Nov. 1 to May 1 ban on heating source shutoffs for some households and heating bill assistance through the Connecticut Department of Social Services, among other measures. When demand dropped early in the pandemic, so did production. Now, oil processors are trying to catch up, but a decision by OPEC, the multinational oil producer alliance, not to significantly increase output may mean longer delays in supplies returning to normal. Initially, when the COVID-19 pandemic started and the number of miles motorists drove fell sharply, the cost of a barrel of crude oil plummeted. Along with it came the prices of gasoline, heating oil and propane. I think what were seeing here is really the fact that there are these imbalances in supply and demand for oil, as its been kind of whipsawed by the pandemic and now the recovery, said Steven Lanza, a professor at the University of Connecticuts Department of Economics. At their lowest during the pandemic, average heating oil prices were at $2.02 in November 2020. Propane prices lows were $2.46 in March 2020, according to the federal data. Its a very volatile market thats very difficult to predict, said Rosie Stanko, vice president of the Citizens Oil Co-Op. It could drop down again, even like in January. The market seems to just have a mind of its own at this point. Consumers will likely see a higher price per gallon this winter than they did in 2019-20, before the pandemic, said David Cohen, executive vice president at Standard Oil of Connecticut, a distributor. The company provides both heating oil and propane. In the past, colder temperatures meant higher prices. In recent years, the weather seems to have less of an effect unless theres a major storm, Cohen said. Thats partly because gasoline makes up the largest portion of crude oil use, so travel tends to influence demand more than cold weather, although an extraordinarily cold or warm winter could still have an effect, said Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association. And while supply chain and shipping bottlenecks arent affecting oil suppliers in the same way as suppliers of many other products, the industry isnt immune to those problems, he said. For example, its been difficult for some companies to stock boilers, furnaces and other supplies. The steel tanks used for propane storage have been tough to come by as well, Cohen added. And the shortage of truck drivers means in some instances its been slower to move the product across state lines. And theres an additional cost for paying company drivers overtime while companies are understaffed, Herb said. Our companies dont rely on third-party haulers for the most part, Herb said. So from a heating oil standpoint, they employ their own drivers. So were shielded a little bit more. Herb is hopeful that as global production ramps up and the more expensive barrels of oil are sold, prices will decrease. UConns Lanza thinks it will take time for supply to normalize perhaps up to a year but the situation isn't permanent, he said. The price picture, aleady difficult to forecast, is further complicated in a world that has pushed to seek alternative, lower-emission energy options, he added. President Joe Biden asked OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, to ramp up oil production, but the group on Thursday decided to continue careful monthly increases, the Associated Press reported. Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said the group was preserving market stability with more gradual production increases, the AP reported. Our view is that the global recovery should not be imperiled by a mismatch between supply and demand, a White House national security statement said Thursday, according to the AP. The news comes as Biden is in the midst of a global climate summit where he and other world leaders are attempting to agree on ways to reduce carbon emissions. Since taking office, his administration has cut down on U.S. oil production projects. I expect to see us returning to that [normal production] once this all settles out, but how long it will take the market to go through the gyrations it needs to to get back to there Im not sure, Lanza said of the market. As Connecticut consumers prepare for the colder winter months, Herb said the best thing they can do to keep their costs down during a time of elevated prices is to get equipment checked annually to ensure its running at peak performance. The technology has come a long way in the last 30 years, Cohen said. New boilers are more efficient, have computerized controls. Joining a co-op can also help customers save money on heating oil and propane, Stanko said. The oil co-op helps its nearly 4,000 members get discounts on the heating products. Additionally, Stanko said it can be helpful to have a home energy audit done. During the audit, an evaluator will tell where your home is losing the most heat and ways to improve it; theyll usually provide up to a certain dollar amount of fixes, she said. About 20 percent of Connecticuts heating oil customers signed contracts earlier in the year to lock them into a lower price point, Herb said. Higher prices are bad for consumers, he added. We dont like to spend more on our energy. The only good thing about our higher prices is it makes the producers go and get more product. That drives prices down. ginny.monk@hearstmediact.com GREENWICH Under a perfect sky and with remembrance in mind, more than 50 people gathered in a small park in the towns first of several events to honor Greenwichs war dead. In a heartfelt but brief ceremony Saturday that has become a tradition at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10112 Memorial Park in Cos Cob, Post Adjutant Bill Cameron remarked on the special attributes of a veteran. A veteran is not a braggart but the veteran who is someone who has been moved by training and self-discipline into a better, wiser, stronger person, Cameron said during Saturdays event. You may see a veteran wearing a medal in the shape of a purple heart because they have suffered wounds in battle. Many veterans carry visible scars. Unfortunately many bear scars of the mind, which may take decades to heal, he said. Whenever you see a veteran wearing a service hat, please stop for a moment and stretch out your hand, or in this time of COVID-19 perhaps give them a salute and say to them, Thank you for your service, Cameron said. The small pocket park on Strickland Road, directly across from the Bush Holley House, is maintained by the Post and contains a memorial to veterans from the area. Post 10112 gathers there every November for a Veterans Day ceremony and in May for a tribute for Memorial Day. Saturday, on hand were First Selectman Fred Camillo, Tax Collector Heather Smerigilio and residents from all generations including members of Cub Scout Packs 20 from Cos Cob and 23 in Riverside and Girl Scout Troop 50432. The National Anthem was performed by town resident Stephanie Kies, the color guard of flag bearers were from the local Cub Scout packs and the memorial wreath was donated by Cos Cobs Linda Moshier. The honor bell was rung in memory of two members of the Post, Robert Intrieri and Peter Perry Jr., who died in September. Cameron remarked that being a veteran is a tradition that often runs in families, including his own. My wife Marys great grandfather served in the British army in Afghanistan in the 1870s, Cameron said. My son Jonathan, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, served in those same blood-soaked hills 145 years later. One hallmark of a veteran is the fact that, if in a crisis and our country called them back to duty, they would answer yes in a heartbeat. Veterans only ask two things of us in return, Cameron said, That we never forget the selfless sacrifices made by those who lie beneath the white marble headstones in U.S. veterans cemeteries around the world and that we fully enjoy the life and freedom that all of the veterans earned for us. Cindy DiPreta, cubmaster for Pack 23, said it was important the towns children take part. They need to respect our veterans and give them their tribute and their recognition, DiPreta said. I think attending actual events like this is great because they see the actual veterans. Some of them think veterans are no longer alive. To be able to see them live and in person is a great lesson about the sacrifices veterans have made for our country and appreciation for our military. While Saturdays tribute was the first, other events are planned for Veterans Day itself, Nov. 11, beginning with a program at the memorial at McKinney Terrace, 249 Milbank Ave., at 10 a.m. That will be followed by a Veterans Day walk down Greenwich Avenue led by the American Legion Post 29 at 10:30 a.m. The walk will set off at the Avenues intersection with Amogerone Crossway down to the World War I memorial at Havemeyer Place for a ceremony at 11 a.m. Then at 7 p.m. Thursday, there will be a march in Byram led by the Byram Veterans Association down Delavan Avenue, concluding with a wreath laying ceremony in front of the Byram fire house. kborsuk@greenwichtime.com contributed by The Connecticut Chapter of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin STAMFORD Two local charities have received a total of $20,000 thanks to the local chapter of the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin. The money was presented during a celebration of the Indian Festival of Light, Diwali, during a recent dinner with music and dance at the Hampton Inn & Suites in Stamford. Future 5 of Stamford and the Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County Inc. were honored for their work in keeping with the spirit of Diwali, which is celebrated in India and by the Indian diaspora as a triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. One of the objectives (of) GOPIO is to support local community groups which do service to the larger society, and GOPIO chapters have been doing a great job in that direction and GOPIO-CT in particular has been supporting several charities in Connecticut, said GOPIO Chairman Thomas Abraham. Future 5 helps underprivileged students at the Stamford high schools, envisioning a world where all students can be part of a vibrant and supportive community and access the people and resources they need for college, career and life success. The Food Bank of Lower Fairfield County, based in Stamford, provides food to about 90 nonprofit agencies and programs that serve low-income people in its six town service area through bags of groceries and congregate meals. Programs include soup kitchens, food pantries, childcare programs, homeless shelters, senior centers, domestic violence safe houses and rehabilitation programs. A special guest at the event was Yelena Klompus, program manager for English language learning, citizenship and cultural programs at Stamfords Ferguson Library. The library is planning a Diwali program in cooperation with GOPIO-CT set to begin at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 14. The public is invited to attend. Over the past 15 years, GOPIO-CT, a chapter of GOPIO International, has hosted interactive sessions with policy makers and academicians, community events, youth mentoring and networking workshops and worked with other area organizations to help create a better future. GOPIO-CT serves as a non-partisan, secular, civic and community service organization that promotes awareness of Indian culture, customs and contributions of PIOs through community programs, forums, events and youth activities. NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) France has agreed to help initiate talks between Cyprus and French-speaking African countries for a deal to take back their citizens whose asylum applications have been rejected, the Cypriot interior minister said Saturday. Interior Minister Nicos Nouris said his French counterpart Gerald Darmanin made the pledge during a brief visit to the Cypriot capital on Friday. Nouris said the overwhelming majority of migrants who arrived at ethnically split Cyprus in the last year hail from sub-Saharan African countries with which the European Union doesnt have such send-back agreements. Nouris said he would possibly travel to Paris next month to thrash out details of such potential agreements and other migration issues. Cyprus says it has the highest number of first-time asylum applications among all 27 EU members relative to its population of 1.1 million and its reception system has reached a breaking point. Around 80% of all migrants enter Cyprus from its breakaway north and then cross a porous, U.N.-controlled buffer zone to seek asylum in the internationally recognized south. Nouris said 15,000 migrants who have had their asylum applications rejected cant be deported from Cyprus because of the lack of any EU send-back agreements with their countries. Cyprus this week signed a 27.5 million euro ($31.8 million) deal with Israel for the installation of a camera system to monitor the 180-kilometer long buffer zone. The Cypriot government claims that Turkey systematically forwards asylum-seekers to the Mediterranean islands Turkish Cypriot north so that they pressure the island's southern, U.N.-recognized government. Cyprus was split in 1974 when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only Turkey recognizes a Turkish Cypriot declaration of independence in the north. Decades of reunification talks have got nowhere. ___ Follow all AP stories on global migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration. As student COVID-19 cases spiked in September, at least 26,243 schoolchildren learned remotely for one or more days earlier this school year, according to new state data. The data release comes as Connecticut announced this week a program to avoid repeat, disruptive school quarantines, including for unvaccinated students who had to stay home when exposed to the virus. The state reported on Thursday that roughly one month into the 2021-22 school year, more than 5 percent of students had missed in-person instruction for a variety of reasons. That would include quarantining, that would include if there were local outbreaks and kids had to go (remote), said state education commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker. It would also include whether we had, I think in one district, we had some bus drivers who had COVID, and so those kids didnt have access to go into school via transportation. Students out of the classroom learned from home for an average of four school days as of September the latest period for which data is available, but an unusual month, too. The first several weeks of school faced a series of particular challenges. The number of child COVID cases peaked this academic year during the week of Sept. 9 through 15 when 880 students tested positive, according to updated state data. At the same time, districts worked through staff shortages and other roadblocks common for the start of the school but exacerbated by the pandemic. The state does not specifically track the number of students learning remotely in quarantine or for how long they quarantined. But the overall loss of classroom time led the state to rethink its health and safety policies, and announce on Thursday its new push to avoid disruptive school quarantines, Screen and Stay. The program, which is optional to schools, lets unvaccinated but masked students, who are exposed to the virus in supervised classroom settings, be evaluated for symptoms rather than miss valuable in-person instruction time. State guidance has allowed the same for vaccinated students since the start of the school year. Screen and Stay brings immediate relief, said Russell-Tucker at a press conference on Thursday for the initiative. I would call it a game changer. The states largest teachers union, alongside other educator associations and groups, expressed support for the initiative. Having more students in classrooms could make learning more equal across Connecticut. Previously school districts, no longer required to provide remote classes, could decide locally how students should use online tools in quarantine or isolation. That led to differentiation in how robust a districts learn-from-home options were, and depended on where a child was enrolled in school. While some districts had extra teachers on staff to deliver virtual instruction, others provided packets and third-party software, at a time when students have already missed months of classroom time. Meanwhile, student COVID cases continue to drop in Connecticut, as 402 students reported positive cases to the state from Oct. 28 to Nov. 3, the most recent period for which data is available. The last time student cases were this low was from Aug. 26 to Sept. 1, at the start of the school year and when some districts had yet to resume classes. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gave the final approval Tuesday for children ages 5 to 11 to receive a modified version of the Pfizer vaccine, and some students have already gotten their shots. Gov. Ned Lamont in a statement called the green light an incredibly promising development. While that rollout occurs, the Screen and Stay initiative will help ensure that more students can remain in school, he said, and we can provide a safe, in-person learning environment. Milton, PA (17847) Today Partly cloudy skies this morning will give way to cloudy skies and rain during the afternoon. High near 50F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 80%.. Tonight Overcast with rain showers at times. Low 36F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 60%. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bogdan Aurescu, will have, on Monday, in Washington D.C., consultations with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as part of the visit he is conducting to the United States of America, on November 8 and 9, upon the invitation of his counterpart, MAE informs in a release sent on Saturday to AGERPRES. According to the quoted source, the visit marks, at the same time, the official opening of the seventh meeting of Romanian-US Strategic Dialogue for the implementation of the Joint Statement for the Strategic Partnership for the 21st century between Romania and the United States of 2011. "Organized in the symbolic context of marking, in 2021, anniversary moments in the bilateral relation - ten years since the adoption of the Joint Statement for the Strategic Partnership for the 21st century and the signing and entry into force of the Agreement regarding the placing of the ballistic defence system of the US in Romania, as well as five years since the operationalization of the anti-rocket facility in Deveselu, the visit will offer important opportunities for the reconfiguration of the solid bilateral commitment towards the Strategic Partnership and for the strengthening of cooperation in promoting joint interest projects on all dimensions of the Strategic Partnership. Furthermore, the visit will prepare the marking, in 2022, of 25 years since the start of the Strategic Partnershp between Romania and the US," the release shows, Agerpres informs. MAE mentions that in this context the consultations between Minister Bogdan Aurescu and Secretary of State Antony Blinken will focus on identifying the concrete ways to develop and deepen the bilateral cooperation in the political, security, military, energy domains, as well as in strengthening of economic cooperation, including the promotion of strategic interconnection projects of priority for Romania - Rail2Sea and Via Carpathia, as well as in the domain of civilian nuclear energy. "Minister Bogdan Aurescu will reiterate, at the same time, the interest of Romania, as a US Strategic Partner, for the recording of concrete progress in what regards our country's accession in the Visa Waiver Program, as an objective of great importance for Romanian citizens. Furthermore, recent developments in matters of security will be approached, with an accent on the region of the Black Sea and the security of the Eastern Flank of NATO, coordination within NATO, including in what regards the negotiation of the New Strategic Concept, as well as other topics of interest on the trans-Atlantic agenda. Furthermore, there will be an exchange of opinions regarding the situation of relations with Russia, China, as well as the regional agenda, including the recent developments in the Republic of Moldova," the release informs Plenty has changed in the time since: Coal prices have turned around as economies have rebounded from earlier in the coronavirus pandemic. And high natural gas prices have helped drive demand for coal, coinciding with hot stretches for each companys stock. But that reversal of fortunes still isnt enough to negate years of punishment, experts say. The fact that this is an up year ignores the fact that we were starting from a really low base. Ten years of decline are not being reversed in one year, Godby said. Its not a permanent change in market conditions. Both companies are painfully aware of that backdrop something that is now helping guide them in some different directions. Its perhaps most obvious in Wyoming, the nations coal production juggernaut, and where mines in the Powder River Basin provide much of the coal used for generating electricity in the U.S. More than than 40% of all American coal came from just 16 mines in the basin, according to 2019 analysis from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But the economic woes of coal-fired power plants have turned the companies enormous mines in the area from jewels to liabilities. For hotels, its a way to stand out from the crowd and convey a vision by focusing on topics like climate change, said Emanuel Schreiner, founder of RVS Hotel Consulting. As for customers, personalization is not just a travel trend; hotel guests want to experience unique moments, tailor-made for their vacation, Schreiner added. Having highly specialized staff that is able to cater to the most extravagant aspects of their travel will definitely create added value for the guests. We will see in the long run whether the demand actually meets all these particular offerings. Ewald Biemans, owner and CEO of Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, said he created the carbon offset concierge because some travelers feel guilty for the emissions that come from air travel. Offsets can help guests enjoy a more guilt-free vacation, he said. Global warming and climate change appear in almost every review of the hotel, Biemans said. Three years ago, most people didnt even know what climate change was or global warming was. Today it is a household word. Another new take on the concierge position: The Hyatt Regency Portland in Oregon plans to have a concierge of weird, starting in November, to help guests find unique and little-hyped tours and experiences. ALTON Besieged but defiant, the editor and his friends guarded the new printing press inside a riverfront warehouse. A mob surged toward them. Everybody had weapons. "Burn 'em out," someone outside shouted. "Shoot every damned abolitionist as he leaves." When men with torches climbed onto the roof, defenders of the press opened fire, killing one rioter and forcing others to retreat. In the eerie quiet, editor Elijah P. Lovejoy stepped outside for a look. Five shots riddled him. "Oh God, I am shot," he said as he fell. Lovejoy, known for righteous and unforgiving prose against slavery, was almost 35 when he was killed Nov. 7, 1837. The mob tossed his press into the Mississippi River. It was the fourth press that Lovejoy had lost to people who hated his words. He soon became a martyr to the nation's small but rising wave of abolitionism. In Illinois, a young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln decried the mob violence. Lovejoy, a native of Maine, drew public wrath in St. Louis in 1833 as editor of a Presbyterian newspaper. His object of vituperation was Catholicism. He soon expanded his list of targets to include "the Irish and pro-slavery Christians." The city's slaveholding leadership wasn't amused. And that, Browning told the aldermen, is why the first run at the map they produced looks like those who are controlling the process close allies of President of the Board Lewis Reed are trying to do. I believe the ward boundaries should not be drawn by politicians who stand to benefit from them, Browning testified. He continued: Ward maps have a huge impact on the lives of people who live in this city, and the way you have treated this process makes it seem like you think its a joke. Browning is hardly the only critic of how little transparency Reed has demonstrated in the early map redrawing process. Alderman Heather Navarro, who has been a persistent critic of Reeds failure to plan for the reduction in wards from 28 to 14, offered her own blistering critique of the process in a meeting the next day. We spent hours listening to people comment on a map that they couldnt see and was not constitutionally possible, Navarro said. We have to have a map that meets legal muster. ... I cant manipulate the map ... I cant look around. ... There are experts out there who do this. ... This board has spent thousands of dollars on software ... and we are not maximizing its use. I very much feel the publics frustration these past few days. Two other Chinese vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been approved by the WHO and will thus be accepted for travel into the U.S. Mexico received nearly 12 million doses of CanSino and almost 20 million of Sputnik V after shipments began earlier this year. Residents who got the required two shots of those vaccines now are looking to top up with shots of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines, hoping that will make them eligible to cross the border. They screwed those of us who got this vaccine, said Rosenda Ruiz, 52, a public relations manager in Mexico City who received Sputnik V. There are lots of Mexicans who want to travel, but we cant. I am thinking of getting whatever other vaccine I can get. While Sputnik V is used in around 70 countries worldwide, it has still not been approved by either the FDA or the U.N. health agency. Nearly 1 million people have received the vaccine in Hungary, a Central European country of around 10 million. Hungary was one of only two countries in the 27-member European Union to roll out the Russian vaccine. Fewer than 20,000 people received it in Slovakia. Dentist Guy Deyton, who practices in the Kansas City area, serves as director of the Office of Dental Health within the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. He said he encourages providers to share details of their efforts to curb the spread of the virus and address customer concerns. Weve encouraged them to be good listeners and to be very, very transparent and to accept that there are going to be people that have some anxiety about getting care or even just going out into the world and interacting at this juncture, Deyton said. Dentist Greg Luerding said his patients in Lake Saint Louis frequently ask whether his staff is fully vaccinated. His response is to assure them that they wont be seen by someone who is not vaccinated, but he avoids sharing the status of all of his employees. I just think this is so politicized, and I want to keep it out of that realm, he said. If you tell them that everybody is vaccinated, they will be very upset, theyll say why do you make them do that? I dont. Then they dont believe me, or the opposite. So, I just kind of steer clear of that. For copyright information, check with the distributor of this item, St. Louis Post-Dispatch. These are the most-read letters from last week. Iran is trying to organize a Shia militia in Syria like Hezbollah in Lebanon. The recruiting effort is disappointing because few Syrian Shia want to have anything to do with Syrian Hezbollah, Iran or serving in any military force. The Syrian Shia have been fighting for a decade and have made it clear that they want no more of it for a while, perhaps a long while. Meanwhile the original Hezbollah in Lebanon finds itself with less local support and growing threats of another civil war if Hezbollah does not disband and abandon efforts to intimidate and control the national government. This is all because of the Syrian civil war. Since 2011 over six million Syrians have been forced to leave Syria because of the war. Nearly all of those who fled the country, and wont be coming back, are Sunni. That means the Sunni majority went from 70 percent in 2011 to 58 percent. Iran encouraged Shia from other countries (Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq) to settle in Syria and take over the homes and property of the departed Sunnis. That was unsuccessful. The Assads deliberately attacked Sunni civilians and encouraged them to flee the country. The Assads are willing to offer an autonomy deal with the Kurds in part because, while they are mainly Sunni like their fellow Kurds in Iraq, they are not fanatic about their religion the way many Arab Sunnis are. In 2018 Syrian Kurds comprised about 17 percent of the Sunni majority. If the Kurds make peace with the Assads, the remaining Sunni Arabs are no longer a majority. The Sunni Arab factions dont all agree on how to deal with the Assads and for two generations the Assads have ruled Syria by exploiting those differences and expect to have an easier time now because there are fewer Sunni Arabs. One thing that did not change much was the portion of the population that was Shia. In 2011 about 13 percent of Syrians were Shia and they prospered because the Assads were Shia and Shia were considered the most loyal. The downside was that during the decade of civil war the Shia suffered higher combat losses because as the pre-war military melted away from desertion and combat casualties, Shia soldiers were soon the majority and taking most of the casualties. The government demanded that Shia soldiers remain in uniform and did not tolerate young Shia men trying to avoid conscription. This caused a lot of Shia families to voluntarily leave and many do not plan to return. Iranian military aid included a large force of Shia mercenaries from other countries, mainly Afghanistan. After 2017, the Americans revived economic sanctions on Iran which meant a reduction in the Shia mercenary force. Fortunately, by then the rebels were largely, but not completely, defeated. Despite that the lack of Syrian troops prolonged the war. The Syrian army was much smaller and largely Shia, who were reluctant to go on the offensive against the remaining rebels cornered in northwestern Syria (Idlib province). Current Iranian efforts to form a Shia militia in Syria like the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, are finding few Syrian Shia who are interested. In fact, there are similar problems in Lebanon where heavy combat in Syria and more Sunni Arabs in Lebanon diminished Hezbollah strength and increased those non-Shia Lebanese willing to try and destroy Hezbollah. Most of the Syrian rebels were anti-Shia, mainly because the Assads are from a Shia minority that has ruled Syria for decades. The Assads had always been brutal towards any Sunni opposition. This has also been a problem for Iran in Lebanon, where the Iran backed Hezbollah militia is losing support from the Shia minority. Two million Syrian Sunni Arab refugees fled to Lebanon after 2012. That meant the Lebanese Shia are now a smaller minority. Lebanon is overwhelmed, economically and otherwise, by the two million Syrian refugees it is hosting. Thats in a country of only five million in 2011. The Sunni refugees radically changed the religious mix of Lebanon from 27 percent Shia, 27 percent Sunni, and 46 percent Christian (and other religions) to a more volatile combination. By 2017 there were over seven million people in Lebanon and 47 percent are Sunni, 19 percent Shia and 34 percent Christian (and others). Before 2011 Hezbollah and Iran had some success attracting non-Shia factions (especially Christians) to be part of the Shia coalition. This is traditional Lebanese politics, with the Christians surviving by forming a coalition with non-Christian groups. In the last few years these non-Shia allies have been deserting Hezbollah. This puts the Hezbollah militia in a bad situation. Their better armed and trained fighters have been able to dominate the other minorities since the 1980s. That was possible because of Iranian cash, weapons, and advisors. But the Iranian help and better organization is no longer enough when the Sunnis are nearly half the population and out for blood because of the slaughter the Assads inflicted on Syrian Sunnis. Lebanon does not want another civil war over this, but that reluctance to fight another civil war is disappearing. The 1975-90 civil war devastated Lebanon and for two generations the survivors were reluctant to fight the growing Shia (Hezbollah) violence and intimidation. Heavy Hezbollah casualties in Syria, where Iran insisted that Hezbollah participate if they wanted continued Iranian financial and military support, backfired. The Hezbollah assistance was helpful but the arrival of the more numerous and aggressive Shia Afghan mercenaries was decisive. Those foreign Shia troops did most of the fighting for five years but by 2019 most of them were no longer available. Lebanese Shia were angry at Iran for compelling Hezbollah to fight, and take heavy casualties in Syria. This reduced support for Hezbollah in Lebanon and led to the current fighting between Hezbollah and the non-Shia majority in Lebanon. That may not escalate into a civil war but it does mark the end of Hezbollah domination of Lebanese politics and more efforts by the non-Shia majority to outlaw and reduce Hezbollah military dominance. The revival of economic sanctions on Iran in 2017 forced Iran to cut in half its economic subsidies to Hezbollah. A lot of Lebanese Shia lost their jobs and many more had their pay reduced. Iran has not got the cash to pay the men in the new Syrian Hezbollah. The Assad government is broke and seeking to make deals with wealthy Sunni Arab oil states. The Sunni Arabs will invest in Syria if there are no Iranians there. Iran refuses to leave and the situation is getting tense with Russia, Turkey, and the U.S. united in trying to get the Iranians out of Syria. Iran did have some success in forming Hezbollah-type militias in Iraq and Yemen but in these two countries the new Iran-backed militias are facing a lot more armed opposition that that the original Hezbollah did in the 1980s. Iran not only failed to create Hezbollah type militias in other countries with a Shia minority (or majority in Iraq) but saw the original Hezbollah fail as well. Ordering the Iran-backed foreign militias to fight harder only makes it worse. Nicole Fahey sits with her daughter Adelina, 6, as she receives the pediatric Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination from nurse Shirley Alfonso at Eugene A. Obregon Park in Los Angeles. (Gary Coronado, Los Angeles Times/TNS) LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service) Now that Alex de Cordoba is finally able to get his 6-year-old daughter vaccinated against COVID-19, what are they going to do next? Were going to Disneyland, De Cordoba said. The Laurel Canyon resident jumped at the chance to get the COVID-19 vaccine for his older daughter, one of the tens of millions of children nationwide who became newly eligible for the shots this week, after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the pediatric vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11. Although COVID-19 hospitalizations have fallen in Los Angeles County from their summer peak, De Cordoba has been regularly reminded that the pandemic is not yet over, most recently when the elementary school informed him that his daughter would have to quarantine after a COVID-19 case there, forcing them to postpone her birthday party. He has remained cautious about travel and other potentially risky activities with his kids as they await their chance to get vaccinated. As a parent, the saddest thing for me is realizing that this pandemic could have been curtailed so much more when vaccines became available if more people had gotten the shots, De Cordoba said. Its imperative to get vaccinated and get back to normal life. For him and his family, that means going to Disneyland. For Carla Brizuela-Perez, who lives in Walnut, it means finally bringing her twin boys back to indoor playgrounds and jungle gyms, which she has shied away from during the pandemic. Being able to finally get her 6-year-olds vaccinated brings a sense of peace and comfort and knowing that we did our part to protect our families and our loved ones and our community, Brizuela-Perez said. And for Jennifer Arrow, it means not just the concrete things dining inside restaurants with her family or visiting a Chuck E. Cheese and letting the kids go wild on pizza but lifting the emotional burden of the pandemic. I havent trusted the world in general since the pandemic happened. It just seemed like it was a risky place to be with other people and with little kids in particular, said Arrow, a stay-at-home parent of four children in Culver City. Once the kids are immunized, I think Ill feel comfortable believing that normal is back, such as it is, Arrow said. Many parents eagerly hustled to schedule appointments this week for their newly eligible kids. Kaiser Permanente said that on Wednesday, the first day it opened appointments, it had scheduled more than 67,000 vaccinations over the next six weeks for children ages 5 to 11 in Southern California. In Bellflower, Brianne Archer said she had been closely following each turn of the federal process for rolling out the pediatric shots, so much so that her 6-year-old daughter remarked one day about getting vaccinated, We wont know until November 2nd, thats when theyre meeting! She made vaccination appointments for both her children at CVS. Children may not be at huge risk of COVID, Archer said, but if they dont have to suffer, I should take advantage of that. Shes looking forward to taking them to visit her mother in Ohio. Young children have been at lower risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 than adults, with between 0% and 0.03% of cases among children resulting in death, according to data gathered from the majority of states by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Still, that made COVID-19 comparable with the eighth-leading cause of death among children ages 5 to 11 in the yearlong period ending Oct. 2, with 66 deaths reported nationally in that time, based on a CDC analysis comparing mortality data from 2019. Children can also suffer from long COVID in which symptoms linger for months, including fatigue, headaches, difficulty concentrating, and muscle and joint pain. Children have made up an increasing share of coronavirus cases as older people have been able to get vaccinated, with 5- to 11-year-olds accounting for more than 10% of cases across the country as of early October, even though they comprise only 8.7% of the U.S. population. The rapid spread of the Delta variant led to a national spike in new COVID-19 hospitalizations for children and teens in August, adding new urgency to the push for a pediatric vaccine. Health officials say that vaccinating children will not only protect them from severe illness but limit its spread and mutation and help blunt or avert a fifth wave of the virus this winter. National surveys show that parents are split on vaccinating children ages 5 to 11: Although 27% of parents who were surveyed said they would get them vaccinated right away, 33% said they would wait and see, and 30% said they would definitely not get the shots for their kids, recent surveys by the Kaiser Family Foundation found. Five percent said they would get their children vaccinated only if it were required. Not every vaccinated parent is going to go out and decide to get their child vaccinated, but I think parents who have decided to get the vaccine for themselves are more likely to be convincible when it comes to their kids, said Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research for Kaiser Family Foundation. Laura Powell said she and her husband were first in line to get COVID-19 vaccines for themselves, but she has balked at the idea of a vaccine mandate for their 5- and 9-year-old boys, who go to school in Pleasant Hill in Contra Costa County. In a letter to federal regulators, she said that they could not agree to subject their children to an unknown risk to their health for a(n) infinitesimally small benefit. We are just hoping that there will be sufficient data on safety before any mandate comes, Powell said. The CDC has recommended the vaccines for children, saying they are safe and effective and that in clinical trials, side effects from the shots were mild, self-limiting and similar to those seen in adults and with other vaccines recommended for children. The most common side effect was a sore arm, the agency said this week. COVID-19 vaccines have undergone and will continue to undergo the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history. Dr. Lucio Loza, a family medicine physician with Kaiser Permanente in Santa Ana, said its totally understandable for people to have hesitation when it comes to their kids. But the science is solid, and clinical trials for younger children have been very successful, Loza said. Considering how many vaccines have been given throughout the world a number now in the billions " it makes me very comfortable to get the vaccine, to promote the vaccine, and to give the vaccine to my friends and my family and the ones I love the most, my kids, said Loza, whose 7- and 11-year-old sons were vaccinated Thursday at Kaiser Permanente in Tustin. Despite such assurances, more than three-fourths of parents surveyed said they were very or somewhat concerned that not enough was known about the long-term effects of the COVID-19 vaccine in children, the Kaiser Family Foundation found. Nearly as many 71% said they feared their child might experience serious side effects from the shots. Granada Hills resident Rostom Sarkissian has kept his young daughters in online classes because of concerns about COVID-19. He is vaccinated and has urged others in his family to get the shots. But Sarkissian plans to hold off until January or February to get his 5-year-old and 7-year-old vaccinated unless coronavirus cases hit high levels this winter, saying that he wants to see the data about side effects after more children have gotten the shots. His hope is that once they do get vaccinated, he can stop the constant risk assessment about them visiting family. Nicole Rieck, from Oceanside in San Diego County, said she is not opposed to vaccines in general but cites the newness of the COVID-19 vaccine as making her cautious about inoculating her 5-year-old daughter. She and her husband also are not yet vaccinated. I want to see more data from long-term studies about side effects, how effective it is over long periods of time, Rieck said. And Ive always been more cautious with what I give my children. In Orange County, Dr. Kate Williamson said she reassures parents concerned about long-term effects that when the vaccine is administered, the particles that are put into the body to make the immune system create this army are literally gone within days. For the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, messenger RNA is truly being a messenger, telling the body, Hey, you should build this army, and then that messenger dissolves, said Williamson, a pediatrician at Providence Mission Hospital in Orange County. And what youre left with is a smarter immune system because now its been warned. Besides fears about vaccine effects, some parents also had practical concerns about getting the shots for their children, Kaiser Family Foundation surveys show. More than a third said they were concerned about needing to take time off from work to get their children vaccinated or to care for them if they had side effects. A quarter of the parents said they were worried they might have to pay an out-of-pocket cost, even though the vaccine is free to the public. Those concerns were much more common among lower-income parents than wealthier ones, the surveys showed. As the most eager parents begin to book vaccine appointments for their kids, some have become hopeful the shots could lead to easing other COVID-19 restrictions for children, such as masking at school. Kim Silverstein, who arranged a vaccine appointment Thursday for her 11-year-old son, said she hopes L.A. Unified will extend its vaccine mandate to 5- to 11-year-olds by spring break. If 100% of students and adults at school were fully vaxxed, then I could see unmasking at school become reality, Silverstein said. Staff writers Rong-Gong Lin II and Lucas Money contributed to this report. 2021 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. A detail of the Revolutionary War battle plan drawn by Westfields Major Moses Ashley and now in the collection of Historic Deerfield. The name of Col. William Shepard of Westfield appears in the center. Shepards statue stands in the center of Westfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) DEERFIELD, Mass. (Tribune News Service) The drawings are small, about the size of a tin toy soldier. But they are still visible. Pen-and-ink sketches of soldiers mounted on horseback, their steeds depicted in yellow watercolor, are still vibrant after 241 years. Its not the type of thing youd see on military plans prepared in 2021. But on a plan from 1780 they show the care and attention their creator, Westfield native and Army engineer Moses Ashley, put into the 16-by-26-inch document. With penmanship flowing across the top of the page he titled it The Line, or Order of Battle of the Army of the United States. A square piece is missing, but the title continues, ign 1780. Commanded by His Excellency Geo, clearly a reference to George Washington. The document, a plan for defending West Point in New York following the treason of Benedict Arnold, was lost to history for generations. No one was looking for it, said Amanda Lange, curatorial department director and curator of historic interiors at Historic Deerfield. Historic Deerfield president emeritus Philip Zea spied the document at an estate auction in 2018. The museum and cultural center, which collects early American art and antiquities, bought it for about $15,000. Then, over about 18 months, antique documents experts at Williamstown Art Conservation Center in the Berkshires cleaned and restored the plan. Conservators removed a label, removed mold and strengthened tears that had developed where the plan had been folded up. Amanda Lange, Curatorial Department Director and Curator of Historic Interiors at Historic Deerfield, looks over the recently restored Revolutionary War battle plan document by Major Moses Ashley of Westfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) This recently restored Revolutionary War battle plan document by Major Moses Ashley of Westfield has been acquired by Historic Deerfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) Amanda Lange, Curatorial Department Director and Curator of Historic Interiors at Historic Deerfield, looks over the recently restored Revolutionary War battle plan document by Major Moses Ashley of Westfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) A detail of the Revolutionary War battle plan drawn by Westfields Major Moses Ashley and now in the collection of Historic Deerfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) The work cost $3,300, a bill paid with a grant from The Society of the Cincinnati, Lange said. The society was founded by American and French military officers of the Revolutionary War. Today, its a hereditary organization with the eldest son eligible to take his ancestors place. The society took its name from an ancient Roman leader, Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, and lent the name to the city in Ohio. George Washington is sometimes referred to as the American Cincinnatus. As part of the grant, Historic Deerfield has placed a high-quality facsimile of the battle plans in the societys Washington headquarters. The real document is now at Historic Deerfield, available to scholars or anyone who makes an appointment to see it, Lange said. Historic Deerfield plans to display the battle plan soon as part of a larger exhibition. It will be surrounded by other everyday objects like the extensive collection of gunpowder horns Zea has curated highlighting the day-to-day lives of Revolutionary War soldiers, Lange said. Looking at things from the citizen-soldiers point of view, the militia, the volunteers, Lange said. Not from Washingtons point of view. Expect that exhibit to open in about the year 2026, in time for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and as part of the statewide Revolution 250 effort. The document might be one of the earliest uses of the term United States of America, Lange said. The term was officially adopted by the Continental Congress in 1776. Ashley, designer of the battle plan, was born in 1749 in Westfield to a prominent family. He graduated from Yale College in 1767 and later lived on his familys farm in Berkshire County. Ashley served as a lieutenant during the Lexington Alarm of 1775 and was a captain when he drew up the battle plan. He evidently thought of himself as an up-and-comer. Theres a surviving letter where he pestered Washington about a promotion. Ashley was an educated man, Lange said, and might have studied penmanship as a youngster under a writing master. On Ashleys battle plan, each regiment is represented by a yellow rectangle. The artillery units are represented by pictures of cannons. The battle plan is written in iron gall ink, common at the time but destructive over time, on paper made from cotton rags. Imagine all these people at a meeting, Lange said. Ashely would have written out a rough, rough, sketch of the plan, then he would have come back and done all this work on the final copy. A detail of the Revolutionary War battle plan drawn by Westfields Major Moses Ashley and now in the collection of Historic Deerfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) Amanda Lange is the Curatorial Department Director and Curator of Historic Interiors at Historic Deerfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) Amanda Lange, Curatorial Department Director and Curator of Historic Interiors at Historic Deerfield, looks over the recently restored Revolutionary War battle plan document by Major Moses Ashley of Westfield. (Don Treeger, The Republican/TNS) So proud was he that later historians dont know when Ashley affixed a label on the plans, declaring proudly that he created the document while In Service, United States of America. While Ashley isnt one of the famous Founding Fathers, he name-checks most of them in the battle plan, labeling formations from regiment, battalion and brigade to division and corps neatly with the name of its commander. One was Col. Henry Knox, notable for transporting 59 cannons from Fort Ticonderoga in New York to Boston, by way of Springfield and other area towns, in 1775. The route is known as the Knox Trail to this day. Also mentioned are Maj. General Nathanael Greene; Brig. Gen. John Stark, hero of the Battle of Bennington; and Brig. Gen. Mad Anthony Wayne, known for his fiery temper. The dragoons soldiers who rode horses to the battle site and then fought on foot were under the command of Henry Light Horse Harry Lee. Maj. Gen. Gilbert du Motier, the French marquis de La Fayette, is listed as commanding a major formation. There is another foreign general, Baron Friedrich Von Steuben, whod come from Prussia and helped train the American militiamen into a disciplined fighting force. Ashleys battle plan also includes a name from close to his own home. Westfields Gen. William Shepard commands a regiment. Lange said the way troops are organized also shows that Ashley and those around him were already thinking in terms of a United States. Commanders are no longer assigned based on their home states. Brig. Gen. John Paterson was from New York and New Jersey. But hes shown commanding men from Massachusetts. You wouldnt have seen that much earlier in the war. Ashley drew up the plan after Arnolds foiled attempt to put West Point into British hands. Defending the strategic chokepoint in the Hudson River was crucial to keeping the British at bay. What happens if they come? Lange said. This is their plan to be ready, which units goes out first, which units hold back, who holds the other side of the river. Its a battle that was never fought. The British never attacked in 1780 or in the subsequent years of the war. There is correspondence indicating that Ashley continued to serve in the lower Hudson Valley until June of 1783, or about the end of the war, and did get promoted to major. He later settled in Stockbridge and drowned in 1791 while building a dam. 2021 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit masslive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 13th National Peoples Congress in Beijing on March 7, 2021. (Li Xueren, Xinhua/Zuma Press/TNS) (Tribune News Service) Only two men in the Communist Partys history have ever written a so-called historical resolution. China is waiting to see whether President Xi Jinping becomes the third. The first official declaration on Chinese history in 40 years is set to top the agenda when the ruling party huddles this week in the last major meeting before a twice-a-decade congress next year, where Xis expected to break precedent and secure a third term to extend his indefinite rule. Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaopings historical resolutions came at critical junctures in the nations trajectory and enabled their authors to dominate party politics until their dying breaths. Issuing his own magnum opus would not only put Xi on par with those party titans, but could signal big changes afoot in the worlds second-largest economy. The meeting from Nov. 8-11, called the sixth plenum, kicks off the closest thing China has to a campaign season. Getting the party to back his take on Chinas history and its future would be the biggest sign yet that Xi has the power base to potentially rule for life after almost a decade of purging enemies and pushing to foster national pride. What is the sixth plenum? Between each party congress, the Communist Partys Central Committee meets seven times in meetings called plenums that cover different topics. About 400 men (and a handful of women), including state leaders, military chiefs, provincial bosses and top academics, convene at a heavily guarded military hotel in Beijing. Like most things in elite Chinese politics, the agenda is top secret and only revealed in a communique afterward with any squabbling and infighting edited out. As the last big meeting in Chinas five-year political cycle, the sixth plenum is in some ways more important than others: Its the final chance for horse trading before big decisions are made at the following years congress. In preparation, the partys Poltiburo last month reviewed a draft resolution on the major achievements and historical experiences of the partys 100 years, the official Xinhua News Agency said, without elaborating. The wording raised eyebrows. At the sixth plenum in 1981, Deng famously passed his historical resolution denouncing the missteps of Mao, whose Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution crusades caused famine and death. At a similar summit in 2016, the party named Xi a core leader, a term previously reserved for Deng, Mao and Jiang Zemin that confers de facto veto powers over key decisions. What are historical resolutions? At face value, theyre long, dry accounts written in unwieldy party-speak. In reality, theyre the ultimate power play. When Mao published his historical resolution in 1945, the Peoples Republic was four years away from being a country and still tangled in leadership wars. The document, titled Resolution on Certain Questions in the History of Our Party, ended all that uncertainty. It declared that only Mao had the correct political line to lead the CCP, clearing the way for decades of his personality-driven rule. By the time Deng delivered his document in 1981, the party was facing another leadership tussle in the wake of Maos death four years earlier. Weaving a narrative that condemned the chaos of Maos Cultural Revolution without totally discrediting him, and thus undermining the party, Deng secured his position as the man with the right vision to take China forward. That platform allowed Deng to liberalize Chinas economy and ban another cult of personality without ever being the president. The resolutions carry such weight because the party revolves around what Wu Guoguang, professor of history at the University of Victoria in Canada, calls documentary politics a system where elite decisions are ratified in documents, not laws. The writing process of a CCP document is a process of consensus building within the party elite, Wu said, making such a publication the biggest available show of collective approval. Deng canvassed more than 4,000 cadres opinions on his resolution, and state media has reported that Xi is currently presenting his to key people outside the party. Still, Wu said the leader always controls the final narrative. Xi definitely dominates the process of the shaping of this third historical resolution, Wu said. He is imposing his viewpoints to become the framework within which party elites make their consensus. What will Xi say? Unlike his predecessors who criticized party missteps, Xis likely to spin a victorious tale of a century of success, glossing over failures and outlining his vision for a modern Marxist society, according to signs from state media. The Politburo meeting last month declared the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation a historical inevitability under Xi, the partys Peoples Daily newspaper said, offering clues at the resolutions content. Crafting a story of continuous success requires Xi to embrace the contradictory policies of Mao and Deng, ignore the scars of events such as the Great Leap Forward and the Tiananmen Square massacre, and present his own ideology as the natural next path despite critics claims hes reviving the personality cult Deng despised. Blending Mao and Deng together seems illogical, but that is the political trick in playing CCP politics, said Wu, who in the 1980s worked for the reform-minded premier Zhao Ziyang, later ousted for his liberal views. Xi is changing many policies of Dengs, but he definitely follows both Mao and Deng in one way: to defend the CCPs monopoly of power in China. Why does it matter? As the leader of one-fifth of the worlds people, Xis potential to rule for life has huge ramifications. Chinas most important man is already on a mission to redistribute the nations wealth to build a fairer Marxist society. That common prosperity campaign wiped about $1 trillion off the value of Chinese stocks globally in July, and impacted the business of everyone from delivery drivers and after-school teachers to tech giants and celebrities, with major fallout for global investors. With a historical resolution under his belt, Xi would head into next years politicking emboldened to execute more economic reforms and push back against the U.S. on trade, coronavirus probes and, of course, Taiwan, which Beijing considers a breakaway province. Xi in July called it a historic mission to bring the democratic island under the partys control, a move that could actually send Washington and Beijing to war if done by force. 2021 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Veterans Lindsay and Richard Puente began an organization, Cast & Hook Fishing, to take first responders and veterans out fishing to help them deal with the trauma of what theyve seen in their work. (Facebook) ST. PAUL, Minn. (Tribune News Service) Lindsay and Richard Puente were poised to start a food truck as a side business to their regular work he is a St. Paul police officer and she is a licensed professional clinical counselor when he had a dream that changed their path. He woke up in June and told Lindsay, who is a veteran like him, that they should begin an organization to take first responders and veterans out fishing to help them deal with the trauma of what they've seen in their work. "I could tell he had a strong conviction and I said, 'Let's do this,'" Lindsay said. Cast & Hook Fishing was off the ground three days later. Their motto is "Combating PTSD one cast at a time." Richard Puente and another officer happened to be the first to arrive at the Seventh Street Truck Park bar shooting last month that injured 15 people and killed a woman. It was a busy and difficult night, though it wasn't the most gut-wrenching of some of the death scenes he's responded to in his four years as an officer. Most people in military service do not regularly see people who are deceased, "but I can't tell you one first responder who hasn't seen it, smelled it, experienced it," Puente said. The Puentes are thankful for resources that are already in place for veterans to get help for post-traumatic stress disorder, but they think it's more difficult for first responders especially at a time when law enforcement officers are feeling increased hostility since the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd last year. Peace on the water Both Lindsay and Richard Puente, who have been married for eight years, grew up fishing. "As soon as I could cast a pole, I was probably out there," he said. "Being out on the water is my getaway, it's therapeutic," Richard said. "I forget about everything when I'm out, so Lindsay and I both wanted to share that with others." They spread the word about Cast & Hook on Facebook, and heard back from veterans and first responders offering to volunteer for their organization, and also people who said they could use some help and some time on the water. The Puentes started taking people out on their boat. So far, Cast & Hook has taken more than 100 veterans and first responders and their families out fishing. Beyond law enforcement officers, they've worked with firefighters, EMTs, paramedics, 911 call-takers and dispatchers, and corrections officers. They don't ask people questions about their job or PTSD, but Richard said most open up. "There's a lot of common ground without even having to say anything," Lindsay added. Lindsay served in the Army National Guard for eight years, and Richard spent 12 years in the Army Reserve and deployed to Baghdad in 2009. They've both been affected by PTSD and Richard's brother, Michael Puente, died by suicide three months after Richard returned from Iraq. Richard and Lindsay Puente said they would do anything to give people a lifeline of hope. "You can get help and there's no shame in that," said Lindsay, who focuses as a counselor on working with women who are veterans and also with health care providers. "It takes a lot of courage and strength to say, 'I need help.' " Breaking the stigma After the Seventh Street Truck Park bar shooting, Richard spent time fishing. It's often where he goes to decompress after a long week of work. Many of the situations that first responders are called to are traumatic. "These are situations that nobody is prepared to cope with because they're atypical situations," Lindsay said. Departments offer employee assistance programs and peer support, which can be helpful, but the Puentes like the idea of fishing as therapeutic because the stakes are lower people don't have to wait for an appointment and it's easier to say, "I'm struggling, I'm going out fishing." "We want to break that stigma with law enforcement, first responders," Richard said. "We're expected to be mentally tough and the strong person, but it's kind of hard to protect people when you're struggling with stuff yourself. You have to take care of yourself, ultimately, to take care of others." Support from businesses, volunteers Volunteers and St. Paul businesses have been instrumental in helping Cast & Hook expand their cause. Brian and Sarah Ingram, owners of Purpose Driven Restaurants, gave them an extra boat. "We had a boat that we would use every once in a while to go out with our family, but it just seemed like their need was much bigger than our need," Brian Ingram said. "And we thought, 'How great would it be if they could stay out longer and take more people fishing?'" Cast & Hook provides equipment and fishing licenses if people can't afford or don't have them, and they also teach people how to fish. The location depends on where people want to go some of the places they head to are the St. Croix River to catch walleye and Cedar Lake in western Wisconsin for crappies. One retired colonel was interested in learning fly-fishing, so he could teach other veterans. Pat Mancini, co-owner of Mancini's Char House on West Seventh Street, has taken him out a couple of times to the Kinnickinnic and Rush rivers in Wisconsin. "These fighting men and women, they've been through a lot," Mancini said. "Being in the restaurant business, I do a lot of listening." Meanwhile, Soapy Joe's Car Wash donated $1,000 for Cast & Hook to get kayaks, which participants can sign out to spend time on the water. "It's been a very challenging couple of years for police officers," said Joe Lindsay, general manager and part owner of the West Seventh Street business. "I really admire and appreciate what Cast & Hook is doing for the health and well-being of the people who serve and protect us." People can go through the Cast & Hook website at castandhookfishing.com to volunteer or donate to the organization, which is registered as a nonprofit in Wisconsin. First responders and veterans who are dealing with trauma and want to find out about fishing with Cast & Hook can also do so through the website. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached around the clock at 800-273-8255. (c)2021 the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) Visit the Pioneer Press (St. Paul, Minn.) at www.twincities.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. The New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen, N.H. (Facebook) (Tribune News Service) As the state and nation observe Veterans Day this week, veterans advocates and New Hampshire's congressional delegation are pushing for a law change that would allow reservists and National Guardsmen to be buried in state veterans cemeteries. Currently, under the rules of the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, only members of the Guard and Reserves who have been called to active duty may be buried in cemeteries that receive federal grant funding. That includes the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery in Boscawen. The Burial Equity for Guards and Reserves Act of 2021 would change that for any service members honorably discharged, as well as anyone who dies "under honorable conditions" while a member of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC). The change also would apply to the members' spouses, and minor or unmarried children. "It's just doing what's right, and now is the time to do it," the former adjutant general of the New Hampshire National Guard, Maj. Gen. Kenneth Clark, said last week in a conference call hosted by Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H. Pappas, the sponsor of the bipartisan House bill, said the current rules draw an "arbitrary distinction" among those who have served. "Unfortunately, as a result, the men and women of the Guard and Reserves are being denied the honor of being laid to rest next to their brothers and sisters in arms," he said. Fight is for fairness Members of the New Hampshire Air and Army National Guard have deployed multiple times in support of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past two decades. That federal service would qualify them for burial in the veterans cemetery. But Guardsmen also have been serving on the front lines of the pandemic here on the homefront, working at vaccination clinics, unemployment centers and the New Hampshire Food Bank. On its own, that service would not make them eligible for burial in Boscawen. For Anna Thomas, Manchester's public health director, this is a deeply personal matter. "I'm living proof of what this legislation could do for so many Guard and Reservists across the country," she said. Thomas was in the Army ROTC program at the University of New Hampshire and joined the Army Reserve in Massachusetts. She transferred to the New Hampshire National Guard, serving as operations officer for the state medical command and rising to the rank of major. After 16 years, she made the difficult decision to leave the military to start her family, she said. Thomas' father, a veteran, died last year just before Christmas. "We had the honor to lay him to rest at New Hampshire Veterans Cemetery, and it is absolutely sacred ground to us," she said. "To me, it would be one of the greatest honors to be able to share that burial ground with my father," she said. Warren Perry, deputy adjutant general of the New Hampshire National Guard, said it's a matter of equity. "It is about providing an equal opportunity for the members of the reserve components of the United States, both in the National Guard and Reserves, to be recognized and receive the same benefits as their active duty counterparts in terms of interment in our cemetery," he said. Perry said the proposed law would not force the VA, which administers national cemeteries, to modify its policies for its own cemeteries. It would simply allow state veterans cemeteries to make their own decisions about who is eligible for burial, he said. Mike Horne, who served as director of the state veterans cemetery from 2008 to 2018, said it broke his heart to have to tell Guardsmen he had served with that they were not eligible to be buried there. "I believe New Hampshire would move forward in a heartbeat once this legislation would get passed," he said. NH support solid as granite The State Veterans Advisory Committee here passed a resolution supporting the change even before the current legislation was proposed, Horne said. Clark, who retired in 2009, said this idea has been discussed since he was head of the Guard. While some veterans who served on active duty have objected to the change in other places, he doesn't think that will the case here in New Hampshire if the bill passes. And he said, "I think it's a sad state of affairs that this isn't a change to the V.A. policy that would affect every Reservist and Guardsman in the country." Horne, the former cemetery director, said that in his experience, some in the V.A.'s National Cemetery Administration who had served on active duty had a "bias" against the Reserve components. "I feel, personally, they really didn't understand the value of the National Guard and Reserves," he said. But for him, he said, "I feel my service as a Guard for 28 years far exceeded that of me having a job in the Air Force for four years." Pappas' bill was advanced out of committee late Thursday, setting it up for a vote by the full House. Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., is a co-sponsor of the House bill. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has sponsored an identical bill in the Senate, with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and two Republican senators from North Dakota as co-sponsors. Pappas said passing the measure is "simply the right thing to do." "Members of our Guard and Reserves have signed up to defend our freedom and our way of life, and I think it's only fitting we defend their ability to be buried where they wish," he said. swickham@unionleader.com (c)2021 The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.) Visit The New Hampshire Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.) at www.unionleader.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Transformations in Paper is a program in which veterans transform uniforms into paper. It is presented by a traveling nonprofit called Frontline Paper that was started in New Jersey in 2011 by two veteran artists/activists. (Facebook) (Tribune News Service) Sean Monahan's art therapist asked him if he wanted to destroy his Army uniforms. He was intrigued. The Unity Township, Westmoreland County, veteran really likes Krystal Neal, with whom he does art therapy via the Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh H.J. Heinz campus in Aspinwall. He started art therapy a couple of years ago as a way of working through emotions and problems associated with his service starting in 2007, and including some time in Afghanistan in 2012, before he medically retired in 2015. He's not artsy and never has been, but he said that in interpreting the drawings he does for Neal, "she's spot on. ... I don't know how she does it." COVID-19 kept him from going to the VA, but his healing art therapy continued online. During one session this spring, Neal mentioned an upcoming free program she planned to attend this summer at Touchstone Center for Crafts in Farmington, Fayette County, where veterans would transform uniforms into paper. Monahan's mother and official VA caregiver, Holly Monahan, signed up her son and herself, even though she, too, had no idea what they were getting into. Monahan had, in the basement, four sets of ACUs Army combat uniforms. The Monahans took three of them to Touchstone one for each of them and one for Neal. They joined seven other veterans and their caregivers and family members at "Transformations in Paper," a program presented by a traveling nonprofit called Frontline Paper that was started in New Jersey in 2011 by two veteran artists/activists. The point was to connect veterans of all eras and others by well, the Monahans lived it. They spent five days in August at Touchstone, starting with by cutting up their uniforms into 1-inch pieces. The scissoring took Neal longer because the uniform he gave her was fireproof. They laughed at that and at the cigarette butts and candy wrappers they found in his pockets. Each deconstructed uniform was further broken down into a slurry of fibers that, in a painstaking process instructor Nathan Lewis lead using wooden frames and a press, participants transformed into sheets of paper of various sizes. Then they made some of the paper into cards, journals and other artsy items. Holly Monahan used old-fashioned lead type to print the front of her book with the word "BELIEVE." She learned how to bind it with a curved needle and waxed string so the book will lay flat. While the pages still were wet, she stenciled them with the Army logo and an American flag, pressed on scraps of camouflage print fabric, and put in a photo of her son in that uniform when he enlisted. "I got a little teary a couple times while doing it," she said. "Not bad tears. But emotional tears." Monahan titled his book "HOPE," in his own handwriting. And he felt great when all the participants came together at the end of the workshop to share their creations and more. "It was a positive experience," said Monahan, who is 33. "It was kind of like putting aside my Army life and making it into my life as it is now." They took home their books, lots of paper and a souvenir print that noted that that workshop's participants encompassed 60 years of military service, 29.5 years of caregiving, 13 deployments, eight children ... and made 338 sheets of paper. After allowing their paper and projects to dry under the weight of several Bibles and other books for the recommended three months, the Monahans are ready to use them. Holly Monahan wants to use hers as a gratitude journal. She half jokes about how she now appreciates the high prices on handmade paper projects, but what she's really grateful for is all the sacrifice made by veterans and their caregivers. "I never get tired of seeing or hearing what they have to say." Her son, who through another program called Project Healing Waters, got hooked on fly fishing, might turn his into a fishing journal, recording his fish and what he used to catch them. Touchstone will bring back the Frontline Paper workshop in August of 2022, said marketing manager Dean Simpson. Applications will be available beginning Jan. 1. It will once again be offered free for veterans and family members thanks to the generosity of the family of Agnes and James Kinard. Of the Monahans and Neal, he said, "Watching them experience this together was really beautiful." Meanwhile, Neal said the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System is preparing to offer papermaking to veterans. She said she recently ordered equipment to pulp complex fibers and has completed training through the Peace Paper Project. "We look forward to incorporating this therapeutic and transformative process as a part of the expressive arts therapies provided by VA Pittsburgh." bbatz@post-gazette.com (c)2021 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. A Western Bay school that was threatened with closure earlier this year has had its future secured. Matahui School in Aongatete was facing closure due to financial difficulties and the ongoing knock-on effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, Principal Mary Woods says some Matahui magic from the community has ensured the independent schools future is safe. Everyone is very happy and relieved, she says. We're all very excited that we've got a future. Weve got a school to come back to next year and theres no more uncertainty. Its taken that worry away. The school announced it was struggling financially and facing closure at the end of term three if funds werent secured. Low enrolment numbers, alongside Covid-related struggles, meant the school was fighting to maintain financial viability. Parents and alumni raised enough money to keep the school going until the end of the year while a plan was developed to keep the school open long-term. Teaching and learning has been happening, but the uncertainty around being open next year has been hanging over our heads, says Mary. The schools foundation trust has secured the sale of the land that the school is on, which releases additional funds and provides a much-needed lifeline. Matahui School will now lease the land off the new owner. We are all looking forward to working closely with all stakeholders to ensure the future survival of the school. Mary says they can now concentrate on the childrens learning and the growth of the school. There are currently 38 students on the roll. The school is a not-for-profit organisation, with all fees received contributing to running and operation costs. The school, for years 1-8, was started 32 years ago in response to one parents concern about her childs wellbeing and education. Mary says it is not a typical school. One of the differences is the small class sizes that ensure real relationships between students and teachers. We cater for individual needs through the multiple intelligences, and we have our own curriculum which is very project based. Our teaching style helps build self-esteem in our students and creates robust, emotionally intelligent children who can take the knocks in life. This was evident in the way our students handled themselves during this uncertain and challenging time. Mary and the school community is grateful for the support they have received. Its the students, community and staff that make Matahui magic. We have an amazing and supportive wider community who believe in our ethos and what Matahui School provides for their children, so they came to our rescue. We owe this group a huge debt of gratitude and want them to know that they will be part of the Matahui story for future generations to come. How art, autism and Andalucia all came together in 2020 Helen Purdie gave up her job in the NHS to go back to her artistic roots and a diagnosis of autism at 46 set the tone for her future in Spain Helen Purdie at her home in Torrox with two of her paintings on the wall behind her. / SARAH STILO British artist Helen Purdie has lived in Torrox Pueblo since July 2020. Despite the pandemic, she decided that the time to move was right. Helen has been coming to Torrox to visit for about 11 years. She came as part of a two week trip to Granada but also wanted to visit the coast. She stayed with a Spanish couple through Airbnb and is still in touch with them now. Although the idea of moving permanently had been "bubbling away" for a while, once she made her mind up, she said "that was it." "I am so at home and so happy to be here," Helen admits, adding that although she grew up in a village, she spent a long time living in big cities and at 52 and about to become a grandmother, it feels like "the right time" to be living in a small town, which Helen describes as "a delight." Coming from a background of mountaineering and mountain rescue in Sheffield, Helen says she loves being near the mountains. She also swims in the sea every week, but admits that her "first love is the mountains." She climbed La Maroma on her own to see the sunrise on this year's summer solstice. "I have had a very active year and the area I have been least active in is my painting. I have been mainly exploring and meeting people," she admits. Although Helen was a talented artist from an early age, she decided not to go to art school and she says that she believes that it was "the right decision" for her at the time. Instead she went on to have an extremely successful career with the NHS, as a surgical care practitioner, where she operated alongside the surgeons within cardiac and vascular fields and worked as a medical researcher. In 2008 Helen decided to give up her career in medicine and concentrate on her art. Although it took a couple of years to completely detach herself from the world she was so familiar with, going back when invited to research projects. "Starting out as an artist I didn't have an identity and having come from a world when I had a strong identity as well as reputation, I struggled with that for a while" Helen confesses. For a time, her two worlds came together and In 2014 she explains that she "spent many hours, over a few months, sitting in the operating rooms of a hospital in Sheffield drawing the surgical team as they worked." The result was a book of her work, which is free to download from her website and is quite different from Helen's other work, which has changed from early self-portraits and portraits of other people, to landscapes. Autism confirmation Helen was confirmed as autistic at the age of 46. It followed eight years of doctors' and psychologists appointments and a long-held suspicion of her own that she might be autistic. Helen says that the confirmation helped her to explain relationships with close family members including her mother and daughter. The artist has since become passionate about helping other people, and in particular adults who have autism. "I want to show people how they can be supported and those around them can get support, to help relationships be they work or personal relationships." She is involved in running online workshops with people in Sheffield. "COVID opened up my way of working in a way that I hadn't anticipated and it opened up an opportunity to people who may not be able to access resources otherwise," she explains. She is also keen to start face to face workshops for English-speaking people living with autism here in Spain. Another book that is available on her website is a colouring book designed for people with autism. The inspiration comes from Helen's own experiences as a young girl of colouring in and "getting angry when I coloured over the lines." She hopes the book will help other people with autism and says she has had a lot of "positive feedback." The exhibition is on at Torrox Costa Town Hall's Edificio de Usos Multiples on Avenida de Andalucia until 29 November. It features 39 of Helen's works inspired by Spain and the UK. Opening hours are 8.30am to 8pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays. For more information about Helen visit: www.helenpurdie.co.uk. Her life has never been very easy. Her mother and grandmother died of cancer, her father had diabetes, she went through a divorce and brought up her two children in Spain after leaving her native Argentina. She learned from all that, and, most importantly, not to look the other way when problems occur but to face up to them and do whatever has to be done to put an end to them. A year ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer after a self-examination in the shower set off all the alarms. She sensed something ominous. "The worst cancer is the one that isn't diagnosed," says Elvira Sanchez, who after the initial shock decided to take the bull by the horns. "At that moment your whole approach to life changes. When the doctor confirmed that it was cancer, but that there was a solution, I decided to fight it," she says. Elvira doesn't deny that it is hard (she finished her treatment two months ago and is having regular check-ups) and that there are days when she feels low, but what worked for her was "focusing on what was necessary" to carry on enjoying life. She has managed to take on board the fact that being ill doesn't have to mean grief, sadness or depression. In her case, she focused on hope, positivity and her personal wellbeing and that of her family. To do so, she grabbed hold of some "lifelines" to prevent her sinking emotionally: cycle rides, adopting a dog, her faith, which made her stronger, the unconditional support from her children, who always respected the schedules that Elvira set, and laughter in the company of her friends. Her example and her lesson in life have formed part of the study 'Scale of satisfaction with life in breast cancer patients: psychometric characteristics', carried out by Malaga University. Positive emotions The team that developed this project started with the thesis: can you suffer from breast cancer and be happy? After a year and a half of work, they have concluded that you can. But how is it possible to face up to the illness with this type of attitude? "Women with this type of cancer tend to experience positive emotions, they expect good results in life and they are hopeful. They find a purpose in it and they also regulate their own emotions well," says Maria Victoria Cerezo, a lecturer in Social Psychology at the university. She is the lead author in this work, which has been published in the International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. Working with her have been Maria Jose Blanca and Rafael Alarcon, who are lecturers in the department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Behavioural Sciences at Malaga university, and researcher Lorena Soria-Reyes, who is also a psychologist with ASAMMA, the association to support women who have breast surgery in Malaga, which collaborated with the study. A glass half full Like other experiences in life, the way of handling a situation depends on the person, their experiences and their social and family environment. All these determine how they deal with a setback at any given moment in their lives. "Objectively, two people can be in exactly the same situation but each of them will interpret it in a different way, depending on a series of variables (self-esteem, emotional wellbeing, resilience, emotional intelligence and optimism), which need to be worked on from childhood. They see a glass as being half-full or half-empty as a result of their previous life experiences," explains Cerezo. To carry out this project, which was developed within the line of research 'Positive psychology and breast cancer' of the university group 'Analysis of data in psychology', the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), an international research instrument which measures life satisfaction and cognitive wellbeing, was used. It was created in 1985 and the Spanish version is from 2013. This 'SWLS' reference determines that 24.1 is the average measure of satisfaction with life in the general population and 27.1 in cancer patients. However, the figure drops slightly in the case of women with breast cancer, where the measurement is 22.14. Maria Victoria Cerezo points out that even so, it is a good result and that this difference is largely due to the fact that breast cancer is different from other cancers because it has a specific impact on an external and visible part of the body, which has cultural and sexual connotations among others. In total 222 women from the ASAMMA association were analysed, of whom almost half had recently been diagnosed and were therefore having treatment, and the remainder - 50.5 per cent - were cancer survivors. Locals concerned over plans for new parking spaces on Marbella's Playa del Cable Politicians and residents' groups want the popular, impromptu beach barbecue area - which was removed during Covid-19 - put back instead Community groups and green activists have expressed their opposition to a project to extend an esplanade in Marbella that, they say, would actually take away public access to part of a popular beach. The regional government wants to improve the eastern esplanade next to its La Bajadilla port, including adding 47 parking spaces. Green group Ecologistas Malaka was the first to object, saying the plan would restrict access to part of the sand on the neighbouring beach known as Playa del Cable. They say the planned work won't solve problems in the area and will "increase the area of the beach that will be privatised and concreted over". Locals are also unhappy that a public area for beach barbecues, which was dismantled because of coronavirus restrictions, has not been put back again so far. Victoria Morales, local coordinator of the Izquierda Unida party says the plan "in the end will take land out of public use for the use of just a few people". This summer, La Kavra, an association seeking more public spaces for art in Marbella, held an event on the beach with 100 giant sardine 'espetos' in a bid to get the area for impromptu barbecues put back again. Current Print Subscribers will be prompted to either login to their current site user account or to create a new one. A confirmation email will be sent when a new user account is created, which must be confirmed within three days in order to provide uninterrupted online access through your Print Subscription. Once the email address is confirmed please provide your Account Number to activate your Print Subscription Service. Our Most Popular Magazines + Digital We get it. You live by the Ski Valleys snow report even when youre hours away. You follow every Taos post on Instagram. Our small town occupies a BIG part of your heart. Keep in touch with all things Taos when you subscribe to FIVE of our national award-winning magazines, plus access to the website and e-edition for a full year at the special low rate of just $55. Thank you for Reading! Please log in, or sign up for a new account and Purchase a Subscription to continue reading. warrioraks BHPian Join Date: Jan 2020 Location: Delhi Posts: 390 Thanked: 2,549 Times Re: My Royal Enfield needs engine work | Should I repair or replace? Quote: tharian Originally Posted by From the looks of it, I think the main bearing or the big end bearing is what they are referring to as crankshaft repairs. It is not a big deal from what I know of the same work carried out on few AVL's and CI 500's. The engine should be good for a long while after that is fixed. By the way, I follow your Electra thread. It's a very nice compilation sir. God speed for your future rides. Seems you are based out of Bangalore. I am going to relocate to the city very soon, would you have any recommendation on a workshop where I can get this repair done? Quote: abhishek46 Originally Posted by Option A, Eyes Closed. Just look at the prices of new RE Bikes currently! Get the Engine Overhauled, and enjoy the ride. I would personally prefer the Service Center for Engine Overhauling (Original Parts, Warranty on the work etc.). Also I have a general lack of trust with RE service centers based on my initial ownership experience. My current mechanic is great. I trust him and would have preferred him eyes closed if relocation was not imminent. For the sake of continuity and longevity of the bike's life, I am tilting towards getting the engine fixed in Bangalore so that any teething and follow-on issues are managed at a single workshop. Quote: VW2010 Originally Posted by Option D:- Repair and ride it locally taking option A. Once you settle in a new city if you do end up traveling more, sell this and buy a proper tourer like KTM Adventure. If I am in your shoes, unless I am travelling a lot, I will stick to waiting to take a decision o repair or sell only after moving to the new city. Quote: SidharthaN Originally Posted by I never ask the mech if something is wrong, unless I feel personally there is an issue. Hence my TB still marches on and does 90kmph with ease. Give a thought to what makes you think the engine needs work. And any day the old school RE's can tour the world, yes a bit slow, but definitely with confidence. So to think you actually do not need a new bike for touring, if you are okay to chug along at 80kmph, it will keep munching the miles. I am keeping the TB till it falls apart in the next 9 years...which I know it wont since the old RE's just keeping running. In this case, since both the FNG and RE mechanic had the exact same diagnosis and solution, that makes a strong case on the actual issue being present and what needs to be fixed. Good to know about your TBTS and surely it deserves a thread of it's own. Lastly you are right, I am a pretty happy soul chugging with my bike at 80 km/hr and ideally don't need an upgrade. Quote: GTO Originally Posted by Would go for repairs, since you clearly love your bike. More reasoning in a thread I wrote for cars (Want to sell your car because of repairs? Think again!) , but the points are applicable here as well. Quote: ashwinprakas Originally Posted by So trust you me, DO NOT SELL THE PUSHROD! Especially not for a OHC that is like trading in a Citizen Eagle 7 for a Modern Retro Casio, only the less informed participate in such blasphemy! P.S. Are you really sure your motorcycle needs a rebuild? I would not trust any mechanic, best to consult with a fellow bhpian who knows his motorcycles and isn't hesitant of getting his hands dirty. Regarding not trusting a mechanic, I have a similar opinion with RE service centers. Outside that, I have been able to find a few mechanics over the last 7 years that I feel are trustworthy. It's like finding a good doctor right? In the end all that matters is that the bike remains healthy. I have read through a lot of your threads and posts in the past, so know exactly where you are coming from. Unfortunately I am not as technical as your good self, nor have access to someone who can comment on the engine condition. But thanks for the advice. Quote: navin_v8 Originally Posted by Mate you first need to define your purpose of retaining/buying a motorcycle Thanks all for responding and sharing your knowledge and experience. This has cleared up a lot for meI am not very adept at engine technology and hence never got into the details with the mechanics but will check whether it is related to bearings. I do remember that both the FNG and RE guys told me that once the repair is done, the engine would have to be run-in like new again - first service (post repair) at 500 km, adherence to speed limits listed in the owner's manual for a new bike, etc etc. I assume this is major work and have reservations around the reliability of the bike post the re-build. But considering this is my first bike and there is a history to be cherished here, I am tilting towards taking this gamble.By the way, I follow your Electra thread. It's a very nice compilation sir. God speed for your future rides.Seems you are based out of Bangalore. I am going to relocate to the city very soon, would you have any recommendation on a workshop where I can get this repair done?Based on your response and others, it is more of less decided that the bike will be repaired and not replaced. The only question now remains is where to get it done.Also I have a general lack of trust with RE service centers based on my initial ownership experience. My current mechanic is great. I trust him and would have preferred him eyes closed if relocation was not imminent. For the sake of continuity and longevity of the bike's life, I am tilting towards getting the engine fixed in Bangalore so that any teething and follow-on issues are managed at a single workshop.Your advice cleared up a lot for me. Seems it will be a mix of option C and D. Will take the bike to Bangalore with the hope of getting it repaired at a trustworthy workshop.I am a big believer of preventive maintenance and with my limited/practically zero knowledge of how engines work, I do tend to rely on the opinion of workshop guys. What other choice do I have anywaysIn this case, since both the FNG and RE mechanic had the exact same diagnosis and solution, that makes a strong case on the actual issue being present and what needs to be fixed.Good to know about your TBTS and surely it deserves a thread of it's own.Lastly you are right, I am a pretty happy soul chugging with my bike at 80 km/hr and ideally don't need an upgrade.It was another thread on Tbhp that gave me enough confidence to buy a used car. One of the best decisions ever made. This one is just perfect for someone in a situation like mine. Thanks for the pearls of wisdom GTO!Sir your post forced me to google and readup on the difference between a Pushrod vs OHV. Not sure I understood all the technical details but message received for sure!Regarding not trusting a mechanic, I have a similar opinion with RE service centers. Outside that, I have been able to find a few mechanics over the last 7 years that I feel are trustworthy. It's like finding a good doctor right? In the end all that matters is that the bike remains healthy. I have read through a lot of your threads and posts in the past, so know exactly where you are coming from. Unfortunately I am not as technical as your good self, nor have access to someone who can comment on the engine condition. But thanks for the advice.As you would have noticed Navin, this situation has a few ifs and buts. The purpose itself is not very clear at this point of time except retaining the bike for emotional reasons. Last edited by warrioraks : 5th November 2021 at 12:11 . Forward-looking: Nintendo recently announced it will continue making gaming products. Its next console, it said in an earnings report, is scheduled for 20XX. In other words, itll launch sometime in the next 28,544 days (if there are no delays). In its report, Nintendo explained that it "plans to continue to expand its business around the core concept of creating unique integrated hardware-software products," which has worked fairly well for the last forty-odd years. This year hasnt been one of the better ones so far, though. Nintendo lost its top spot as console maker to Sony after the Switch missed its production goal by 20 percent. Its net profit for the first half of this year fell by 19 percent versus last year. Nintendo CEO Shuntaro Furukawa attributed some of the downturn to the triumphs of last year when Animal Crossing: New Horizons "drove the entire Nintendo Switch business." More than 40 percent of new Switch owners chose it as their first game. Nintendo has been able to recoup some of the recently lost hardware sales with additional game sales. Its sales forecast for this fiscal year has been updated from 190 million games to 200 million. Its upcoming titles, which include three Pokemon games and another entrant into the Legend of Zelda franchise, are expected to do well. Nintendos general plan for the future is to continue pursuing existing avenues, which includes more games, updates to its digital services like Nintendo Switch Online and the Expansion Pack, and potentially, further hardware revisions of the Switch when necessary. That said, Nintendo is quite happy with the OLED Switch. Furukawa is optimistic about it spurring a sixth consecutive year of growth in Nintendos dedicated console business, which would be a first. Nintendo has also found success with its physical stores in Tokyo and New York, is readying another in Osaka, and making plans for more. Its also evaluating sites for Super Nintendo World theme parks in Hollywood, Orlando, and Singapore. Nintendo also wants to follow up the Super Mario movie with more "video content." On the whole, Nintendos outlook for the future hasnt changed much in the last few years. Why fix it if it aint broke? Masthead by Spencer Tesla Sentry Mode actually offers a feature that allows you to turn your voice into the sound of Darth Vader. You can use this capability to get the attention of those around your car easier. The Twitter user Dezmond Oliver posted a video to allow Tesla consumers to know how Sentry Mode actually sounds like. "Here is an example of the new @Tesla sentry mode app feature. It changes your voice too. I can't wait to talk to people as they walk by! Thank you @elonmusk!" captioned the Tesla driver, who is also a fan of SpaceX. Based on the footage, the sound of Tesla Sentry Mode is also similar to the ones produced by the Autobots or Decepticons, the robotic characters in the popular movie "Transformers." Tesla Sentry Mode's New Darth Vader Feature Oliver's Twitter post showing how Sentry Mode works attracted a lot of commentators. One of the individuals in the comment section asked him how did he get the new feature. Here is an example of the new @Tesla sentry mode app feature. It changes your voice too. I cant wait to talk to people as they walk by! Thank you @elonmusk! pic.twitter.com/lexqyjweAk Dezmond Oliver (@dezmondOliver) October 29, 2021 Also Read: #TechTimesLifeHack: How To Install Tesla Software Updates | FOTA Vs. SOTA The Twitter user added that there's no update on his Tesla app. Dezmond explained that consumers need to update their Tesla app to its latest 4.2.2 version manually. On the other hand, the viral Tesla driver added that users also need to have the EV software update 2021.36.8. Aside from the latest software update and the 4.2.2 version of Tesla's app on iOS and Android, Tesla Oracle reported that consumers also need to have Premium Connectivity if they want to take advantage of the new voice adjustment feature. The new Sentry Mode feature is not the latest product that Elon Musk has released. Recently, we reported that Tesla FSD will have its upgrade for the neural network. On the other hand, the billionaire is also expected to build the first Canadian-branded Tesla battery factory. Why the New Sentry Mode Darth Vader Is Useful Inside EVs stated that the new Sentry Mode feature allows you to access your car's verbal warnings using an unusual voice. This would quickly get the attention of potential vandals near your vehicle. On the other hand, you can also scare kids playing near your EV. For more news updates about Sentry Mode and other products of Tesla, always keep your tabs open here at TechTimes. Related Article: Tesla Owner Replaces Model S Plaid's Yoke Steering Wheel with the Regular One-Here's How He Did It This article is owned by TechTimes Written by: Griffin Davis 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission. Tehachapi, CA (93561) Today Windy with a mix of clouds and sun. Strong Santa Ana winds possible. High 62F. Winds E at 20 to 30 mph.. Tonight Clear skies. Low 41F. Winds E at 10 to 15 mph. ARNAUDVILLE It was small things that kept August Nonco Pelafigue's memory alive among his family and friends in this town of 1,000 people that straddles the St. Landry-St. Martin parish line. They included: His presentation of public plays on holy occasions Christmas, Lent, the Feast of the Sacred Heart that starred local children. He would write, direct and recruit children to participate. Every child had a line to speak. His long years teaching at public schools in Krotz Springs, Port Barre and at the nearby Huron School in St. Martin Parish. He taught, too, at the local Catholic school, Little Flower. His residence in a two-room cabin of 288 square feet, where for most of his life, he lived without running water or electricity. He didnt pay rent but would do farm chores milking cows, cleaning the barn to earn his keep. In his fenced yard, he was always surrounded by a collection of small animals guineas, pigeons, bantam roosters, ducks, dogs and cats that he attended and in which local children took delight. Children fondly remembered a pheasant in the yard. Daily presence and participation at Mass at St. John Francis Regis Catholic Church. There, the Rev. Daniel Bernard, said Nonco was like another priest, helping at all Masses, providing religious instruction and visiting the fallen away. 78 years after graduation day, Lafayette oilman and WWII Marine receives his diploma DURAND, Wisconsin Lafayette oilman Paul Hilliard got what was due him last week his high school diploma 78 years after his classmates re Mostly, it was his dedication this lasted his entire adult life to the Apostleship of Prayer League, founded in France in 1844, and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. That affiliation started in 1909, when, just 21, he earned teaching credentials at the State Normal School in Natchitoches. His devotion to faith, expressed in those affiliations, continued until his death on June 6, 1977 at a Lafayette nursing home. So when the Diocese of Lafayette in January 2020 announced that three local peoples causes for canonization as saints would be introduced thats the first time ever in the dioceses 103-year history no one in Arnaudville was surprised Pelafigues case would be advanced along with those of Charlene Richard, an Acadia Parish child who died in 1959, and the Rev. J. Verbis Lafleuer, a local priest and World War II chaplain who died while saving fellow prisoners of war. The latter two were well familiar to Acadiana Catholics; Pelafigue, though, was lesser known outside little Arnaudville. Nonco was born Jan. 10, 1888 in Beaucens, France, the fourth of five children born to Jean-Marie Pelafigue and Melanie Pere, described as pious people. The family moved from their southwestern France home the following year to the French-speaking community of what is now Arnaudville. Charles Hardy, who grew up 100 yards from Noncos modest home, located down Sam Hardy Lane near Division Highway, said theres a reason so few people knew of Nonco, who was his great uncle: Pelafigue lived in stark simplicity and generally shunned all attention to himself. His every effort was to foster faith in others. He said Nonco the affectionate nickname stands for Nonc, uncle in French, and o, the pronunciation of the first syllable of Auguste Pelafigues first name was not the type of person who would socialize or even spend time outside of his hometown. Exceptions would be teaching, church activities and his long walks through the countryside to deliver League of the Sacred Heart leaflets to a swelling membership that eventually reached 1,400. Even when Nonco visited family and friends, he would generally accept a supper that he would carry to his home to eat alone. Or he might sit on the porch of an extended family member and converse in French. When family members would raise a camera to take a photo, he would raise the newspaper in his hands to shield his face. He wasnt the type of guy who would go to the movies or to a restaurant, family member Willie Wyble said. Wyble himself spent considerable time at Noncos small house and was one of the few family members who entered the little home. +13 Honoring Kathleen Blanco: Why the Iberia native, former governor's stock continues to rise NEW IBERIA Former Gov. Kathleen Blancos political reputation has been in a state of recovery, and impetus for the turnaround seems to be co He used to enter it through the back door, and the wood stove was nearby. His bed was on the south side of the house, and he had a couple of small tables, Wyble, standing in Nonco's old yard, remembered. When he finally got electricity it was late in life he had two light bulbs in the house; one was never changed. Nonco usually read by flashlight. He had screens in his windows, and he kept the windows unshuttered. In the early mornings, Wyble said, Nonco would walk some three-quarters of a mile to Mass at St. Regis Catholic Church. During his long teaching career, a Missouri Pacific train passed Nonco's house every day; he would climb aboard and it would take Nonco to his teaching job. The most widespread attention paid to the diffident schoolteacher occurred in 1953. That was when Bishop Jules Jeanmard presented a Papal Diploma and cross to him, courtesy of the pope. The honor had been requested by Nonco's parish priest. When Nonco delivered the Sacred Heart leaflets to Arnaudville area people, he did so on foot, no matter the weather. Friends and family might stop to offer a ride, but Nonco would respond that by walking long distances he was doing penance for troubled souls. +2 Through hurricanes and COVID, UL system president is going to night school to earn a law degree With what time he can muster, University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson has found a new way to maximize his off hours hes purs How did such a mild being, inconsequential in form and living in a remote town, reach this phase of the canonization process? Hardy, president-elect of the August Nonco Pelafigue Foundation, and a relation to Nonco, said the effort to propose Nonco for sainthood began in 2012, 35 years after Nonco died. His impact on others was so profound that the foundation quickly gathered membership when its intentions were publicized. There are about 80 members who pay annual dues of $100 to belong, and a core group of 20 or so members who are most involved with the work. Jerry Richard founded the group and Betty Roy set it up as a not-for-profit corporation. She also initiated a Facebook site. Richard, the youngest of 10 children in his Arnaudville area family and a Nonco relation, said his mother, Wilma, was recruited by Nonco to help promote the work of the Sacred Heart. Richard lives in Baton Rouge now but operates his familys farm in Arnaudville. As a boy, he participated in Noncos organized plays, which were presented at Christmas, during Lent and on the Feast of the Sacred Heart. Nonco would visit the sick and translate the leaflets for those who could not read. He had a relationship with the entire community, Richard recalled; he estimated that some three-quarters of the area's residents participated in the Apostleship of Prayer. That was because of the power of Nonco's quiet influence. In fact, most of those interviewed said they were related to Nonco, if only in some complex or extended way. Solemn and shy, he seldom spoke to large groups outside of the presentation of his plays. But local people, most of them Cajuns, sought his counsel on a variety of matters and found him ever kind and sympathetic. There was an aura about him, Richard said. He brought you closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in subtle ways. He drew people close to him in life, but for many in Arnaudville, Nonco was a continuing presence, even after death. The Sacred Heart remains a powerful force at St. Regis Catholic Church and Nonco, to those who remember him, remains an uncle or something more to the people who remember him. Top stories in Acadiana in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up Each generation looked at Nonco like an apostle of the community, Richard said. When people needed heavenly help, they would pray through Nonco to gain it. People are still affected by Nonco, Richard said. You meet so many people; when you look back and reflect that only a few make such an impression that you might say, This person really is a saint. We might say that person should be a saint. Everything he did, it was your impression of what a saint should be. Putting together the case for Noncos canonization would be difficult for the people of Arnaudville. But Hardy said while the movement started locally, the website caught the attention of Don Luis Fernando Escalante, a postulator from Rome, who will assemble evidence and present the plea for beatification or canonization at the Vatican. A native Argentinian, Escalante saw the profile of Nonco online and said it caught his attention because the Vatican may be looking closer at the laity for more saints in the future. +7 Erath memorial evokes memories of 8 storm victims, and one man's promise to honor them ERATH Its not the type of tragedy a small town can forget. When Hurricane Hilda swept through this town on Oct. 3, 1964, a water tower 125 Most saints are nuns or priests rather than common lay people. Escalante first contacted Noncos supporters in 2015 and his attention created quite a stir here . The biggest thing we are waiting on is a miracle, said Hardy; to support their canonization, most saints need sure evidence that they were connected to a miracle. Dr. A.J. Delahoussaye of Houma, formerly of nearby Cecelia, said his case might qualify. Delahoussaye was a highly rated speed cyclist who suffered severe injuries in an accident on Sept. 11, 2012. He was training for the state finals when the front wheel of his bike flew off without warning and he landed on his head on hard pavement. He broke his neck and three vertebrae. He said he had emergency surgery and most of the medical team treating him didnt think he would survive. They surely didnt think he would recover enough to be functional. He was moved to several hospitals, the last time to Houston, and, although he could not communicate with doctors, he heard them talk about his outlook in bleak terms. I was concerned about living, he said, and made a pact, praying to God through Nonco. Though a doctor himself, he said he gave up on medical care as asked for Nonco's help. Soon, he said, he began to experience indicators of recovery. His doctors and therapists saw the signs of progress. Finally, after three months, he walked out of the hospital. Delahoussaye said his family were Hardys, and he knew Nonco as an extended family member from an early age. Both his parents knew Nonco and they regarded him as extremely religious man. Delahoussaye met Nonco one time, walking by the side of the road. He recalled Nonco as extremely humble, giving of himself. Delahoussaye said his recovery was not immediate, but he soon noticed a difference in his health. It took two years before he could return to work part time. A miracle? The Vatican is reviewing his case, but Delahoussaye feels he knows the answer. I put my health in the hands of Nonco and God, Delahoussaye said. Although proof of a medical miracle is rare, I feel like walking after a broken neck was a bit of a miracle. Very rare. Nonco has the ability to do miraculous things. Charles Taylor remembers Nonco from school at Little Flower. There, he was the sole male on the faculty the school was run by Marianite Sisters of the Holy Cross and Taylor recalled Nonco was the disciplinarian at the school. If you were "cutting up," he said, Nonco would be the disciplinarian. He was the only male at the school, and the children would call him "Sister Nonco." Taylor described his family ties to Nonco in a way that was similar to other people in the town: "His brother was my father's uncle through marriage." Sometimes Nonco would visit Taylor's father, and the two men would drink coffee on the porch. Nonco would seldom enter the house. "Kids were seen and not heard," he recalled. So Taylor would sit nearby and listen to Nonco talk. Sometimes, he would see Nonco walking in the countryside, delivering pamphlets. "I wish I had an odometer on his feet," he said. The Rev. Travis Abadie, pastor at St. Regis, is among those who is conducting formal interviews with people who knew Nonco. COVID-19 slowed the process, but he said he has completed eight or nine extensive interviews. He said more people are gathering by Nonco's crypt these days. More people are asking for Nonco to pray for them. But the Catholic Church, he said, is bound by the facts: Nonco's cause for sainthood will depend upon the evidence that will be reviewed. Lawyer and author Warren Perrin, who serves on a committee to review Nonco's history, said the report has been submitted. He said the Vatican demands hard proof. Charles Hardy said he expects a fair decision, no matter how it goes. The case is a puzzling one. Hardy's wife, Kathy, serves on the Pelafigue board but said from outside the community, people look at Nonco as unremarkable. She never met him herself. She said his personal Bible was a King James, typically used by Protestants; she found that unusual. "This community has such high esteem for him, though, it feels like he was saintly," she said. She said during a shutdown during the pandemic, she and Charles took an intensive Zoom course on the process of canonization. There were many priests and nuns involved, and the couple said they learned a lot. Nonco's supporters are waiting for proof of a miracle, which can seem like a longshot, given the strict criteria. All of Arnaudville is waiting, it seems. So is the diocese, who sent forward the prospective saints with confidence. If it happens, the Hardys said, if Nonco is deemed a saint, everyone who knew him will be overjoyed. And if it doesn't? They will be proud of the effort made on behalf of his great uncle and for the memories of him that have been revived. That would be true even though they suspect Willie Wyble suspects the same that the humble Nonco would have opposed the effort on his behalf. "We are so proud of the fact that he is a Servant of God," Hardy said, "an apostle on earth for modern times." Police in Western Australia have suspended the search for 57-year-old shark attack victim Paul Millachip. Mr Millachip was attacked at Perths Port Beach on Saturday morning, as he was going for his usual one kilometre swim after a run with his wife. Acting Inspector Troy Douglas of the Fremantle District Office said all that had been found since the attack was a pair of goggles believed to have been Mr Millachips. Witnesses saw Mr Millachip as he was attacked by a large shark at the popular Perth beach at about 10am. The pandemic rode north on the Newell Highway, crossed the arbitrary river border ordained by Queen Victoria and got to work late last month in Queenslands most-vaccinated town. It hitched to Goondiwindi with hosts from Moree, where cases of COVID-19 had ballooned from one on Tuesday to 79 by Sunday. More cases were captured in nearby townships, including four in Boggabilla, just south of the border. Morees COVID-19 cluster had grown from one case on Tuesday to 79 by Sunday. Credit:Grace Quast But the virus that swept poorly inoculated communities south of the Macintyre River collapsed against the 93 per cent first-dose vaccination rate of Goondiwindi. The town recorded three cases among its near-7000 residents on Thursday. Two were unvaccinated, the other had received only one dose. By Sunday, only one more case had been added a close contact who had been isolating. Mandarin has cemented its position as the most popular language at Victorian government schools and is now studied by almost one in five foreign-language students. The language has surged in popularity over the past decade to account for 19.6 per cent of total languages enrolments. More than 91,000 students are learning it at state primary and secondary schools and the Victorian School of Languages, a new Department of Education report shows. Yvette Slaughter, who helped with the report, said a jump in Chinese study at primary schools was driven by prestige and good teacher supply, but this would not translate to huge demand at secondary schools. Mr Hills daughters Colleen and Debbie visit the site of their fathers disappearance for the first time. Credit:Sarah Abo Mr Hills daughters, during an emotional visit to the site of their fathers disappearance, told The Age and 60 Minutes that their father had told them he was travelling to the remote campsite but that they knew nothing about his relationship with Ms Clay. They asked that their surnames be withheld to protect their privacy. It was a shock when the police mentioned something about, Do we know a Carol? But that was the first we knew about it, Colleen said. Detectives have also revealed a list of items recovered from the campers tent. Charred camping chairs, a burnt-out battery, and bucket used for Mr Hills gas canister were located inside. Investigators say no seasoned camper would put any of those items inside a tent. It certainly builds that picture for us that potentially someone was trying to cover their tracks, Inspector Stamper said. A photo of the car police are searching for, taken on the Great Alpine Road. Credit:Victoria Police The vehicle that police are seeking is a mid to late 90s model Nissan Patrol, dark blue, with roof racks, sidesteps and a bull bar. It was towing a trailer. Witnesses saw the car matching that description parked near Mr Hill and Ms Clays campsite on March 20 and then heard it leave the area about midnight. One witness said a vehicle attempted to leave the valley by the most direct route, but was forced to turn around due to Parks Victoria having closed a road. We know that on midnight of the Friday night, there was a car that sounded like a petrol motor towing a trailer at that gate and had to perform a 20 or 30-point turn on a narrow track, so was there for some time just trying to turn around, Inspector Stamper said. Missing: Carol Clay. Credit:Victoria Police. Police have eliminated all other cars of interest from their investigation, except for the blue Nissan. Its been a long road and were confident were getting towards the end of the road now, Inspector Stamper said. This car is of particular interest and I firmly believe itll help us solve this mystery. Lead investigator on this case, Detective Acting Sergeant Brett Florence, says the car travelled on one of only three roads leading in and out of the valley, at a time the area was affected by bushfires. Weve got a number of people who provided a statement (who) had been in the park. So when you start marrying all of those cars up, you then get a picture of whos in the park, and youre able to tick off the various people. We have one car that we just cant tick off. Some of the contents of Russell Hills tent. Credit:Sarah Abo Russell Hill had retired and indulged his passion for camping, buying a new tent, a car and a drone. Credit:Victoria Police Inspector Stamper said the unusual location of Mr Hills tent had prompted the theory that there might have been an altercation with another camper. We know they got here quite late in the day one thing thats always confused us a little bit is this campsite, where were standing now, is the prime position, he said. Easy access to the water, theres a little campfire already set up... so, were thinking, why would Russell park there and not come here? One thing thats always occurred to us is there could have been somebody else here at the same time. The isolated, vast and beautiful part of the valley where Mr Hill and Ms Clay disappeared was visited for the first time by his daughters, Debbie and Colleen. They said it wasnt hard to see why their father, an intensely private person, had loved it so much. Mr Hills attachment to the place goes back decades. He was among the loggers who cleared the 4WD tracks leading in and out of the valley, including the particularly challenging Zeka Spur. An avid outdoors man, it was not unusual for him to go off the grid in the Wonnangatta for days at a time. I always thought Id come here with Dad, so to come here now, its actually quite sad, Debbie said. He spoke about it so much and I suppose you just see it through his eyes now. Police believe the bodies of the campers may have been hidden in the vast Wonnangatta Valley. Credit:Sarah Abo Debbie said the situation had been hardest for her mother. Loading Because not only losing her husband, but also all the talk about Carol, she said. And so shes got both, shes lost her husband and shes grieving the loss of her relationship. Speaking from Perth, Carols younger sister, Jill, revealed that Mr Hill and Ms Clay had visited the campsite often. I knew that she was going camping, not just on that occasion, but on other occasions. And I knew that she was having the relationship and that they were doing these trips. They had to keep it secret. And in some ways, I feel that thats why they went to such a remote place. Save Log in , register or subscribe to save articles for later. Normal text size Larger text size Very large text size Federal minister Michael Sukkar had intimate knowledge of a long-running scheme in which his best friend, younger brother and factional supporters were paid by taxpayers for political work that boosted the power of Mr Sukkars faction. Mr Sukkars leaked personal correspondence, along with the testimony of two confidential sources, casts fresh light on his knowledge of the scheme, first revealed by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes last year. The documents undermine the Assistant Treasurers statements at the time that he knew nothing about the rorting of taxpayer funds in his office, and that of veteran Victorian MP Kevin Andrews. He blamed the improper actions on a relatively junior political staffer, Josh Bonney. In one email sent to Mr Sukkar, a taxpayer-funded electorate office worker was described as spending 5 days [a week] databasing of new members ... facilitating factional operations among other activities. The documents also reveal the viciousness of politics in Liberal factions, with Mr Sukkar privately savaging Senator Jane Hume, the Minister for Womens Economic Security, after she made an emotional Facebook statement three years ago about the difficulty of juggling politics and parenthood. Advertisement The documents again focus attention on the lack of a federal anti-corruption commission that could scrutinise allegations of impropriety against federal MPs. In Victoria and NSW, state-based anti-corruption bodies are now involved in investigating alleged wrongdoing and misuse of public funds by state politicians. A government-commissioned Finance Department investigation into allegations against Mr Sukkar found insufficient evidence to implicate him, but failed to interview at least three key witnesses. The department resisted a 12-month effort under freedom of information laws to release its report. It noted in its reasons for refusal that Mr Sukkar made strong representations to block the release. The scandal relates to an arrangement in 2017 and 2018 that involved diverting taxpayer-funded electorate office budgets towards building the factional power that benefited Mr Sukkar, a former tax lawyer who has been the member for the Victorian seat of Deakin since 2013. Emails and text messages sent to Mr Sukkar by Liberal Party figures involved in the alleged rorting, as well as the fact two of those placed on the federal government payroll in 2017 were his younger brother, Paul Sukkar, and his best friend, Matt Pham, reveal Mr Sukkars knowledge in the scheme to use taxpayer-funded electorate officers as party political workers. It may be a breach of federal laws or parliamentary rules for an electorate officer to work for the benefit of other MPs or engage in factional party activity. The scheme began in mid-2017 with the employment of Paul Sukkar as an electorate officer in Kevin Andrews office. Michael Sukkar knew of the arrangement and how it was managed by two factional allies, including one of Michael Sukkars staffers, according to the leaked material and source briefings. Advertisement Two sources with detailed knowledge of Paul Sukkars activities, who requested anonymity for fear of repercussions, said he worked as a membership recruiter for Michael Sukkar, with one source saying his employment in Mr Andrews office was grossly improper. The second source said the scheme was initially engineered because too many questions would be asked if Paul Sukkar was placed directly in the office of his older brother, and because Mr Andrews could be pressured to take on taxpayer-funded staff to do the work of Michael Sukkars faction. Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Paul Sukkar was employed for stints during the 2017-18 financial year in Mr Andrews office, variously receiving a taxpayer salary and payment from the Liberal Party campaign fund. His duties, according to a February 2018 email sent to Michael Sukkar, included recruitment for Menzies (Mr Andrews east-suburban seat) and recruitment outside Menzies. Between mid-2017 and mid-2018, at least five other factional operatives were given taxpayer-funded jobs in either Mr Andrews office or that of Mr Sukkar. They included Jessy Jayakumaran, Nigel Lau and Stephanie Bastiaan. All five were directed to engage in at least some factional work, according to documents and source testimony. For instance, a text message that circulated among the Sukkar faction in January 2018 states that one of Mr Andrews electorate officers had been directed to work on the election of a conservative figure in the 2018 Young Liberals election. Ive got [Andrews electorate officer] to work on [Young Liberals election] email drafts tomorrow in Kevins office, the message said. Advertisement Awesome ... lets get you elected, another factional figure replied. Among the leaked documents are three emails from Paul Sukkar to Michael Sukkar in the first six months of 2018, when the Sukkar-led conservative Liberal faction was seeking to dominate the partys Victorian wing. The emails contain directions to a taxpayer-funded staffer working for Mr Andrews, Ms Jayakumaran, to administer the mass recruitment of new members to Mr Sukkars factional block of Liberal members. The influx of members helped the Sukkar faction win key party positions in 2018 and wield more power over the Liberals state council and parliamentary preselections. For instance, on March 2, 2018, Michael Sukkar was informed via email by his brother that he had sent Ms Jayakumaran a list of new party members she was told to please add ... to the [membership] database. Michael Sukkar responded to his brother: well done! The evidence also contains indications that Paul Sukkar was branch stacking, with directives to add new members to the Liberal Party in a manner that would lessen scrutiny of their bona fides by party officials from the Liberal state council, who at the time were wary of suspected factional branch stacking. These 4 applications wont be submitted until after state council due to being former Family First candidates, Paul Sukkar emailed his brother and Ms Jayakumaran on April 4, 2018. Another email sent to Michael Sukkar on February 27, 2018, by one of his factional operatives suggests Ms Jayakumaran and other employees of Mr Andrews electorate office may have been in breach of laws that prevent electorate officers being paid to recruit members for a political faction. Advertisement The email stated Ms Jayakumaran was spending 5 days [a week] databasing of new members ... facilitating factional operations ... turning out numbers [party members] and facilitating proxies for state council. It also referred to another electorate officer recruiting factionally aligned members, as well as running a conservative political blog. Mr Sukkar responded to this February 27 email by writing: Good Summary. My only comment is that [one of the electorate officers in Mr Andrews office] is very valuable to our broader movement through [a conservative blog], so lets not dissuade her from the good work shes doing through that medium. Two sources with a direct role in interacting with Mr Andrews electorate officers said those installed by Mr Sukkar and his office might have done some electorate office work, but were given the taxpayer-funded jobs primarily to engage in factional activities. Another staffer, Cameron Manassa, was also recruited to the scheme but complained he was being pressured by one of Mr Sukkars factional operatives, electorate officer Mr Bonney, to do factional work on taxpayer time. Mr Sukkar has previously blamed his former staffer Mr Bonney for getting the electorate officers to rort their taxpayer-funded jobs. But this is undermined by other evidence. For instance, the metadata of a November 2017 document setting out how Mr Manassa would engage in factional work while on taxpayer time in Mr Andrews office was created in Mr Sukkars electorate office. The document is attached to an email from a factional operative that states Mr Sukkar had approved Mr Manassas work plan: [Michael] Sukkar has signed off on the attached I will send it to Kevin [Andrews] this week. Advertisement Australias longest-serving foreign minister has warned former prime ministers Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd their continued attacks on their successors only make them look mean-spirited and bitter. Alexander Downer acknowledges the two men would deny thats their intention but says that is nevertheless how the public perceives their behaviour. Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has counselled Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, pictured together in 2018, to stop attacking their successors. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Mr Turnbull this week weighed in to the dispute between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and French President Emmanuel Macron over the cancellation of the $90 billion submarines deal. Mr Macron told reporters, I dont think, I know when asked if the Australian leader had lied to him over the future of the deal before it was dumped in favour of an agreement to get nuclear submarine technology from the US and UK. Mr Morrison insisted the French should have known for months their contract was in troubled waters. Financial education is gaining renewed attention due an increase in financial scams, banks and financial institutions being banned from providing branded programs to schools and a new breed of finfluencers looking set to slip into their place. Students are financially active from a young age they observe financial transactions when shopping, make purchasing decisions using cash and gift cards, and have probably purchased game-based currency. School market days and fundraising activities are often planned by year 5 and 6 students taking on the role of entrepreneur. In secondary school, many students work in a family business or part-time job. Young people are vulnerable to financial traps. Credit:Simon Bosch School education needs to build on these experiences, giving students the knowledge to make financial decisions, while safely managing risks. Collingwood are aware that Jordan De Goey will claim he was provoked before getting into a fight in a New York nightclub on October 30, in charges his lawyer Jacob Kaplan has described as unwarranted. The 25-year-old told the club he was in a VIP area of the PHD rooftop bar in the Dream Hotel when women allegedly started taking drinks belonging to De Goey and his friend Luke Dyson, who was also charged. The pair allegedly told the women to leave the area and were then challenged by their male friends, who allegedly began pushing and shoving the Australians, which led to De Goey throwing a punch in what he will claim was self-defence, before the people who had challenged them were thrown out of the Halloween party. Collingwood footballer Jordan De Goey pictured partying in New York. Credit:Instagram De Goey and Dyson were then arrested at approximately 2.33am after the friend of the person who had been struck contacted police on 911. De Goey then appeared in a New York court after spending the night locked up. Glasgow: High-profile Australian business executive Andrew Liveris is preparing to lead a new push for a price on carbon, arguing that neutralising emissions by 2050 will require political consensus to finally swing behind the polarising policy. Liveris, a former chief executive and chairman of the Dow Chemical Company and co-architect of Prime Minister Scott Morrisons so-called gas-led recovery, recently entered discussions with John Kerry, US President Joe Bidens climate envoy, over how the world should design and implement carbon-pricing regimes. Governments are asking business to lead the way because they cant get consensus within their own parties, let alone other parties, Liveris told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age at the COP26 summit. Corporate heavyweight Andrew Liveris backs carbon pricing as a way to lower emissions. Credit:Bloomberg Pretty much everyone in the business community has realised that the best way to make the most of the proclamations and progress here in Glasgow is to align behind a common way to price carbon, AKA an emissions trading scheme. Kosovan officials insist that the policy has produced inter-linked crises across the region that are designed to stoke chaos and force the West to accept increases in Belgrades influence and power inside neighbouring former Yugoslav republics. Last week, the UN high representative to Bosnia warned in a report to the UN that the country could break up and the 1995 Dayton peace agreement collapse if Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, went ahead with plans to pull out of Bosnias military, judiciary and tax structures to build his own army. Dodik, former president of Republika Srpska, the Bosnian Serb entity established at the end of the 1992-1995 war, said last month that he intended to declare full autonomy from Sarajevo. He insisted that Republika Srpska would remain a part of Bosnia and denied trying to start a war, but has hinted that Russia would provide support if the West tried to intervene militarily. Actors dressed in Serbian WWI military uniform replicas during a ceremony to mark the newly established Day of Serb Unity, Freedom and the National Flag state holiday in Belgrade, Serbia, on September 15. Credit:AP In September, riots erupted in Montenegro after the Serbian Orthodox Church appointed a new patriarch in the country, a move seen by some as an attempt by Belgrade to reassert control there. In Kosovo, the most recent round of escalation began in September, when Kurtis government said it would require drivers from Serbia to use temporary Kosovan number plates when crossing the border, a measure that mirrors long-standing Serbian policy, and sent police to enforce it. Serbian activists from northern Kosovo responded by blocking roads. Vucic then put Serb forces near the border on high alert, and deployed fighter jets, helicopters and troops in armoured fighting vehicles, and warned he would take action if the protesters were attacked. The standoff was finally defused by international mediation after two weeks. On October 13, Serbian protesters clashed with Kosovan police raiding a pharmacy in northern Mitrovica, a majority Serbian enclave, in what authorities say was part of a country-wide anti-smuggling operation. By the end of the morning, 10 police officers and 10 Serb protesters had been wounded, one by a gunshot wound. Serbia has blamed the tensions on Kurti, accusing him of bringing the region to the brink of chaos. Kurti accuses Serbia of organising the spontaneous protests as an instrument of political pressure. The war of words continued last week when Vucic accused Kurti of plotting more police action, this time to seize control of a disputed electricity substation that lies in a Serbian-controlled area but provides power across the province. Kurti denied any such plans to The Telegraph. Zahir Tanin, the head of the UN mission to Kosovo, warned that the incidents threatened to unravel steady but fragile progress made in rebuilding trust among communities. Kurti, whose government expelled two Russian diplomats last month, believes Vucic is being encouraged by Vladimir Putin, who he says sees an opportunity to challenge the West in the region. Russias ambassador visited Serbian troops near the frontier with Kosovo during the September military build-up. Last month, the two countries militaries held joint air defence drills in Serbia. Not all outsiders are convinced Vucic is on the warpath. Conflict would put paid to Serbias ambitions of European Union membership, and could also mean taking on Nato, which has a 3800-strong peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Belgrade also balances its ties with China and Russia against close co-operation with Europe. Nonetheless, foreign officials say the Balkans are indeed emerging as a theatre of great power competition, and that Kurti is not wrong to say tensions are high. Yes, it is serious, and yes, we are very worried, said a Western diplomat based in the Balkans. Kosovo broke away from Serbia after Nato intervened on the side of ethnic Albanian rebels fighting a war with Belgrades security forces in 1999. It spent nine years as an international protectorate before declaring independence in 2008. Serbia and about half of the United Nations members, including Russia and China, still do not recognise Kosovos independence. EU-brokered talks between Belgrade and Pristina that began in 2011 eased tensions but failed to produce an agreement on mutual recognition, a pre-requisite for both countries accession to the EU. Kosovo today does not look or feel like a country on the brink of chaos. The capital Pristina is experiencing a building boom that has sent sky-scrapers shooting up across the city, and an educated and upwardly mobile young middle class at times make the place feel more Baltic than Balkan. The barbed wire and barricades on the bridge over the Ibar river in the northern city of Mitrovica, once the go-to symbol of potent ethnic division, vanished several years ago following an agreement in Brussels. Pedestrians - although not vehicles - move freely between the Serbian and Albanian river banks, the only security presence a handful of bored Italian Carabinieri perched in a parked 4WD. The northern side of the river, where the telegraph poles are hung with Serbian flags, street signs are in Cyrillic, and cafes charge in Serbian dinars rather than euros, is visibly poorer. Representatives of Srpska List, the Belgrade-backed party that maintains a political monopoly in Kosovos Serbian-populated municipalities, declined repeated requests for an interview. Locals who did speak blamed the recent tensions on Kurti, saying he ordered the number plate changes and the raid on the pharmacy to appease hawkish ethnic Albanian voters ahead of municipal elections last month. Kurti denies this. Several people concurred that the number plate protests were tightly controlled by local officials from Srpska List. Loading But a number also insisted that the violence that erupted outside the pharmacy on the morning of October 13 had a different flavour to previous incidents. The rage of the crowd on that day, they suggested, was not just directed at the hated Kosovan police, but as an expression of discontent at the status quo that has left the Serbs of Mitrovica with little job security, with bleak economic prospects and ruled by a one-party state of which many are thoroughly afraid. Both Srpska List and Albin Kurti stood to benefit from the police action, said Alexander Arsenijevic, the leader of a small local opposition party called Serbian Survival, who admitted taking part in the protest. But things went differently, not as they were planning. Because the people for the first time reacted not through political actions or calls. It was more spontaneous. Ive been waiting for that moment to come. I thought it would happen earlier. And now I am sure such protests will continue. Kosovan officials and Western diplomats dispute that account. Kurti claims he has clear intelligence about the protest being planned in advance. All the witnesses who The Telegraph spoke to described a crowd gathering and violence beginning almost as soon as police arrived. Nutson Weekly Auto News Wrap-up November 7, 2021 AUTO CENTRAL CHICAGO - November 7, 2021: Every Sunday Larry Nutson, The Chicago Car Guy and Executive Producer, with able assistance from senior editor Thom Cannell from The Auto Channel Michigan Bureau, compile The Auto Channel's "take" on this past week's automotive news, condensed into easy to digest news Nuggets. LEARN MORE: Full versions of today's news nuggets along with almost a million pages of the past 25 year's automotive content, news, articles, reviews and archived relevant stories residing in The Auto Channel Automotive News Library can be found by just copying a headline and then inserting into any Site Search Box. Nutson's Automotive News Wrap-up - Week Ending November 6, 2021; Below are the past week's important, relevant, semi-secret, or snappy automotive news, opinions and insider back stories presented as expertly crafted easy-to-digest news nuggets. * From Reuters we read that U.S. traffic deaths soared by 18.4% in the first six months of 2021 from the same period a year earlier, for the most deadly first half on American roads since 2006, the Transportation Department said. Traffic deaths surged after coronavirus lockdowns ended in 2020 as more drivers engaged in unsafe behavior like speeding and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, regulators said. That made for the largest six-month increase ever recorded in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System's history, which has been in use since 1975. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimated 20,160 people died in car crashes in the first six months of 2021 in the United States, up 3,140 over the same period in 2020. Travel on U.S. roads was up 13% in the first half compared to a year earlier. * AutoPacifics latest Future Attribute Demand Study (FADS) has indicated a sharp growing interest in certain vehicle features while others have fallen on the wayside. Amidst this shift in consumer behavior, priorities, and preferences, AutoPacific saw four features in the 2021 FADS climb their way into the top ten list from out of the lower ranks including front and rear parking sensors, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, ventilated/cooled front seats, and LED front exterior accent lighting. Heated front seats remains the number one item on consumer wish lists with 66% wanting this on their next new vehicle followed by blind-spot information system (commonly referred to as blind spot monitoring) at number 2 with 60% demand. * Vice President Kamala Harris joined U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm in New York to announce the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded $199 million to fund 25 projects aimed at putting cleaner cars and trucks on Americas roads, including long-haul trucks powered by batteries and fuel cells, and at improving the nations electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure. While in New York, they discussed the enormous benefits of electrification and alternative-fuel technologies, through programs like SuperTruck, to combat the climate crisis and create good-paying jobs across the country. * The U.S. House of Representatives passed the biggest U.S. infrastructure package in decades, marking a victory for President Joe Biden and unleashing $550 billion of fresh spending, including $7.5 billion for electric vehicle charging stations and $65 billion for upgrades to the nation's electric grid. * Democrats in Congress are now proposing that a $12,500 credit for vehicles made in the USA by union workers could be used to buy a truck or SUV priced as high as $80,000. That would include most versions of the F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck as well as electric vehicles from Rivian, General Motors and other automakers. * October U.S. auto sales were hit hard by supply limitations from the chip shortage, resulting in a fresh low point for the 2021 market. According to Cox Automotive, the sales pace, or seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR), in October is expected to fall to 11.8 million units, down from Septembers 12.2 million pace and down from the October 2020 pace of 16.4 million. Sales volume in October is expected to take a significant hit as well and fall to just 950,000 units, down nearly 30% from October 2020 and down nearly 6% from September. * The State of Illinois recently passed its most sweeping energy and climate bill in a generation. The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA), also known as SB2408, is the result of years of deliberations between utilities, municipalities, energy suppliers and environmental stakeholders. The result is a bill that puts Illinois on a path away from traditional fossil fuels to achieve a 100% carbon-free power sector by 2045, while prioritizing environmental justice as well. A focus of the bill is easing and incentivizing the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). The bill sets the ambitious goal of bringing 1 million EVs to the roads of Illinois by 2030. The bill also establishes new incentives for electric vehicle purchases as well as EV charging infrastructure, including: Beginning July 1, 2022, a $4,000 rebate for purchase of an EV; Beginning July 1, 2026, a $2,000 rebate for purchase of an EV; Beginning July 1, 2028, a $1,000 rebate for purchase of an EV. Starting July 1, 2022, the Illinois EPA shall issue rebates for Level 2 or Level 3 charging stations. Including grants or rebates that will fund up to 80% of the installation cost. These two rebate programs will vastly speed up the adoption of electric vehicles in the state and will help meet the governor and general assemblys goal of 1 million EVs by 2030. * Tesla has recalled nearly 12,000 of its Model 3, Y, S and X vehicles to address an issue that causes their automatic emergency braking software to activate unexpectedly, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). An over-the-air software updated caused the problem. Tesla says the update to address the issue has already been deployed and customers should not have to do anything further to address the issue. * The Goodguys Rod & Custom Association has announced its 2022 17-show schedule and announced a 25-year rolling rule that opens those events to more vehicles. For 2021 events, only vehicles produced before 1988 have been eligible to participate in Goodguys events. But beginning with the new year, the 25-year-rule will mean that vehicles produced before 1998 are eligible. * The legendary 1957 Chevrolet known as Project X made its debut at the SEMA Show with a battery-electric propulsion system. Since 1965, the pioneering HOT ROD project car has been powered by inline-six and V-8 engines and has, at times, used carburetion, fuel injection and supercharging. The classic hot rod is now driving into the future with a Chevrolet Performance concept electric propulsion system that uses a 340-horsepower electric motor and a proof-of-concept lithium-ion battery that could allow customers to tailor the size of the battery to their individual project cars in the future. * Yes indeed this week is the SEMA show in Las Vegas. Chevrolet, Ford, Jeep, Honda, Nissan and Toyota all have tricked up cars and trucks on display. Off-road is king right now in terms of building-out and accessorizing with trucks and SUVs dominating the market. A theme that is developing from the show is the interest in electrified power of special interest vehicles. * NHRA has announced a new exhibition A/FX class of race cars for 2022. The class is reserved for 2019 and newer manufactured automobiles with factory production engine of the same make. Currently accepted makes/models are the Chevrolet (Camaro COPO) using the 630 HP Supercharged 350. Dodge (Challenger Drag Pak) using the 630 HP Drag Pak 354. Ford (Mustang Cobra Jet) using 610 HP Cobra Jet 327. Each must have a minimum weight of 2,650 lbs. and can only use a manual transmission. Drag racers view this as return to the late '60s where A/FX first appeared and should bring increased interest and more excitement to the sport. Stay safe. Be Well. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Marine veteran Sgt. Charles Caldwell, left, assists in the placement of one of two flagpoles recently added to Dogwood Park in Wesley Chapel. Photo courtesy of Deb Coates Bledsoe Cheyenne, WY (82001) Today Some clouds this morning will give way to generally sunny skies for the afternoon. High near 50F. Winds WSW at 10 to 20 mph.. Tonight Mainly clear. Low 36F. Winds W at 15 to 25 mph. Higher wind gusts possible. Instant unlimited access to all of our E-Editions and content on thechronicleonline.com. The Chronicle E-Edition Newsletter emailed to you each week, the night before the paper hits the street! This subscription is for NEW or RENEWING online subscribers. (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) Towanda, PA (18848) Today A mix of clouds and sun this morning followed by increasing clouds with showers developing this afternoon. High 49F. Winds S at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.. Tonight Overcast. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 38F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph. Click the image to the left and log in to get your exclusive reader perks. Detail of "Portrait of an Older Man," circa 143540, by Jan van Eyck. Silverpoint and goldpoint on white prepared paper; 8 3/8 inches by 7 1/8 inches. Kupferstich-Kabinett, State Art Collections, Dresden. (Herbert Boswank/State Art Collections, Dresden) A US First: Flemish Master Jan van Eycks Only Surviving Drawing Is in New York Anyone who has seen a Jan van Eyck painting up close will be in no doubt of his brilliance at depicting every inch of detail in luminous oils. He perfected the medium. But few people would have had the opportunity to see van Eycks draftsmanship in person. Only one van Eyck drawing survives: Portrait of an Older Man, in the Kupferstich-Kabinett in Dresden, Germany. Over 580 years old, the drawing in goldpoint and silverpoint, is the earliest study attributed to a Northern European artist. Van Eyck autographed the work, making it the only drawing universally accepted as signed by the artist. Due to the drawings fragility, its rarely displayed. Remarkably, this exceptional drawing is now on U.S. soil and is on display at The Morgan Library & Museum through mid-January, as part of a special exhibition. Van Eyck to Mondrian: 300 Years of Collecting in Dresden celebrates the 300th anniversary of the Kupferstich-Kabinetts founding collection. All works on display are drawings; among the traditional ones are works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Holbein the Younger, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Peter Paul Rubens. The immediacy and intimacy of the medium [drawing] allows us to reconstruct the mark-making inviting us to watch over the artists shoulder at the moment of creation, exhibition curator Austeja Mackelaite said in the press release. Mackelaite is The Morgans Annette and Oscar de la Renta assistant curator of drawings and prints. Portrait of an Older Man, circa 143540, by Jan van Eyck. Silverpoint and goldpoint on white prepared paper; 8 3/8 inches by 7 1/8 inches. Kupferstich-Kabinett, State Art Collections, Dresden. (Herbert Boswank/State Art Collections, Dresden) The Drawing Van Eycks study Portrait of an Older Man is a preparatory drawing for the painting of the same name, held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. This remarkable drawing allows us to see a little of how van Eyck diligently studied his subjects in preparation for painting. He paid fastidious attention to detail. His eye was at one and the same time a microscope and a telescope, art historian Erwin Panofsky is quoted as saying. The study somewhat demonstrates what Panofsky meant. It is a working document, full of observations necessary for van Eyck to paint a realistic portrait. He rendered the man in three-quarter view, a portrait style he pioneered, as most of his Italian peers used the profile view in portraits. In goldpoint and silverpoint, he conveyed the inner warmth of the unknown man, as he gazes into the middle distance, with a slight smile on his lips. On the left side of the drawing, van Eyck wrote detailed notes describing the specific details, tones, and colors of the face, such as the apple of the eye, around the pupil is dark yellowish, and in its circumference, close to the white, bluish. Van Eyck knew his optics as evidenced in his paintings. But here in this study, just using gold- and silverpoint, he managed to convey how the light hit the mans face, without any use of color. The chance to see this fragile drawing in America is perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The Morgan Library & Museum exhibition Van Eyck to Mondrian: 300 Years of Collecting in Dresden, runs until Jan. 23, 2022. To find out more, visit TheMorgan.org Angelina Jolie attending the UK Gala screening of Marvel Studios' "Eternals" at BFI IMAX Waterloo in London, England, on Oct. 27, 2021. (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for Disney) Angelina Jolie and Dwayne The Rock Johnson Tell How They Insist on Gun Safety After Alec Baldwin Shooting By Martha Ross From The Mercury News SAN JOSE, Calif.Angelina Jolie and Dwayne The Rock Johnson have plenty of experience performing scenes with real guns and dummy bullets on the sets of their big-budget action films, but both are reconsidering in the wake of the Oct. 21 fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins. In interviews this week, Jolie said that certain procedures have to be taken very seriously, and Johnson said the shooting prompted him to pledge to stop using real firearms on all projects produced by his company, Seven Bucks Productions. Alec Baldwin, the actor who killed Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza, had been handed a gun on the set of his Western film, Rust, and told it wasnt loaded. However, it held one suspected live round that killed Hutchins and wounded director Joel Souza. I cant imagine what these families are going through, Jolie said in an interview with the U.K. Times. At this moment, the grief and the tragedy of that accident is quite overwhelming. The Lara Croft: Tomb Raider star also has directed films in which guns are used. Ive always been very careful because Ive had to work with guns a lot, Jolie said. The way Ive worked or checked when Im directing, there are certain procedures. You have to take it very seriously. At the premiere for his new Netflix film, Red Notice, Johnson told Variety that his company will only use rubber guns on his sets and enforce that rule with any studio he is working with. Cast member and producer Dwayne Johnson attends the premiere for the film Red Notice in Los Angeles, Calif., on Nov. 3, 2021. (Mario Anzuoni/Reuters) I cant speak for anyone else, but I can tell you, without an absence of clarity here, that any movie that we have moving forward with Seven Bucks Productionsany movie, any television show, or anything we do or producewe wont use real guns at all, the former WWE star told Variety. The Hayward native who headlined some of the Fast and Furious films said he was on the phone with his production team a couple hours after learning of Hutchinss death, saying that his company needed to ensure complete safety moving forward. There are safety protocols and measures that we have always taken in the movie business and we take very seriously, and these sets are safe sets, and were proud of that, Johnson said. But accidents do happen. And when something like this happens of this magnitude, this heartbreaking, I think the most prudent thing and the smartest thing to do is just pause for a second and really reexamine how youre going to move forward and how were going to work together. Baldwin, one of the producers of the film Rust, insisted in an interview last weekend that he and the production team oversaw a safe, professional set. We were a very, very well-oiled crew shooting a film together and then this horrible event happened, Baldwin said. Baldwin also has used his social media accounts to share links to news stories that appear to place the blame on the films assistant director, Dave Halls, who handed the actor the gun and told him it was safe. This week, Baldwin also shared a lengthy, detailed Facebook message from Rust costume designer Terese Magpale Davis, who disputed multiple news reports that said the crew was overworked and surrounded by unsafe, chaotic conditions. Davis said those claims are [expletive] and slammed crew members who walked off the set over safety and financial issues. She also said concerns were heard and addressed and defended producers for being approachable and warm. Hutchins widower, Matthew Hutchins, is all but certain to file a wrongful death lawsuit that is likely to name Baldwin and other producers as defendants. TMZ reported that Matthew Hutchins had hired the services of a law firm specializing in wrongful death litigation and personal injury. During the news conference last week, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza acknowledged the news reports alleging unsafe working conditions, saying there was some complacency in how weapons were handled on the set. But just as Baldwin has tried to deflect criminal and civil liability for Hutchinss death, so have Halls and head armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reedthrough their attorneys. Indeed, attorneys for Gutierrez-Reed, who said she loaded dummy rounds into the gun, suggested that someone on set wanted to sabotage the film. On NBCs Today show Wednesday, attorney Jason Bowles pointed to several camera crew members who walked off the set hours before the tragic accident to protest working conditions, but he also said someone might have been trying to sabotage the set by putting a live round in a box of dummy ammunition. How did a live round get on set, and who put that live round on the set? Bowles asked. Bowles did not provide evidence to support his theory, but he floated a possible motive for why someone would slip a live round or rounds into a box of blanks. His working theory has to do with members who walked off the set, suggesting that somebody who would want to sabotage the set, want to prove a point, want to say theyre disgruntled, theyre unhappy. I think you cant rule anybody out at this point, Bowles said. However, Bowles didnt mention that the crew members who quit did so over what they said were lacking safety measures. #YR@ MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at mercurynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy speaks during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington on July 15, 2021. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) Biden Admin Prepared to Defend COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate After Court Ruling: Surgeon General The Biden administration is ready to defend a Department of Labor COVID-19 vaccine-or-test mandate for private businesses after an appeals court temporarily blocked it, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said in an interview on Nov. 7. A U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit panel ruled on Nov. 6 that there is cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the mandate, and stayed it pending further action from the court. The ruling came in a case brought by several businesses, individuals, and organizations, as well as Texas, Mississippi, Utah, and other states. The Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) earlier this week unveiled an emergency temporary standard that requires private businesses with 100 or more employees to require proof of COVID-19 vaccination from workers and compel those that dont produce it to submit to weekly testing. The rule, set to be enforced starting Jan. 4, faces numerous lawsuits. It was published in the federal register about two months after President Joe Biden announced sweeping mandates for tens of millions of American workers in the public and private sector. In response to a question on ABCs This Week on Nov. 7, Murthy said that the president and the administration wouldnt have put these requirements in place if they didnt think they were appropriate and necessary. And the administration is prepared to defend them, according to Murthy, who, like Biden, said that the sweeping mandates are necessary to boost COVID-19 vaccination rates, adding that they would, in turn, allow the United States to extricate itself from the pandemic. Lets step back a moment and look at why these are so important, Murthy said. Throughout our history, we have seen that we have used vaccine requirements to protect the population. About two dozen states so far have filed lawsuits against Bidens vaccine mandates. The Daily Wire, the news outlet fronted by Ben Shapiro, as well as the Republican National Committee also filed legal actions against the requirement, arguing that it violates the Constitution. A number of studies, including several published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that fully vaccinated individuals can still transmit the CCP virus to other fully vaccinated individuals, even as federal health experts have said other studies have shown that the vaccines offer protection against severe COVID-19 symptoms, hospitalization, and death. Murthy also told ABC that companies and governments take every measure possible to make our workplaces safer, for the safety of employees and customers of businesses. Its good for peoples health, its good for the economy and thats why these requirements make so much sense, he said. In recent weeks, however, numerous trade associations across the United States have sent letters to the Biden administration and warned about possible worker shortages or supply chain bottlenecks that would be triggered by vaccine mandates for private businesses and federal contractors. Unlike the private business mandate, federal contractors arent permitted to allow their employees to opt for weekly COVID-19 testing instead of vaccination. A trucking group, the American Trucking Associations, warned last month that the vaccine requirements would cripple the supply chain and trigger a workforce crisis for our industry and the communities, families, and businesses we serve. The U.S. is already facing unprecedented supply chain disruptions and delays due to many factors, including significant labor shortages, production shutdowns, a shortage of raw materials, and pent-up consumer demand, it warned. But Murthy pushed back, claiming that small businesses, large businesses, and workers have told the federal government that whats really hurting the economy is actually COVID itself, not mandates. There are times where we recognize that our decisions have a broader effect on people around us, he said. COVID has reminded us of that, and thats why having these types of requirements in workplaces will be not only helpful, its a necessary step to accelerate our pathway out of the pandemic. According to recent data published by the CDC, about 46.3 million COVID-19 cases have been officially reported in the U.S. to date, with about 751,000 reported deaths. White House officials said last week that about 70 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated and 80 percent have received at least one dose. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm briefs reporters at the White House on May 11, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Biden Energy Secretary Confirms Americans Will Pay More to Heat Their Homes Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm confirmed on Nov. 7 that Americans should expect to pay more to heat their homes this winter than during previous ones. Responding to a question during an interview on CNN about whether consumers will be paying more, Granholm said that would be the case. Yes, said Granholm, a Democrat whos also a former Michigan governor. This is going to happen. It will be more expensive this year than last year. We are in a slightly beneficial position, certainly relative to Europe, because their chokehold of natural gas is significant. Theyll pay five times higher. Granholm noted that the United States has the same problem regarding fuel transportation and supply before attempting to cast blame on oil and gas companies. At the same time, Granholm pushed the Biden administration-backed $1 trillion infrastructure measure that was recently approved in the House, as well as a larger social spending package. Granholm sparked controversy on Nov. 5 after she laughed during an interview with Bloomberg News about boosting domestic oil production. As you know, of course, oil is a global market. It is controlled by a cartel. That cartel is called OPEC, and they made a decision yesterday that they were not going to increase beyond what they were already planning, she said. After taking office in January, President Joe Biden signed executive orders that shut down the Keystone XL pipeline construction, which would have been able to transport oil from oilfields in Alberta, Canada, into the United States. The administration also placed a freeze on some new drilling sites, prompting a recent lawsuit from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) against the mandate. In October, Biden asked OPEC-plusthe Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its alliesto produce more oil in order to cool high energy prices. However, the Saudi-led alliance rejected Bidens plea on Nov. 4, deciding to instead stick with its plan for cautious monthly increases. Our view is that the global recovery should not be imperiled by a mismatch between supply and demand, a recent White House National Security Council statement reads. OPEC+ seems unwilling to use the capacity and power it has now at this critical moment of global recovery for countries around the world. But Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told The Associated Press that the OPEC-plus member countries were underscoring their commitment to market stability. Republicans have criticized the Biden administration for forcing the United States to rely on OPEC-plus to deal with rising gas prices in its attempt to shift to electric vehicles as well as wind and solar power, rather than boosting domestic oil production. California Governor Out of Public View Since Vaccine Booster Shot on Oct. 27 California Gov. Gavin Newsom has remained out of public view since receiving a CCP virus vaccine booster shot on Oct. 27. The governors office released a surprising announcement on Oct. 29, canceling Newsoms plans to attend the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, in order to deal with unspecified family obligations; no additional information has been released. The governors spokesperson said that Newsom had planned to participate in the climate conference virtually, but a delegation schedule released later didnt feature any virtual events involving Newsom. Newsom spokesperson Erin Mellon said on Nov. 4 that the governor would participate virtually in a couple of the climate summit events next week. The governors office didnt immediately respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment about Newsoms lack of public appearances since getting the booster shot. The governor will participate in a couple of events next week focused on global efforts to advance zero-emission vehicles and to move beyond oil, Mellon said late last week. Newsom was last seen receiving a Moderna CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccine booster dose on Oct. 27. The governors booster was a mix-and-match with the original regimen, which was a Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shot. I am choosing not to do J&J today, not because I had any problems with J&Jin fact, it went beautifullybut to make the point about the opportunity to mix and match, Newsom said at the time. While Newsom should have appeared before TV cameras to announce the states CCP virus vaccination program for children aged 5 to 11, atypically, the announcement was made via an emailed statement. Newsom submitted some prerecorded remarks to a transit conference earlier this week, and his office announced some appointments to state agencies and boards. He also posted a photo on his Instagram account with his wife and four children, aged 5 to 12, dressed as pirates on Halloween. Hope everyone had a safe, happy Halloween!! he wrote. Newsoms Twitter account had been quiet from Oct. 28 until Nov. 2, when he sent posts backing fellow Democratic Govs. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Terry McAuliffe of Virginia on Election Day. As the week went on, Newsoms Twitter account became more active. Its rare, but not unprecedented, for Newsom to go a whole week without some type of appearance. Such absences are usually explained, including when Newsom leaves the state for vacation. Its a relatively slow time in Sacramento, as the state Legislature isnt in session and wont meet again until January. Recent storms mean no major wildfires are burning out of control, as has been the case in recent years. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Police attempt to stop journalists from recording footage outside the Shanghai Pudong New District People's Court, where citizen journalist Zhang Zhan was sentenced, in Shanghai, on Dec. 28, 2020. (Leo Ramirez/AFP via Getty Images) Jailed Chinese Journalist Who Reported on Wuhan Outbreak Might Not Survive the Winter, Family Says A family member of a jailed citizen journalist in China has warned that she may not survive the winter as a result of a 16-month hunger strike and the resultant force-feeding. Zhang Zhan, a 38-year-old former lawyer, was sentenced last December to a 4-year prison term for reporting on the early stages of the CCP Virus outbreak in Wuhan. She is now on the brink of death, according to her family. Her Shanghai-based brother Zhang Ju recently bypassed Chinas Great Firewall and posted more than a dozen tweets about her since Oct. 29. He said Zhang, whos been on a prolonged hunger strike, now weighs less than 88 pounds, and is in desperate need of medical care. I dont think she could last a long time, Zhang Ju wrote on Oct. 30. I wish the world would remember what she looks like if she fails to survive this coming cold winter. On the same day, Zhang Zhans mother described her as critically ill and weak after having seeing her in a virtual meeting, media outlets reported. [Shes] worse than before, said Zhang Zhans mother. [She] needed to be supported for walking. And had difficulty in raising her head during the talk. [Its] extremely dangerous if she isnt allowed to leave for medical treatment. After the meeting, the mother said she was in tears for hours. Save Zhang Zhan The posts by Zhang Zhans brother sparked an outpouring of support from Chinese rights lawyers, dissidents, and rights groups. Many posted images of themselves holding signs that read in Chinese Save Zhang Zhan or Free Zhang Zhan on Twitter. Pro-democracy activists hold placards with the picture of former lawyer Zhang Zhan as they march to the Chinese central governments liaison office in Hong Kong, on Dec. 28, 2020. (Kin Cheung/AP Photo) Europe-based rights activist Lin Shengliang told The Epoch Times on Nov. 1 that he hoped Zhang would continue to stay alive and witness the absurdity of our times. Her heavy 4-year term by Chinese authorities signaled that the Chinese communist regime continued to cover up its crimes in handling the pandemic, Lin noted. I call on more people to voice their support, the activist said. To speak up for her is speak up for yourself. New York-based China human rights lawyer Wu Shaoping said in a Nov. 1 interview with The Epoch Times that the Zhang case had caught much attention throughout her arrest, struggle, prosecution, hunger strike, and conviction. Im surprised and anguished at her current situation, Wu said. Imaginably, her mother and brother will feel much more pain. The lawyer added that it must be out of despair that her brother bypassed Chinas Great Firewall and spoke out on Twitter because her family is suppressed and silenced in China. Life above all else, Guo Yuhua, a professor of sociology at Beijing-based Tsinghua University, wrote on Twitter on Oct. 29. Please immediately grant Zhang Zhan compassionate release! Human rights groups, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have also called for Zhangs immediate release. Convicted for Reporting Zhang, originally from Shanghai, traveled to Wuhan in February 2020 to cover the chaotic scenes unfolding in the pandemic epicenter, questioning the authorities handling of the outbreak. Armed with a smartphone, Zhang, for three months, conducted interviews with Wuhan residents and paid visits to hospitals, makeshift quarantine centers, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In May she was taken away by Shanghai police from her hotel room and was transferred back to Shanghai, and held in detention. She was later charged with picking quarrels and provoking trouble, a catch-all charge commonly used by the Chinese Communist Party to suppress dissent. On Dec. 8, her lawyer Zhang Keke disclosed she refused to plead guilty and had been on hunger strike for five months in protest of allegations against her. She had also experienced forced feeding, being shackled and put in constraints for 24 hours, the lawyer said. A police officer tries to stop media as a lawyer (C) of Zhang Zhan arrives at a court in Shanghai, China on Dec. 28, 2020. (Kyodo News via AP) Every single day is suffering, the lawyer quoted his client, who was in tears throughout the talk with him, according to ChinaAid, a Washington-based nonprofit. On Dec. 28, she appeared in court in a wheelchair, was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. Her lawyers, however, told media after the trial that the public prosecutor merely listed the core evidence, but did not provide the actual evidence to the court. So the lawyers were not able to ascertain the specific case against Zhang. Zhang is among several whistleblowers and citizen journalists who sounded the alarm about the severity of the Wuhan outbreak, and were punished by the regime as a result. In a high-profile case, Chinese doctor Li Wenliang was reprimanded by police in early 2020 for warning about a SARS-like virus in a private chat group. He later died of the CCP Virus. Zandra Yi contributed to this report. DENVER, Colo.Its like nothing Ive ever seen before, Carl Montion said of Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Buell Theatre in Denver, Colorado, on Nov. 5. Working in the hospitality business, Montion gets the newsletters from the theater, and decided he had to go see New York-based Shen Yun and its presentation of China Before Communism. Shen Yun Performing Arts curtain call at The Buell Theatre, in Denver, Colo., on Nov. 5, 2021. (The Epoch Times) Montions favorite takeaway from the experience was to encounter the 5,000-year-old culture of the Chinese people; the essence of the beings of where they came from, he said of Shen Yuns mission of cultural revival of Chinas divinely-inspired traditional culture that has almost been lost under todays communist regime. Im a Christian, so I believe in heaven. I believe in everything from above, but what the Chinese believe still coincides with the Christian belief, Montion said. I think the Chinese government itself has pushed God or a being of faith out of everything, he said. They pushed it out because you have to believe in the people. But people dont live forever. God is eternity. Toni and Bill Cowern Shen Yun Performing Arts at The Buell Theater in Denver, Colo., on Nov. 5, 2021. (Mary Zhang/The Epoch Times) The idea of divinity similarly resonated with Bill Cowern, senior associate in Fox Tuttle Transportation Group, and his wife Toni, director of finance in Informa Markets. Mr. Cowern is not religious. But he said, What probably resonated the most with me was the idea that people who felt that way were persecuted people should be able to feel and believe and express that belief. And its a shame thats not the case [in China]. Mrs. Cowern noted with awe the length of Chinas heritage. Theres so much history beyond what we have in the United States, she said. And its great to see people valuing, honoring, and sharing that, and so that we can learn more about it because I think we all benefit from all those years of knowledge and tradition. Reporting by Mary Zhang and Ya Wen. The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) speaks to reporters outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Sept. 30, 2021. (Win McNamee/Getty Images) Climate Activists Block Sen. Manchins Car, Demanding Change Sen. Joe Manchins (D-W.Va.) car was blocked by climate change protesters Thursday, who were calling for the moderate senator to sign President Joe Bidens trillion-dollar Build Back Better Act. Manchin was shown in a video walking from his houseboat residence on the Potomac River to a garage. Activists surround the senator yelling, We want to live, and, Fight for us. This is followed by people swarming together and blocking Manchins car, a Maserati. The hashtag #Maserati was trending on Twitter later in the day. The activists can be seen standing at the front and back of the car, accusing the senator of trying to run them over as his car slowly tries inching forward despite the opposition. Some people held up a banner, with at least one person trying to lean on the hood. Pass climate change bills can be heard in the background of the video, along with the chanting, We want to live. A constant car horn is also heard in the video. Eventually, security officials manage to push back protesters and the car is able to move forward. [Sen. Joe Manchin], is the money worth selling our futures downriver? Is the money that green? Is it that good for you? Howd that Maserati feel while you drove into us this morning? #WeWantToLive the activist group Hunger Strike 4 Climate Justice wrote on Twitter. The group has not reported any injuries from the protest, which occurred on Thursday morning. In September, protesters paddled up to Manchins houseboat in the Washington marina on kayaks when he, along with Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), another moderate, voted against the bill. The kayakers, claiming to be constituents, held up signs reading Dont sink our health care and No climate no deal. Sinema was also harassed while attempting to give a lecture at the Arizona State University when pro-immigration protesters followed her into the womens bathroom, insisting she open up citizenship to illegal aliens. Manchins support is crucial in the evenly-divided senate. He had been strongly opposed to the original $3.5 trillion bill, which was then reduced to $1.5 trillion. Pro-climate campaigners have harangued the senator regarding his opposition in the bill to the $150 billion toward replacing coal and gas-fired power plants in the country. West Virginia is a major coal producer. Manchins office did not immediately respond to The Epoch Times request for comment. COVID-19 Vaccination Mandated for Children in Puerto Rico Pedro Pierluisi, the governor of Puerto Rico, announced Wednesday that all school children aged 5 and older are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to attend school. Pierluisi claimed that few exceptions will be granted because the vaccines have been given approval for children from 5 to 11, according to The Associated Press. Health Secretary Carlos Mellado said that the goal was to get 95 percent of 5 to 11-year-olds fully vaccinated, or around 227,000 children. Currently, around 87 percent of children between 12 and 15 have been inoculated. The island with a a population of 3.3 million has so far reported around 219,000 COVID-19 cases, with 3,244 deaths. On Nov. 2, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended that all 28 million children in the United States between 5 and 11 get Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine. Exceptions include those who have had severe allergic reactions to the vaccine or to any of its components. Even though the CDC advisory panel members were apprehensive about heart inflammations among youth, they eventually agreed with CDC scientists that vaccine benefits outweighed the risks. I think the data supports that we have one more vaccine that saves lives in children and that we should be very confident to employ it to the maximum to do what it is meant to do without significant concerns about serious adverse events, said Dr. Sarah Long, a panel member and professor of pediatrics at Drexel University College of Medicine. Based on federal data, inflammation occurs in 16- to 17-year-old males at least 69 times per million doses after the second dose of the Pfizer primary series. Since the start of the pandemic, over 1.9 million cases of COVID-19 have been recorded in children between 5 and 11, with 8,300 hospitalized and 94 dying. About 20 percent of the hospitalizations are for other reasons, according to the CDC. Following the decision by the CDC, schools in Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest school district in the nation, announced that vaccines will be made available to students between 5 and 11 years of age. Unlike Puerto Rico, the vaccines will be voluntary. Students above 12 years are, however, required to get vaccinations. Proof of vaccination is mandatory for attending in-person extracurricular activities for those in the age group. New York City has also jumped on board with Mayor Bill de Blasio announcing the availability of pediatric vaccines in schools from Nov. 8. The mayor requested parental permission or presence during the inoculation. The White House had already begun distribution of the pediatric vaccine even before the CDC gave its official endorsement. Starting the week of Nov. 8, the kids vaccination program will be fully up and running, White House COVID-19 response team coordinator Jeff Zients said on Nov. 1. Parents will be able to schedule appointments at convenient sites they know and trust to get their kids vaccinated. Puerto Rico has some of the strictest pandemic-related restrictions in the country, with a curfew on alcohol sales only lifted in October. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, also known as SARS-CoV-2. Customer Service Is the New Upsell If your customers aren't satisfied with their experience, you won't be able to convert new customers. Here's a deep dive into how to turn e-commerce expectations into guaranteed sales We all know that keeping your customers happy is the key to building loyalty and earning repeat business. If your customers arent satisfied with their buying experience, it wont matter how good your marketing is, how many leads you receive, or how well your sales funnel converts new customersthey wont come back. And you need them to come back. In e-commerce, between 20 percent and 50 percent of your transactions are generated by returning customers, and for most merchants, those transactions account for the lions share of the revenue. In fact, the Pareto Principle predicts that just 20 percent of a given brands customers will account for around 80 percent of its revenue; in other words, your most loyal segment of customers produces the vast majority of your profits. Plus, returning customers cost nothing to acquire and take shorter journeys to conversion, meaning the margin on their purchases is higher. Thats why so many retailers invest in loyalty incentives and VIP perks designed to grow returning sales. In e-commerce, there are lots of great tools to help merchants delight customers and win returning business. Loyalty programs, referral incentives, 3D and augmented-reality product views, free shipping, and even carbon-neutral ordering all play a role in nurturing conversions and enhancing brand perception. But one of the most effective, underused methods of fostering loyalty online is to offer excellent customer service. According to HubSpot, 93 percent of customers are likely to make a repeat purchase with companies that offer excellent customer service. Thats a lot! And modern helpdesk apps like Gorgias and Zendesk offer many more sales-focused features to merchants than youd probably expect. In fact, while you might imagine that customer service is primarily a tool for facilitating returns and exchanges, todays platforms excel at closing conversions, raising AOV, and collecting valuable customer data. Here are five critical ways that a smart customer-service program can help you boost profits and loyalty online. 1. Orient Customers at Critical Stages in the Buying Journey According to Shopify, every time a new customer returns to your site to make a purchase, the likelihood that he or she will make a subsequent purchase increases. A first-time returning customer has a 45 percent chance of making a third purchase, a twice-returned customer has a 56 percent chance of making a fourth purchase, and so on. Merchants have an incredible incentive to maximize the number of customers that make it through the sales funnel beyond just the prospect of the immediate sale. One effective way to do this is to figure out where a significant proportion of site users are getting stuck and offer a hand. You can use the behavior flow tab in Google Analytics (or the equivalent in your preferred reporting dash) to assess common pathways to purchase on your store and isolate the steps where you see the most attrition. From there, you can use your helpdesk app to set up scripted prompts that drive sales at these critical junctures. For instance, if you find that a significant number of prospects bounce once they reach your collections page, it may not be set up for optimal browsing. A simple Can I help you find something? prompt will engage many users who would otherwise leave without making a purchase. 2. Resolve Complaints Before They Become Reviews Social proof is one of the most powerful tools in sales because shoppers tend to trust neutral user opinions much more than they trust marketing copy. For the same reason, negative reviews can kill conversions. Your best defense against negative reviews and their erosive effects is to offer your customers responsive, helpful customer service before they take to the comments section. That sounds like a complex psychological undertaking, but all you really need to do is message consistently and appropriately: Include a comment card with your packaging that encourages dissatisfied customers to engage with your friendly customer service team. Add an opening gambit to the helpdesk icon on your homepage so that your customers register it every time they visit your website. Include a customer care module in your campaign emails and automation programs. By weaving your customer service program into your communications materials, youll create an available, private conduit where you can resolve complaints and improve customer satisfaction without exposing your business to bad word-of-mouth. 3. Help Customers Surface Relevant Products Quickly Your customers wont buy what they cant find, and they wont go looking for solutions they dont know exist. A well-designed website acts like a roadmap connecting your customers to their desires, but if youve got hundreds of SKUs or you sell a particularly high-touch good like jewelry, some users are bound to get lost or require more information than you can fit into a product description. Setting up a customer service chat is a great way to point lost site users in the right direction and answer questions in real-time that might otherwise be stumbling blocks on their journey to purchase. If you come from the world of traditional retail, it may seem strange to reassign responsibilities you associate with your sales team to customer service. But e-commerce is about convenience and expedience, and helpdesks offer the most immediate, richest way for site users to reach a brand representative. The more you can empower your customer service team to act as an extension of sales, the more sales theyll make. 4. Create More Upsell Opportunities Savvy personalization of the user experience can raise revenue by up to 15 percent. Thats why the top e-commerce companies invest so heavily in technologies that create smart product recommendations and tailored landing pages. But your customer service team can make the same recommendations as to the smartest API and provide richer information to your customers to boot. Plus, they spend a lot of time assisting warm leads. Therefore, when you empower customer care to suggest logical pairings for your high-velocity products or to explain how customers can save money with a simple subscription, youre actually creating a high-touch sales channel for prospects already in the decision phase of their buying journeys. If youve ever interacted with a post-purchase upsell page, you have a sense of how powerful it can be to suggest bundles, subscriptions, and product pairings to shoppers in the decision phase. 5. Build an FAQ That Generates Sales Brands spend a lot of money learning about their customers: what they like, dislike, and how they prefer to shop. But with an integrated customer service solution, you can start collecting that data without spending another penny or resorting to gray-area tactics. Many modern helpdesks include a CRM, or a customer-relationship-management platform, that records demographic customer information and logs all of a customers interactions with a brand. This is incredibly helpful information to have at the ready when a returning customer has a question, but its even more valuable in aggregate. For example, a CRM can help you surface the most prevalent issues your customers experience with your products and your user experience. Instead of continuing to spend resources addressing individual queries related to these issues, you can address them definitively in your FAQ. Your FAQ will help more customers answer their own pain-point-related questions while freeing up your customer service team to focus on sales and handle more nuanced requests. Building a robust FAQ will also act as an SEO play that creates more organic sales over time. The more customer-relevant information you include in your FAQ, the more likely it is that prospects will find your website through organic search. The more leads that land on your website via organic search, the higher your site will rank on Google. The higher your site ranks on Google, the more organic leads will visit your websiteyou see where this is going, right? Two Helpdesks We Like At P3 we most often recommend Gorgias and Zendesk. Gorgias is a modern helpdesk solution engineered to aid in upselling, and its app is priced to be friendly to small and mid-sized merchants. Gorgias offers an intuitive CRM for agents, the ability to create automated scripts and trees, and an extremely robust integration for Shopify merchants. Zendesk is the incumbent that many larger companies are already comfortable using. As youd expect from an incumbent, the Zendesk platform is powerful and extremely customizable, giving merchants the power to finely tailor their customer-service experience no matter which e-commerce platform theyre using. But the price reflects this additional flexibility. Ultimately, youll base your choice on your specific business requirements. Whats most important is how you leverage that choice to build profits. Democrats May Lose, but Their Narrative Is Never to Blame Commentary Election post-mortems used to be pretty simple affairs. The winners would claim a mandate to govern, and the losers would mutter to themselves something approximating to the late Dick Tucks public pronouncement when he lost a race for the California Senate in 1966: The people have spoken, the bastards. But sooner or later theyd have to go back to the drawing board to try to figure out what they were doing wrong and what they could do differently to win back the voters who had chosen the other party. Sometimes it took a while for the message from the people to sink in. The Democrats lost three presidential elections in a row between 1980 and 1988 before Bill Clinton, with the help of the now-defunct Democratic Leadership Council, finally came up with a new and winning formula in 1992. Two years later, when Democrats lost their majority in the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years, then-President Clinton got the message in time to trim his political sails to the prevailing winds, even announcing during the State of the Union message in 1996 that the era of big government is over. He was decisively re-elected that year. You can still come across such savvy political thinking here and there. Ex-Clinton associate James Carville told Judy Woodruff of the PBS NewsHour that stupid wokeness was responsible for the Democrat defeats (or near-defeats) in this weeks elections in Virginia and New Jersey and said that they needed to open a woke detox center if they wanted to start winning again. But throughout most of todays advocacy media, partisan reaction to election results usually takes a quite different form. Both winners and losers, that is, try to absorb the result into their pre-conceived narratives. This is obviously much easier for the winners, who simply have to claim vindication for every detail of their narratives, no matter how small the margin of victory. The losers have a harder task, though one far from being beyond human ingenuity, in trying to make out how a failure of messaging or, more likely, nefarious interference by some dishonest dealer (remember Russian collusion?) prevented their narrative from being heard or understood by voters. The point is that the narrative itself can now never be wrong or need to be changed, save in minor detail. Instead, it must be re-framed on the assumption, presumably, that the people who voted against it will eventually come to see their mistake. The Virginia result on Nov. 2, in which Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated another ex-Clinton associate, the former governor Terry McAuliffe, appears to show how this kind of doubling down on a losing narrative has become almost obsessive with Democrats, especially where race is involved. Youngkin, or so goes the revised narrative, only won because of a white backlash, especially in largely white suburbs where parents were concerned about (among other things) the teaching of something called Critical Race Theory in public schools. McAuliffe responded to this concern by denying over and over again that Critical Race Theory was being taught in Virginias schools. Maybe parents who knew better were upset about his denial too. In any case, the indefatigable Christopher Rufo quickly came up with the documentary evidence that CRT was being taughtand by nameas authorized by none other than Terry McAuliffe himself when he was governor in 2015. Yet in and out of the mainstream media, commentator after Democratic commentator chose to ignore this evidence and repeated the former governors falsehood as a way of proving that their side had lost only because of the ignorance and hysteria (and, of course, racism) of white voters. Jahan Jones at MSNBC wrote that: Critical race theory is a college-level field of study thats not taught in Virginia K-12 schools, but its become a catchall phrase for intellectually lazy peoplemany of them whitewho want to stigmatize any discussion about American racism. Lisa Lerer of The New York Times wrote that By promising at nearly every campaign stop to ban critical race theory, an advanced academic concept not taught in Virginia schools, Mr. Youngkin resurrected Republican race- baiting tactics in a state that once served as the capital of the Confederacy. Once respected analyst Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, speaking on MSNBC, said that a Youngkin victory could be explained by the fact that: Theres a lot of, we can call it white backlash, white resistance, whatever you want to call it, it has to do with race . We live in a post-factual era . It doesnt matter that it isnt taught in Virginia Schools. Its this generalized attitude that whites are being put upon, and weve got to do something about it. We being white voters. Also on MSNBC, Nicolle Wallace said that Critical Race Theory, which isnt real, turned the suburbs 15 points to the Trump insurrection endorsed Republican. David Smith in The Guardian wrote that Enough of [the voters] did not seem to know or care that Youngkins arguments on schools were based on a lie. He stoked fears about critical race theory being taught in schoolsit isntwith a caricature of Black children learning to think they are victims and white children learning to self-hate. In every one of these cases, McAuliffes falsehood is repeated uncritically as a way of blaming white racism for their own partys loss. Its almost as if we were back to the people have spoken, the bastards. Except that now its really not possible for the people to speak anymore, at least not in any close election. It can only be the deluded people or the stupid people, the ignorant people or, as here, the racist people. Or perhaps just people who have been tricked by scheming racistslike the scheming Russians supposed to have cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. I suspect that to most people, however, all such excuses cut no ice. Theyre just another way for the smug left to assure us that they dont ever need to rethink their political program to make it more appealing. Because they think they can never be wrong. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 21: Latonya Jones-Costa, SEIU member, along with members of Congress, parents and caregiving advocates hold a press conference supporting Build Back Better investments in home care, childcare, paid leave and expanded CTC payments in front of the U.S. Capitol Building on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Paul Morigi/Getty Images for MomsRising Together) Democrats Proposed Build Back Better Act a Gift to Unions, Report Says Provisions in the Democrats proposed Build Back Better Act, a massive social spending bill that will cost trillions of dollars, will boost labor union coffers by billions of dollars, according to a new report from the Freedom Foundation in Washington state. In the report, Maxford Nelsen, director of labor policy for the Freedom Foundation, states that the bill, H.R. 5376, would vastly expand Medicaid funding for home- and community-based services (HCBS) that provide in-home care to, and prevent the institutionalization of, adults with disabilities. Such services are provided via state-designed and operated programs operating within federal parameters. The workers in those programs are prime targets for union recruiters. Its unclear what the bill will cost. It was initially expected to cost more than $3.5 trillion over 10 years, but recent estimates put it closer to $1.75 trillion. The measure would be funded by taxing corporations, and wouldnt increase the federal deficit, its backers insist. The bill offers states hundreds of billions of dollars in additional federal funds to expand their HCBS programs. Boosting home care unions is a goal of the bill. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) said the bill would allow organizations like SEIU to advocate for home care workers. The SEIU (Service Employees International Union) endorsed Kelly in 2020 and contributed thousands of dollars to her campaign, according to the report. The report also states that even though additional funding for HCBS may be justified, the federal funds come with strings attached that would steer potentially billions of dollars in Medicaid funds to unions representing home care aides, including SEIU and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Currently, paid caregivers for Medicaid, a need-based joint federal-state program, are unionized in eight statesWashington, Oregon, California, Minnesota, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont, Nelsen told The Epoch Times. Freedom Foundation previously studied the issue and found that in those states, about 350,000 caregivers are having union dues withheld, amounting to about $150 million a year in revenue for SEIU and AFSCME, he said. Maxford Nelsen, director of labor policy, Freedom Foundation (photo courtesy of Maxford Nelsen) The way the bill is structured incentivizes states to pave the way for unionization, to contract with unions to run training programs for caregivers or run other benefit programs for caregivers, Nelsen said. Most insidious, though, is an incentive to restructure their home- and community-based services programs in a way that would create the legal framework to force caregivers to pay union dues as a condition of employment. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled in Harris v. Quinn that its unconstitutional to require Medicaid-paid quasi-public employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment, Nelsen said. But unions like SEIU and AFSCME have been trying to work around that decision for years, he said. Out here in Washington State, SEIU pressured the state legislature and the governor to adopt legislation privatizing the workforce. So instead of being employed by their client, and paid by the state, and unionized under our state collective bargaining laws for public employees, the caregivers would become employees of a private company that contracts with the state to serve the Medicaid population. And as employees of a private company, the caregivers would then fall under the National Labor Relations Act instead of our state public sector collective bargaining laws. And because Washington state does not have a right-to-work law on the books, the theory goes, the caregivers would be subject to mandatory union dues again, Nelsen said. Nelsen said hes convinced the bills supporters want to replicate what Washington state has done around the country and put in place again, this workaround [which] would allow SEIU and AFSCME to force these caregivers to pay union dues again. The bill provides that states receive more federal money if they adopt what is called an agency with choice or a similar service delivery model to register qualified direct care workers, recruit and train independent providers, and make sure programs do not promote or prevent the ability of workers to form a labor organization or discriminate against workers who may join or decline to join such an organization. By running things like these training programs, unions would see increases in their revenue of billions of dollars should this legislation in its current form become law, Nelsen told The Epoch Times. The bill is using Medicaid money, which is meant for the most vulnerable in society, to prop up and subsidize a politically extreme far-left special interest group, Nelsen said. Although the measure had stalled as more moderate Democrats squabbled with more left-wing Democrats over its contents, it now appears to be moving forward. After Congress gave final approval to the $1.2 trillion proposed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act late on Nov. 5, the next morning at the White House, Biden praised the House for also taking a big step toward passing the proposed Build Back Better Act by passing a procedural motion. The House will take up the bill the week of Nov. 15, he said. The bill will be a once-in-a-generation investment in our people, Biden said. Representatives of SEIU and AFSCME couldnt be reached for comment over the weekend. Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin shoots an autographed basketball into the crowd with his family at an election-night rally at the Westfields Marriott Washington Dulles in Chantilly, Va., on Nov. 2, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Down-Ballot Successes in Virginia and New Jersey Give Republicans Confidence Heading Into 2022 Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) President Dee Duncan said that this weeks down-ballot seat flips in statehouse elections in Virginia and New Jersey revealed a part of the bigger picture the party plans to unveil in 2022, when 36 states hold elections. A lot of thought and data went into this and we won round one of the fight for the 22 cycle, Duncan said, according to Fox News, referring to the Republican Glenn Youngkins recent victory over former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe in Virginia. Alongside Youngkin, the GOP scored wins for the seats of lieutenant governor and attorney general. Virginia has not had a Republican governor since 2009. Altogether, the GOP flipped seven seats in Virginias House of Delegates, and now holds a majority advantage at 5248. Republican Winsome Sears defeated Democrat Hala Ayala to become the first black woman ever to be elected statewide in Virginia, and also the first woman to serve as lieutenant governor of the state. Sears has succeeded Democrat Justin Fairfax, who unsuccessfully ran for the governorship. The son of a Cuban immigrant, Jason Miyares, was the Republican nominee who defeated Mark Herring, the Democratic incumbent, for the attorney general position. Herring was running for a third term. Candidates matter and weve been ramping up our efforts the last couple of cycles to help recruit diverse candidates across the country, Duncan told news outlets Thursday. We believe that we practice what we preach. Fifty-seven percent of the candidates that we ran in flips in Virginia were either female or minority candidates and that is something that were incredibly proud of, he added. In New Jersey, Republicans managed to flip six state assembly seats and two state senate seats. This has narrowed the Democrats advantage in both chambers. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy, who was expected to win by a wide margin, managed only a narrow win over GOP nominee Jack Ciattarelli. In an interesting turn of events, Republican candidate and commercial truck driver for 25 years Edward Durr unseated longtime New Jersey Senate President, Stephen Sweeney. Durr reportedly spent less than $10,000 on his campaign, winning 52 percent of the votes. The Senate president has spent 20 years in Trenton, Durr said in his campaign video. Higher taxes, increasing debt, and the rising cost of living; we deserve better. New Jersey, its time for a change. Lets end single-party rule, he added. Coming into election day, Democrats had controlled the Assembly with 52 seats to Republicans 28. In the Senate, Democrats had 25 seats to the Republicans 15. RSLC President Duncan acknowledged that Democrats were going to come back next year motivated and better funded, but he said, according to Fox, that even if were outspent and outfunded, we can still win in 22. Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) noted in response that, back in 2017, after President Donald Trumps first year, the party had flipped 15 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. All of our Democratic candidates ran strong campaigns focused on the issues and what they delivered for their constituentsand as a result, many were reelected in tough districts bucking the national political trend, DLCC spokesperson Christina Polizzi told Fox News. Their success shows us the path forward for 2022 and how Democrats can win in competitive environments. We knew from the beginning that this election would be a fight and down to the wire, just like next years will be. Based on data from the National Conference on State Legislatures, Republicans control 3,974 seats, or 54 percent, of the total 7,383 legislative seats; 61 out of 98 chambers; 30 of 49 legislatures; and carry total control in 23 states. Epoch Times Reporter Jailed in Nigeria Religious freedom advocates in Washington are protesting the Nov. 4 jailing of Epoch Times reporter Luka Binniyat, who has been at the forefront of reporting the atrocities against Nigerian Christians. This is an alarming development. If a journalist, reporting on the governments refusal to prosecute those engaged in religious-motivated atrocities, has been arrested for his [reporting], this would be further evidence that the government of Nigeria is complicit in the ongoing egregious and systematic religious persecution in Nigeria, Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told The Epoch Times. Read More Epoch Times Reporter Charged With Controversial Cyberstalking Statute Over His Reporting The charge against Binniyat likely will be injurious falsehood and incitement, according to Reuben Buhari, a fellow freelance journalist and friend, who visited Binniyat on the afternoon of Nov. 6. Buhari said the arrest is likely linked to Binniyats most recent story in The Epoch Times, In Nigeria, Police Decry Massacres as Wicked but Make No Arrests. Binniyat will likely face official charges at a court hearing on Nov. 8, according to Buhari. Police authorities didnt respond to requests for comment by press time. It is an outrage against justice that Nigerias authorities let violent Fulani extremists who destroy village after village go scot-free without investigation, prosecution, or punishment, while being quick to fill the jail with the brave journalist reporting on these massacres of innocent civilians, Nina Shea, the Hudson Institutes director for religious freedom, told The Epoch Times. The recent arrest of Luka Binniyatafter he reported on the massacres for an American media outletcontinues a systematic government cover-up of Fulani atrocities against peaceful Christian villagers. This is further evidence that an ethnic-religious genocide is being carried out in northern Nigeria and is being done so with official collusion. Unless President [Muhammadu] Buhari, himself the son of a Fulani chieftain, ensures Binniyats immediate release and brings an impartial case against the terrorists, Washington must act. The story in question centered on the fact that police and military officials have failed to make any arrests a month after the horrific massacre of 38 unarmed men, women, and small children in the village of Madamai, in Kaduna state on Sept. 26. I have not been briefed about any arrest so far on the sad violence in Madamai last month, Police spokesman Mohammad Jaliga told Binniyat for that story published Oct. 29. If there was any arrest, it would be well celebrated by us, and we would parade the suspects for the public to see so they can know that we cannot tolerate such acts of wickedness in Kaduna state. Caskets bearing the corpses of 38 Christian villagers killed in Madamai, Nigeria, by armed Fulani Muslim terrorists on Sept. 26, 2021, being arranged for a funeral mass at the Government Secondary School, Mallagun, about two miles from Madamai, on Sept. 30, 2021. (Luka Binniyat/The Epoch Times) In the story, Binniyat pointed out that police spokesmen used the word clash to describe one-sided attacks of heavily armed men against unarmed men, women, and children. More than a month after the massacre, Kaduna police have made no arrests, made no prosecutions, and provided virtually no explanations. Binniyat has been an embattled journalist since he was jailed in Kaduna in 2017 on several charges, including breach of the peace, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Charging a journalist with breach of the peace simply for informing the public is unacceptable, and arbitrarily throwing him in prison when he appears for a hearing is outrageous, CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Angela Quintal said in July 2017. The CPJ is following Binniyats current predicament as well, according to Jonathan Rozen, CPJs senior Africa program researcher. Binniyat is among several working journalists known to be critics of the government who have been charged with incitement. Some, such as internet journalists Steven Kefas and George Makeri, file their reports from undisclosed locations in Nigerias Middle Belt states for fear of being arrested and held for months without bail. Journalist Jones Abiri was held for two years in secret, underground prisons. Abiri told The Epoch Times he isnt at liberty to speak about his prison experience, since a prosecution against him is ongoing. When Kefas got out of a Kaduna prison in 2020 after a five-month stay, he was ill with tropical diseases, including malaria. Even the late Obadiah Mailafia, formerly a high government official, was arrested in fall 2020 and was filing his opinion pieces in 2021 while in hiding until he passed away at an Abuja, Nigeria, hospital in 2021. Broadly speaking, freedom of the press in Nigeria is under threat when journalists fear that they will be detained for their work, Rozen told The Epoch Times. Binniyat was credited as one of a handful of Epoch Times reporters whose factual reporting of atrocities caught the eye of Fox News war correspondent Lara Logan. More than 43,000 Christian citizens have been murdered by radicalized Islamist mercenaries in the Middle Belt or by heavily armed insurgents tied to the Nigerian branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) since 2015, according to Logans documentary on Nigerias carnage that began streaming on the Fox Nation site on Sept. 27. The religious cleansing in Nigeria that Logan documented has gotten scant media attention in the wider world. On the other hand, Logans documentary may be bringing more attention from the West to the victims. Lara Logans film mentioning the work of Binniyat and other Epoch Times journalists may have gotten the attention of Nigerian authorities, said Dick Andzenge, an immigrant from Nigeria and a professor of criminal justice and victimology at St. Cloud State University. James O'Keefe, the founder of Project Veritas, is seen in Washington on Oct. 12, 2019. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times) FBI Searches Home of Project Veritas Founder OKeefe: Neighbors The FBI searched the home of Project Veritas founder James OKeefe on Nov. 6, about a day after the agency had executed a search warrant at homes belonging to Veritas associates. In a statement to The Epoch Times about whether OKeefes home was searched, an FBI spokesperson confirmed that a court-authorized law enforcement action was carried out in furtherance of an ongoing investigation. Representatives for Project Veritas didnt immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment. OKeefe hasnt made any public statements on whether his home was searched and instead posted a video of himself reading a chapter from George Orwells dystopian novel 1984. OKeefe neighbor Jimmy Maynes confirmed to local New York media that the Veritas founders home in Mamaroneck, New York, was searched by federal law enforcement agents, a process that lasted several hours. They asked for James, he said. I thought they were banging on my door. I opened the door. Agents told me to close the door and I closed the door. Thats exactly what happened. It was still dark. Brent Mickol, another neighbor who lives across the hall, said the agents announced something along the lines of FBI Warrant. Open up, he told the New York Post. In a statement uploaded to YouTube on Nov. 5, OKeefe confirmed that the FBI is investigating his group and conducted searches at the homes of current and former Project Veritas journalists. Although he was told in a grand jury indictment to not discuss the search, OKeefe said that New York Times reporters contacted Project Veritas reporters for comment soon after the raids were carried out, begging the question of how the NY Times obtained information about the searches. Apartment and homes of Project Veritas journalists and former journalists had been raided by FBI agents, he said, noting that he believes that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is targeting the group. In late 2020, Project Veritas was contacted by individuals who claimed to have obtained a copy of a diary belonging to Ashley Biden, President Joe Bidens youngest daughter, OKeefe said in the video. Alleged tipsters told the organization that the diary was found abandoned in a room after she left and that the diary contained explosive allegations against then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. Project Veritas never published the contents of the diary, although other media outlets did in 2020. Instead, his group turned the diary over to law enforcement. At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because, in part, we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary in fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary and any part thereof, OKeefe said on Nov. 5. Zachary Stieber contributed to this report. A battle is on in the courts over whether certain nasal sprays can be used as a treatment, or preventative, for COVID 19. (Thorsten Frenzel/Pixabay) Feds Seek to Block Promotion of a Nasal Spray Against COVID-19 The leading U.S. manufacturer of xylitol-based products says the federal government is deliberately trying to conceal a nasal spray it developed that it says has been scientifically proven to be effective in treating and preventing COVID-19. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court against Utah-based company Xlear on Oct. 28, saying it has deceptively advertised its nasal spray as a treatment and preventative of COVID-19. The lawsuit asks a federal court to permanently ban the company from promoting the nasal spray as a treatment for COVID-19 and also asks that monetary penalties be levied against it. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, commonly known as the novel coronavirus. The DOJ filed the complaint on behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, which alleges the company has violated the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Consumer Protection Act by making false claims about the benefits. The sprays main ingredients are saline, grapefruit seed extract, and xylitol, a plant-derived sweetener commonly used in oral care products. Companies cant make unsupported health claims, no matter what form a product takes, or what it supposedly prevents or treats, said Samuel Levine, director of the trade commissions Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a press release on the lawsuit. Thats the lesson of this case and many others like it, and its why people should continue to rely on medical professionals over ads. The commission and the Justice Department declined to make any further comment. Xlears attorney Robert Housman, of the Washington firm Book Hill Partners, told The Epoch Times that the commission is flat out lying about the companys claims being unsupported. Housman pointed out that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)along with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an arm of the Department of Health and Human Servicesfunded clinical studies of the use of nasal sprays like Xlears and published findings last year that found they were an effective treatment and method of prevention for COVID-19. When Xlear tells people about scientific studies, even ones republished by the NIH, we are somehow misleading people and making false claims. Its nonsensical, Housman told The Epoch Times. Rather than embrace nasal interventions, the government is trying to eliminate their use because they dont fit the governments highly flawed, vaccine-only agenda. On Sept. 20, 2020, the NIH and NIAID published the findings of a random clinical trial they funded at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee on the merits of using hypertonic nasal saline irrigations to combat the CCP virus. The researchers in that study wrote that the effect of nasal irrigation on symptom resolution was substantial, reporting that nasal congestion and headaches in COVID patients resolved an average seven to nine days earlier in the study group. Our analysis suggests that nasal irrigations may shorten symptom duration and may have potential as a widely available and inexpensive intervention to reduce disease burden among those affected, the researchers wrote in their findings. We would advocate the use of hypertonic nasal saline irrigations in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients as a safe and inexpensive intervention to reduce symptom burden. Housman pointed out that the NIH also published the results of a clinical trial, held a few months later in November at the Larkin Community Hospital in Florida, that found the Xlear nasal spray specifically cleared symptoms of the disease in half the time. In addition to the Tennessee and Florida trials, another random clinical trialmore recently conducted at Augusta Universitys Emergency Department in Georgiaalso concluded that the use of nasal spray was beneficial in treating COVID-19. Researchers in the university trial, which is still ongoing, have so far found that patients with the CCP virus that participated in daily nasal irrigation were eight times less likely to be hospitalized than the national rate. The Justice Department didnt specifically cite the Larkin, Vanderbilt, or Augusta trials in its lawsuit. It instead cited the results of lab studies conducted earlier at the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill and the University of Tennessee involving in vitro and animal testing, neither of which the DOJ and FTC argue is a viable way to test nasal spray for live, human COVID-19 patients. The lawsuit additionally pointed out that the University of Tennessee study is based on a nasal spray containing iota-carrageenan, which the Xlear spray does not contain and, therefore, cannot be used as scientific evidence to support Xlears claims. The lawsuit also stated that researchers at Chapel Hill admitted that without further research it couldnt conclusively determine that administering treatment through the nose is the best way to treat COVID-19. Housman said the trade commission cherry-picked findings within the lab studies to make them fit its agenda. The federal government has warned companies against promoting nasal sprays for the treatment and prevention of COVID-19. BlueWillow Biologics, a Michigan biopharmaceutical company that manufactures a nasal antiseptic, and the Miami-based company Halodine, which created a proprietary iodine-based nasal antiseptic swab, both received warning letters earlier this year from the FDA to discontinue their promotion of their nasal products as a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19. A guard looks through the window of a hallway inside the No.1 Detention Center during a government guided tour in Beijing on October 25, 2012. The rare visit to the facility, which has capacity for 1,000 inmates, was opened to the foreign media as Beijing prepares for the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China. AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones (Photo credit should read Ed Jones/AFP via Getty Images) Former High-Ranking Public Security Minister Arrested in China Ahead of Major Party Meeting The communist regime in China has placed a former high-ranking public security official under arrest, just days before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) holds a major political meeting. Sun Lijun, 52, was arrested on suspicion of accepting bribes during the time when he was a party committee member and vice minister at Chinas Ministry of Public Security, the countrys top prosecutor announced in a statement on Nov. 5. Sun became the ministrys vice minister in March 2018, before he was stripped of his post in May 2020, a month after he was placed under the partys internal investigation for corruption. The statement added that the arrest was made following the conclusion of an investigation by the National Supervisory Commission, the regimes anti-corruption watchdog. Without providing any more details, the statement concluded by saying that the case against Sun was being further processed. The brief statement leaves open the question of whether the Chinese authorities have also investigated Sun for crimes outside of his political career at the ministry. Sun was once a deputy director at the 610 Office, the regimes Gestapo-like agency that is notorious for human rights violations against Falun Gong adherents. More details about Suns alleged crimes were announced back in September, when the regimes Central Commission for Discipline Inspection expelled Sun from the Communist Party following its investigation. The commission accused Sun of having hugely inflated political ambitions and spreading political rumors. He had formed factions and gangs within the party, and created his own interest group, in order to build up his own power. His action severely undermined the unity of the party, the commission stated. Moreover, the commission said Sun had lived a decadent life, which traded power for money and sex, and accepted huge amounts of bribes. Suns arrest comes at a politically sensitive time in China, as the partys Central Committee gathers for a four-day meeting called the Sixth Plenum starting from Nov. 8. One of the functions of the Central Committee is choosing CCP members to sit on the 25-member Politburo, the most powerful decision-making body in China. At least two CCP officialsZhao Kezhi, the current public security minister, and Guo Shengkun, secretary of the regimes top legal body, the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC)openly criticized Sun in October. Zhaos criticism took place on Oct. 16, when during a party meeting he said that those in Sun Lijuns political faction must be thoroughly investigated and severely punished. Such criticism within the CCP indicated that Suns downfall, while very much about his own wrongdoing, was also to fulfill a political agenda, U.S.-based China affairs commentator Li Linyi told the Chinese-language Epoch Times in October. According to Li, Chinese leader Xi Jinping could be using Suns case to build up his prestige ahead of the 20th National Peoples Congress next year. In autumn 2022, CCP officials will gather to hold a twice-a-decade party congress, during which a new group of top leaders will be chosen. Xi is seeking an unprecedented third five-year term in office after becoming paramount leader in 2012. During his political career, Sun was also once the personal aide to Meng Jiangzhu, who headed the PLAC from 2012 to 2017. In October 2017, U.S.-based nonprofit, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), named Meng as a perpetrator of crimes against Falun Gong adherents. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice with meditative exercises and moral teachings. Both the 610 Office and the PLAC have been instrumental in carrying out the regimes persecution campaign against Falun Gong since 1999. Now, more than two decades later, millions have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities in China, with hundreds of thousands tortured while incarcerated, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. Thousands have been confirmed dead as a result of abuse and torture while in detention. Gov. Abbott Makes State Resources Available for Probe Into Deaths at Houston Concert Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has expressed his shock and sympathy to victims and their families after eight died and hundreds were injured at the Astroworld music festival in Houston on the night of Nov. 5 and said that has directed a state agency to offer resources for the investigation of the incident. What happened at Astroworld Festival last night was tragic, and our hearts are with those who lost their lives and those who were injured in the terrifying crowd surge, Abbott said in a Nov. 6 statement. He expressed thanks to the first responders and good Samaritans on site who helped those injured in what has been described as a mass casualty incident by Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena. Abbott said he has directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to make state resources available to support the active investigation being conducted by Houston officials from the mayors office, police department, fire department, and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo. The investigation is now a criminal probe. I ask Texans to join Cecilia and me in lifting up in prayer those affected by this tragedy, Abbott said, referring to Texas First Lady Cecilia Abbott. The second day of the two-day music festival was canceled following the tragic loss of life on Nov. 5. Houston officials confirmed in a Nov. 6 press conference that eight youths had died among the 25 people who were taken to hospital after crowds surged toward the stage of the outdoor venue as rapper Travis Scott was performing. Pena told reporters that from the time a mass casualty incident was declared at about 9:30 p.m. to the first medical team reaching a patient was two minutes. In total, more than 300 people were injured and treated at an emergency field hospital set up at the venue, Pena said. More than 55 Houston Fire Department units stepped in to provide assistance to the medical personnel supplied by event organizers. Chief of the Houston Fire Department Sam Pena (C), flanked by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (L) and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo (R), speaks at a press conference outside of the Wyndham Houston Hotel near NRG Park in Houston,, on Nov. 6, 2021. (Francois Picard/AFP via Getty Images) Houston Police Department Chief Troy Finner said the concert was eventually cut short at 10:10 p.m.a decision that was made by officials and event management who were concerned about the risk of rioting and further injuries. When you have a group that is that young, you cant just shut down an event, Finner said. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner promised families and the public that a thorough investigation would be conducted and any mistakes would be openly disclosed to avoid such a tragedy from happening again. I have called for a detailed briefing from all stakeholders, including Live Nation, Harris County, NRG Park, police, fire, Office of Emergency Management, and other agencies, explaining how the event got out of control, leading to the deaths and injuries of several attendees, Turner said of the investigation. Finner echoed the commitment to a full and transparent investigation. We leave no stones unturned. This has not happened to us in Houston since Ive been a police officer, and we take pride in it. And were going to get down to the bottom of it, he said. Astroworld also released a Nov. 6 statement saying that its working with authorities to identify what went wrong at the event. Turner said event organizer Live Nation would submit all of its video footage of the event. Officials confirmed that some concertgoers had been trampled in the crowd surge. The youngest injured youth is believed to be 10 years old. Travis Scott performs on Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park in Houston, on Nov. 5, 2021. (Amy Harris/Invision/AP) Roughly 50,000 fans attended the festival, which was held at a venue that Pena said could have held up to 200,000 people. It was a wide-open venue, he said. The plan included two separate stages. These injuries did not occur as people tried to exit the venue. Pena told reporters that the doors in and out of the venue remained unobstructed throughout the event, which was attended by 528 police officersthe majority of whom were inside the venueand 755 security officers provided by Live Nation. It was the crowd control at the point of the stage that caused the issue, especially as the crowd started to surge up toward the stage, so thats what were going to be keying in on in regards to the investigation, he said. Pena promised to do the right thing for the families during the investigation. Turner confirmed the eight deaths to be a 14-year-old, 16-year-old, two 21-year-olds, two 23-year-olds, a 27-year-old, and one male who remains unidentified. He said that one of the deceased was a visitor from outside of Houston. Spring Branch Independent School District (ISD) Memorial High School released a Nov. 6 statement confirming one of the victims as 14-year-old 9th-grader John Hilgert. Our hearts go out to the students family and to his friends and our staff at Memorial. This is a terrible loss, and the entire MHS family is grieving today, Spring Branch ISD said in a statement. Please keep the students family in your thoughts and prayers as they face this tragedy. We will make counselors available to students next week to offer any help and support needed. The school said it has hung green ribbons on campus in memory of John. Green was his favorite color. Officials said that 11 individuals at the concert suffered cardiac arrest. Four people have been discharged from the hospital, but 13 still remain, with five being under the age of 18. No one has been reported missing. Police said 23 arrests were made at the festival for trespassing, as well as one arrest for possession of marijuana and one arrest for public intoxication. Security Officer Stabbed by Needle Finner also asked Texans to wait for more details to come of the investigations into the incident in response to a lot of narratives being circulated on social media. I think that all of us need to be respectful of the families and make sure we follow the facts and the evidence. And thats what were trying to do here in the Houston Police Department, he said. I will tell you one of the narratives was that someone was injecting other people with drugs. He confirmed reports of a privately hired security agent who was treated by medical staff with Narcan when he passed out after he tried to restrain a citizen and felt a prick on his neck. He was revived and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if somebody was trying to inject, Finner said. However, its unclear what may have been injected, as Narcan was administered as a precaution. Tom Ozimek contributed to this report. Prime Minister of Iraq Mustafa al-Kadhimi speaks at the Chancellery in Berlin on Oct. 20, 2020. (Stefanie Loos/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) Iraqi Prime Minister Survives Drone Attack in Failed Assassination US condemns attack as 'act of terrorism,' offers to help investigate Iraqs Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an attempted assassination by a drone that targeted his home on Nov. 7 and is unharmed and in good health, the Iraqi government said in a statement. There was an explosives-laden drone that tried to target his residence in the Green Zone, according to the statement, which also noted that security forces are taking the necessary measures in connection with this failed attempt. The rockets of treason will not shake one bit of the steadfastness and determination of the heroic security forces, the Iraqi prime minister wrote on Twitter after the attack. I am fine and among my people. Thank God. He also made an appearance on Iraqi TV shortly after the attack. To my people everywhere in Iraq, to everyone who was concerned tonight, my residence was targeted by a cowardly attack, but thank God Im in good health, he said. Your security and military forces are working for Iraqs stability and protection. Cowardly rocket and drone attacks dont build homelands and dont build a future. We work toward building our country through respecting the state and its institutions and building a better future for all Iraqis. We call again for calm and constructive dialogue for Iraq and the future of Iraq. Long live Iraq. Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and government offices. No one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The U.S. State Department condemned the attack in a Nov. 7 statement and said it has offered assistance to Iraqi security forces as they investigate the attack. We are relieved to learn the Prime Minister was unharmed, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement, calling the incident an apparent act of terrorism, which we strongly condemn. Our commitment to our Iraqi partners is unshakeable. The United States stands with the government and people of Iraq, Price said. Supporters of the pro-Iran Shiite militias have been camped outside the fortified Green Zone over the past month and have been clashing with Iraqi security forces following the results of Iraqs parliamentary elections on Oct. 10, in which pro-Iranian groups faced losses. The United States and the U.N. Security Council have praised the Oct. 10 election, saying it was technically sound and a largely peaceful process. The election was held months ahead of schedule following mass protests in late 2019 in Baghdad and across the Shiite south, where tens of thousands of people called for sweeping political change and protested against widespread corruption, a lack of job opportunities, and poor basic services, including regular power cuts despite Iraqs vast oil reserves. They also protested against the heavy-handed interference of neighboring Iran in Iraqs affairs through Iran-backed militias. The United States expressed ongoing support for Iraqs energy independence earlier in 2021, given its current reliance on Iran. Iraq relies on Iranian supplies for a third of its power needs, especially during peak summer months. The United States and Iraq held talks earlier in 2021 and affirmed the need for continued security cooperation in the region to counter the ISIS terrorist group. Al-Kadhimi has previously faced threats from pro-Iran militias. In late March, they called for the U.S.-backed prime minister to order U.S. troops to completely leave Iraq and threatened to cut off his ear. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Dr. Alex Michel takes delivery of COVID-19 vaccines from an Irish Air Corps crew member, as military forces assist with remote island vaccinations in Inishbofin, Ireland on May 18, 2021. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images) Ireland Sees Rising COVID-19 Cases, Deaths Despite Highest Vaccine Uptake Commentary For the second month running, Ireland has been ranked No. 1 in Bloombergs COVID Resilience Ranking of the worlds 53 largest economies. According to the report, the country is now reopening after vaccinating more than 90 percent of its adult population. Alongside its praise for the Emerald Isle, the Bloomberg report includes a cautionary, even contradictory note. With daily cases currently at their highest level since January, Irelands continued success will depend on widespread vaccination severing the link between easing curbs and virus spread, the report reads. Its referring to the need for a nationwide vaccine booster program. But how can a country with one of the highest vaccination rates in the world currently be facing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases and deaths? Thus far, about 7.3 million vaccine doses have been administered in Ireland. The countrys very first vaccination was given to 79-year old Annie Lynch on Dec. 29, 2020. One month later, 2 percent of the population had been vaccinated. It took until July for 50 percent of its adult population to have been fully vaccinated. This was still far short of its goal of reaching herd immunity, which the World Health Organization (WHO) defines as: Protection from an infectious disease that happens when a population is immune either through vaccination or immunity developed through previous infection. The WHOs preference is for immunity through vaccination, and this has become the accepted view in most Western countries, with vaccination certificates being demanded rather than proof of natural immunity gained through having had the virus, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates now accounts for more than a quarter of the U.S. population. COVID-19 cases also surged in Israel this summer, which likewise has a highly vaccinated population. Its Ministry of Health has reported that just 1 percent of new cases had previously been infected with COVID-19. That is, the vast majority of the other 99 percent were relying on vaccine protection that failed them. The data suggest that the recovered have better protection than people who were vaccinated, said Dvir Aran, a scientist at the Israel Institute of Technology. As to exactly what percentage of people need to be vaccinated to achieve unnatural herd immunity, the WHO claims that it varies with each disease. For measles, it suggests 95 percent and for polio 80 percent, but it admits that for COVID-19, that number isnt known other than that it would involve, a substantial proportion of the population. Dr. Colm Henry, Irelands chief clinical officer, believes that the figure for the original COVID-19 virus was 60 percent, but, due to the arrival of the Delta variant, he claims that the estimate has gone up to 85-90 percent. And, as hes referring to Irelands total population, it means that the countrys young children also will have to be vaccinated. Henry said this could pose risks, and he argued that a balance would need to be considered between what is a very low risk to children from being infected by the virus against any risks the vaccine may have in younger age groups. Worldometers lists Irelands total death rate on Jan. 1 at 2,248. By Oct. 25, an extra 3,188 fatalities had raised that total up to 5,436around a 60 percent increase from 2020. Most of those fatalities occurred in January and February, prior to the countrys mass vaccination program taking off. This was then followed by a steep decline, suggesting that the program was initially successful. However, since July, its fatality numbers have begun to rise again, and this has continued exponentially. The CDC now acknowledges that vaccine protection drops with time. The marked pronounced change in vaccine effectiveness is likely due to the emergence of the Delta variant as the dominant variant, and the waning of vaccine immunity over time, said Paul Alexander, a former Trump administration COVID-19 adviser. The Delta variant was identified in India in October 2020, and the WHO has now listed thousands of mutations of COVID-19. The first it classified to be Very High Risk was found in South Africa in May 2020. Others were then identified in London in September 2020 and Brazil in November 2020. A second London variant was found in January, and others appeared in Peru in August 2020 and Columbia in January. Yet, the idea that coronaviruses have the capacity to mutate so quickly has been challenged by Eoghan De Barra, a consultant in infectious diseases at Beaumont hospital in Dublin, who claimed that COVID-19 actually takes a very long time to change. His bombshell view is also supported by Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, founder of the virology department at the University of Mainz in Germany, who explained in June 2020 that the genes in coronaviruses are more closely bonded together than in flu viruses, which makes it harder for them to mutate and easier for the bodys immune system to recognize. Now, Irelands National Immunization Advisory Committee (NIAC) has advised its government to not include health care workers in its COVID-19 booster rollout. De Bara explained this decision to the Irish Times: Most health care workers have adequate immune systems, and it is unlikely they will need serial boosters, as COVID doesnt change at the same rate that flu does. This was a complete reversal of the governments previous policy in January, suggesting its undergoing a major rethink. Out of the first 94,000 vaccines that were administered, 71,000 (76 percent) were prioritized for those very same health care workers, over the elderly who were most at risk of dying from the disease. The Irish governments vaccine booster program is being made available for all who are over 60 years oldunless, it appears, theyre frontline health care workers. This will now begin in January or February of 2022, as this third vaccine dose is understood to be most effective when administered five to six months after receiving the second one. And the biggest take-up of vaccines in Ireland, particularly the second dose, took place during the months of July and August, which were the very same months that fatalities began to rise again in Ireland. Could there be a correlation between those two events? Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. A nurse works in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at Surrey Memorial Hospital in Surrey, B.C., on June 4, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Jonathan Hayward) Its Been a Nightmare: BC Health Workers Describe Staff Shortages Due to Vaccine Mandate Anna Isaak knew her job as a care aide at Worthington Pavilion in Abbotsford, B.C., was coming to an end. She had decided not to comply with the provincial mandate that all health-care workers be vaccinated against COVID-19, and the Oct. 26 proof-of-vaccination deadline was looming. However, the impact of her unexpectedly sudden departure struck with an unceremonious punch she wasnt prepared for. Isaak had planned on taking vacation time and sick days into December, which would give her time to slowly ease herself out and say goodbye to the staff and residents she dearly loved. But despite 22 years of service, Isaak was ushered out of Worthington Pavilion faster than she had anticipated. The conversations about her job with administration began on a Friday, and by the following Monday, through a combination of advice and pressure, she had retired. I was out. I had no chance to say goodbye to the residentsI just disappeared, Isaak told The Epoch Times. And I took care of COVID patients. I was totally exposed to everything you can imagine. I took care of them, I loved them. I was a hero back then. Now, Im the plague criminal. Across town, another Abbotsford long-term care facility with multiple residences and a hospital, Menno Place, was already struggling with staffing issues before the provinces vaccination mandates were implemented. Once Oct. 27 arrived, an already challenging dilemma quickly turned more desperate. B.C. Premier John Horgan and Health Minister Adrian Dix look on as Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry speaks about the COVID-19 vaccine card during a press conference at provincial legislature in Victoria, on Aug. 23, 2021. (The Canadian Press/Chad Hipolito) Were losing sleep at night. Its been a nightmare, Menno Places chief executive officer Karen Biggs said in an interview. Having lost nine regular and 19 casual employees because of the vaccine mandate, she found that looking for workers to fill shifts from a depleted pool is even harder. And despite the province pledging to train thousands more nurses and other specialists, Biggs noted that most are still years away from graduating, and given the shortages that existed before this weeks new crisis, those workers would be just a spit in the bucket. An employee at Eagle Ridge Hospital in Port Moody, who would only identify herself as Jay so as not to jeopardize her job, said the hospital never had a full workforce and often strained to meet a 70 percent staffing threshold. And nursing is especially burdened. Nursing is terrible. It wouldnt be uncommon to hear from our nurse manager that we were down five nurses just in emergency, Jay said. I keep saying to people its a staffing crisis. When its reported out in the media that the unvaxxed patients are taxing the system, what theyre really not telling people is theres already an existing staffing crisis thats exacerbated by people getting stressed and burnt out. The Epoch Times reached out to Eagle Ridge Hospital and its oversight authority, Fraser Health, but neither could provide comment by press time. During a media briefing on Oct. 26, Health Minister Adrian Dix said those who were still unvaccinatedwhich at that time was more than 4,000 health-care workers across the provincemust receive a first dose by Nov. 15 or be placed on unpaid leave, unless they have a medical exemption. On Nov. 3, Quebec reversed course on its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for existing health sector workers, saying only new employees will have to be vaccinated. The same day, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that in light of the challenges other provinces have had in implementing vaccine mandates for health-care workers, Ontario wont impose a mandate. First Responders Also Impacted Care homes and hospitals arent the only sectors that have been working to avoid severe staff shortages, even before the vaccination deadline. Paramedics, 911 dispatchers, and other first responders were also short-staffed, which worsened once some workers chose to forego the COVID-19 vaccine. A Facebook page for Okanagan Paramedics featured many postings showing a large number of open shifts throughout central B.C. and beyond, including more than 70 unfilled openings this month in Vernon and Oliver alone, and a request for paramedics to travel to the northern part of the province to help deal with severe shortages. There are several communities in the North experiencing unprecedented short staffing, one post said. If you are interested in seeing new parts of the Province on your days off or vacation you can experience different types of calls, meet some new coworkers, all while being paid; this is a great opportunity for you! We will cover your travel, meals and accommodation costs. Andrew Macpherson was one of those paramedics who refused to get the vaccine, although he officially lost his job because he wouldnt reveal his vaccination status. While working throughout the Lower Mainland, including plenty of overtime and extra shifts, he felt that BC Emergency Health Services and his union, Ambulance Paramedics of British Columbia, abandoned him and his co-workers the longer the COVID-19 crunch dragged on and he didnt agree to get vaccinated. Andrew Macpherson. (Handout/The Epoch Times) During the summer, for example, Macpherson was on the scene of a gruesome motorcycle accident where a child witnessed her father pass away. The union appointed a counsellor to help the responders deal with critical incident stress, but the counsellor refused to meet with Macpherson after learning he wasnt vaccinated. When he approached his union for support once his job was threatened, he says it wouldnt represent him. How can the union allow us to be hung out to dry like this with no voice? Macpherson asked. The unions always been out there telling the public how bad the government is, and now theyre with the government, telling everyone how bad we are. The Epoch Times reached out to the union, BC Emergency Health Services, and the Ministry of Health for comment but did not receive a reply. Some workers, like Isaak, were in a position to accept retirement, albeit early and abruptly. However, many health-sector workers in B.C. who chose not to be vaccinated face uncertainty about their futures. Under the provisions of the provincial mandate, refusing the vaccine would also disqualify non-unionized workers from receiving severance pay and employment insurance. Still, Macpherson remains stoic despite being currently without an income. He has turned his attention to helping others less capable of helping themselves during this transition. Im in a situation where I do live in a community already. I have ways of getting through this for the short term, at least. I have other jobs I can go get and I will at some point, he said. But right now, I think my job is to fight for people and to rally people to stand up, and give support to people that are in the same boat as me. Editors note: This article was updated on Nov. 9. John Durham speaks at a conference in New Haven, Conn., on Sept. 20, 2018. (Courtesy of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut) Many More Durham Indictments Likely in Connection to Steele Dossier: Former Director of National Intelligence Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said he expects special counsel John Durhams team to indict more suspects in connection to the origins of the Trump-Russia probe and the discredited Steele dossier. Last week, a grand jury empaneled by Durham indicted Russia analyst Igor Danchenko, who previously worked for the left-leaning Brookings Institution, for allegedly lying to the FBI. Danchenko had been the main source for the dossier created by former UK spy Christopher Steele that was, in turn, used by the FBI during its inquiry into whether the 2016 campaign of Donald Trump colluded with Russia. When I became the director of national intelligence, I said, Listen, I want to see all of the intelligence about this supposed Russian collusion, Ratcliffe said during a Fox Business interview on Sunday. What I found was, and as youre finding out, is there was, of course, no Russian collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, but what I did see in intelligence documents, some of which Ive now declassified, that there was collusion involving the Clinton campaign and Russians to create a dossier. Numerous documents that Ratcliffe said he had provided to Durham are being used in the special counsels investigation, he told Fox. Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) questions Intelligence Committee Minority Counsel Stephen Castor and Intelligence Committee Majority Counsel Daniel Goldman during the House impeachment inquiry hearings on Dec. 9, 2019. (Doug Mills/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) I declassified the documents that weve talked about, but I gave John Durham over 1,000 other documents that have not yet been declassified that I know, including intelligence that goes specifically to this criminal activity that would be the basis for further indictments, Ratcliffe continued, adding that he believes Durhams grand jury believes the Steele dossier is criminal in nature. During the 2016 election, Steele was hired by Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump. Fusion GPS was retained by high-powered Washington-based law firm Perkins Coie on behalf of the Democratic National Committee Numerous claims pushed in the dossier turned out to be false, triggering congressional, inspector general, and criminal investigations as to why it was used as the basis of a FISA court order to conduct surveillance of a then-Trump campaign aide. Those who were involved in the construction of the dossier, as well as individuals who promoted it falsely, would be in jeopardy, Ratcliffe claimed. I know that thats what John Durham is looking at, and as I talked about, this goes to the highest levels of our government and government agencies involved, he added. I continue to think there will be many indictments based on the intelligence that I gave to John Durham and that I have seen, he continued. Durhams team also indicted former Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann, alleging he lied when he told former FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016 that he was not representing a client when he provided Baker with a now-debunked claim that the Trump Organization was communicating electronically with a Russian bank. Following his arrest on Nov. 4, a lawyer representing Danchenko attempted to enter a plea of not guilty but a judge said it was premature, according to reports. Danchenkos lawyers havent responded to a request for comment and have not issued any public statements regarding their client. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announces he will resign in this screen grab taken from a video released by the Office of the N.Y. Governor, in New York, on Aug. 10, 2021. (Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo/Handout via Reuters) New York County Prosecutor Casts Doubt on Sex Offense Charge Against Cuomo ALBANY, N.Y.A prosecutor investigating accusations that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo groped a woman asked a judge for more time to evaluate the evidence, saying the criminal complaint filed last week by the local sheriff was potentially defective, according to a letter released Friday. The request from Albany County District Attorney David Soares throws the high-profile case into further turmoil a week after Cuomo was charged with committing a misdemeanor sex crime. The one-page complaint filed in Albany City Court by a sheriffs office investigator accuses Cuomo of forcible touching by putting his hand under a womans shirt on Dec. 7. Soares, who has said he was caught off guard by the filing, said in a letter to Judge Holly Trexler on Thursday that his office had been investigating the matter for several months. We were in the middle of that investigation when the Sheriff unilaterally and inexplicably filed a complaint in this court, Soares wrote in the letter. Unfortunately, the filings in this matter are potentially defective in that the police-officer-complainant failed to include a sworn statement by the victim such that the People could proceed with a prosecution on these papers. The district attorney said the sheriffs complaint, as filed, only included part of the womans testimony, but left other parts out, including sections that could possibly be exculpatory, meaning potentially helpful to Cuomos defense. Soares said that his office still had hundreds of hours of videotaped testimony to review and that it anticipates receiving more material with deadlines for a speedy trial approaching. Cuomo had been summoned to appear for an arraignment Nov. 17. Soares asked for that to be put off for 60 days. Cuomos attorneys joined in the request. The purpose of this adjournment is to give my office time to continue with our independent and unbiased review of the facts of this case, Soares wrote. The court granted a delay until Jan. 7, 2022, a spokesperson for Soares said in an email. A call was made to Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple seeking comment. The sheriff acknowledged last week that the court paperwork had been processed more quickly than he intended, before hed gotten a chance to consult with the district attorney. But he said he was confident in the strength of the case. Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple speaks during a news conference after a criminal complaint of misdemeanor sex offense was filed against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in New Scotland, N.Y., on Oct. 29, 2021. (Hans Pennink/AP Photo) There was no immediate comment from Cuomos spokesperson. The complaint did not name the woman, but she has identified herself as Brittany Commisso, who worked as one of Cuomos executive assistants before he resigned amid sexual harassment allegations in August. Forcible touching is a misdemeanor in New York, punishable by up to a year in jail, though many cases for first-time offenders are resolved with probation or a shorter jail sentence. Cuomo has repeatedly denied touching anyone inappropriately. He resigned from office in August after an investigative report, overseen by New York Attorney General Letitia James, concluded that Cuomo has sexually harassed 11 women. Both Cuomo and Commisso gave lengthy interviews to Jamess investigators. Soares has said that much of that material was turned over to his office but that it was voluminous and would take time to evaluate. By Michael Hill Nvidia Rallies With Key Catalysts Ahead: Will Chipmaker Be the Next to Join $1-Trillion Club? Nvidia, Inc. (NVDA) shares rallied strongly Thursday, helping the graphics chipmaker add close to $100 billion in market capitalization in a single session. The strong gains raise the specter of an imminent correction, but the company stands to gain from a series of catalysts lined up for the coming months. Nivida a Star Performer Year-to-Date: Nvidia is part of the elite group of stocks that have more than doubled in value in the year-to-date period. So far this year, the stock has added about 129 percent. The forward P/E ratio is 54.95, notably higher than the P/E of peers such as Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD). The sell-side is largely unworried about the heady valuation. The premium valuation Nvidia commands is justifiable, given a depending/expanding platform story, Wells Fargo analyst Aaron Rakers said in a note. The analyst is particularly excited about the prospect of increasingly visible recurring subscription software revenue contributions. Nvidias Recent Upside Fueled by Metaverse Opportunity: Thursdays rally came about as investors bid up the stock on Omniverse growth opportunities, as it provides the platform for developing the metaverse and a wide range of vertical applications. Some of the upside also came from retail activity, Wedbush said. About 40 percent of the daily flows were from retail, according to the firm. Wells Fargos Rakers expects Metaverse to present Nvidia with a $10-billion incremental market opportunity over the next five years. Long term, Wells Fargo thinks the market opportunity could be even greater as digital assets and digital twins become significant economic drivers. Nvidia could also benefit materially from the significant compute needed to power the Metaverse, with AI-assisted design and parallel computing at the forefront. Catalyst-Rich Period Ahead for Nvidia: Nvidias all-important GTC conference kicks off next week. The annual event is scheduled between Nov. 8 and 11, and it will be held virtually and attended by AI innovators, technologists, and creators. CEO Jensen Huang will deliver the keynote address Tuesday. Next up will be the companys quarterly results due Nov. 17. Analysts, on average, estimate earnings of 76 cents per share on revenues of $4.51 billion, up from the 52 cents per share in earnings and $3.24 billion in revenues reported for the year-ago period. Nvidia shares could also benefit from the customary year-end rally in stocks, as funds scramble to dress up their portfolios. Is $1 Trillion Market Cap in Sight: Nvidias shares hit a $100-billion market cap for the first time in July 2017, about 18 years after the initial public offering. Although the market cap fell below the level in late 2018, it reclaimed it a year later. The stock launched into a steep upward climb thereafter and is going from strength to strength. Although continued upside depends on a lot of variables, both intrinsic and extraneous to the company, the $1-trillion market cap milestone appears more likely to be a near-term reality than a distant dream. Given Nvidia has about 2.49 billion in outstanding shares, to attain a market cap of $1 trillion, the stock price would need to cross the $402 mark. By Shanthi Rexaline 2021 The Epoch Times. The Epoch Times does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved. Oregon Congressman Presses AG Garland to Act on Narco-Slavery in Oregon Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Oregon) is pressing Attorney General Merrick Garland to address what appears to be narco-slavery linked to a multibillion-dollar illegal marijuana growing and human-trafficking crisis in Southern Oregon. Since this is a problem that affects more than my state of Oregon, we need to understand what the DOJ, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, and the FBI are doing to help address this nationwide epidemic of lawlessness, Bentz wrote in a Nov. 5 letter to Garland provided to The Epoch Times. Bentz asked whether the Department of Justice views this crisis as one of its top priorities, what the department is doing to fight illegal cannabis grows conducted by transnational cartels in the United States, and whether the attorney general will direct the FBI and DEA to provide additional resources to affected counties in Oregon. Will the Department of Justice address and stop what appears to be narco-slavery occurring in Southern Oregon? he asked. At least four counties in Southern Oregon are plagued by Mexican, Russian, and Chinese cartel activity, Bentz wrote. According to local law enforcement officials, the cartels have set up cannabis grows, which are farmed by thousands of illegal aliens brought across the southern border. The activities generate billions of dollars of illegal revenue for cartels. Local law enforcement estimates that the illegal operations generate $13.5 billion annually in just one of four affected counties. In his letter, Bentz cited the DOJs Cole Memorandum as hindering enforcement by federal authorities in states such as Oregon that have legalized marijuana use. While cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, enough states have legalized its production that federal law enforcement no longer prioritizes it in those states. The federal governments decision to ignore illegal cannabis production, combined with the Administrations lax border policies are resulting in a humanitarian disaster, Bentz wrote. Oregon does not have the means to control the hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal cannabis grows, Bentz said. Likewise, the state cannot control the influx of immigrants, many pressed into forced labor, that the cartels use to operate. Local community members are being threatened, intimidated, and harassed by cartels, the congressman wrote. Bentz met with law enforcement and elected leaders from Jackson and Josephine County on Oct. 14 and was briefed on the extent of the problem. The same day, the Jackson County Board of Commissioners declared a state of emergency. Three years of intensive effort is required to drive the narco networks out of our community and restabilize the situation, the Josephine County Commissioners told Bentz in an Oct. 13 letter. That timeline, though, depends on securing indictments as swiftly as possible. To put it bluntly, Oregon needs help, Bentz said. The congressman requested that teams of up to 20 people be sent to each of the four affected counties. He asked that those teams help local law enforcement to identify and eradicate illegal grows and prosecute the criminals conducting them. Every day of inaction allows this crisis to spread and worsen, his letter stated. Your Departments actions are essential to the safety and protection of Oregon. A sign on an Auckland motorway urges people to get vaccinated at a COVID-19 vaccination clinic during a single-day vaccination drive, aimed at significantly increasing the percentage of vaccinated people in the country, in Auckland, New Zealand, on Oct. 16, 2021. (Simon Watts/Reuters) Pandemic of the Vaccinated Commentary In September, pandemic of the unvaccinated became a household term, calling out those who had refused to get a COVID-19 shot for the failure to end infections and the pandemic. But were in November now, and pandemic of the unvaccinated is so yesterday. Today, the branding should read pandemic of the vaccinated. Singapore is one of the most vaccinated countries on earth, with 85 percent of the population fully vaccinated. Singapore has soaring rates of infectionalmost four times its highest pre-vaccination rates. Deaths are also soaring, to 12 times their pre-vaccination rates. Six months ago, Bloombergs COVID Resilience Ranking scale deemed Singapore the worlds best place to be during Covid. Today, after becoming highly vaccinated, Singapore ranks 39th, its lowest ever ranking. Ireland is even more heavily vaccinated92 percent of adults and 89 percent of those over 12 years of age have had two jabs, making it the EUs most vaccinated jurisdiction. Yet despite the ever-increasing numbers who are doubly vaccinated, infections are surging in Ireland, to the highest rate since March. Within Ireland, the city of Waterford, whose over-18 population is 99.7 percent fully vaccinated, has Irelands highest rate of infection. Waterford County, which previously had one of Irelands lowest rates of infection, now has one of the highest. Herd immunity based on vaccinations not only has failed to stop the spread, it has also failed to prevent serious outcomes: Of Irelands 474 COVID-19 deaths between April and October, 44 percent were fully vaccinated. Iceland, Irelands northern neighbor, declared victory and lifted all domestic restrictions at the end of June when 88 percent of its over-16 population had received either one or two jabs. Starting in July, it entered what has become its longest-lasting and most intense surge of infectionsa rollercoaster that dipped in September, only to surge all over again. Icelands chief epidemiologist, noting that COVID-19 cases are growing exponentially in Iceland as well as other European countries, now believes that widespread vaccination does not seem to be enough to stop the current wave nor to prevent hospitalization of those who are seriously ill. New Zealand, where 89 percent have received at least one dose and 77 percent are fully vaccinated, is in the midst of its greatest surge of infections at the same time as it accelerates vaccinations. Australia is experiencing an even greater surge, one more than four times its pre-vaccination infection rate. England, which has some of the best record-keeping, shows in finer detail the extent to which the pandemic now is of the vaccinated. As seen in Public Health Englands most recent COVID-19 vaccine surveillance report (pdf) covering the four weeks to Oct. 31, those vaccinated had much higher rates of infection than those unvaccinated. Those in their 40s, for example, who were vaccinated had infection rates that were twice as high2,125 cases of COVID-19 per 100,000 vaccinated population if they had two doses compared to 933 per 100,000 among the unvaccinated. That better-than-2-to-1 ratio also held for those in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Those in their 30s and over 80, too, had higher infection rates if they had been double dosed, but by less than 2-to-1. Englands very high rates of infection occurred despite its highly vaccinated populationall groups over 60 years of age were 90 percent or more doubly vaccinated, those in their 50s were 85 percent doubly vaccinated, and the rest werent far behind. Vaccinations not only fail to stem the pandemic in the most highly vaccinated countries, they fail to do so across the board. Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States, the title of a study co-authored by a Harvard researcher and published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, found that, if anything, vaccinations lead to the opposite of intended results. Countries with higher percentage of population fully vaccinated have higher COVID-19 cases per 1 million people, it found. The vaccinated are now in the majority in all countries in the Western world. They own the pandemic. Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Patricia Adams Follow Patricia Adams is an economist and the President of the Energy Probe Research Foundation and Probe International, an independent think tank in Canada and around the world. She is the publisher of internet news services Three Gorges Probe and Odious Debts Online and the author or editor of numerous books. Her books and articles have been translated into Chinese, Spanish, Bengali, Japanese, and Bahasa Indonesia. She can be reached at patriciaadams@probeinternational.org. Sen. Ted Cruz Introduces Bill to Block Vaccine Mandates for Children Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has introduced a bill that would block the federal government and public schools from imposing COVID-19 vaccines on children. Casting the issue as a fight between parents and schools, Cruz said that the federal government has repeatedly ignored medical privacy rights and personal liberty by pushing unlawful and burdensome vaccine mandates on American businesses. Now, he argued, the administration is planning on pressuring parents into accepting vaccine mandates for school children all without taking into account relative risk or the benefits of natural immunity, according to a statement issued by his office last week. The measure would specifically block the federal government and any recipient of federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from mandating any individual aged 18 and younger to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination. Any school that receives certain types of federal funding will have it stripped if it mandates vaccines, Cruz said. Cruz filed the bill after CDC Director Rochelle Walensky approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be administered to children aged 5 to 11. It previously approved an emergency use authorization for children aged 12 to 15. Before Walenksys approval, a CDC advisory panel said that the benefits of vaccinating the age group outweighed the risks, including myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. Before that, the U.S. Food and Drug advisory panel in late October voted to recommend that children aged 5 to 11 should receive the COVID-19 vaccine, with some panel members saying the vaccines would reduce the hospitalization rate. Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, issued an executive order earlier this year prohibiting vaccine and mask mandates from being required as a condition for employment or service. A number of studies have shown that children have an exceedingly low chance of dying, being hospitalized, or dying from COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus. A significant number of parents said theyre unwilling to allow their children to be vaccinated. According to a poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 30 percent of surveyed parents said they would definitely not have their child in the 5-to-11 age group vaccinatedcompared with 27 percent who would right away allow their kids to get the shot. Another 33 percent said they would wait and see first, while 5 percent said they would only have their child get the vaccine if it is a prerequisite to attend school. Elizabeth Morgan enjoyed an evening at the Shen Yun performance in Chrysler Hall, Norfolk, Va. on Nov. 5. 2021. (Sherry Dong/The Epoch Times) NORFOLK, Va.Shen Yun Performing Arts, the New York-based classical Chinese dance company, arrived in Norfolk on Nov. 5. On opening night at Chrysler Hall, international Latin ballroom dancer Elizabeth Morgan found herself moved by the stories of Shen Yun and blown away by the production. [It was] so synchronized and it was beautiful with the colors. Everything is so precise. One of the characteristics of classical Chinese dance is that its choreographed in groups. In ancient times, palace dances could feature hundreds of dancers all moving in sync. On stage, Shen Yun dancers number a few dozen, all wearing richly colored historically inspired costumes. It feels like the highest training. And the invention of the dancers disappearing and then coming back out of the set; Ive never seen anything like itit was chilling, Morgan added. One of Shen Yuns hallmarks is the visual effect of extending the proscenium via a patented digital backdrop timed to give the illusion that the dancers fly away into celestial paradises or onto faraway cliffsan apt device for depicting legends from ancient China. It also allows the performers to tell some poignant true stories about todays China. The arts are a way to move peoples hearts to the problems that were having, to awaken people, Morgan said. [The arts] could move peoples hearts more easily through dance, or through [comedy], instead of lecturing. Ballerina Natalia Jones loved being able to experience Chinese culture through Shen Yun. I just love the music, the scenery, the colorseverything about it is just so beautiful. And I love to experience a bit of the Chinese culture. Chinese dance is similar to ballet in that it has a vast repertoire of movements, but it incorporates diverse elements of Chinese martial arts, acrobatic turns, and folk elements from Chinas various regions. As a ballet dancer, Jones especially appreciates the planning and training that went into the production. The coordination, the precisioneverything is so detailed and perfected, she said. All the elements come together and create this beautiful [experience]. And I love it. She recommends the performance to others. Its very enriching, Jones said. You look at it and it pleases your eyes immediately. Reporting by Sherry Dong and Lisa Fan. The Epoch Times considers Shen Yun Performing Arts the significant cultural event of our time. We have proudly covered audience reactions since Shen Yuns inception in 2006. Teachers Union Head Apologizes for Not Wearing Mask Indoors, Says People Had a Hard Time Hearing American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten, whose organization advocated for mask mandates in public schools, apologized after she was caught with her mask down at the 2021 SOMOS conference in Puerto Rico. Weingarten faced criticism after Adriana Aviles, a New York City parent and former City Council candidate, posted a photo of the teachers union boss sitting maskless on a panel with other guests, including New York City Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter. Gotta love when school leaders @rweingarten @DOEChancellor mingle with others in a packed room with no masks, Aviles wrote, yet I wonder if everyone needed proof of Vax to attend this work vacathey sure didnt need masks. In an attempt to defend her action, Weingarten wrote in response to Aviles post that all guests at the event must have proof of vaccination, and that she had just tested negatively for COVID-19 via rapid test. That being said, she apologized and admitted that educators should follow the same rules as students. You could not be #Somos or the hotel or panel without proof of vaccination. I had also just done a rapid Covid test & was negative, she wrote. Frankly I think you are right. If kids are wearing masks in schools to protect themselves & others educators must wear masks inside as well. Im sorry. Weigarten was then called out by Daniella Jampel, who argued that the union boss should end her support for mask mandates. Jampel is a founding member of Keep NYC Schools Open, a parent-led group founded in November 2020 when the United Federation of Teachers, an AFT affiliate, pushed to shut down the citys entire public school system because the citywide average COVID-19 positivity rate surpassed a 3 percent threshold. You enjoyed not having to wear a mask, right? Jampel asked Weingarten on Twitter. While students in the city you live inmany of whom are vaccinatedhave to wear their masks for 6+ hours every day, even outdoors, while theyre in school. If you claim to be pro-student, as you claim, its time to take a stand. Weingarten responded to Jampel that she had to take her mask off because people were having a hard time hearing us. She also said she wears a mask most of the time indoors. Another prominent SOMOS attendee who came under fire for breaking the mask rule was Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who was spotted in a packed hotel conference room dancing to celebrate the passage of the $1.2 trillion package without his mask on, an apparent violation of Puerto Ricos COVID-19 restrictions. Despite a nearly 70 percent vaccination rate among the islands adult population, Puerto Rico currently requires masks in indoor settings, regardless of an individuals vaccination status. It also requires mask at both indoor and outdoor events with more than 50 attendees. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson walks outside United Nations headquarters during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly, in New York, on Sept. 20, 2021. (David 'Dee' Delgado/Reuters) UK Government Denies Corruption Accusations Over Ennobled Conservative Party Donors British Prime Minister Boris Johnsons government rejected fresh accusations of corruption on Sunday after a newspaper investigation found major donors to his Conservative Party were offered seats in Parliaments upper chamber. The government has been embroiled in a corruption row over the past week, with Johnson forced to abandon plans pushed through Parliament to protect one of his lawmakers who was found to have broken lobbying rules. The Sunday Times reported that all but one of the 16 Conservative treasurers over the last two decades had donated more than 3 million pounds ($4.05 million) to the party and then been offered a seat in the House of Lords. The role of Conservative treasurer has become the most ennobled job in Britain, the newspaper said, ahead of leaders of the countrys institutions and charitable organisations and even former prime ministers. Boris Johnsons Conservative Party is corrupt, dodgy, sleazy, and on the take, opposition Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner said on Twitter. Environment minister George Eustice rejected the accusations. They are philanthropists who give huge amounts to charity, who have been very successful in business and therefore on those grounds ought to be considered for the Lords, he told the BBC. Eustice also described the furore over Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson, who quit Parliament after the governments U-turn on plans to overhaul the system for combating parliamentary corruption, as a storm in a teacup. The row has raised fresh questions about Johnsons ethics. Both Labour and the Lib Dems urged Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Kathryn Stone to open an investigation into whether the prime minister properly declared his free holiday at a Spanish villa owned by the family of environment minister Lord Goldsmith. No. 10 said on Friday that Johnson had abided by the transparency requirements laid down by both the ministerial code and the code of conduct for MPs over the holiday. Labour has also renewed calls for Stone to investigate the financing of Johnsons luxury refurbishments to his Downing Street flat. Earlier this year, Independent Adviser on Ministers Interests Christopher Geidt published a report criticising Johnson over the issue, buy cleared him of a conflict of interest or of breaching the ministerial code. Eustice told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show Geidts investigation has already put the issue to bed, and Stone shouldnt open a new investigation since its not her role to implement the ministerial code. The Downing Street flat was clearly a ministerial issue, not a Member of Parliament issue, he said. Johnsons personal approval rating has fallen to its lowest level on record, according to an Opinium poll for the Observer newspaper, while the Conservatives lead over Labour has fallen to a single percentage point. Parliament is due to hold an emergency debate on standards on Monday. The prime minister is trashing the reputation of our democracy and our country, Labour leader Keir Starmer told BBC television on Sunday. It is a pattern of behaviour from a prime minister who doesnt know how to uphold standards in public life. Conservative backbenchers criticised Eustices storm in a teacup comment, branding it unhelpful and complete nonsense. Robert Largan, one of the new generation of Tory MPs elected in 2019, said the Paterson debacle is something that we got badly wrong and they need to fix it. Former Conservative minister Tobias Ellwood also underlined how serious the row was, telling the BBC, we should not deny that this was a dark week for British democracy. He said Johnson needs to think about his legacy and what its going to be, adding, We need to find our moral compass and get back to what the British people want us to dogood policy, good governance, leadership, statecraft. Reuters and PA contributed to this report. Virginia Election Integrity Efforts to Be Repeated for Midterms LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va.A grassroots election integrity initiative has led to more than 3,000 new poll watchersthe majority of them conservativesworking during the Virginia gubernatorial election. The result was a much higher Republican poll watcher presence at the ballot box. Traditionally, more election officers and poll watchers have been Democrats. For over a decade, [Democrats] have focused on the election system, the election office, and changing the way people vote, Cleta Mitchell, a senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, told The Epoch Times. However, during this Virginia gubernatorial election, Republican poll watchers outnumbered Democratic ones, according to Jonathan Haines, vice president of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy. Poll watcher turnout tends to be low in most elections, except for in general elections for the presidency, according to Haines. But it was different in Virginia this time. In Loudoun County, Republican poll watchers were present almost every day at all four polling locations throughout the 45-day early voting period, according to Shelley Oberlander, chairperson of the Election Integrity Workgroup of the Loudoun County Republicans. Citizens really rose to the occasion, according to Oberlander. I think once they start getting educated and really learning the process and what was involved and that they could make a difference in integrity, they did, she told The Epoch Times. 10 Months in the Making In February, a group of grassroots nonprofit organizations began an election integrity drive with the aim of using the Virginia gubernatorial election as a beta to restore trust in elections. They formed the Virginia Fair Elections Coalition, composed of more than 20 mostly conservative groups. Both the Conservative Partnership Institute and Virginia Institute for Public Policy are partner organizations. According to Mitchell, the entire cyclefrom forming a coalition to dispatching new watchers to pollstook almost a year. The election integrity issue hasnt been in the public spotlight as much as parents rights and education, but its a significant concern for many voters, according to coalition leaders. Theyre confident that what has worked in Virginia can be replicated in other states. Such actions are already underway. On Nov. 10, an 18-city tour will kick off in Georgia to start building a similar coalition there, according to Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, a nonprofit based in Georgia and a coalition partner. She said similar election integrity initiatives werent implemented in New Jersey, another state that had a gubernatorial election in November, as the coalition focused on Virginia as the pilot state. In Virginia, the coalition organizations reached out to conservative voters and offered poll-watching certification training for recruits. Those trained would then contact their political partiesor election office if they were nonaffiliatedto become poll watchers for either the Democratic Party or Republican Party or serve as a nonaffiliated poll watcher. Mitchell said the coalition trained additional members to be part of the Citizens Task Force, a grassroots-led group that attended local election board meetings, observed voting machine selections, and observed other election-related procedures to monitor and ensure compliance. These procedures are open to all members of the public and dont require that observers have certification. By April, the coalition was hosting a weekly teleconference for group leaders to discuss and exchange progress reports. This turned into a twice-weekly call in July and later became open to all volunteers when the early voting period began on Sept. 17. During this time, the calls became a helpful venue for poll watchers to talk through various real-life scenarios and further their training, according to Haines. Haines said the coalition trained thousands of poll watchers in total and 300 during an August summit in Richmond, Virginia, alone. The course could also count toward part of the training to become an election officer, given that the subject matter overlaps. Election officers are paid positions that require certification from the local board of elections, while poll watchers are volunteers that are appointed and authorized by the local political parties or independent candidates. Participation Drives Improvement According to Oberlander, many Republican election officers in the county had also served as poll watchers during the early voting period. She said the collaboration between election officers and poll watchers went well in Loudoun County, despite initial tension arising from some officers who didnt like to be observed. She was thankful to Judy Brown, general registrar with the countys election and voter registration office, for listening to the Republican Partys suggestions based on lessons learned from the 2020 General Election and implementing some of them in the November elections. One such suggestion was to ensure that absentee ballots returned by in-person voters were destroyed, so that no one could reuse them. Another was to hire Republican election officers before tapping into the nonaffiliated list to ensure 5050 representation from both parties. Oberlander was hopeful for more improvements, such as verifying tabulation results by hand counts in at least a few precincts. We researched our machines and our voting equipment. We are trying to learn as much as we can about it, she said. Unfortunately, theres just a lot of limitation on what we can see and understand about our computers. And we just really cant know much about the software. President Joe Biden looks on as he delivers remarks on the October jobs report at the White House in Washington, on Nov. 5, 2021. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters) White House Confident COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Will Be Upheld White House officials over the weekend expressed confidence that the administrations COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private businesses will be upheld after an appeals court temporarily blocked it on Saturday. Im quite confident that when this finally gets fully adjudicated, not just a temporary order, the validity of this requirement will be upheld. Its common sense, Chuck, if OSHA can tell people to wear a hard hat on the job, to be careful around chemicals, it can put in place these simple measures to keep our workers safe, White House chief of staff Ron Klain, a top confidant to President Joe Biden, told Meet the Press, referring to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. About two-dozen states, numerous private entities and individuals, and even a media outlet have filed lawsuits against the Biden administrations vaccine mandates. The OSHA rule stipulates that employees at all businesses with 100 or more workers get vaccinated or submit to weekly testing and wear face masks in the workplace. The states, most of which are led by Republicans, have argued that OSHAs mandate runs afoul of the Constitution and that the federal government doesnt have the authority. In a statement to The Epoch Times over the weekend, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda said the agency is confident in its legal authority and claimed that the mandate is meant to deal with a grave danger posed by COVID-19. Figures released by Johns Hopkins University say that the COVID-19 case-fatality ratio in the United States is about 1.6 percent, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that of the 46 million who have been officially counted as a COVID-19 case, 751,000 have died. We are fully prepared to defend this standard in court, Nanda said in an email. However, the Republican-led coalition of states that have filed lawsuits argue that the OSHA rule poses an existential threat to individual liberty in the United States. As we have seen throughout the country, it is a public policy disaster that displaces vulnerable workers and exacerbates a nationwide shortage of front-line workers, with severe consequences for all Americans, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement last week. Some trade groups have also expressed alarm about the mandate in letters to the White House in recent weeks. Among them, the American Trucking Associations warned that it estimates that 13 percent of truckers would leave the industry entirely, while 37 percent of drivers could possibly leave their jobs at major trucking companies and seek employment elsewhere. In a win for one group of states, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit temporarily blocked the OSHA mandate on Saturday, affecting Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Utah, and South Carolina. The rule, along with vaccine mandates for most healthcare workers and federal contractors, is slated to go into effect on Jan. 4. Some states filed lawsuits against the portion of Bidens rule affecting federal contractors, which employ about a fifth of American workers. And unlike the OSHAs requirement for private businesses, the rule for federal contractors and healthcare workers who work at Medicare- or Medicaid-funded facilities does not have a weekly testing option. Zachary Stieber contributed to this report. NEW ORLEANS (AP) A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administration's vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4 or face mask requirements and weekly tests. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the action stops President Joe Biden "from moving forward with his unlawful overreach. "The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution, said a statement from Landry, a Republican. The U.S. Labor Department's top legal adviser, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda, said the department is "confident in its legal authority to issue the emergency temporary standard on vaccination and testing. OSHA has the authority "to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them," she said. A spokesman for the Justice Department, Anthony Coley, said in a statement: The OSHA emergency temporary standard is a critical tool to keep Americas workplaces safe as we fight our way out of this pandemic. The Justice Department will vigorously defend this rule in court. Such circuit decisions normally apply to states within a district Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, in this case but Landry said the language employed by the judges gave the decision a national scope. This is a great victory for the American people out there. Never before has the federal government tried in a such a forceful way to get between the choices of an American citizen and their doctor. To me thats the heart of the entire issue, he said. At least 27 states filed lawsuits challenging the rule in several circuits, some of which were made more conservative by the judicial appointments of President Donald Trump. The Biden administration has been encouraging widespread vaccinations as the quickest way to end the pandemic that has claimed more than 750,000 lives in the United States. The administration says it is confident that the requirement, which includes penalties of nearly $14,000 per violation, will withstand legal challenges in part because its safety rules preempt state laws. The 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, said it was delaying the federal vaccine requirement because of potential grave statutory and constitutional issues raised by the plaintiffs. The government must provide an expedited reply to the motion for a permanent injunction Monday, followed by petitioners' reply on Tuesday. Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and director of the World Health Organization's center on global health law, said it was troubling that a federal appeals court would stop or delay safety rules in a health crisis, saying no one has a right to go into a workplace unmasked, unvaxxed and untested. Unelected judges that have no scientific experience shouldnt be second-guessing health and safety professionals at OSHA, he said. A state task force has recommended that lawmakers consider abolishing the Psychiatric Security Review Board, which supervises people who are found not guilty by reason of insanity, because it favors public safety over patient treatment. While members of the CVH Whiting Task Force did not agree on how to replace the PSRB, they encouraged legislators to consider proposals that would better respect the rights of patients while balancing public safety concerns. Connecticut is one of only three states that has an entity like the PSRB. The proposal was among the task forces recommendations the group approved Friday in a meeting televised on CT-N, during which members discussed the measures in a shared screen over Zoom. They took a vote to convene in two weeks to approve the wording of an executive summary, after which they will send their recommendations to members of the Public Health committee. We should reach out to the leadership of the committee, the chairs and ranking members, and ask them how they would like to proceed, and encourage them to consider drafting legislation, said Michael P. Lawlor, associate professor of criminal justice at the University of New Haven and co-chair of the task force. Task force members were split on whether to get rid of the PSRB entirely or reform it, but all were concerned about the lengthy periods for which people are committed to the boards supervision. In August, a 20-year-old man was committed to the PSRB for 120 years for stabbing his grandparents to death. The stated purpose of the PSRB is to protect public safety; these lengthy commitments do little to further that end, the recommendations read. Rather, they seem to be more a mechanism to reassure the public that an individual will never get out of an institution. The task force indicated some support for a 2018 bill that would have reformed the PSRB. The bill, which did not make it out of committee, would have required the PSRB to balance public safety with patients rights to receive treatment in the least restrictive environment and expanded opportunities to be released from commitment to the board or from the hospital. In Connecticut, people who are declared not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to the PSRB are sent to Whiting Forensic in Middletown, the states only maximum security hospital. Task force members also agreed that the two years patients must wait for a review of their commitment is too long, suggesting that a review be conducted every six months unless a patient waives that right. Notably, Lori Hauser, a forensic psychologist and the only member of the task force who works at Whiting, disagreed. Hauser cited concerns for victims rights, saying the cases are still tied to the justice system. She agreed that patients should be allowed to petition for less strict levels of supervision, but said the decision should still be an adversarial process where state and defense attorneys weigh in before the PSRB decides. Formed in the wake of an abuse scandal that resulted in 10 state employees being charged with harming a patient at Whiting, the task force has been meeting since April 2019. Over the past two years, its members have met with patients at Connecticut Valley and Whiting Forensic hospitals, discussed the results of an employee survey and the low morale among their workers, and suggested legislators start planning to replace the dreary surroundings and stark primitive conditions including rats at Whiting Forensic Hospital. All those discussions showed up in their recommendations. They suggested the legislature consider a new maximum-security facility with a design that promotes recovery and healing and is more conducive to creating diverse environments and security that better fit patients needs, unlike the existing hospital, which has a diamond-shaped structure that the task force determined is not ideal for patients. Task force members also proposed that something drastic must be done to address staffing shortages. An investigation of Whiting conducted by the state Department of Public Health found that staffing shortages compromised patient and staff safety, a finding backed up by the chief medical officers courtroom testimony that he was so gravely concerned about staffing levels that officials shut down a hospital unit to compensate for shortages. The task force called on the highest levels of state, like the Department of Administrative Services, to reconsider its hiring practices and staffing requirements at the hospitals in an effort to replace employees who have left. They also said both hospitals should be exempted from state hiring freezes. Emphasizing the overlap between the criminal justice system and the psychiatric hospitals, the task force recommended lawmakers expand diversionary opportunities for those who are arrested and in need of competency restoration. State data suggest there is a growing concentration of criminal cases that involve defendants with serious mental health conditions who do not seem able to understand the charges against them or assist in their own defense. Recognizing that people charged with low-level crimes can end up at the maximum-security psychiatric hospital, which they wrote seems counterproductive and punitive, the task force proposed conducting competency restoration on an outpatient basis for those who do not need to be in a secure facility to have their competency restored. Lawlor encouraged task force members to quickly submit the report to lawmakers, who could forward the recommendations to bill-drafters in the Legislative Commissioners Office. I think I speak for everybody when I say I hope that the legislature takes up these recommendations during the 2022 session, which begins in February, but I think it would be helpful to get the ball rolling, said Lawlor. NORWALK With another two years under Mayor Harry Rilling and a 14-1 Democratic majority of the Common Council in Norwalks future, the city appears solidly blue, but it hasnt always been that way. Since the 1970s, the political party of Norwalks top official has changed with each new mayor. The pattern began with Bill Collins, a Democrat, who first served as mayor for two terms from 1977 to 1981. Collins total of four terms were split in half by the single Republican mayoral term of Thomas OConnor, who served from 1981 to 1983, before Collins once again took office from 1983t o 1987, according to Norwalk Public Library records. The pattern persisted after Collins second time as mayor, with Republican Frank Esposito taking office in 1987. Esposito had the longest administration in Norwalks history since South Norwalk and Norwalk became one municipality in 1913, with seven terms. Esposito, who died in 2013, served for a total of 14 years. In 2001, weeks after the attack on the World Trade Center in which 14 Norwalkers died, Esposito, who was running for an eighth term, was defeated by Democratic challenger Alex Knopp. People were ready for a change and I had a lot of experience in state government as a state legislator for 15 years and had a lot of policy recommendations, Knopp said of his win against Esposito. It was a high priority of mine to make the shift in administration and parties to serve the best interest of the city and that meant, on the one hand, making many fundamental and significant change in how the government was operating, yet also reassuring the public this was not going to be a one-party rule, but I would continue to invite points of view from Republicans and Independents and unaffiliated voters as well. Being elected on the heels of the citys longest administration, Knopp won by the biggest majority in the citys history at that time, with more than 60 percent of the vote, Knopp said. In shifting from more than a decade under a Republican mayor to a new Democratic administration, Knopp said his top priorities were to modernize the city as the early 2000s were the dawn of the internet and reduce the citys reliance on property taxes. As to why he was elected after such a long preceding administration, Knopp said it was likely a combination of him campaigning on making changes Esposito overlooked and the residents being ready for new leadership. Mayor Esposito concentrated so much on keeping taxes low that many voters felt he neglected the citys infrastructure, Knopp said. So almost every school roof in the city was leaking badly, and I pledged to fix that and ended up with the largest capital budget in the citys history at that time. But we kept the AAA bond rating. Knopp said it was important for him to acknowledge Espositos tenure and success to allow Knopps administration to move forward and gain acceptance from all voters. As to why Norwalk tends to flip political parties with each new mayor, Knopp believes the reason lies more in the candidate, their policies and the state of the city at that time than an allegiance to parties. As they say, theres no Democratic or Republican way to fix the roads, and I think as long as you can keep voter enthusiasm up and keep the city running theres a good chance of having several terms, Knopp said. Its more how the city is running as a whole, and theres so many decisions that affect people directly taxes, schools, quality of life that if those are managed, well then I think voters are willing to return you to office. After two terms, Knopp was defeated by Republican Richard Moccia by just 176 votes. Knopp said he was devastated by the loss. Moccia served for four terms, working alongside then-Police Chief Harry Rilling for a period. In 2013, Moccia was defeated by Rilling, who won his fifth term Tuesday with more than 63 percent of the vote. Moccia was also one of seven donors to Rillings Republican challenger in the municipal election, according to campaign filings. Rilling said he doesnt find the pattern unusual in local municipalities, and echoed Knopp in his belief mayors are elected based on what they bring to the city rather than party. Its not unusual that the pattern will be when people feel its time for change, theyll vote a new party in, Rilling said. Lets say a Democrat whos an incumbent decides not to run, so they bring in another Democrat and obviously Republican will put up a challenger, but it could be time for change and people vote in the Republican. Securing a fifth term placed Rilling with the second-longest consecutive administration in the citys history since merging with SoNo more than 100 years ago. Only one other mayor served five terms Irving Freese during the 1940s and 1950s although they were not consecutive, Rilling said. Freese also ran under two different parties: Socialist and Independent. We all have really one thing that we have in common, and we want to work hard on behalf of citizens, Rilling said. Republicans and Democrats perhaps have differences in overall platforms, but at the local level which by far is the most impatful level the average person, we all just want to work hard to make the city flourish. abigail.brone@hearstmediact.com Mankato, MN (56001) Today A mix of clouds and sun with gusty winds. Morning high of 36F with temps falling to near 25. Winds NW at 25 to 35 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight A few clouds. Low 19F. Winds WNW at 10 to 20 mph. The Eric Adams era began in earnest this past week, with the Democratic candidate for mayor cruising to victory with 66% of the vote. Big changes in politics ahead in the new year, not only with a new mayor but also with many new faces in the City Council. Here on the Lower East Side, Christopher Marte easily won the District 1 City Council seat, which is being vacated by the term limited incumbent Margaret Chin. According to unofficial results from the Board of Elections, 15,055 voters chose Marte, meaning he pulled in more than 71% of the vote. Challengers Maud Maron and Jacqueline Toboroff claimed about 14% each. Marte sought the Lower Manhattan Council seat back in 2017, nearly upsetting Chin in the primary that year. Marte was born and raised on the Lower East Side. Meanwhile, in District 2, which includes the East Village and some pockets of the Lower East Side near the waterfront, Carlina Rivera won re-election with 16,406 votes (79%), according to unofficial election results. Two challengers, including Allie Ryan, who built her campaign around opposition to the citys resiliency plan for East River Park, mustered 2,424 votes. The new Council terms, beginning in January, will only be two years instead of four due to the redistricting process now underway. Instant unlimited access to all of our content on thenewsguard.com. The News Guard E-Edition Newsletter emailed to you each week, the night before the paper hits the street! This subscription is for NEW or RENEWING online subscribers. (The charge will appear as "Country Media Inc." on your credit card statement) A Meal with Shane Magnier and Gerry Mitchell On the 1st of October 2021, I heard the sad news that my friend Shane Magnier had passed away in County Clare in southwest Ireland. It was a considerable shock, because wed talked by phone a couple of years earlier and he was his usual hale and hearty self, and also because he was a relatively young man. Sadly, Shane developed an aggressive form of kidney cancer and died in a hospice near Limerick at the end of September. Community By Baz Daniel Sunday 7 November 2021, 12:30PM Shane Magnier, a true Phuket expat in spirit and in life, you will be missed. Rest in peace. Shane was a friend for 14 years and we worked together on many creative projects from film, to radio, to newspaper, to online media. For me, Shane was an example of the sort of romantic, pioneering escapee from normality who seemed drawn to life in Phuket for its serendipity, and often its sheer madness. Shanes sad demise got me thinking about him as an exemplar of this type of character and whether Phuket will ever see a return to the sort of unpredictability and madness which drew both of us to the island. My first meeting with Shane was as eccentric as the man himself. In late 2007, Id just finished performing on stage in a musical and comedy review which Id co-written in the Green Man pub in Chalong. Id just cleaned off my stage make-up and ditched my rather looney costume, when Shane lumbered up to the bar and in an Irish brogue as rich as the pubs dark stout itself and asked me if Id like a drink. We bonded over Howard Digby-Johns fine Guinness and it transpired that Shane was an aspiring filmmaker and asked if Id be interested in appearing as a David Attenborough-style on-camera presenter in a documentary he was planning for Thai television. It sounded like a merry jape, so I said I would, and thereby our friendship was launched. A few days later, I found myself clumping through muddy buffalo droppings in a sweltering rice field in Phang Nga Province, while presenting to a film camera about Khao Suay Thailands Beautiful Rice in a pilot film about the countrys agricultural bounty. It was a tough gig and after wed returned to Phuket and completed the voice-over work in Shanes in-home recording studio in Rawai, we needed to drink several glasses of Irelands finest black liquid agricultural bounty in order to recover! As I learned more about Shane, I discovered that he was a confusing combination of differing personality traits and characteristics and that he even had an alter-ego named Gerry Mitchell, his radio persona, or nom de mic! Hed served in the Irish police force and his hulking physique and no-nonsense presence had probably served him well in such a role. But there was also a creative and experimental side to Shane which had seen him working as a producer and presenter of music and talk shows in Ireland including Radio Kilkenny, Tipp FM and Clare FM. Hed done voice-over work for jingles and advertising and had a Diploma in Radio Production and Broadcasting. Shane was something of a creative polymath and unsurprisingly he had the urge to travel and explore new horizons which saw him arriving in Phuket in 2003 and setting up his SGM video production company for which Id found myself presenting in that muddy field! Over the years our friendship and creative collaboration grew and wed meet regularly in the ramshackle Chalong waterfront bars such as Jimmys Lighthouse and the Tamarind Bar, to eat supper and exchange jokes and creative ideas. In 2009, Shane disappeared for a while when he went off to attend the International Academy of Film and Television, at Bigfoot Studios, in the Philippines to earn a Diploma in Film and Television Production. Upon returning to Phuket, he was full of expansive and enterprising ideas, and in 2011 he wrote a full-length, semi-autobiographical feature film titled Perfect Day, in which I was originally cast, but in fact had to miss because of family business back in the UK. The film was set on a single day in the life of Rick, an Irish 40-something who lived in Phuket. He sets out to have what is for him the perfect day, a combination of hedonism and spirituality, travelling the island Easy Rider style on a large chopper motorbike. However, all is not as it seems with Rick/Shane as hes visited regularly by the ghost of his humorous dead father and haunted by memories of a girl called Clodagh. Perfect Day is about priorities in life and how Rick/Shane copes with his fate and was beautifully shot on location in Thailand and Ireland, and went on to win the 2013 Grand Prize at the Amsterdam Film Festival. This period was a highly creative and energetic time for Shane as he also launched the Phuket Weekly online news and lifestyle website. On March 15, 2012, the Rainbow Bar in Rawai saw the riotous launch of the site with free-flowing drinks, food, live music, dancing girls and hundreds of local denizens having a whale of a time. It was a fitting birth for the site which captured the hedonistic spirit which was then very much a part of Phuket at that time, and I was fortunate enough to be creatively involved from the outset writing various columns, editing, taking photos and generally mucking in to help bring Shanes enterprising new vision to life. From 2013-2014 Shane worked as a radio presenter at Phuket Island Radio 91.5FM doing the afternoon show from each weekday as Gerry Mitchell. He then moved to Spain in November 2014 where he presented afternoon radio on Coast FM Gold in Nerja, and then on City FM Malaga broadcasting in English across the Costa del Sol Spain. I reconnected with Shane when he returned to Phuket in late 2016, as he went on to present the Afternoon Show on The Thaiger Radio and then to open McFlys Bar on the Rawai waterfront. Shane went back to live in Ireland with his ailing mother in 2018, but McFlys still serves cold ones to this very day. In Shanes biographical film Perfect Day the boozy, cynical father tells Rick; You always were a f*****g dreamer! Indeed, you were Shane. Rest in Peace my friend. Marvels Eternals one for the fans Another week, another Marvel film. That is certainly the way it feels at the moment. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is still in cinemas and we have Venom: Let There Be Carnage and a new Spider-Man movie being released in the next couple of months. Now this week we have Eternals being released and once again we see that the Marvel juggernaut is deciding to do things differently with this phase of the Marvel Universe. World-Entertainment By David Griffiths Sunday 7 November 2021, 11:00AM Eternals has an all-star cast. Image: IMDB Shang-Chi was the first step away from what the loud, brash films that fans around the world came to know and love. It had its fair share of battle sequences but the Asian cinema influence on the film was very clear and now with Eternals we see Marvel try something else new alternative film-making. Directed by Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao (Nomadland), Eternals does everything it can do to try and separate itself from Marvels past, but you could argue that the film doesnt exactly tick off all of its goals even though it is still an enjoyable watch. The film centres around a group of heroes (literally Gods) sent to this Earth thousands of years ago to protect humanity from beings known as Deviants. Over the years relationships formed between the Eternals Ikaris (Richard Madden Cinderella) and Cersei (Gemma Chan Let Them All Talk) got married and then broke up while for her own mental stability Gilgamesh (Ma Dong-seok Train To Busan) took Thena (Angelina Jolie Maleficent) away from humanity completely. Now in modern times Cersei is living in London with Sprite (Lia McHugh The Lodge) and is romantically attached to a human the intelligent Dane Whitman (Kit Harington Game Of Thrones) but their world is suddenly turned upside down when the thought-to-be-extinct Deviants suddenly reappear and begin attacking the Eternals themselves. To be honest there are more Eternals in this film than I can mention here and that is one of the biggest flaws of this film. There are so many characters here that it is difficult to find yourself getting attached to any of them. Sure Druig (Barry Keoghan Dunkirk) and Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani Stuber) stand out because of their over-the-top personalities but too many of the other Eternals become background noise as the audience focuses on Thena, Ikaris and Cersei. This feels like an ensemble film like The Avengers or the later X-Men movies but the issue is the audience really hasnt had time to get to know the characters yet. Still there are more plusses than negatives to the film. The characters that do stand-out are instantly likable and it is easy to see that at some time stand-alone films will be needed especially for Cersei and Thena and in a way you do find yourself liking the characters so much that you almost wish that this was the start of a television series that could allow you to see the characters become fleshed out a little more. As a director Chloe Zhao does all she can to give this film its own identity. She tries to bring in more characterisation and introduces a more adult feel to the film with scenes of romance and sex. It works, as does Zhaos expert way of showing how the Eternals have coexisted with humans throughout the ages but at the end of the day this is a Marvel movie and at some time Zhao had to bite the bullet and deliver some action sequences. Yes, Zhao does steer the film away from AC/DC-laden, city-crushing sequences and while the forest battle that ensues after the Eternals reunite with Druig works really well with its Asian-cinema-inspired feel, the grand finale of this film lacks that memorable moment that it should have had. Yes, it moved the characters journeys along a lot and revealed a lot of secrets that begin a whole new adventure but even with volcanoes and rising statues it lacks the wow factor that it needed. Having said all that, Eternals is still a worthy watch. It does introduce the audience to some characters that you feel are going to be very important going forward and it is obvious that Gemma Chan and Angelina Jolie had a lot of fun with their roles. Likewise the alternative feel throughout the film does work well but sadly the film is a little overshadowed by the transition feel that is ever present as fans everywhere get used to Marvel films without Iron-Man and Captain America. To sum up though Eternals is really only for the hardcore Marvel fans. Eternals is now screening in Phuket and is classified 13. 3/5 Stars David Griffiths has been working as a film and music reviewer for over 20 years. That time has seen him work in radio, television and in print. You can follow him at www.facebook.com/subcultureentertainmentaus Russians return to Phuket PHUKET: The first direct commercial passenger flight from Russia since the tourism shutdown last year arrived in Phuket yesterday morning (Nov 6), bringing 277 tourists from Moscow. tourismtransporteconomicsRussian By The Phuket News Sunday 7 November 2021, 08:00AM Aeroflot Russian Airlines Flight SU274 from Sheremetyevo International Airport landed at 8:50am. Waiting at Gate 11 to welcome the arrivals were Phuket Vice Governor Phichet Panaphong, Phuket International Airport General Manager Monchai Tanode along with a host of representatives from the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Phuket office and other government agencies. According to the post by AoT Phuket announcing the arrival, the passengers comprised the first from Russia to arrive in Phuket under the Test & Go** scheme, as well as others arriving under the Phuket Sandbox scheme. The arrival of the Russian tourists follows Vladimir V. Sosnov, Consul General of the Russian Federation for Phuket Province, meeting with Vice Governor Pichet early last month to discuss the prospect of Russian tourists returning to visit the island. At that time V/Gov Pichet noted that only 496 Russian tourists had travelled to Phuket under the Phuket Sandbox project since Sept 1. Bhummikitti Ruktaengam, President of the Phuket Tourist Association, has marked that Russian tourists will play a major part in Phukets tourism recovery. Mr Bhummikitti said that even though Russia had recently seen spiking caseloads of infections, Phuket had confidence in its safety protocols, with only 0.3% of Sandbox arrivals testing positive for the virus over the past four months. After November 15, there will be an increase in the number of countries that can travel to Sandbox segments, Mr Bhummikitti said. At present, 825 international flights from 17 airlines are scheduled to arrive in Phuket in November, compared with 562 flights from 11 airlines in October, he explained. Considering the expansion in the number of flights and load factors for each flight, local tourism operators believe that Phuket would expect to receive 300,000 visitors throughout December, giving an average of 10,000 visitors a day, Mr Bhummikitti said. The occupancy rate this month could gradually improve to 25-30% from 18-20% in October, before increasing to 35% in December, he said. Mr Bhummitkitti remained optimistic, yet cautious, over the current forecasts, which predict a significant recovery for Phukets tourism industry next year. Well have to look at it a bit longer. I think it might take another two weeks in order to have more clarity, he said. European source markets at this stage seemed to be more likely to return as travel restrictions there are eased and as they enter their winter months, Mr Bhummikitti said. ** The Phuket News has yet to see Russia reported as added to the list of 63 countries and territories allowed as departues of origin for the Test & Go scheme. See the list of countries as reported by the TAT here. Southern Pines, NC (28387) Today A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High 64F. Winds light and variable.. Tonight Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers after midnight. Low 48F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%. RIDGEFIELD The Gill family had lived in town for a little more than a year when Sandra Gill was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in January 2016. But the subsequent support they received from the community validated their decision to move there, she said. The town got behind us in an insane way in terms of (making) sure we had coverage for my kids when I had to go to chemo, and having food at our house all the time, Gill recalled. Ridgefield is special like that. The Gills became heavily involved in raising money for breast cancer research following her diagnosis; she was in remission six months later. Later this month, she and her husband Tony will embark on a 60-mile walk in San Diego for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day. Gill said she wants to make the most of this years walk because shes unsure if shell be able to participate next year. In September 2020, she was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, for which there is no cure. Her median life expectancy is three years from diagnosis, she said. We went to the doctor because I had swelling in my arm and I had some pain and I thought it was lymphedema, she recalled. It never occurred to me my cancer would come back. Over the past year Gill has undergone two types of chemotherapy and 18 rounds of radiation, which she described as leveling. Her number of tumors increased from two to five, and all of them are inoperable, she said. Right now my doctors goal is to keep me healthy, she added. We know that Im not likely going to survive unless theres an absolute breakthrough in the next couple of years. One in eight American women will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime, according to the United States breast cancer statistics. About one in three with an early diagnosis will develop metastatic breast cancer no matter what they do, Gill said. The Susan G. Komen organization focuses dollars toward primary and metastatic breast cancer research. Gill will speak at the walks opening ceremony to emphasize the research piece. We focus on breast cancer in October ... but (on) Nov. 1, I still have metastatic breast cancer, she said. I have an obligation to tell people and let them understand the significance of what happens to somebody. The Lantern will host a charity bartender fundraiser on Thursday to benefit the Gills cause. Gill will be a featured guest bartender alongside fellow Ridgefielders Peggy Marconi, Tizzie Mantione and Rich Carter. All bartender tips generated from the evening will be donated to the nonprofit. The restaurants owner, Raffaele Gallo, has also pledged to donate 10 percent of the events liquor sales and 10 percent of food from dining room reservations in support. When the Gills approached Gallo about holding a fundraiser at The Lantern, Gill said he didnt even blink. We love to support a wonderful cause, Gallo said. The Gills are friends of ours and were looking forward (to) the event to be a success and raise a lot of money for them. Gills team has already raised more than $47,000 in the run-up to the walk. She said she is grateful to have the support of the Ridgefield community once again. Somebody (from my support group) once told me that she has good days and bad moments, and you cant let the bad moments overtake you, she added. (I) look at every day as a memory (and) staying focused on my family and my kids. To donate to Sandras team for the Susan G. Komen 3-Day, click here. Editors note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly state the number of rounds of radiation Sandra underwent and the amount of money raised for the walk. alyssa.seidman@hearstmediact.com Salem, MO (65560) Today Mostly cloudy skies this morning will become partly cloudy this afternoon. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 59F. Winds NNW at 10 to 15 mph.. Tonight A few passing clouds. Low 29F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph. GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) As this year's U.N. climate talks go into their second week, negotiations on key topics are inching forward. Boosted by a few high-profile announcements at the start of the meeting, delegates are upbeat about the prospects for tangible progress in the fight against global warming. Laurent Fabius, the former French foreign minister who helped forge the Paris climate accord, said the general atmosphere had improved since the talks began Oct. 31 and "most negotiators want an agreement. But negotiators were still struggling late Saturday to put together a series of draft decisions for government ministers to finalize during the second week of the talks. People are having to take tough decisions, as they should," Archie Young, the U.K.s lead negotiator, said Saturday. Here's the state of play in four main areas halfway through the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow: TOP RESULT FROM THE CONFERENCE Each Conference of the Parties, or COP, ends with a general statement. It's as much a political declaration as a statement of intent about where countries agree the effort to combat climate change is heading. A flurry of announcements at the start of the COP26 talks in Glasgow on issues including ending deforestation, cutting methane emissions, providing more money for green investments and phasing out the use of coal could be reflected in this final declaration. Even though only some countries signed on to each of those deals, others would be encouraged to add their signatures at a later date. Affirming the goal of keeping global warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial times, is also seen as important. With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise, host Britain has said it wants the Glasgow talks to keep 1.5 C alive. One way to achieve that would be to encourage rich polluters in particular to update their emissions-cutting targets every one or two years, rather than every five years as now required by the Paris accord. MONEY MATTERS TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE Rich countries pledged to mobilize $100 billion each year by 2020 to help poor nations cope with climate change. That target was likely missed, much to the frustration of developing nations. Restoring goodwill and trust between rich and poor countries on this issue requires a clear commitment on raising financial support starting from 2025. Addressing the thorny question of who is to pay for the losses and damages that nations face as a result of global warming they aren't responsible for is likewise important, but agreement there could be elusive, observers say. Its about finance, finance, finance, finance, said Fabius. CARBON TRADING: A TRICKY NUT TO CRACK Many negotiators and observers at climate conferences roll their eyes when they hear the words Article 6. The section dealing with rules for carbon markets has become one of the trickiest parts of the Paris climate accord to finalize. Six years after that deal was sealed, countries appear to be making headway though and there's even talk of a breakthrough on the issue that so frustrated negotiators in Madrid two years ago. Observers say Brazil and India may be willing to drop demands to count their old but others say worthless carbon credits amassed under previous agreements. The price for this might be that rich nations grant poor countries a share of proceeds from carbon market transactions to adapt to climate change. This has been a red line for the United States and the European Union until now. A deal on Article 6 is seen as crucial because many countries and companies aim to cut their emissions to net zero by 2050. This requires balancing out any remaining pollution with an equal amount of carbon they can reliably say is captured elsewhere, such as through forests or by technological means. TRANSPARENCY AND RIGOR IN NATIONAL EMISSIONS-CUTTING TARGETS The Paris Agreement lets governments set their own emissions-cutting targets, and many of them are in the distant future. Verifying that countries are doing what they committed to, and that their goals are backed up by realistic measures, is tricky. China in particular has bristled at the idea of having to provide data in formats set by other nations. Brazil and Russia, meanwhile, have resisted demands to lay out in greater detail the short-term measures they're taking to meet their long-term goals. ___ Follow AP's coverage of the climate talks at http://apnews.com/hub/climate GRAFTON On Dec. 8, St Patricks Catholic Church will mark 150 years in the small town located at the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. The arrival of Jacques Marquette, S.J. sometimes known as Pere and his fellow explorers to the Grafton area in 1673 is significant to both the town and the Catholic Church. To the town because it marks the first recorded appearance of anyone in the Illinois Territory. To the church because the visitors were Catholics. Marquette was a Jesuit missionary priest. Anytime a parish reaches its 150th anniversary it is quite a cause for celebration, especially so with St. Patricks parish, said Father Martin Smith, pastor for the church. This is because, despite the fact that St. Patricks was built just a few hundred feet from the Illinois River and has been completely flooded a few times in its history, the original church building still stands. That to me is a metaphor of the invisible grace and presence of God, and of the faith of the people of St. Patricks Church throughout its history, he said. Even though the parish is small, it is a beautiful place with loving, humble, hardworking and faith-filled people who continue to celebrate and live by example their devotion to God and their Catholic Faith, despite the storms and floods, spiritual and physical, encountered in life, he said. I am humbled and very blessed to be assigned there with them as their priest. Following Marquettes visit, Father Louis Hennepin another priest explorer is believed to have been among the second group of men to arrive in the Grafton vicinity. But many years went by before the recorded appearance of the next Catholic priest in Grafton. Perhaps there was an occasional Mass said there for the wandering Indian tribes and settlers migrating during the War of 1812; however, history is silent in this regard. Historical sources state Father Verreydt, S.J., in 1838 had Grafton as his mission. But it was not until the quarries came into prominence around 1856 that evidence exists of a Catholic community in Grafton. At that time many families of Irish descent had arrived, prompting the desire for a priest. In 1857 Mass was celebrated at the home of Sarah Dempsey by Father Manyan. In the years that followed, Father Carroll said Mass in the school and Bishop Juncker head of the then Alton Diocese conducted meetings in the Methodist Church, a sign of ecumenism even in those early days. Mass also was said over John Slatens store by Fathers Sullivan and Laurant. Father Harty from Jerseyville held Mass in private homes, and Father Bourke held Mass in the Quarry Hall in 1871. Also in 1871 the Catholic community of Grafton set about building a church. But before work could begin, a location was needed. Irish families living in lower Grafton wanted the church there. German families living in upper Grafton wanted the church in their area. In a compromise, it was decided to build the church in the German part of Grafton and name it St. Patricks in honor of the Irish. On Dec. 8, 1871 the Feast of the Immaculate Conception the entire parish attended the first Mass in St. Patricks church. The structure was built for $5,000, using many hours of donated labor and native stone from the local quarry. That same building, with some alterations, still serves Grafton today. The churchs first rectory was built the following year at a cost of $2,000. Nearly 100 years later in December 1971 a parish hall was erected and dedicated, under the direction and dedication of Father Patrick Morrow. I have a unique perspective of St. Patricks Church, as I am a life-long member and a lifelong neighbor, said Karen Kinder, the parish sacristan. Every morning I am greeted by the cross atop the steeple, she said. This church, and this cross, have stood as a reminder to me and so many that with faith all things are possible. In honor of its 150th year, St. Patricks has received an Apostolic Blessing from Pope Francis. The parish council is planning a Sesquicentennial Jubilee on Saturday, Dec. 11., with a 5:45 p.m. Mass followed by festivities on the church grounds, including Christmas lights, a live nativity and Christmas carolers. Refreshments will be served in the parish hall where a history of the church will be presented by Margret Ann Voke. The parish council also has been working on commemorative items, including Christmas ornaments and holy cards. Martha Carey has been a lifelong member of St. Patricks Church. I feel honored and blessed to be a part of such a wonderful parish and to have raised my family in the rich traditions of the Catholic faith here, she said. It is truly one of my favorite places on earth. SPRINGFIELD A three-judge federal court panel has set the week of Dec. 6 to hear three consolidated cases challenging new legislative district maps drawn by Democrats and signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker. During a Friday teleconference Friday, U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr., who presides over the panel, said that while not all of the logistics have been worked out, the hearing will most likely be held in-person in the ceremonial courtroom of the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. State lawmakers approved the new maps during a special session in August following the delayed release of detailed 2020 U.S Census data. Pritzker signed them into law Sept. 24. The maps establish the boundaries for all 118 districts in the Illinois House and 59 districts in the state Senate. But three groups of plaintiffs are suing in federal court arguing the redistricting plan violates both the U.S. Constitution and the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Each lawsuit claims the new maps break up concentrated areas of minority voters who tend to vote as a bloc, thus depriving them of their right to elect candidates of their choice. One lawsuit, filed by the East St. Louis Branch of the NAACP and other civil rights groups, argues the new maps in East St. Louis and the Metro East region unfairly break up the Black voting population in Democratic Rep. LaToya Greenwoods district in order to protect white Democratic incumbents in neighboring districts. Another lawsuit, filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, focuses exclusively on largely Latino areas of Chicago and its southwest suburbs. A third lawsuit, filed by Republican leaders of the General Assembly Sen. Dan McConchie and Rep. Jim Durkin, along with their respective GOP caucuses argues many of the same points as the other two cases. All three suits name the Illinois State Board of Elections, Senate President Don Harmon and House Speaker Emanuel Chris Welch as defendants. Dow indicated the case is being put on an expedited schedule to accommodate the 2022 election cycle. Under the current schedule, candidates can begin circulating nominating petitions on Jan. 13; those petitions must be submitted to the State Board of Elections the week of March 7-14. To do that, candidates need to know what district they will be running in. On Friday all of the plaintiffs agreed to submit their proposed remedies to the court by Wednesday, Nov. 10. That gives the defendants until Monday, Nov. 22, to file their response. Attorneys for each of the plaintiffs said they do not plan to redraw all 177 House and Senate districts but will focus only on the areas of the state they are contesting. Sean Berkowitz, an attorney representing Harmon and Welch, said he does not intend to submit a new plan but instead will defend the maps passed by the General Assembly. An attorney for the State Board of Elections said she did not plan to submit any filings and would just passively monitor the proceedings. In addition to Dow, the other two judges hearing the case are U.S. District Judge Jon DeGuilio, chief judge of the Northern District of Indiana, and Judge Michael B. Brennan of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. SAM MONTALTO, Stonington, Boys Soccer, Senior; Montalto scored three goals including the 100th of his career in the Bears 4-0 victory over Plainville in the Class M state tournament. Montalto, who missed the first three games of the season, has 32 goals and nine assists this season. GIRLS & BOYS Soccer Team, Chariho; It wouldnt be fair to single out a player from either team, both of which captured Division II titles over the weekend of Nov. 12. The girls tied their game with Prout with 1:02 left in regulation and prevailed in penalty kicks. The boys scored the winning goal in the final two minutes of the second overtime to beat North Smithfield. ZACK TUCK, Westerly, Football; Tuck rushed for 150 yards on 29 carries in a loss to unbeaten St. Raphael in the Division II semifinals. Tuck has rushed for 1,533 yards and scored 19 touchdowns this season for the 7-3 Bulldogs. Vote View Results Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic will set aside old rivalries with British Airways tomorrow for a joint take-off to mark the reopening of the US to UK passengers after more than 600 days. Virgin and BA will synchronise their flights from Heathrow to New York's JFK airport at 8.30am, taxiing down the north and south runways side by side to take off simultaneously. American dream: After 600 days, Britons can fly to the United States again The dual take-off is a rare display of unity by the rivals. In 2012, Branson and then BA boss Willie Walsh famously struck a 1million bet over whether Virgin Atlantic would still be in business under Branson's control in five years' time. The pandemic left Virgin Atlantic fighting for survival and BA's owner IAG last week said it will make a 3billion loss this year. But the airlines are banking on the trans-Atlantic routes, closed to UK nationals since March last year, returning them to profit by next summer. Sources said BA's flight BA001 Concorde's former New York flight number would be 'celebratory', carrying customers and crew who haven't seen their families for almost two years. Virgin Atlantic's 12 flights to the US from Heathrow and Manchester tomorrow are fully booked. Chief executive Shai Weiss said: 'The US has been our heartland for more than 37 years since our first flight to New York City in 1984. We are simply not Virgin without the Atlantic.' Luis Gallego, chief executive of BA owner IAG, said it would be a 'pivotal moment'. British Airways is set to announce the launch of its new short-haul airline at Gatwick within weeks after reaching a key agreement over pay and conditions for cabin crew with trade union bosses. The Mail on Sunday can reveal that BA finalised negotiations late last week with the Unite union, which represents more than 10,000 of the airline's cabin crew as well as engineers and ground staff. Striking a deal with Unite, which has been one of BA's fiercest critics during the pandemic, was the last major hurdle to launching the new airline. It means BA can start hiring staff ahead of the first flights from next April. Set for takeoff: British Airways finalised negotiations with the Unite union In an internal update to staff on Friday afternoon, BA chief executive Sean Doyle said: 'Our plans for a new BA-branded subsidiary to fly short-haul at Gatwick are progressing well, having received support this week from Unite. 'While we still have some further negotiations to sort, it looks likely that we will be up and running to fly the summer schedule.' The final talks are with ground handling staff and Gatwick, which Doyle expects to conclude 'imminently'. BA first announced its plans for the BA-branded Gatwick airline in August but said it would only be possible if it had a 'competitive cost-base'. Staff employed by the new business dubbed 'BA-Lite' will be asked to sign more flexible contracts, expected to include part-time or seasonal working. It is thought that around 160 pilots and several hundred cabin crew could be hired for the new airline, which will operate up to 17 planes for short-haul European trips. BA reached agreement with pilots' union Balpa last month following weeks of tense negotiations. Balpa had previously walked away from the talks, putting the future of the airline in jeopardy. It is understood Unite's negotiations with BA focused on pay and flying schedules to make sure cabin crew employed at Gatwick earn the same as staff in other parts of BA's business. Cabin crew earn a basic salary plus variable pay, based on the number of hours flown and commission on in-flight sales. Unite's aviation officer Oliver Richardson said the variable pay can add up to 'tens of thousands of pounds', adding: 'We wouldn't want a position at Gatwick where people are being asked to come back to a short-haul operation on radically inferior terms and conditions.' Relations between Unite and BA are still frosty after the airline cut around 10,000 jobs last year. Unite called the strategy 'opportunistic' and criticised BA's plans to bring back some former cabin crew now that travel is picking up, claiming they are being rehired on 'substantially reduced terms and conditions'. But union bosses accept that BA's new short-haul airline will create jobs at Gatwick and in sectors that rely on the airport such as hotels, catering and transport. Gatwick is one of the hardest-hit aviation companies after a string of major airlines based at the airport including BA, Virgin Atlantic and Norwegian scrapped or scaled back flights during the pandemic. BA's parent company, IAG, said on Friday that it would make a 3billion (2.57billion) loss this year, after a 452million (387million) loss for the three months to September. It followed a 1billion fundraise for BA last Monday. With the aviation industry still struggling despite the gradual lifting of international travel restrictions since May, Tory MP Henry Smith, whose Crawley constituency includes Gatwick, last night welcomed BA's move. He said: 'This is further evidence of the aviation sector and the local economy beginning its recovery from the damage caused by the pandemic.' Stay up to date on COVID-19 Get Breaking News Sign up now to get our FREE breaking news coverage delivered right to your inbox. remaining of SUPPORT LOCAL JOURNALISM! On your next view you will be asked to log in to your subscriber account or create an account and subscribepurchase a subscription to continue reading. Shown here are Dr. Js Crockpot Dip, right; Cousin Pearls Model City Mashup (Eastman?) Dip, foreground; and Sisters Dip. These are names Ive given to variations of retro dips that were snack time and party staples for me, my family and friends back in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Peter Croft serves as the director of the J.B. Phillips Society, an organization named for his late grandfather, an English Bible scholar, translator, author and clergyman best known for The New Testament in Modern English. The April 13, 1925, killings of two law enforcement officials in Kingsport, on the Long Island of the Holston River not far from where Riverfront Seafood is today, were the second and third killings of Kinnie Wagner's five acknowledged and documented shooting victims. ALBANY Around Central Avenue, scarlet letters stick to the dirty windows of some run-down properties broadcasting a message: Vacant. About 18 percent of housing units in the Central Avenue neighborhood were vacant last year, according to data from the 2020 U.S. Census. Just two miles away, competition is hot in Buckingham Lake, where just 5 percent of housing was vacant in 2020. Recent census data shows how over the last decade disrepair and disinvestment exacerbated vacancy rates in some neighborhoods, while other areas boomed with rehabilitation. In at least one neighborhood, the departure of college students from their city housing during the earliest days of the pandemic may have driven up the neighborhood's vacancy rate artificially, along with new construction in progress. Census tract number 4.04 surrounding the University at Albanys uptown campus was recorded having the citys highest vacancy rate in 2020 about 72 percent despite adding new housing units over the past 10 years. Data from the 2020 census showed 123 of the 171 housing units in that tract were uninhabited on April 1, 2020. The area is unique in that it encapsulates a majority of the universitys student body living on campus and has few residential properties, according to Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, the universitys interim director of communications. The university said its student population had nothing to do with the low vacancy rate and called it an "anomaly." Bradley Glass, the city's director of planning and development, suspects the high vacancy rate is linked to rising development in the area, specifically a new 252-unit housing complex erected on Sandidge Way. Glass said it seems the U.S. Census Bureau counted the units under construction at the time and classified them as vacant. Samuel Wells, Albany's neighborhood stabilization coordinator, said under the Census Bureaus definition for vacant housing units, newer construction with exterior windows and doors installed can fall into the category. The Sandidge Way construction was near that stage of development when the bureau began its count, Wells recalled. Mark Castiglione, executive director of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission, agreed. There arent many residences in the tract to begin with, he said. The high vacancy rate may also reflect developers work to empty plots for incoming apartment buildings. And while tract 4.04s high rate chronicled new construction around a college-oriented territory, another census tract, 6, is seeing more buildings go down than are being re-built. Housing stock falls The tract running along Central Avenue between the Washington and Tivoli Parks experienced Albanys largest reduction in overall housing and occupied units between 2010 and 2020. Census Bureau figures detailed a loss of 114 housing units and a 109-unit decrease in occupied realty. Castiglione indicated the loss of housing there is in part due to a maintenance deficit causing disinvestment. Anyone driving through the neighborhood cant ignore the spate of dilapidated properties, many marked with scarlet letters or a red X. The crimson notches denote the buildings are unsafe to enter and strong candidates for demolition. Wells said that stretch hasnt seen much construction over the years, although many deteriorated buildings were taken down. Oftentimes, absentee landlords contribute to the lack of investment and people that essentially abandoned their properties and the complex process that is in place for public agencies to reclaim those properties before they're too far gone, Castiglione said. Defunct investment and what he called white flight out of the inner cities has produced a concentration of poverty affecting investors draw to the neighborhood. But Wells believes the disinvestment in the community isnt because theres a lack of interest. Investors are looking at the area and theres been some rehab work with home leasing made possible by low-income and historic housing tax credits. Yet, developers are finding it tough to make the numbers work to their benefit when such subsidies arent amounting to their need for new constructions. When the calculations dont add up in their favor, they opt out for better opportunities in other neighborhoods, he explained. Rehabbing up-and-coming area One emerging section of the city developers might find themselves drawn to is the Mansion quarter, statistically known as tract 25. The Mansion neighborhood championed the greatest decline in vacant units by percentage, eliminating roughly 124 vacant units while also decreasing its housing stock by 21 units. Mansions contradictory success to eradicate a large number of vacancies though lost housing proved to be a statistical conundrum for Wells. The vicinity is comprised of some of Albanys oldest homes and a healthy supply of public housing. Similar to tract 6, the area has seen its fair share of demolition reinforcing the drop in its overall stock, according to Wells. The difference between tract 25 and 6 is that some of the buildingsin the Mansion area that had dates with a bulldozer were rehabbed after. Castiglione noted that a variety of revitalization and redevelopment efforts targeted the neighborhood to create more housing over time. Samantha Curry, co-principal of New Scotland Development Companies and broker of record for New Scotland Realty, has noticed a lot of her clients picking up properties around the Mansion border and the activity bleeding out toward South Pearl Street because its a chunk of the city primed for rehab. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Many of the properties there are historic structures in mint condition that were left alone or went into foreclosure, Curry noted. When they've been sitting there vacant it stinks, but when someone comes to rehab them, they have a better ability to kind of preserve those things that have been untouched, she said. 'Hot' neighborhoods Census tract 11 encompassing Ten Broeck Triangle and parts of downtown Albany was deemed a hot neighborhood by Curry and Wells. This area added 686 new housing units over the last decade, census data shows, the largest increase of any census tract in Albany. Most of those units were occupied in 2020. The downtown saw plenty of residential restoration and growth during the last decade that oozed into the Ten Broeck Triangle corridor. Vacant properties with historic charm are being refurbished in a neighborhood with certain perks including walkability and nearby amenities. There's a reason why these buildings are still standing 100 years later. They're not going anywhere, as long as you take care of them well, and they're becoming a luxury asset, Curry said. We're seeing a lot of investors want to pick that up and hold on to it." Richard LaJoy, Albanys director of building and regulatory compliance, thinks the home leasing revitalization of over 70 properties around Ten Broeck Triangle was partially why the tract boomed over the last decade. Castiglione suggested that hefty investments from Habitat for Humanity and popular developers downtown coupled with rehab efforts in the area also created quality housing in the tract. While some of the city's spheres are facing disinvestment and repair, another tract, home to Buckingham Lake, remained stable over the years with high occupancy. The Buckingham Lake neighborhood was documented as having the lowest vacancy rate, 5.12 percent, in all the city. The area is characterized by rows of homes with trimmed lawns neatly tucked between trees within reach of a narrow, oblong lake. Buckingham was always a strong neighborhood without many vacancies, Wells said. Curry described it as a quiet, family-friendly area. You kind of get the best of both worlds in that neighborhood it's kind of like a city within a suburb. An earlier version of this story referred to the Mansion neighborhood as Mansion Lake. NEWARK, N.J. (AP) On a recent sun-drenched morning, the staccato rhythms of a jackhammer ricocheted off buildings as a work crew dug into a Newark street to remove an aging pipe that carried water and potentially a poison to a small apartment building. The new pipe is copper. The old one was lined with lead, which can be harmful to human health even at minute levels. The water service line was one of more than 20,000 made with the toxic metal the city began replacing in 2019 amid public outrage over revelations about high lead levels in the tap water in schools and homes across the city. Less than three years after the work began, the replacement project, initially projected to take up to 10 years, is nearly complete. City residents who switched to bottled water during the crisis are breathing and drinking easier. Newark, once castigated and sued over its sluggish response to the problem, is being held up as a potential national model. Im just happy that its happening and that its finally getting taken care of so we finally get to drink tap water again, Newark resident Cesar Velarde said as he watched the crew work. I have three cases of bottled water right now. I dont drink faucet water no more because of this. The pipe replacement project has been a vindication of sorts for Mayor Ras Baraka, who faced mounting public pressure in 2018 after the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group, sued, claiming New Jersey's largest city had failed to adequately monitor lead levels and had downplayed the problem to residents. Deteriorating lead-lined pipes, some a century old, are a problem in many older U.S. cities, a recent example being Benton Harbor, Michigan. But Newark's replacement project proceeded faster than expected, thanks to an infusion of state and local funds and an amendment to state law to protect homeowners from having to bear the cost. Ill feel better when we're completely finished, but I'm excited that were at the end of this thing. It'll be a huge milestone for us," Baraka said last week. Newark's efforts led to the lawsuit being settled last January, and drew praise from the Natural Resources Defense Council. Its a pretty significant turnaround from the early days when the city was denying they had a lead problem, Erik Olson, NRDC senior strategic director for health, said. We are pointing to it as a model for other cities to follow. Theyre doing it much faster than other cities have even tried to do. The NRDC estimated recently that there are as many as 12 million lead service lines in the U.S. Nearly half of all states dont even track the number of lead lines within their borders, they found. Lead in drinking water has been linked to developmental delays in children and can damage the brain, red blood cells and kidneys. The challenge of removing lead from drinking water in the U.S. came into sharp focus after the Flint, Michigan, scandal in which city leaders switched water sources in 2014 to save money. That led to criminal charges, though many later were dropped, and a $641 million settlement for the residents of the poor, majority Black city. The $1 trillion infrastructure plan passed by the House on Friday night and now awaiting President Joe Biden's signature includes $15 billion to replace lead pipes. Several hundred lead lines remain to be replaced in Newark, many connected to buildings that were not accessible earlier in the project. The process can take up to five hours, though many replacements take less time because they involve smaller pipes that can be pulled out and replaced by making a smaller cut in the curbside, said Mark Wleklik, foreperson for Underground Utilities, a company that has done thousands of pipe replacements in Newark. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. More than 70% of Newark residents are renters, and many of the buildings are owned by limited-liability corporations based elsewhere that can be hard to track down, said Kareem Adeem, director of the citys water and sewer department. Its hard to chase an LLC down to Texas or Missouri or Louisiana or California, Adeem said. The renters always want the line to be replaced, but they dont own the property. That led the Newark City Council to pass an ordinance allowing tenants to provide access to buildings. An amendment to a state law paved the way for public money to be used for the replacements which can cost thousands of dollars per home and Newark was able to borrow $120 million. All those efforts allowed the city of more than 310,000 people to accelerate its line replacements to as many as 120 per day. The city also created a program that trained about 75 unemployed and underemployed residents to work on the line replacement crews, Adeem said. Looking back, Baraka described the confrontation with the Natural Resources Defense Council as tough, tense, with no love lost, but he admitted learning some lessons. We were so busy trying to fight the NRDC, we were having conversations with them and not with the residents, he said. We thought they were wrong and wanted to oversee the city, and we already had oversight. So we were trying to fight that as opposed to being on the offensive and saying, We have this problem, lets go out and fix this. For some, praise for the Newarks accomplishment needs to be taken in context. Yvette Jordan, a teacher and chairperson of the Newark Education Workers Caucus, which joined the lawsuit brought by the resources council, said it was no coincidence that many of the city's actions came at a time when Baraka was seeking reelection and Newark was in the running to become home to Amazon's second headquarters. This showed us that the community must rise up and say something, said Jordan, whose own home showed high levels of lead in its drinking water at one point. Without the community screaming and yelling and saying, We need this, nothing is going to happen. The state and federal government also have to say, Were going to do this and have the political will to do it. Without that political will, without the stars aligning, I dont think you would see Newark as this national model." ___ This story has been corrected to show that the name of the organization that sued Newark is the Natural Resources Defense Council, not the National Resources Defense Council. Dantes De MonteCristo // Wikimedia ommons Ithaca, N.Y. (AP) Multiple unfounded bomb threats were made over the weekend at Ivy League campuses, university and law enforcement officials said. Cornell, Columbia and Brown universities had alerted students to threats Sunday and deemed campuses safe a few hours later. Evacuations were ordered in some buildings on the campuses. SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) A group says it has an agreement to buy a Savannah house that last year was labeled one of Georgia's most endangered historic sites The Historic Savannah Foundation announced Tuesday that it has a contract to purchase the Kiah House Museum, the Savannah Morning News reported. Virginia Kiah was a civil rights activist, artist and teacher who turned her home into a museum for African Americans children banned from Savannah's segregated institutions. There are a lot of vacant and distressed properties in Savannah, but there is probably not another structure right now that ... is more vital and imperative to save than this one, said Ryan Arvay, Historic Savannah Foundation's director of preservation and historic properties. It represents such an important part of a period in time in America that really wasnt that long ago. The foundation cant buy the home yet. Kiah died without a will and heirs are waiting on clearance to sell from Chatham County Probate Judge Tom Bordeaux. The 1910 home has been damaged by water and vandals. The Georgia Trust for Historic Presevation in 2020 listed the Kiah house as one of its places in peril. A committee of Savannah's Metropolitan Planning Commission on Thursday approved a historic marker for the home, which became a museum in 1959, after getting more than 150 letters in support. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. Its important that this house be preserved and Im happy we were able to approve the marker. Thats one step in the direction to getting this property recognized, said Kristopher Monroe, chair of the commission. A survey had earlier concluded the home was no longer architecturally significant because of changes made to support its use as a museum. That left the house more vulnerable to demolition after Kiah died in 2001. But Arvay says an updated survey recently classified the Kiah House Museum as a contributing structure to a historic district because of Kiah's cultural contributions. The significance of that house right now is its association with her and her story, Arvay said. Arvay said the foundation hasn't yet determined a use for the property. He said much of the home's contents have been removed, although some items are still inside. COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) Launching what he considers his most difficult reelection fight to date, U.S. Rep. Tom Rice says that voters may disagree with his vote this year to impeach President Donald Trump, but he hopes that it won't be enough to overshadow his other accomplishments for South Carolina's 7th District. I know that I did the right thing, Im happy with where I am, and Ill take the consequences of it, Rice told The Associated Press in an interview this week, ahead of his official campaign launch for a sixth term. Even maybe some of them that didnt like my vote, I think theyll appreciate my honesty and my effectiveness, and I can win them back over. But well see. On Monday, Rice will take that argument directly to voters in all eight counties of the 7th District, which stretches across South Carolina's northeastern corner. With agricultural, industrial and commercial areas, its heart is Myrtle Beach, one of the focuses of the state's multibillion-dollar tourism industry and a burgeoning base for some of South Carolina's most conservative voters. The framework of Rice's tough reelect was forged in January, when he was one of 10 House Republicans who joined Democrats in voting to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 violence at the U.S. Capitol. Trump was not convicted as a result of the Senate trial. The vote came as a surprise, as the Myrtle Beach congressman had always been a consistent supporter of the former president, representing an area that voted heavily for Trump in both presidential elections. Long a reliable backer of Trump, who campaigned with him, Rice voted 94% of the time in favor of Trump-backed legislation, according to FiveThirtyEight the highest percentage among South Carolinas delegation at that time. A day after his vote, Rice told AP it hurts my heart to have gone against the president, but he decided to back impeachment after seeing what he characterized as Trumps inaction during the riot. Since then, Republicans in his district and across the state have declared their displeasure with Rice, who has represented the 7th since its creation in 2012. The South Carolina GOP formally censured him to show disapproval over his vote, a step also taken by party committees across the country to punish many of the 10 House Republicans who supported Trumps impeachment. A dozen Republicans are seeking to challenge Rice in next summers GOP primary, according to federal election filings. Rice has led the pack in fundraising, bringing in more than $1.3 million. Another hopeful, veteran Graham Allen, has raised more than $750,000, Rices closest competitor in the money race. Last weekend, Republicans gathered at two separate events in Myrtle Beach, one headlined by prominent Trump surrogates Diamond and Silk, and former GOP congressional candidate Kimberly Klacik. A simultaneous gathering hosted by the state party featured notables including U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, considered a rising GOP star. Rice said he didn't attend either nor was he invited. If we run on our ideas, and not on allegiance to one very polarizing man, I think weve got the winning message, Rice said, of his hope for Republicans moving forward. And if we dont, I think were destined to fail. ... I hope we havent moved away from a party of ideas to a party of one man. Running on his record, Rice said he hopes voters will think of the districts falling unemployment rates during his tenure, and its rising job numbers. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. My focus is on jobs and American competitiveness, he said. Im real proud of what I got done. ... People can see the result, and I believe that will win the day. But for some, Rice said he knows it still comes down to the impeachment vote, and perhaps nothing else. But, he noted, while the issue has surfaced in many of the town halls hes held over the past year, he felt that more voters had thanked him for taking a stand than castigated him for opposing Trump. For people to say that Im not conservative because I voted to impeach Donald Trump, in fact that was a conservative vote, Rice said. The conservative wants to preserve our freedom and our rights that are guaranteed under the Constitution. On Friday, Rice told the AP that his argument to voters boiled down to hoping that they didn't put stock in the sole critique he said he's heard from his challengers. The only criticism of me and my performance that I hear from those folks is that I voted to impeach Donald Trump," he said. "And if thats all theyve got, that doesnt seem like much one vote, in 10 years. ___ Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://twitter.com/MegKinnardAP. ALBANY Teaching and graduate assistants are integral to the University at Albany, grading papers, drafting coursework and instructing classes. But some of them say they are so cash-strapped, they resort to using food pantries, working multiple jobs, urban foraging and wondering if their beat-up cars will survive weekend trips back to their hometowns. One grad student even donated their blood plasma for money. Many of us skip meals routinely and its very awful, Katie Parra said. Several dozen people protested at UAlbany on Sunday morning, carrying picket signs and chanting as hundreds of prospective students toured campus as part of Fall Preview Day. Parra, who teaches advanced behavioral neuroscience, was among the Albany Graduate Students Employees Union (GSEU) members talking to students and their guardians as they snaked through campus. At one point, protesters were asked to put away the bullhorns by college officials, many of whom were present at a nearby welcome tent as well as at other checkpoints designed to coral visitors. Great Dane? one organizer yelled, referring to the colleges mascot. More like great shame. A variety of vaguely-defined college fees, which can add hundreds of dollars in student costs each semester, are not restricted by the state Legislature or covered by the state's Excelsior Scholarship. The estimated cost of a four-year undergraduate education is $41,872. Yet some staffers make as little as $16,500 for a ten-month contract, with the mandatory "broad based student fees vacuuming up 10 to 15 percent of that sum, a practice many teaching and graduate assistants view as akin to wage theft. We are getting robbed of that first paycheck every semester, said Parra, who is 29. Teaching and graduate assistants are peeved, in part, because they contend they havent been told what the fees are being used for. University officials said in late-September the hikes would be used, in part, for much-needed high-tech equipment and laboratory improvements, and the hiring of new faculty. While broad-based fees differ for graduate and undergraduates, all University at Albany students pay those costs, as well as those at most college campuses. Prospective students were greeted on Sunday at Collins Circle by a banner showing a graduate worker being fed through an old-fashioned crank by a man wearing a sash that read executive council. Amid a state-imposed freeze on in-state tuition, the State University of New York has raised the tuition for out-of-state students and ramped up non-tuition fees for all students at four research universities, including the University at Albany. Some universities in the SUNY system, including Buffalo, have already abolished the fees for grad workers, union reps said, and they want UAlbany to follow suit. Others, including Stony Brook, have begun offering fee scholarships to graduate student employees. Graduate students who are appointed to graduate or teaching assistantships are unique in that they are both students and employees, which means graduate student employees pay fees not because they are employed by the university, but rather because they are students. Yet there is an important distinction between those two roles, college officials have said: The terms and conditions of their employment are collectively bargained with the state by GSEU. Sign up for The Knick Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter. GSEU said theyve repeatedly attempted to raise the issue with university leaders, but have been rebuffed. Over 600 graduate assistants and teachers dropped off a petition recently to school leadership. The university maintains this is not subject to bargaining, said Andrew Gill, GSEU's chief steward at UAlbany. They think this is a student issue. UAlbany does not negotiate with its bargaining units at the campus level, but rather at the state level similar to the process with other public employee unions. Gill, 30, said the solution can be simple: Enter bargaining negotiations or redistribute the funds back in the form of scholarships. Whatever we can do to get the fees to end, thats all we want, Gill said. UAlbany said they're committed to affordability, noting they increased doctoral student funding by $535,000 last year with another $582,000 in increases in the budget. That $1.1 million is in addition to the annual contractual salary increases paid to all graduate student employees represented by GSEU. "We are committed to exploring ways to continue to increase funding as we emerge from the pandemic recognizing, however, that COVID-19s impact on campus finances is ongoing," said Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, a university spokesperson. Parra said shes not worried about getting axed. They really depend on us, Parra said. We do so much of the work that tenured professors dont want to do. If we werent doing all that work, the whole system would fall apart. What follows is an excerpt from Leigh Hornbeck's Places & Spaces newsletter. Sign up here to get the latest real estate and design trends in upstate New York. Eli Hariton, a finalist on the last season of HGTVs "Design Star: Next Gen," will speak at 6 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 11, at the Opalka Gallery on Russell Sage College's Albany campus, 140 New Scotland Ave. Hariton is lead interior designer at TVL Creative in Denver. He was a designer and partner in a group that owned three New York City restaurants before he relocated to Colorado. His work reflects a playful mix of styles ranging from transitional and modern farmhouse to pop-deco and lux-punk. Hariton will speak about his career and work as part of Sages Artist Lecture Series, sponsored by the colleges Art + Design programs. The event is free and open to the public. All visitors to Russell Sage College are required to follow current mask guidelines, based on recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Guests older than 12 must provide documentation of full vaccination status. Authorities say a missing teenage girl from North Carolina was rescued in Kentucky after a driver reported seeing her in another car using hand gestures known on social media as signals of distress For copyright information, check with the distributor of this item, Ocala (Fla.) Star-Banner. A bridge and a cemetery are among the six properties being added to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places [November 06, 2021] Maxcom informs final results MEXICO CITY, Nov. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Maxcom Telecomunicaciones S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV: MAXCOM A, OTC: MXMTY) ("Maxcom" or the "Company") informs that Transtelco Holding, Inc. (the "Offeror") announced yesterday the final results of the previously announced cash tender offer (the "Notes Offer") to purchase any and all of the 8% Senior Secured Notes due 2024 (the "Notes") issued by Maxcom and the solicitation of consents to amend the indenture governing the Notes (the "Consent Solicitation") to effect certain amendments (the "Proposed Amendments")to the indenture governing the Notes. The Notes Offer expired on November 5, 2021, under the previously announced extension. According to information received from D.F. King & Co., Inc., the tender offer agent, as of the Maturity Date, an aggregate total amount of US$53,993,665 of the outstanding Notes, representing approximately 94.96% of the total value, have been validly tendered and not withdrawn pursuant to the Offer, for which the related consents have been granted (and not validly revoked) pursuant to the Consent Solicitation. As previously announced, the Notes Offer and the Consent Solicitation were made in connection with and are expressly conditioned upon the successful completion by Transtelco Acquisitions III, S. de RL de CV, Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada de Capital Variable, of the mandatory tender offer (the "Stocks Tender Offer") to acquire not less than 85% and up to all of the series "A" shares representing the capital stock of Maxcom in accordance with the Securities Market Law (the "LMV") and the General Provisions Applicable to Issuers and Other Participants in the Securities Market (the "Provisions"). In connection with the preceding, Maxcom announces that on November 5, 2007, the period of the Stock Offer ended, per the previously announced extension. Asa result, 264,176,066 ordinary, nominative shares, without par value, subscribed and fully paid Series "A" shares participated in the Offer, representing 95.55% of Maxcom's capital stock. The foregoing implies a change of control of the Company that triggers the mandatory redemption of the Junior Pay-in-Kind Notes (the "Junior PIK Notes"), for which a payment to the holders of the Junior PIK Notes of approximately US$7.6 million is estimated, assuming the implicit Equity Value generated in the acquisition of the Company. With these results, both bids exceeded the minimum participation requirements established by the offerors for their successful completion. With the successful conclusion of both processes, Maxcom takes an important step in strengthening its financial viability and the continuity of its operations, aiming to consolidate its value proposition in the medium and long term. To view the documents related to the Notes Tender Offer, please visit the Company's website: http://ri.maxcom.com/. Maxcom thanks the continued support of all its stakeholders and confirms its commitment to maintaining close communication with the investing public. About Transtelco Headquartered in El Paso, Texas, Transtelco is a leading global digital infrastructure solutions provider, which includes a state-of-the-art long-haul and metropolitan fiber network in the Southwestern U.S., Mexico and Latin America. It offers Dedicated Internet Access, Long-Haul & Metro Transport, Colocation and Telephony services to global telecom carriers and blue-chip enterprise customers. Transtelco's differentiated bi-national and bi-cultural approach allows it to consistently deliver superior results to customers and exceed expectations. Transtelco delivers services over its own infrastructure that spans over 15,000 miles from Los Angeles to Dallas and Tijuana to Mexico City through a unique network that provides route diversity, redundancy and protection. For more information, visit transtelco.net. About Maxcom Maxcom launched its commercial operations in May 1999, holding its headquarters in Mexico City. Maxcom is a facilities-based telecommunications provider that uses a "smart-build" approach to deliver last-mile connectivity, metropolitan and long-distance transportation services, colocations and other value-added services, both to the enterprise segment and to the national and international carrier segment. Maxcom provides its services through a fiber optic network of more than 8,500 kilometers, which allows it to have points of presence in the main cities of Mexico. The information in this press release is the exclusive responsibility of Maxcom Telecomunicaciones, SAB de CV, and has not been reviewed by the Mexican National Banking and Securities Commission (CNBV) or any other authority. The trading of these securities by an investor will be made under such investor's responsibility. View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/maxcom-informs-final-results-301418047.html SOURCE Maxcom Telecomunicaciones, S.A.B. de C.V. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 06, 2021] CGTN: Global Action Initiative 2021 - Project Earth ("Global Action Initiative 2021 Project Earth" airs from November 2 to 6) BEIJING, Nov. 6, 2021 /CNW/ -- China Media Group's week-long event "Global Action Initiative 2021 Project Earth" has highlighted the gravity of the climate crisis, heard from global leaders, scientists, young activists, and explored ideas and solutions. Our Day Five program focused on young people about their ideas and innovations. At the end of the show, we released our declaration the "Global Media Strategic Framework on Climate Action". It appeals for immediate actions to reach global targets on curbing carbon emissions. The declaration also proposes the creation of a Global Alliance of Media on Climate to build a framework for climate action that would include: - Prioritizing climate-related reporting to raise public awareness. - Sharing resources on climate reporting to better fulfill the role of media's social reponsibility. - Collaborating on amplifying young people's voices to engage youth as a major part of the climate crises solution. - Strengthening collaboration across all media platforms to become a unified source for providing credible information. - Sharing media resources with academic and business communities, as well as international NGOs and for-profit organizations, to augment climate issue initiatives. - Working together to ensure authenticity in journalism to combat climate-crisis misinformation and demagoguery. In their keynote speeches on Day Five program, UN Resident Coordinator in China, Siddharth Chatterjee, spoke about the need for a seismic shift in innovation, investment and technology. World Wildlife Fund's Global Leader of Climate and Energy, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who is also the former Peruvian minister of environment, warned that we are in a "decisive decade" as the world strives for net zero emissions and a resilient economy. Qin Gang, China's ambassador to the U.S., took questions from students from China and the United States about climate change. We also heard from a senior World Bank official, a Nobel Prize winning economist, and professor at Harvard University. Our shows on the first four days featured the impacts of climate change on the global environment, the importance of biodiversity, media's responsibility and individuals' actions of global citizens, with heads of state and government, senior officials from the UN, IMF and World Bank and climate experts sharing their perspectives. A significant part of our coverage includes five documentaries "Zero Hour". They examine the impact of extreme weather patterns and how young people across the world are finding creative ways to mitigate the climate crisis. For more information about "Global Action Initiative 2021 Project Earth", please follow https://america.cgtn.com/gai/gai.html View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cgtn-global-action-initiative-2021---project-earth-301418050.html SOURCE CGTN [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] [November 07, 2021] REEF Leads Global Expansion of Virtual Kitchens with the Acquisition of United Arab Emirates-Based Kitchens Platform "iKcon" REEF Technology Inc. ("REEF"), the largest operator of delivery kitchens, logistics, and proximity hubs in North America, today announced its entrance to the Middle East and North Africa region through the full acquisition of iKcon Restaurant LLC (Innovative Kitchen Concepts). The acquisition of iKcon marks REEF's first major transaction in the MENA market and is part of its broader strategy toward global expansion. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211107005121/en/ "We are excited to welcome iKcon and its team members to REEF's global proximity platform," said Tommy Rosen, Head of Development at REEF. "The Middle East and North Africa are crucial markets in the rapidly evolving F&B and retail industries, and our acquisition of iKcon will position REEF to become a leader in the region." With a network of innovative kitchens in prime locations and over 800 employees, iKcon utilizes its modern facilities, smart technology solutions and highly qualified chefs and customer service teams to extend the reach of their portfolio of +100 well-known local, regional and international restaurant partners such as Just Salad, YO Sushi, Dunkin', California Pizza Kitchen, German Doner Kebab and local hero brands such as PINZA, and Pizza Di Rocco. "Since its inception, iKcon has consistently focused on operational excellence and building a unique customer-centric business model," said Khalid Baareh, Co-Founder ad CEO at iKcon. "The past three years have taught us the importance of pursuing our vision with commitment and passion, driven by a world-class team. Today, we are thrilled to join the REEF team and to continue our journey of bringing innovation to neighborhoods everywhere. REEF's leadership in proximity will play a great role in accelerating our regional expansion plans. We are fully committed to driving the development of REEF in MENA." REEF, backed by a group of investors including Mubadala Capital, the asset management subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, L.P., UBS Asset Management and Target (News - Alert) Global, focuses on transforming urban spaces into proximity hubs that create jobs and bring new goods, services, and experiences to neighborhoods across the globe. REEF has already established a presence in Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the international financial center of Abu Dhabi, with plans to continue growing throughout the region. To learn more about REEF, visit www.reeftechnology.com. About REEF REEF transforms urban spaces into community hubs that create jobs and bring new goods, services and experiences to the neighborhood. With an ecosystem of 5,000 locations and a team that's over 18,000 strong, REEF is the largest operator of parking real estate and delivery restaurants in North America. By connecting the world to your block, we're making the place you live, the place you love to be. About iKcon iKcon is a leading Dubai-based tech-enabled delivery kitchen operator focused on the MENA region. It was founded in early 2019, by Khalid Baareh and Kareem Abughazaleh, to address the rising demand for food delivery. iKcon provides kitchen-as-a-service solutions to restaurants and food operators allowing them to rapidly scale their operations and expand their delivery coverage and customer reach. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20211107005121/en/ [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ] Sadly, there's no shelter from the rising level of local violence in the suburbs. Here's the latest local tragedy in an otherwise peaceful location . . . "Around 6:30 p.m. officers were dispatched to the Sonic parking in the 3700 block of NE Ralph Powell road lot on a call of shorts fired. Upon arrival, officers found a single victim dead in the parking lot of the business. Police say the suspect is a male and fled the scene. Neither the suspect nor the victim were customers or employees. They met up at Sonic, but its unclear why . . ." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com news links . . . Lee's Summit Police Department investigating homicide in Sonic Parking lot on Saturday evening by: Zoe Jones Posted: / Updated: LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo. - The Lee's Summit Police Department is investigating a homicide that happened on Saturday evening. Around 6:30 p.m. officers were dispatched to the Sonic parking in the 3700 block of NE Ralph Powell road lot on a call of shorts fired. Homicide investigation underway at Lee's Summit Sonic SOURCE: D. Jordan The Lee's Summit Police Department is investigating a homicide in the 3700 block of Northeast Ralph Powell Road. Officers say that the victim was located in the parking lot of a Sonic.Police have not released any other information at this time.KMBC 9 News will bring you more information once updates are available. Lee's Summit police investigating homicide at NE Ralph Powell Road Sonic KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Lee's Summit police are investigating a homicide in the 3700 block of NE Ralph Powell Road. Officers were dispatched around 6:30 p.m. on the report of shots fire. Upon arrival, one victim was found deceased in the Sonic parking lot, according to LSPD Sgt. Chris Depue. Lee's Summit Police Investigating A Shooting At Sonic Located On NE Ralph Powell Road. By Sgt Chris Depue On Saturday, 11/6/2021 at approximately 6:30 p.m. Lee's Summit Police were dispatched to the Sonic parking lot located in the 3700 block of NE Ralph Powell Road, Lee's Summit, on the report of shots fired. When officers arrived, they found a single victim deceased in the parking lot of the business. Lee's Summit police investigating homicide after body found outside Sonic LEE'S SUMMIT, MO (KCTV) --- Police in Lee's Summit are investigating a homicide in the 3700 block of NE Ralph Powell Road. A body was discovered outside of the Sonic. Police say the victim was a male, but do not have an age or name at the time. Developing . . . Have to be honest . . . We're not exactly sure how we feel about this one. Thankfully, TKC has never "slipped one past the goalie" so the vaxx for young students isn't a pressing concern in this basement blog HQ. However, there's no denying it's an important issue and trend that deserves consideration. Here are some of the more important TKC news links on the topic . . . Children's Mercy Hospital kicks off COVID-19 vaccine clinic for hundreds of Kansas City-area kids Young children in Kansas City lined up this weekend to be one of the first to get their dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Children's Mercy Hospital held a vaccine clinic for children between the ages of 5-11. The 600 available slots for the clinic at its Overland Park location rapidly filled up in less than two hours after it opened. Children's Mercy Hospital hosts vaccine clinic after 5-11 year olds get approved for vaccine KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Since the CDC approved Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine for 5-11 year-olds, parents have been scrambling to book appointments for the shot. When Children's Mercy Hospital announced it would offer the shot at its vaccine clinic on Saturday November 6 th, the appointments booked up quickly. Children's Mercy vaccinates 600 kids at first vaccination clinic after CDC's new recommendation OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Children's Mercy Hospital hosted its first vaccination clinic for anyone between the ages of five to 22 at its Overland Park location Saturday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended this week to roll out the COVID-19 vaccine for those between five and 11 years old. Developing . . . Social justice protest didn't take the weekend off . . . Here's the worthwhile overview . . . "Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker has previously commented that the Missouri Attorney Generals office has been disruptive in her pursuit to correct a mistake. Strickland will be in court on Monday." Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com news links . . . Exonerees, supporters rally for Kevin Strickland on eve of court hearing KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) --- Supporters of exonerees from across the country rallied for Kevin Strickland on Saturday. Strickland has served more than four decades in prison for murders he swears he did not commit. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said she's concluded that Strickland is innocent. National Organization of Exonerees speaks at Kevin Strickland rally Saturday KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The National Organization of Exonerees spoke Saturday outside of the Jackson County Courthouse to bring attention to Kevin Strickland's trial that's set to begin Monday. Members held signs that read "Free Kevin" at the rally. Throughout the course of Strickland's legal proceedings, the National Organization of Exonerees has continued to speak out on his innocence. 'Free Kevin Strickland, free my brother': Warren Thornton wants his brother home after 43 years KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Warren Thornton is a man who misses his big brother. "Free Kevin Strickland, you've done enough hurt to our family," Thornton said. "Let him go, he's on the last end of his life already, so let him out." After over 40 years, Thornton just wants his brother to come home. Kevin Strickland supporters host rally out of Jackson County Courthouse KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Days before an evidentiary hearing for Kevin Strickland, his supporters hosted a rally outside of the Jackson County Courthouse. Strickland is in prison for a triple murder he said he didn't commit. In late August, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters baker, filed a motion to have his conviction reversed. Developing . . . Sorry, but if TKC uses the term "illegal aliens" in the post title headline my mom will start throwing shoes at me as I inevitably leave the basement . . . Nevertheless . . . Americans paying college tuition for illegals/undocumented sparks resentment and anger amongst even the most compassionate conservatives. For instance, the conversation about reparations for illegal aliens threatens to spark a right-wing revolution in states along the Southern U.S. border . . . Biden angrily defends DOJ plans for $450K migrant separation payouts President Biden flared in anger Saturday as he spoke in favor of his administration's plan to award $450,000 payments to migrants separated from their families after illegally crossing the US border - three days after he called a report on the payouts "garbage." Here's another tragic juxtaposition . . . American high school students are confronting a horrific opioid crisis, COVID online class switcheroos, a bitter debate over CRT and worsening economic prospects . . . It's not unreasonable that the idea of ambitious undocumented/illegal immigrants earning support for higher education would spark some level of bitterness. It's better to acknowledge the inevitability of those feelings rather than rebuke them outright and without conversation. Fact is . . . College and universities are becoming impractical for a larger number of workers and financial aid is ALSO available for American students in the form of loans that won't embitter scholars until their late thirties -- When it's far too late to do anything about . . . But I digress . . . Here's the money line from a hopeful missive . . . For undocumented students, some of the conventional paths to finding college financial aid dont apply. They are excluded from many forms of state and federal aid, and even some private scholarships. But opportunities do exist, and there are resources to help you find them. When (undocumented students) feel defeated, its like, OK, well, lets talk about what we do have access to, said Alejandra Perez, director of the scholarship program at the Greater Kansas City Hispanic Development Fund. And just dont give up. A practical concern . . . Does NPR have a lot of undocumented listeners??? Judging by the sounds coming from some of my favorite barrio dives . . . My guess is no. And so most of this report merely hopes to assuage white guilt or serve as fodder to annoy any manual laborers who come into contact with local progressives . . . Good times. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com news link . . . Right now we want to share more follow-up on continued push back against vaxx orders as numbers decline and Americans don't seem scared of Euro-trash talk regarding the latest pandemic threat. Here's the upshot from Jeff City and the leading Republican Senate candidate so far . . . Broadly speaking, its an unconstitutional, unlawful, unwise, unprecedented, breathtaking federal overreach, said (Missouri AG) Schmitt in an interview with St. Louis Public Radio on Friday. Theres no authority anywhere in the constitution or any federal statute that gives the Biden administration the authority to force the vaccination of tens of millions of Americans. There just isn't. More to the point . . . Given that even the Kansas Democratic moderate guv is pushing back . . . It's safe to say that the federal COVID vaxx mandate is unpopular across the nation. It seems that Americans are willing to tolerate public health guidance and encouragement, not orders and draconian requirements. Generally, when given a CHOICE most people will try to do the right thing and will even sacrifice for the greater good of their neighbors and community. The politicization of the vaxx is unfortunate because even former Prez Trump is walking a tightrope and encouraging people to get the shot whilst respecting their freedom. However . . . Ordering an injection is a clearly tough sell and virtually unprecedented at the federal level. Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com news links . . . Missouri's Eric Schmitt says GOP attorneys general can stop Biden vaccine mandate Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt followed through on his months-long promise to sue over President Joe Biden's plan to require COVID-19 vaccination or testing at larger businesses. And the Republican believes that the GOP attorneys general who signed on to the suit will succeed in proving that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule went beyond what the federal government is allowed to do. Is a federal vaccine mandate legal? KU's constitutional law expert says the answer is not so simple More workers who are unvaccinated will now be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine by Jan. 4. The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration released a new rule on Thursday that would force employees in private companies to get vaccinated or face weekly testing. 11 States File Suit Against Biden's Business Vaccine Mandate By DAVID A. LIEB, Associated Press JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) - Attorneys general in 11 states filed suit Friday against President Joe Biden's administration, challenging a new vaccine requirement for workers at companies with more than 100 employees. The lawsuit filed in the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Lawsuits over workplace vaccine rule focus on states' rights JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- More than two dozen Republican-led states filed lawsuits Friday challenging President Joe Biden's vaccine requirement for private companies, setting up a high-stakes legal showdown pitting federal authority against states' rights. The requirement issued Thursday by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration applies to businesses with more than 100 employees. More than half of US states are suing to stop Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate At least 26 states on Friday filed or joined lawsuits opposing President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate. "This mandate is unconstitutional, unlawful, and unwise," said a filing by a coalition of 11 states. The White House on Thursday made official its plan to require vaccines for employees of big companies. UPDATE . . . Federal court of appeals issues temporary halt to Biden vaccine mandate A federal court issued Texas a temporary victory in its lawsuit against the Biden administration's coronavirus vaccine mandate issuing a stay on the controversial federal government regulation in Texas. "Yesterday, I sued the Biden Admin over its unlawful OSHA vax mandate," Texas' Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton tweeted Saturday. "WE WON. Developing . . . Veda Yowell, 90, of Clinton, passed away on Wednesday, November 17, 2021, at IU West Hospital in Avon, surrounded by her loving family. Veda was born in Parke County on August 30, 1931, to Harry and Angeline Ladiha Crossley. She married her husband, Fred, on July 22, 1949, and together, they As far as I know you are allowed to enter Poland because you will cross internal Schengen border where there is no passport or sanitary inspection. The below rules are for arrivals from outside Schengen: BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) As COVID-19 ravaged Hungary in April, Budapest resident Akos Sipos received his second vaccine dose, believing he was doing the right thing for his own health and to help end the pandemic. But Sipos, 46, soon discovered that the vaccine he received, Russia's Sputnik V, disqualified him from traveling to a number of other countries where it hadn't been approved. The nations include the United States, which is pushing forward with a new air travel policy that will make Sipos and many like him ineligible to enter. I thought its better to get Sputnik today than a Western vaccine at some uncertain future time," Sipos, who works as a search engine optimization specialist, said of his initial decision to receive the jab. "But I couldnt have known at that time that I wouldnt be able to travel with Sputnik. Starting Monday, the United States plans to reopen to foreign travelers who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. But there's a catch: non-immigrant adults need to have received vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or which received an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization. That leaves many hopeful travelers across the globe who have taken full courses of vaccines widely used in other parts of the world Sputnik V and the China-produced CanSino jab, in particular scrambling to get reinoculated with shots approved by U.S. authorities. Two other Chinese vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been approved by the WHO and will thus be accepted for travel into the U.S. Mexico received nearly 12 million doses of CanSino and almost 20 million of Sputnik V after shipments began earlier this year. Residents who got the required two shots of those vaccines now are looking to top up with shots of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines, hoping that will make them eligible to cross the border. They screwed those of us who got this vaccine, said Rosenda Ruiz, 52, a public relations manager in Mexico City who received Sputnik V. There are lots of Mexicans who want to travel, but we cant. I am thinking of getting whatever other vaccine I can get. While Sputnik V is used in around 70 countries worldwide, it has still not been approved by either the FDA or the U.N. health agency. Nearly 1 million people have received the vaccine in Hungary, a Central European country of around 10 million. Hungary was one of only two countries in the 27-member European Union to roll out the Russian vaccine. Fewer than 20,000 people received it in Slovakia. Judit Molnar, president of the Association of Hungarian Travel Agencies, says so many Hungarians being unable to travel to the United States or even to some countries in the EU which don't accept the jab has had an effect on her industry. We see that in the last few months, travelers are increasingly asking us when they can travel to America," said Molnar, who is also president of the OTP Travel agency. "These travelers are saying they really hope the situation will change and that the United States will accept the Sputnik vaccine. There are many people who would like to travel and in Hungary, many people were vaccinated with Sputnik, she said. Citizens of Russia, where use of Sputnik V is most widespread, also are seeking Western-approved shots so they can travel abroad. Faced with the prospect of being turned away from flights, Russians have booked tours to Serbia, which has authorized use of the Pfizer-BioNTech, China's Sinopharm and the AstraZeneca vaccines in addition to Sputnik V. Russia, which unveiled Sputnik V with much fanfare as the world's first registered vaccine in August 2020, criticized U.S. plans to leave the vaccine off its list of approved shots. There are exactly zero reasons for such decisions," Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Russian Duma, or lower house of parliament. "The effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine has been proven not only by specialists, but also by its practical application. But the World Health Organization still is reviewing the vaccine, and months of holdups make it unclear when Sputnik V might receive an emergency use listing. Hungary's government has made bilateral agreements with 24 countries including Russia, Serbia, Mongolia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan on mutually recognizing proof of vaccination, regardless of vaccine type. Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Associated Press that it is open to a similar agreement with the United States, but currently there is no ongoing negotiation." Sipos, the search engine specialist, said that while he was confident in Sputnik Vs efficacy, he recently sought a Western-approved booster shot, Moderna, so he could travel where he wants. I felt deceived because they accept Sputnik in more than 60 countries in the world, but in tons of other countries they dont, he said. Silvia Morales, 38, a public high school teacher in Monterrey, Mexico, said she recently received a Moderna shot after hearing that the U.S. government wouldnt recognize her CanSino vaccine. She said she needed to have peace of mind about her level of protection against the virus. But I also love traveling to the United States," she said. ___ Marcos Martinez Chacon in Monterrey, Mexico, and Jim Heintz in Moscow, contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP stories on the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic November 30th is an important date for those in this country who are vaccinated with Astraze Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is convinced that Ukrainians will never forget the feat of the fighters who liberated Kyiv from Nazi invaders. According to Ukrinform, he wrote this on Twitter on the occasion of the 78th anniversary of the liberation of the capital of Ukraine. "The liberation of Kyiv is a story of the boundless indifference and cruelty of 'great' leaders and the boundless feat of great fighters who liberated the city from the Nazis. We will never forget them! We are grateful to them forever!" Zelensky said. "Eternal memory and glory to all those who liberated Kyiv from Nazi invaders," he added. According to the website of the head of state, on the 78th anniversary of the liberation of Kyiv from Nazi invaders, Zelensky laid flowers at the National Museum-Preserve "Battle for Kyiv 1943" in the village of Novi Petrivtsi, Kyiv region. The flower-laying ceremony was also attended by Verkhovna Rada Chairman Ruslan Stefanchuk, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Head of the President's Office Andriy Yermak, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksiy Danilov, and Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov. Those present observed a moment of silence in memory of the fallen liberators of Kyiv. op Some half a million Afghans have been internally displaced by violence this year alone. UNHCR/Edris Lutfi UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is concerned about the prevailing humanitarian needs within Afghanistan, and urges support to ensure that all those requiring assistance are not forgotten. The situation on the ground across the country remains extremely fluid. While widespread fighting has decreased since the takeover of the country by the Taliban on Sunday, the full impact of the evolving situation is not yet clear. Many Afghans are extremely anxious about what the future holds. Bolstered support for the humanitarian response inside Afghanistan itself is urgently needed to deliver assistance to the Afghan people, including some half a million displaced this year alone. The vast majority of Afghans are not able to leave the country through regular channels. The footage taken a few days ago of crowds at the airport has shocked the world, speaking powerfully to the sense of fear and uncertainty among many Afghans. UNHCR welcomes the efforts of several states to protect at-risk Afghan nationals through bilateral evacuation programmes. These bilateral evacuation programmes should not, however, overshadow or substitute for an urgent, and wider international humanitarian response. Nor should these hamper or preclude the possibility for Afghans the right to seek asylum in other countries. All states and this applies to countries both within and outside the region must preserve the right to seek asylum for Afghans arriving through regular or spontaneous means. UNHCR is also concerned that many are confusing these bilateral evacuation programmes from Afghanistan with UNHCRs traditional refugee resettlement, which is completely unrelated. UNHCR does not transfer citizens from their own countries to other states. In the past week, several states have announced resettlement or evacuation programmes respectively for Afghans at risk. The full details of these initiatives have not yet been announced. UNHCR remains concerned about the risk of human rights violations against civilians in this evolving context, including women and girls. As of today, those who may be in danger have no clear way out. UNHCR is calling on countries neighbouring Afghanistan to keep their borders open in light of the evolving crisis in Afghanistan. Some 200 UNHCR colleagues, both national and international, remain on the ground in Afghanistan as of today. We are continuing to work with 18 local non-government partners with some 900 staff throughout the country. At present, we are able to access all provinces, and are working in some two-thirds of all districts. Together with the wider UN country team, we are committed to staying and delivering aid to the Afghan people for as long as we have access to populations in need and can ensure safety for our staff. Since the beginning of this year, we have provided emergency assistance to 230,000 people, including cash assistance, shelter kits, hygiene support and other essential relief items. Protection monitoring and needs assessments are ongoing for some half a million displaced Afghans, 80 per cent of whom are women and children. We call on donors to remain steadfast in their support for humanitarian operations in Afghanistan and are also appealing for support. UNHCRs Supplementary Appeal for the Afghanistan Situation highlights US$62.8 million as urgent needs to support the response for internally displaced people in Afghanistan as well as preparedness in Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries. These requirements are part of the US$351 million requirements for the Afghanistan situation, which remains drastically underfunded at 43 per cent. For more information on this topic, please contact: Rohingya refugee children play after heavy rainfall in a camp in Bangladesh. Monsoon rains and strong winds caused flash floods and landslides in camps in Cox's Bazar in July. UNHCR/Amos Halder There is now a clear link between climate-related emergencies and forced displacement, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, said today, imploring leaders to change words to action and step up support for people forced to flee, and their hosts, to avert and mitigate loss and damage in the most vulnerable regions. As the UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) enters its final week, and focuses on adaptation, UNHCR called for more assistance to the countries and communities most impacted by the climate emergency yet most neglected in terms of support. The focus needs to be channeled to community-based adaptation projects to help the millions grappling with the catastrophic effects of climate change, many of whom have been displaced, often multiple times. Most of the people we support are from countries on the front lines of the climate emergency or they are being hosted in states equally impacted, said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. They face climate-related disasters like floods, droughts and desertification. This destroys livelihoods, stokes conflict, and has forced people to move. We urgently need new thinking, innovation, funding from the wealthiest, and political will just to contain the situation let alone improve things. In Glasgow, UNHCRs Special Advisor on Climate Action, Andrew Harper, is highlighting the impact of climate change on the displaced. Ninety per cent of refugees under UNHCRs mandate and 70 per cent of the internally displaced are from vulnerable countries least ready to adapt. Millions more are forced from their homes every year in disasters. Mr. Harper will highlight how climate change is already amplifying vulnerabilities in many regions that host displaced people. In Afghanistan, rising temperatures and droughts have exacerbated the effects of 40 years of war, worsening food shortages in a country with over 3.5 million people internally displaced. In Mozambique, insurgency has forced 730,000 to flee as the country reels from cyclones. In the Sahel, temperatures are rising 1.5 times faster than the rest of the world, and climate-related impacts are increasing competition for resources in areas where armed groups already exploit weak governance, poverty, and ethnic tensions. Supporting the UN Integrated Strategy for the Sahel, UNHCR has brought together predictive analytics experts under an inter-agency project to anticipate how climate change will impact risks, and to support development, humanitarian and peace-building efforts. UNHCR works in 130 countries delivering protection and assistance, and supporting displaced and host communities to adapt and create solutions in the increasingly inhospitable climate. We operate in many areas already experiencing the devastating impact of the 1.5-degree temperature rise, Mr. Harper said. We cant wait for more COPs and more unfulfilled commitments. The displaced and their hosts need help now to build resilience to resist the looming increase in extreme weather events. Mr. Grandi added: Forced displacement is among the most devastating human consequences of climate change and shows the deep inequalities in our world. Partnering with those already suffering the effects of climate change, especially those uprooted from home, is critical to successful solutions. But they need international support, and they need it now. Notes to editors: UNHCR has been working with hosts and refugees to support mitigation where possible. In Bangladesh, UNHCR and partners have worked with Rohingya refugees to plant fast-growing trees to reverse deforestation. In Cameroon, refugees who fled violence in Nigeria now help to implement the Great Green Wall, a project that calls for an 8,000-kilometre barrier of vegetation across Africa to combat the effects of climate change. UNHCR has also pledged to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions and minimize damage to the environment. To better protect people who have already fled from conflict and whose lives are being devastated by an increasingly violent climate, UNHCR is calling on States to make all possible efforts to curb the devastating humanitarian consequences of the climate emergency by taking the following actions: Increase financial, technological, and capacity support to avert, minimize and address displacement related to the adverse effects of climate change. Drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avert worst-case scenarios, avoid devastating consequences, including displacement. States must stick to their commitment to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and secure global net-zero by mid-century. Provide support to vulnerable countries and displaced communities who have contributed least to climate change but have the fewest resources to prepare and adapt. This includes increasing access to sustainable and predictable climate financing to scale up prevention and preparedness measures. Such funding would help avert, minimize and address displacement related to climate change as a form of loss and damage. Ensure the inclusion, meaningful participation and leadership of displaced voices in climate research, adaptation and mitigation efforts. Mr. Harper and Ms Mahmoud will represent UNHCR at COP26 from 7-9 November and will address media on Monday 8 November from 12-12.30, Press Conference Zone H: Press Conference Room Giant's Causeway. The briefing will also be live streamed. Emthital Mahmoud, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, will also attend COP26 to represent refugees. For more information, please contact the following spokespeople: A plane carrying winter relief from the UN Refugee Agencys global stockpiles in Dubai is landing this afternoon in Kabul, Afghanistan. The UNHCR-chartered plane took off from Sharjah earlier today, arriving in Kabul at 15:30 hours local time (1200 hours Geneva time), carrying 33 tons of winterization kits for displaced Afghans. It was the first of three UNHCR flights, with the next two scheduled to land in the Afghan capital on 4 and 7 November. Humanitarian needs are rising rapidly in Afghanistan ahead of winter, when temperatures can dip to -25C. Many displaced families lack proper shelter while some of those who have recently returned to their places of origin have found their homes unfit for the cold season. Weighing 25kg, each winterization kit contains flooring, partitions, and other items to improve tent insulation against the cold. The kits also provide heat resistant protection to enable the installation of a stove. Conflict and insecurity have displaced 3.5 million Afghans inside the country, including some 700,000 forced from their homes so far this year. UNHCR is rushing to provide winter assistance to some 500,000 displaced Afghans, returnees and local host communities by the end of 2021. UNHCR continues to distribute other much needed humanitarian assistance to displaced Afghans. Nearly half a million have received assistance so far this year, including emergency shelter kits, food rations, blankets, kitchen sets, stoves, solar panels, solar lanterns, and cash for the most vulnerable. We are using land, sea and air routes to bring humanitarian relief into Afghanistan and other countries in the region so we can respond to the increasing needs. Further relief supplies have also been prepositioned in Termez, Uzbekistan, ready to be trucked into Afghanistan as needed. As we continue to scale up our humanitarian response, more resources are urgently needed to reach all those who will need help to survive the harsh winter ahead. UNHCR appeals to the international community to urgently increase financial contributions to assist displaced Afghans, both within and outside the country, who remain extremely vulnerable. In addition to emergency relief for the internally displaced, UNHCR also continues to work in communities where former refugees have returned, by investing in infrastructure including education, health, livelihoods and shelter. For more information on this topic, please contact: In Kabul, Babar Baloch, [email protected] , +41 79 513 9549 , +41 79 513 9549 In Bangkok (Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific), Kasita Rochanakorn, [email protected] , +66 64 932 0803 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Some Boomers are technologically challenged. Going online, we leave skid marks across the misinformation superhighway. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on. Get started! (@FahadShabbir) CHISINAU (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 03rd November, 2021) Moldova may raise the issue of restructuring the Moldovagaz debt with Russian's Gazprom in the wake of an audit of the company's gas debt, Moldovan Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Andrei Spinu has said. "We do not have much time, we have to conduct the audit in 4-5 months. Then we will decide if there is a possibility of repaying the debt within five years. If not, we will have to negotiate with Gazprom and ask for debt restructuring," Spinu told the Moldova 1 broadcaster. The minister stressed that the government denies any possibility of it assuming Moldovagaz's debt, saying that the issue should be settled between the two companies. On October 22, the Moldovan parliament declared a state of emergency in the country due to the energy crisis. Late last week, the Moldovan authorities made a deal with Gazprom to extend the gas deliveries contract for five years, with Moldovagaz undertaking the obligation to carry out a debt audit in 2022. (@FahadShabbir) NEW DELHI, Nov. 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Nov, 2021 ) --:Authorities in the Indian capital region Delhi Saturday said they were on alert in the wake of a spike in Zika virus cases in the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh. On Saturday, 13 new cases were reported in Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur district, which took the case tally to 79 in the state during the past two weeks. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia Saturday said his government was alert and watchful of the developments. "Our system is on alert," Sisodia said. "If any case is reported, we will tackle it. " Uttar Pradesh shares a border with Delhi and thousands of people commute to and back from the capital region. Authorities in Uttar Pradesh have deputed municipal corporation teams to the affected areas to tackle the situation. The teams are carrying out inspections and taking required measures like fogging to destroy mosquito breeding points. All government hospitals in the state have also been put on high alert , and surveillance has been intensified to control and identify the cases of Zika virus infection. (@FahadShabbir) Rustavi, Georgia, Nov 6 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Nov, 2021 ) :Thousands of Georgians rallied Saturday for the jailed opposition leader and ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili as fears grew for his health because of a hunger strike lasting several weeks. Waving Georgian flags and chanting Saakashvili's name, protesters gathered on Saturday evening outside the prison in Georgia's southeastern city of Rustavi, where the former president is being held. Georgia's pro-Western reformer president from 2004-2013, Saakashvili was arrested on October 1 on his return from exile in Ukraine. He has refused food for 37 days to protest his imprisonment, which he says is politically motivated. The jailing of the country's foremost opposition leader has further fuelled a protracted political crisis that gripped Georgia last year after the opposition denounced fraud in parliamentary elections won narrowly by the ruling Georgian Dream party. The protesters set up a dozen of tents outside the prison in Rustavi, vowing round-the-clock permanent protests until Saakashvili is transferred to a hospital, as recommended by medics. "Saakashvili's life must be saved," Nika Melia, the chairman of his United National Movement -- the country's main opposition party -- told the crowd. "We give the government 24 hours to transfer him to a civilian hospital." "If the demand is not met, all of Georgia will gather on Monday in (Tbilisi's) Freedom Square," he said. "Our struggle will be unrelenting, peaceful." He ridiculed as a "fairytale" claims by Georgia's state security service that Saakashvili was plotting a coup from prison. One of the demonstrators, actor Bachi Valishvili, 26, said: "The Georgian government is leading us into an abyss of tyranny. We demand our democracy back." "We demand Georgia's third president be transferred to a proper clinic and treated adequately, so that his life is saved," he added. "We will not stand by and wait for the man to die, we will not let our democracy die." - 'Serious complications looming' - In a statement released through his lawyers, Saakashvili said Saturday that his "health condition has significantly worsened and serious complications are looming". Doctors have said Saakashvili faces an imminent risk of death as he has an underlying blood disorder that makes his hunger strike particularly dangerous. But Georgia's health ministry has rejected their recommendation to hospitalise him. Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has said the former president will be transferred "if need be" to a prison medical facility. According to the country's rights ombudsperson Nino Lomjaria such a facility fails to meet hospitalisation criteria defined by medics. Lomjaria also criticised as "wrong" justice ministry's claims that Saakashvili was consuming food. She said in a statement that Saakashvili "has been on an uninterrupted hunger strike since October 1 and is not eating food". "On medics' request, he had been taking small amounts of juices and purees containing minerals, which can't be assessed as foodstuff." Garibashvili sparked an uproar recently by saying that Saakashvili "has the right to commit suicide" and that the government had been forced to arrest him because he refused to quit politics. In the largest anti-government demonstration in a decade, tens of thousands rallied last month in Tbilisi to demand Saakashvili's release. Mass pro-Saakashvili rallies were also held in several major cities across Georgia. Critics have accused Georgian Dream of using criminal prosecutions to punish political opponents and journalists. RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 5th Nov, 2021 ) :As many as 40 new dengue positive patients arrived at the City allied hospitals during the last 24 hours, while six patients were critical at Holy Family Hospital(HFH). This was stated by District Coordinator Epidemics Prevention and Control, Dr Sajjad Mehmood, here on Friday. "This year around 2900 dengue cases were brought to the three public sector hospitals of the city, who were provided with the required treatment and 2827 discharged after recovery". During the last 24 hours, he informed that the HFH had registered 18 cases, District Headquarters Hospital(DHQ) 10, while 12 patients were registered with Benazir Bhutto Hospital(BBH). "Presently, 58 dengue patients are under treatment in HFH out of which 33 are positive, ten positive out of 13 in BBH and 30 confirmed cases out of the total 43 admitted in DHQ hospital," Dr Sajjad said. He added that there were 274 beds available at the allied hospitals to deal with the dengue patients, including 175 beds at HFH,69 in DHQ hospital and 30 in Benazir Bhutto Hospital, while 114 were occupied yet. The health officer expressed the hope that in the coming days, the number of dengue patients would witness a decline as the weather gets cooler, which was not suitable for the survival of the dengue mosquito. Sajjad advised the residents to be careful during the wee hours and evening as it was a suitable time for a mosquito bite. KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Nov, 2021 ) :As many as one more patient of coronavirus died overnight lifting the death toll to 7,596 and 225 new cases emerged when 13,653 tests were conducted. This was stated by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in a statement issued here on Sunday. He said that one more patient of COVID-19 lost his life lifting the death toll to 7,596 that constituted 1.6 percent death rate. Shah said that 13,653 samples were tested which detected 225 cases that constituted 1.6 percent current detection rate. He said that so far 6,510,470 tests have been conducted against which 470,941 cases were diagnosed, of them 95.8 percent or 451,327 patients have recovered, including 250 overnight. CM said that currently 12,018 patients were under treatment, of them 11,799 were in home isolation, 20 at isolation centers and 199 at different hospitals. He said that the condition of 196 patients was stated to be critical, including 13 shifted to ventilators. Out of 225 new cases, 63 have been detected from Karachi, including 21 from South and Korangi each, 15 East, 3 Malir and Central each. Thatta has 30, Hyderabad 24, Nausheroferoze and Tando Muhammad Khan 20 each, Tharparkar 15, Jamshoro and Sanghar 10 each, Mirpurkhas, Tando Allahyar and Sujawal 7 each, Larkana 6, Umerkot 5 and Sukkur 1. The chief minister has urged the people of the province to follow SOPs. ISLAMABAD, Nov 7 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Nov, 2021 ) :Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication will establish a Center of Excellence (CoE), in collaboration the University of Karachi at an estimated cost of Rs two billion, aimed at promotion the animation industry and capacity building of professionals. The center, being set up in the building of Sheikh Zayed Institute on University Road, was spanned over 28,000 square feet and it would be larger than any incubation center in Pakistan and unique in terms of facilities, official sources told APP. They said rupees one billion would be spent on provision of equipment and facilities while rupees one billion on account of five-year expenditures. "We aim to empower our youth to take a larger chunk off the current global animation market of about US $ 370 billion," they said. They said, "We must tell the world that our youth is at par with the world in adapting to this creativity and will take their due share from the current global market of US $ 370 billion." The officials said an agreement had already been signed with Ignite to set up the CoE, which would house a vertical incubator, training facility, production studio and co-working space for promotion of animation, VFX and game development across the country. "The center is expected to start operations in a record time of 6 to 8 months." They said the estimated size of the global animation industry was about US $ 370 billion and was expected to double by the year 2030 to US $ 642 billion, emphasizing to match pace with this fast-paced technology domain. The sources said Pakistan had a huge potential and could be one of the key regional players in gaming, animation and multimedia industry through training, mentorship and skill development of youth and "by facilitating gaming and animations startups through incubation/acceleration programs to transform them into successful and sustainable businesses reaching an industry-revenue of billions of Dollars." "The CoE will bring a paradigm shift in reviving up research and innovation in Gaming, VFX (visual effects), Computer Vision and AI through a robust ecosystem in collaboration with tech partners, industry, investors, industry associations and government, and will bolster indigenous product development while propelling the growth of tech entrepreneurship in the country" they said. Vice Chancellor Karachi University, Dr Khalid Iraqi said this strategic triangle was going to be formed which triggered a meaningful collaboration among academia, industry and government. In the developed industrialized world, he said universities were deemed as an engine of growth in knowledge-driven economies. He assured the proposed CoE on Animation would be completely supported by all hardware and software expertise available at Karachi University and its faculty and students would also be benefited by this joint venture. \778 Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Saturday that unsuccessful, rejected by the people and politically unemployed persons held another meeting to seek political oxygen ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Nov, 2021 ) :Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said on Saturday that unsuccessful, rejected by the people and politically unemployed persons held another meeting to seek political oxygen. Giving his reaction to Pakistan Democratic Movement's virtual meeting he said that instead of changing dates of their rallies, they should change their deeds. Fawad remarked that the path to the hearts of the people could be paved by repentance and not by conspiracies. But the 'Association of Politically Unemployed' has decided that they will not be a part of any good work in Pakistan, lamented Fawad. ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 7th Nov, 2021 ) :The 884 MW Suki Kinari Hydropower Project, being constructed with US $ 1.9 billion cost under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), would be operational by 2022. According to the schedule, Suki Kinari hydropower plant is expected to be completed by the end of next year, an official source told APP. The run-of-the-river project was being established alongside the Kunhar River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. It was also one of Pakistan's largest private sector power development projects and was being constructed as part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor's `Early Harvest' projects, he said. The project was being developed on the Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) model which implied that the Chinese Company would operate it for 30 years after which the project would be transferred to the KP government. Once completed, the project would add 884 megawatts to the national grid and all four units would become fully operational by 2022, he informed. The completion of this hydropower plant would play an important role in promoting Pakistan's industrial development and economic recovery. LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th November, 2021) WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his fiancee Stella Moris filed a lawsuit against UK Justice Secretary Dominic Raab and the head of Belmarsh prison, where the whistleblower is currently held, for preventing their marriage, British media reported. The couple claims that the obstacles placed by the UK authorities in this matter are part of a political war against Assange, according to the Daily Mail. "There is no reason for political interference in what is a basic human right. The CIA revelations show the lengths some agencies are willing to go to in their persecution of Julian," Moris was quoted as saying by the daily. Assange and Moris have been engaged for five years and have two children together. They have asked for assistance in arranging the marriage in May, when the whistleblower was already in jail awaiting extradition appeal trial, the newspaper said. However, the process stalled and Assange applied for official permission directly with the Belmarsh chief on October 7, to no effect. The couple's lawyers also reportedly failed to get a response from the prison authorities. The lawsuit accuses Raab and Belmarsh Governor Jenny Louis of abusing their power over Assange, behaving irrationally and unfairly, and denying the couple and their children their human rights, the Daily Mail said. The accused have until November 12 to respond. Assange was arrested in London on April 11, 2019, and sentenced to 50 weeks in prison for jumping bail in 2012. He took refuge inside the Ecuadorean embassy in the UK capital to avoid extradition to Sweden, where he was facing sexual assault charges that were later dropped by a Swedish court. Assange is wanted by the United States on espionage charges after WikiLeaks published thousands of classified documents that shed light on war crimes committed by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. If put on trial and convicted in the US, the whistleblower faces up to 175 years in prison. In September, it was revealed that senior US officials and the CIA were allegedly discussing the possibility of kidnapping and killing Assange in 2017 while he was hiding in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th November, 2021) OneWeb founder Greg Wyler was behind the Rwandan space agency's filing with the United Nations for the launch of more than 300,000 small satellites into low-earth orbit, the Times reported, citing sources. Rwanda has proposed to create a global wireless broadband communication network using the satellites, the newspaper said. If the UN approves the plan, the country will not need to launch the satellites by itself and could just sell the rights to launch them, the Times noted. One of the sources explained that this would mean selling 300,000 satellites to the highest bidder, with minimal oversight, according to the newspaper. Wyler no longer works for the company he founded. OneWeb has so far launched 322 satellites into orbit, while its competitor, Starlink by SpaceX, has launched more than 1,800. MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th November, 2021) A rocket struck the house of Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi who was then taken to the hospital for treatment, Al Arabiya reports. The broadcaster said early on Sunday that a drone attack targeted the prime minister's house and a Katyusha rocket struck it. Al-Kadhimi was injured along with several of his security officers. According to Al Arabiya, there was also heavy gunfire exchange near the Green Zone in Baghdad. A security source told the broadcaster that a drone believed to have been involved in the attack on Al-Kadhimi's house has been intercepted. (@FahadShabbir) Rescuers supplied around 800 migrants on a charity ship off Italy with emergency food and warm blankets Saturday, as their appeal for a safe port went unanswered and they braced for another night at sea Rome, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Nov, 2021 ) :Rescuers supplied around 800 migrants on a charity ship off Italy with emergency food and warm blankets Saturday, as their appeal for a safe port went unanswered and they braced for another night at sea. German NGO Mission Lifeline said its ship Rise Above had delivered "urgently needed relief supplies" for the hundreds of people stuck on board fellow charity ship Sea Eye 4, including over 200 minors. The Sea Eye 4 had already been carrying nearly 400 people pulled to safety at sea when it raced to the rescue of another 400 people crowded onto a wooden boat on Thursday. The Ocean Viking, a charity vessel run by SOS Mediterranee, is also looking for a port for over 300 people it has rescued, bringing the number of migrants seeking to disembark in Italy to over 1,100. There were "many children under the age of 10" and five pregnant women on board the Sea Eye 4, the NGO said in a statement, adding that over 200 people had been treated so far at the onboard hospital. "At present, we receive more support from the small Dresden-based sea rescue organization Mission Lifeline than from all EU states together!" Sea Eye chairman Gorden Isler was quoted as saying. "Our crew is working at the limits of what is humanly possible. The ship must be allowed to dock immediately to ensure the safety of all those rescued and the crew," he said. Italy is one of the main points of entry into Europe for migrants from North Africa, mainly from Libya and Tunisia, with tens of thousands of people seeking to cross the central Mediterranean each year. Under previous interior minister Matteo Salvini's "closed ports" policy, European states had to agree to take a certain number of rescued migrants before the charity ships were allowed to dock. Isler said "negotiations on the distribution of the rescued" should be conducted after the migrants land. Nearly 55,000 migrants have disembarked in Italy this year, compared to just under 30,000 last year, according to figures from the interior ministry. On 6 November 1961, with a Latin radio message from Pope John XXIII, Vatican Radio began regular daily broadcasts in several languages, including Arabic and Swahili. Vatican News English Africa Service. On 6 November, Pope John XXIII announced sixty years ago, the start of regular, daily transmissions to the Continent of Africa. The inauguration was celebrated in an elaborate ceremony held at Vatican Radios transmission centre of Santa Maria di Galeria, on the outskirts of Rome. Daily broadcasts to Africa Cardinal Joseph Frings, the Archbishop of Cologne at the time, blessed the new 100 KW Telefunken short-wave transmitter donated to Vatican Radio by the Archdiocese. Later the Pope would thank Cardinal Frings for the gift he described as destined, for the noblest purpose of missionary apostolate." Towards the end of the inauguration, Cardinal Frings also addressed the people of Africa by way of greeting. Another message of greeting broadcast was from the then Director of Vatican Radio, Jesuit Father Antonio Stefanizzi. He concluded the ceremony by announcing the start of regular daily broadcasts to Africa in English, French, Portuguese, Arabic and Swahili. Blessing the "beloved people of Africa" In the radio message to the people of Africa, Pope John XXIII reiterated his feelings of particular goodwill for your land and for the people who live there, in whom great hope is placed. He continued, There are certainly not a few ties that bind us to the beloved people of Africa, and we cherish them with deep joy," said the Pontiff. The Pope also reminisced about meeting eminent personalities who are sincerely friends and well-deserving of Africa. He further recalled, with fondness, his visit to North Africa in 1950. The Pope added, With a mind full of these memories, we turn to you, overcoming immense distances, and we speak to you, as if we were in your midst, to express our heartfelt wishes May true and stable happiness flourish in your families and in your nations ... May young people grow in respect for righteousness and justice, and may their physical energies be enriched by the gifts of the soul; may all social classes strive to favour and promote, with constant commitment, the well-being of their countries, said Pope John XXIII as he blessed the continent of Africa. The people of Africa in the heart of the Pope In its 6 - 7 November 1961 edition, the Vatican newspaper, LOsservatore Romano, published the news on its front page with the headline, The people of Africa in the heart of the Pope. Immediately below the headline story, there is a photo of the Pontiff holding the text of the radio message and a copy of Pope John XXIIIs autographed note in Latin. The note reads, The memory of those days when we personally conferred the fullness of the priesthood on not a few African Bishops will never be erased from our memory. When we gave them the kiss of peace, it seemed to us that we were embracing and kissing all the peoples of Africa. The Good Pope Pope John XXIII was known affectionately as the Good Pope. His cause for canonisation was opened under Pope Paul VI during the final session of the Second Vatican Council on 18 November 1965. On 3 September 2000, John XXIII was beatified. On 5 July 2013, Pope Francis approved John XXIII for canonisation without the traditional second miracle required. Instead, Pope Francis based this decision on John XXIIIs merits for the Second Vatican Council. Then on Sunday, 27 April 2014, Popes John XXIII and John Paul II were declared saints on Divine Mercy Sunday. An image showing a group of Buddhist monks in northern Chinas Tianjin city watching a communist propaganda film about the Korean War has elicited scrutiny amidst heightened efforts by the authorities to instill socialist core values in religious communities. The photo, posted by the public WeChat account of the Huasheng Buddhist temple, shows about 18 monks wearing sanitary masks while watching Battle at Lake Changjin, a recent production extolling a supposed victory of Chinese forces over U.S. troops in the early stages of the Korean War (19501953). The movie was so impressive. It was a riveting exercise in [Communist] Party video education, the Huasheng temple wrote in its WeChat post. Battle at Lake Changjin was released on Oct. 1, the 72nd anniversary of the Chinese Communist Partys ascendance to power. It received heavy state promotion not only at different levels of government, but also throughout the CCP, schools, and non-government institutions such as temples. The film is based on the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea, where in late 1950 the Chinese Peoples Volunteer Army (PVA) deployed 120,000 troops against a 30,000-strong U.S. force. Chosin comes from the Japanese pronunciation of Changjin, and became the common Western name for the battle due to the fact that Korea had recently been a colony of Japan and many maps still used Japanese geographical names. Though the PVA suffered many times more casualties than the Americans at Chosin and failed in their objective to rout the defenders, the CCP has held up the battle as a stunning victory. More recently, it has utilized the engagement and the Korean War in general as a means of drumming up anti-U.S. sentiment. Monks of Mao Zedong The indoctrination of monks and other religious clergy has also been common in recent years. In April 2021, various CCP-approved Chinese religious associations launched a Love the Party, Love the Country, Love Socialism campaign, asking their respective adherents to systematically study the history of the Party, celebrate the centennial of the founding of the Party, and always follow the Party. CCP-approved religions include Buddhism, Daoism, Islam, Protestantism, and Catholicism. However, believers may only attend Party-sanctioned churches, temples, or mosques, where they are being increasingly required to study the CCPs atheist ideology. Religious Chinese who do not fall under the five approved religions, or who choose to set up their own places or forms of worship, are heavily persecuted by the CCP. For example, adherents of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline are routinely abused for their faith and tens of thousands are believed to have been murdered for their organs. Since the mid-2010s, the Party has incarcerated more than 1 million ethnic Uyghur Muslims living in northwestern China, forcing them to give up their religious and cultural heritage in exchange for the CCPs ideology. According to an annual report released this April by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), religious freedom in China has been on a steady decline in recent years. The Communist Partys Measures for the Administration of Religious Personnel, which took effect on May 1, 2021, require religious personnel to support the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and practice the core values of socialism. While the CCP has been suppressing all religious beliefs, it has also been mutating the connotations of religion. In a video from the Fenghua temple in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, the temple leader can be heard saying, Our purpose is to be the monks of Mao Zedong, for the Party, for the country, and the people. The leader continued to say, We are today in front of the Party flag, the national flag, and the statue of the leader. We solemnly swear to be loyal to the Party; Loyal to the motherland; To love the leader; Love the people. To be a good citizen, a qualified new man to vow to work for communism and fight for it till death. In Fenghua temple in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China, a leader tells clergy to be the monks of Mao Zedong and pledge loyalty to the CCP. (Image: Screenshot from online video) Minnan Buddhist College, which in FuJiang province, hold the lecture competition about celebrating CCP 100 years for learning CCP History and following the CCP (Image: Screenshot from video of China Insight channel) Buddhist monks being compelled to work for communism and fight for it till death is not a new concept. During the Korean War, many reformed Buddhist monks were coerced into service with the PVA, killing and being killed on the battlefield. According to Military.com, now celebrated as a massive victory against oppression by the West, the Chinese Red Armys participation in the Korean War came at a massive cost, with an enormous death toll thats likely far greater than 200,000 troops. As a result of the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir, the Chinese 9th Regiment suffered such great losses that it was unable to play a major role in operations until late in the Korean War. Estimates of Chinese casualties in the battle range from the official figure of 48,000 to 90,000, compared with 10,000 dead, missing, or wounded on the U.S. side. Music Time in Africa is VOAs longest running English language program. Since 1965, this award-winning program has featured pan African music that spans all genres and generations. Ethnomusicologist and Host Heather Maxwell keeps you up to date on whats happening in African music with exclusive interviews, cultural information, and of course, great music -- including rare recordings from the Leo Sarkisian Library of African Music. Jesse Readlynn, a father of two from Rochester, New York, breathed a huge sigh of relief this week. My children getting coronavirus was one of my biggest fears, he told VOA.Finally, this worry and uncertainty Ive been living with can begin to relax. Readlynn's relief comes after last week's U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommendation that children 5-11 years old be vaccinated with a pediatric version of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine. The guidance makes 28 million American children eligible for a vaccine that has proved overwhelmingly effective in slowing the spread of coronavirus. For many parents like Readlynn, the development is highly welcome news. When his 7-year-old receives his first dose of the vaccine next week, and his 4-year-old receives a version of the vaccine in a clinical study, Readlynn is hopeful life can return closer to what it was in the years before the coronavirus pandemic. Playdates, having real birthday parties, eating inside restaurants, going to museums, he listed as things he's looking forward to doing once his children are vaccinated.Visiting family we have to fly to and just exploring the big, wide, exciting world again! Its going to bring a normalcy to our lives that we haven't had in two years. Uncertainty for some According to an October survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly three in 10 parents (27%) are eager to get a vaccine for their child, 5-11 years old. A slightly higher number (30%) said they will definitely not get the vaccine for their child, while a full third of respondents said they will wait a while to see how the vaccine is working. Its honestly the most difficult decision Ive had to make for my child, said Kerri Paino of Hauppauge, New York, mother of a 7-year-old now eligible for the vaccine and a 4-year-old who is not. Like so many parents over the last two years, Paino said she and her husband, both vaccinated, have had to make seemingly constant and uncomfortable decisions about what is and isnt safe for their unvaccinated children. Everything from an afternoon trip to the mall to a full family vacation caused uncertainty and second-guessing. We took a trip to Mexico this summer and we had to take a COVID test to get back home, Paino said. My 7-year-old daughter wailed so loud in the lobby, it was embarrassing. But I also feel bad because this all must be so uncomfortable and strange for her. I just want it to be over. Still, Paino said she is worried about the long-term effects of the vaccine and isnt ready for her daughter to get hers yet. Were still on the fence, she said. I dont want to make a decision that could negatively affect her future without her being able to make a conscious choice along with me. Other parents trust the safety of the vaccine but are still in no hurry to have their children vaccinated. As the number of coronavirus cases drops throughout the country, many dont feel the same urgency they might have felt earlier in the year. Hillary Sardinas of Albany, California, said her eldest child is eligible for the vaccine. While shes confident in the science behind the vaccine, she doesnt feel pressured to have her son get vaccinated immediately. Maybe its a luxury, but we feel comfortable with the protocols at his school and live in an area with high vaccination rates, Sardinas told VOA. My son has a fear of shots, and so I thought knowing his friends got it, and waiting to do it in our pediatricians office where hell feel more comfortable, is a good thing for him. While Sardinas is sure shell have her son get the vaccine before the end of the year, Paino isnt nearly as confident. I feel like the debate around the vaccine has become so political, she said, and it has made me lose trust in where Im getting my information from. I want to trust science, but I feel like I dont know what the truth is. You have doctors arguing both sides. To trust or not to trust The only experts arguing against vaccines right now are rogue doctors, rogue scientists, and conspiracy theorists, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at The Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia and one of the most notable vaccine experts in the United States. COVID-19 cases have been less widespread among children than adults, though the number of children and adolescents admitted to the hospital with the virus increased nearly fivefold this summer as the delta variant surged. In the U.S., more than 8,300 children aged 5-11 have been hospitalized with serious illness caused by the coronavirus. An additional 5,200 children and teens have developed multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C), a condition linked to COVID-19 that often leads to hospitalization. The CDC trial found the Pfizer-BioNTech pediatric vaccine is effective in protecting children from the worst effects of the disease. The science on this is very clear, Offit said. The CDC-approved vaccine is effective in keeping children safe from coronavirus. Despite consensus among scientists, nearly one in three parents remain opposed to having their child receive the vaccine. Im not against vaccinations, said Janelle Witten of Gastonia, North Carolina. Witten has a son who is eligible for the pediatric vaccine, and she also is pregnant. But Im not willing to risk the health of my children on a vaccine that doesnt have data on its long-term health effects. Alberto Perez of Blairsville, Georgia, has similar concerns for his children. If this was a virus killing 3% to 5% of children, I would have my kids get the vaccine immediately, he said, but thats not what this is. I dont feel coronavirus is as big a threat as the unknown odds of long-term side effects caused by the vaccine fertility issues, for example. The concern over future fertility issues was repeated by several parents interviewed, but Offit said it should not be a reason for concern. Its a false notion that science can disprove, Offit said. Clinical trials included pregnant women with no issue. This is an example of those against the vaccine throwing things against a wall to see what will make people scared. Because when people are scared its difficult to unscare them. Offit said those who get the vaccine should feel confident that long-term side effects will not surface. When you get a vaccine, you have what is called immune response almost immediately, he said. It doesnt crop up years from now, it peaks within 7-10 days. Thats the response, and we know that because weve seen how other similar vaccines work. Some parents will likely wait additional weeks or months, making sure their kids classmates are vaccinated without issue, before letting their own children get the COVID-19 vaccine. However, Jesse Readlynn said hes done waiting. The chance of a child getting seriously sick from coronavirus is low, he acknowledged. But theyre still much more likely to get sick from COVID than from the vaccine. Im hopeful this turns out to be the light at the end of the tunnel for my children as we exit this uncertainty and get back to a normal life. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center said Sunday it has recorded 249.5 million global COVID cases and more than 5 million deaths. The center said 7.2 billion COVID vaccines have been administered. A northern California towns city council has declared itself a constitutional republic as a way to express its displeasure with what it considers state and federal overreach in the issuing of mandates, such as for mask wearing, designed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Legal experts say Orovilles city councils move, however, does not allow Oroville to opt out of the mandates. The fully vaccinated in Australias New South Wales state are on the verge of having a number of COVID restrictions eased Monday, including elimination of limits on the number of home visitors. Health professionals in India are bracing for a surge in coronavirus cases following Diwali, the annual festival of lights, that began Thursday. Dr. Prakash Singh, a virologist, told The New York Times, For this Diwali, people almost forgot the virus is still here and killing people. Johns Hopkins reports that India has 34.4 million COVID infections, but public health experts say the tally is likely undercounted. Only the United States has more COVID cases, with 46.5 million. Fire swept through a newly built hospital ward for coronavirus patients in western India Saturday, killing at least 10 coronavirus patients. Officials said about two dozen patients were in the intensive care unit of the hospital in the western city of Ahmednagar when the fire broke out. It was the latest in a string of deadly fires at COVID-19 hospital wards in India since the countrys underfunded public health care system was overwhelmed by a coronavirus surge between April and May. Maharashtra states chief minister, Uddhav Thackeray, ordered an investigation into Saturdays fire and the safety conditions at the hospital. Sixteen COVID-19 patients and two nurses were killed in May in a fire at a hospital in Indias Gujarat state. In April, about 35 patients were killed in separate fires at two health facilities in Mumbai. In Russia on Saturday, the governments coronavirus task force reported 41,335 new infections over a 24-hour period, the countrys highest one-day total since the beginning of the pandemic. It also reported 1,188 coronavirus-related deaths. Officials say Russias low vaccination rate is largely to blame for a surge in cases that began in mid-September. Less than 40% of the countrys 146 million people are fully vaccinated. A record high number of coronavirus-related deaths were reported in Ukraine on Saturday. The health ministry reported 793 deaths over the previous 24 hours, topping the countrys previous high of 734 on Oct. 26. Unvaccinated people in Greece, about 40% of the countrys population, are facing more stringent government restrictions as the country grapples with a surge in coronavirus infections. The restrictions, imposed on Saturday, require the unvaccinated to show proof of a negative test to enter indoor public facilities such as banks, government buildings and most shops. They must also show proof in order to eat at outdoor restaurants and cafes. The West African regional grouping ECOWAS on Sunday hardened its stance against military-ruled Mali and Guinea, imposing new individual sanctions and calling on both countries to honor timetables for a return to democracy. The Economic Community of West African States "has decided to sanction all those implicated in the delay" in organizing elections set for February 27 in Mali, ECOWAS Commission President Jean-Claude Kassi Brou told AFP after a summit of the 15-nation group in the Ghanaian capital Accra. He said Mali had "officially written" to Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo, who holds the rotating presidency of ECOWAS, to inform him that the Sahel country could not hold elections as planned. "All the transition authorities are concerned by the sanctions which will take immediate effect," Brou said, adding that they included travel bans and assets freezes. In a final declaration following Sunday's summit, ECOWAS said it "highly deplores the lack of progress" towards staging elections in Mali. As for Guinea, where soldiers seized power on September 5, ECOWAS decided to uphold the country's suspension from the bloc as well as sanctions against individual junta members and their families. It also reiterated its demand for the "unconditional release" of president Alpha Conde, 83, who has been under house arrest since his ouster. In the final declaration, it praised the adoption of a "transition charter," the appointment of a civilian prime minister and the formation of a transitional government. But it called on the authorities to "urgently submit a detailed timetable... towards the holding of elections" in the country of 13 million people. Colonel Mamady Doumbouya, who overthrew Conde after months of discontent against his government, had promised to restore civilian rule after a transition period of unspecified length. At a September summit, ECOWAS demanded that Guinea hold elections within six months. The regional leaders also demanded that the Mali junta adhere "strictly" to that country's transition timetable. ECOWAS rescinded economic sanctions against Mali and its suspension from the organization when the junta headed by Colonel Assimi Goita pledged a transition of no more than 18 months. But Goita went on to mount a new coup in May, deposing transitional president Bah Ndaw and his prime minister, Moctar Ouane. ECOWAS suspended Mali once again, but did not apply new sanctions. Swathes of Mali, a vast nation of 19 million people, lie outside of government control because of a jihadist insurgency that emerged in the north in 2012, before spreading to the center of the country as well as neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Brou noted that the deployment of contractors from the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in Mali was "one of the concerns of the heads of state." A German humanitarian ship with more than 800 rescued migrants, including 15 very young children, steamed into a Sicilian port on Sunday after being granted permission by Italian authorities following days of waiting in the Mediterranean Sea. The charity group Sea-Eye said the vessel Sea-Eye 4 was assigned to the port of Trapani, in western Sicily, on Saturday evening. Most of the adults were to be transferred to other ships for preventative quarantine against COVID-19, while some 160 minors, including babies and other children younger than 4, were to be taken to shelters on land. Many of the passengers came from countries in West Africa, Egypt or Morocco, said Giovanna di Benedetto, an official from Save the Children in Italy. Shouts of joy from those aboard Sea-Eye 4 could be heard on Trapani's dock as the vessel drew near, SkyTG24 TV reported. About half of the migrants were rescued from a sinking wooden boat on November 4, while the other passengers had been plucked from the sea in separate operations. Sea-Eye officials had lamented that Malta, a European Union island nation in the central Mediterranean, hadn't responded to the wooden boat's distress signal in the Maltese search-and-rescue area. Meanwhile, another charity ship, Ocean Viking, with 308 migrants aboard, was still awaiting a port assignment near Lampedusa, a tiny Italian island south of Sicily. The humanitarian organization SOS Mediterranee, which operates Ocean Viking, tweeted that its team on Friday night was involved in a search for a boat in distress south of Lampedusa. The charity tweeted that the Italian Coast Guard "eventually coordinated and completed the rescue requesting the assistance" of Ocean Viking. Separately, the coast guard, working in rough seas, evacuated two people, along with four family members, from the Ocean Viking for medical treatment, including for burns, SOS Mediterranee said. On Saturday, Sea-Eye 4 received a delivery of food and blankets while it waited to learn where the migrants could set food on land. Doctors aboard Sea-Eye 4 had treated 25 people for hypothermia, sea sickness and high blood pressure, along with injuries consistent with torture. U.N. refugee agencies have long denounced the practice of torture in detention camps in Libya, where the migrants live, often for weeks or months, until human traffickers arrange their passage aboard flimsy boats. The number of migrants daring the dangerous central Mediterranean crossing has surged this year to more than 54,000. Still, the numbers are dramatically below those of 2014-2017, when 120,000-180,000 people reached Italy each year, often in rickety smugglers' boats. The failed assassination attempt against Iraq's prime minister at his residence on Sunday has ratcheted up tensions following last month's parliamentary elections, in which the Iran-backed militias were the biggest losers. Helicopters circled in the Baghdad skies throughout the day, while troops and patrols deployed around Baghdad and near the capital's fortified Green Zone, where the overnight attack occurred. Supporters of the Iran-backed militias held their ground in a protest camp outside the Green Zone to demand a vote recount. Leaders of the Iran-backed factions converged for the second day on a funeral tent to mourn a protester killed Friday in clashes with security. Many of the faction leaders blame the prime minister for the violence. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi suffered a light cut and appeared in a televised speech soon after the attack by armed drones on his residence. He appeared calm and composed, seated behind a desk in a white shirt and what appeared to be a bandage around his left wrist. Seven of his security guards were wounded in the attack by at least two armed drones, according to two Iraqi officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements. Al-Kadhimi called for calm dialogue. Cowardly rocket and drone attacks don't build homelands and don't build a future, he said in the televised speech. Condemnation of the attack poured in from world leaders, with several calling Al-Kadhimi with words of support. They included French President Emmanuel Macron, Jordan's King Abdullah II and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Saudi Arabia called the attack an apparent act of terrorism. Egypt's President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Facebook urged all sides in Iraq to join forces to preserve the country's stability. In a statement, U.S. President Joe Biden condemned the attack on al-Kadhimi and commended the leadership he has shown in calling for calm, restraint, and dialogue to protect the institutions of the state and strengthen the democracy Iraqis so richly deserve. Secretary of State Antony Blinken talked with al-Kadhimi on Sunday to relay U.S. condemnation of the attack and to underscore that the U.S. partnership with the Iraqi government is steadfast, State Department spokesman Ned Price said. Also on Sunday, al-Kadhimi met with Iraqi President Barham Salih and headed security and Cabinet meetings. A security video showed the damage to his residence: a van parked outside the residence badly mangled, a shallow crater near the stairs, cracks in the ceiling and walls of a balcony and broken parts of the building's roof. Two unexploded rockets were filmed at the scene. There was no claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on Iran-backed militias. They had been blamed for previous attacks on the Green Zone, which also houses foreign embassies. The militia leaders condemned the attack, but most sought to downplay it. It was a dramatic escalation in the already tense situation following the Oct. 10 vote and the surprising results in which Iran-backed militias lost about two-thirds of their seats. Despite a low turnout, the results confirmed a rising wave of discontent against the militias that had been praised years before as heroes for fighting Islamic State militants. But the militias had lost popularity since 2018, when they made big election gains. Many hold them responsible for suppressing the 2019 youth-led anti-government protests, and for undermining state authority. The attack is to cut off the road that could lead to a second al-Kadhimi term by those who lost in the recent elections, said Bassam al-Qizwini, a Baghdad political analyst. They started escalating first in the street, then clashed with Iraqi Security Forces, and now this.' On Friday, protests by supporters of the pro-Iran Shiite militias turned deadly when the demonstrators tried to enter the Green Zone where they had been camped out, demanding a recount. Security forces used tear gas and live ammunition. There was an exchange of fire in which one protester affiliated with the militias was killed. Dozens of security forces were injured. Al-Kadhimi ordered an investigation. The blood of martyrs is to hold you accountable, said Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, addressing al-Kadhimi in recorded comments to supporters. He blamed him for election fraud. In the strongest criticism of the prime minister, Abu Ali al-Askari, a senior leader with one of the hardline pro-Iran militias, Kataib Hezbollah, questioned whether the assassination attempt was really al-Kadhimi's effort to play the role of the victim. According to our confirmed information no one in Iraq has the desire to lose a drone on the residence of al-Kadhimi, al-Askari wrote in a Twitter post. If anyone wants to harm this Facebook creature there are many ways that are less costly and more effective to realize that. Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the assassination attempt on al-Khadimi and indirectly blamed the U.S. The escalation also reveals a level of nervousness among Iran and its allies as they realize that political results don't always translate into control, said Joseph Bahout, a director of research at the American University of Beirut. This is an act depicting fear of loss of control. Al-Kadhimi is being now perceived as a Trojan horse for more erosion of Iran's grip on the country, Bahout said. Al-Kadhimi, 54, was Iraq's former intelligence chief before becoming prime minister in May last year. He is considered by the militias to be close to the U.S. and has tried to balance between Iraq's alliances with both the U.S. and Iran. Prior to the elections, he hosted several rounds of talks between regional foes Iran and Saudi Arabia in Baghdad in a bid to ease regional tensions. Marsin Alshamary, an Iraqi American research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, said the attack resurfaced the long-term challenge of how to curb the powers of the militias without triggering a civil war. For al-Kadhimi, the stakes are now higher if he is to remain as prime minister. He doesn't have a political party and so he is susceptible to direct attack with no party to negotiate or protect him, she added. Iraq's election commission has yet to announce the final results. The parliament could then convene, elect a president and form a government. The U.S., the U.N. Security Council and others have praised the election, which was mostly violence-free and without major technical glitches. But the unsubstantiated fraud claims have cast a shadow over the vote. The standoff with the militia supporters has increased tensions among rival Shiite factions that could spill into violence and threaten Iraq's newfound relative stability. Influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who won the largest number of parliament seats in the Oct. 10 elections, denounced the terrorist attack, which he said seeks to return Iraq to the lawlessness and chaos of the past. While al-Sadr maintains good relations with Iran, he publicly opposes external interference in Iraq's affairs. John Kerry is everywhere and on the move at a fateful U.N. climate summit. President Joe Bidens envoy at the talks in Glasgow, Kerry steams from side talks with U.S. rivals China and Russia that painstakingly probe for common ground on climate to news conferences extolling progress. Kerry pops into project launches, rewarding CEOs and bankers for emissions-cutting efforts with high-level face time and praise. The lanky envoy smiles for a photo with Indigenous women from Brazil, their feather headdresses barely reaching his chin. Toward the end of the U.N. climate summit's first of two weeks, Kerrys voice grew hoarse from his mission of rallying global climate efforts that are threatening to hit a wall at home. The alternative is you dont do anything, you dont say anything" on climate, Kerry told reporters at the summit. You dont have any promises, you dont have any commitments. And youre sitting there, waiting for the deluge. He was speaking of a climate fight growing more urgent, as global warming from the burning of fossil fuel intensifies, and more fraught, as the United States' own wildly swinging seesaw politics imperil Biden's climate efforts and again threaten global momentum on the matter. With the summit underway, the U.S. House on Friday finally passed a stalled infrastructure bill that contains some important measures to cut U.S. emissions. But Bidens lagging political support, and Republican upsets in off-year elections last week, are heightening uncertainty that the U.S. administration can deliver on some of Biden's biggest climate promises. Kerry, President Barack Obama's secretary of state and a former senator, came back post-President Donald Trump to serve as Biden's climate envoy. The job has entailed apologizing for the global disruption that Trump, who mocks the science behind climate change, wreaked when he pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, which Kerry helped to negotiate. Scientists say the ground lost during the Trump administration leaves this decade a last chance to keep the Earth from warming to more catastrophic levels. Kerry's job now is part diplomat, part cheerleader. At the Glasgow climate conference, as in the months before, Kerry negotiates to nail down every possible bit of new climate effort from countries and businesses then pushes for more. While the U.S. return to global climate negotiations has helped push allies to some deeper cuts on emissions, the world's other big polluters besides the United States China, Russia, India and others are short on emission promises, at best. At 77, Kerry is waging only the latest of his campaigns in a decades-long personal battle to curb the fossil fuel emissions heating Earth. Kerry brings a deep knowledge of what's at stake," said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, and a veteran of climate talks. He brings long-term relationships to these talks, and the spirit of collaboration. Yet, she adds, he "gets limited by what is happening at home. If there's not a credible U.S. plan to meet the targets and phase out fossil fuels, there's only so much, only so far, he can get here," Morgan said. Conservative groups single out Kerry online, making social media memes out of his wealth at Glasgow he introduced a speaker as his neighbor on Martha's Vineyard and supposed love for jetting around the world. Kerry's intentness on diplomacy to try to push and pull coal-loving China into faster emission cuts also brings him into public contrast with Biden and some of Biden's top officials, who have become vocally critical of China. China is currently the world's top climate polluter. The U.S. is No. 2 at the moment, and the world's worst carbon polluter over time. Biden's parting words as he left the Glasgow summit this past week after joining more than 100 other world leaders here were that Chinese President Xi Jinping had made a big mistake in not attending. Theyve lost an ability to influence people around the world, Biden said. Veteran observers of global climate talks speak favorably of Kerry's quieter work as climate envoy. Thom Woodroofe, a researcher on U.S.-China climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said Biden's appointment of the former secretary of state made countries such as China really sit up and take notice with just how significant ... how much importance the Biden administration was going to place on diplomacy and their climate action at home. While Chinese leaders publicly scold and snub members of the Biden administration, China's own veteran climate diplomat, Xie Zhenha, told reporters at Glasgow he calculated he had talked to Kerry 23 times in Kerry's current position. When a news site ran a caricature showing an exaggeratedly chinned Kerry with one hand on the shoulder of the equally exaggerated round-faced Xie, and the other hand cupping the Earth and its future, Kerry had the cartoon framed and presented it to Xie. At the climate summit, Kerry's height makes him an easy spot among the thousands of climate advocates, government officials and reporters at the summit site, which sprawls for more than a half-mile (close to a kilometer). It's a mix of permanent and temporary structures along Glasgows River Clyde that feels like an airport terminal flanked by a military forward-operating base. Kerry appears patient and polite with the random advocates and reporters from around the world who approach him at the summit. Before the summit, climate activists carrying out a hunger strike at the White House gates filmed another Biden administration official impatiently thumbing his phone when they approached him on the need for climate action. Kerry, by contrast, went out and talked to the young climate strikers, telling them about his own environmental activism when he was young. Kerry's first cause after returning from fighting in the Vietnam War was activism for the first Earth Day, in 1970, he says. His wife, Teresa Heinz, says they met at a later Earth Day, in 1990. In 2015, his work in climate negotiations, and the trust Xie seemed to place in Obama negotiators including Kerry, helped seal a global climate deal in which more than 190 nations committed to taking action to cut climate emissions. The irreversible damage being wrought by global warming was even more obvious to all by November 2016, when Kerry made one of his last trips as Obama's secretary of state, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Antarctica. The U.S. presidential election had just handed victory to Trump, who already had pledged to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord and would soon be rolling back U.S. climate efforts in office. Kerry crunched in boots over a frozen sea, faced off with a curious penguin and talked with U.S. scientists there. The South Pole had the purest air in the world, but it, too, was heavily polluted with coal and petroleum waste, scientists told him. The West Antarctic ice sheet was melting from below in the warming waters, breaking off and floating out to sea. It was some of the most stunning wilderness," Kerry recalled last month to The Associated Press, and it was mixed with the negative impacts of human beings. Mexican authorities on Saturday arrested two people suspected of involvement in a shooting between rival gangs on a beach near the Caribbean resort of Cancun that left two people dead. The armed clash, which took place Thursday, was the second to shake Mexico's Riviera Maya in recent weeks and is another blow to a tourism industry still recovering from the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic. The attorney general's office for the eastern state of Quintana Roo said it had managed to locate three of the four vehicles the suspected shooters used to travel to the beach. They arrested two people who had been driving, while one managed to escape. "Two drivers were captured while a third one fled, and there was even an exchange of gunfire with police officers, managing to escape to a jungle area," the attorney general said in a statement. The office also said initial investigations showed that the groups involved that day had split off from the Sinaloa cartel who "are disputing territory for the sale of drugs." The Nov. 4 shooting took place on the beach outside one of the luxury resort hotels near Cancun, a popular tourist destination. Local authorities had said the clash was between rival gangs of drug dealers. Mexico is plagued by cartel-related bloodshed that has seen more than 300,000 people murdered since the government deployed the military in the war on drugs in 2006. While the Riviera Maya, home to Cancun and other leading resorts including Playa del Carmen and Tulum, is generally considered safer than much of the country, there has been an increase in violence. Last month, two tourists from Germany and India were killed in a shootout between suspected drug dealers in Tulum, while several others were wounded. In 2017, three foreigners were among five killed in a shooting at an electronic music festival in Playa del Carmen. The incidents have led European countries and the United States to warn their citizens about the risks of visiting the Mexican Caribbean, among the world's top beach destinations. Tourism represents 8.5% of Mexico's gross domestic product and is the main economic activity in the southeast region, which includes the Riviera Maya. Although Mexico has remained open to foreigners during the COVID-19 pandemic, a slump in visitor numbers has taken a heavy toll on the country's tourism industry. Morocco's King Mohammed gave a speech Saturday about Western Sahara but made no mention of an Algerian accusation that Morocco targeted Algerian civilians in an incident last week that the United Nations said took place in the disputed territory. Algeria's accusation has raised fears of further escalation between the North African rivals after Algeria cut off diplomatic relations, stopped supplying gas to Morocco and blocked Algerian airspace to Moroccan flights. Ties between the countries have been fractious for years, but have deteriorated since last year after the Algeria-backed Polisario Front said it was resuming its armed struggle for the independence of Western Sahara, a territory Morocco sees as its own. King Mohammed's silence on the dispute with Algeria in his annual speech on Western Sahara is in line with Morocco's practice since soon after Algeria broke off ties in August in ignoring all statements coming from Algiers. However, Algeria's accusation Wednesday that Morocco had killed three civilians driving in the Sahara on Monday has sharply raised the stakes. Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune vowed in a statement that the death of the three men "would not go unpunished." Morocco has not formally responded to the accusation. The U.N. peacekeeping force in Western Sahara, MINURSO, visited the site of the incident in territory outside Moroccan control and found two badly damaged Algerian-plated trucks, a U.N. spokesperson said on Friday. The spokesperson said MINURSO was looking into the incident. Last year the United States recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara as part of a deal that also included Rabat bolstering ties with Israel. Morocco has been more assertive since then in pushing European countries to follow suit. However, they have not done so, and in September a European Union court said some European trade deals with Morocco were invalid because they included products originating in Western Sahara territory. King Mohammed said on Saturday that Morocco would not agree to "any economic or commercial step that excludes the Moroccan Sahara." The leader of the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. signed legislation Saturday to ban indoor smoking in many locations, including the tribe's casinos. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez called the ban a monumental achievement and bold step in the right direction to promote healthy living among our Navajo people. It is a fundamental right to protect our Navajo people's right to breathe clean air, he said in a statement. Tribal lawmakers approved the bill in October that prohibits the use of cigarettes, chewing tobacco, electronic cigarettes and other commercial products in public buildings and workspaces, including a 7.6-meter buffer outdoors. The ban will not apply to the ceremonial use of tobacco or in people's homes unless they are being used as day care centers, adult care centers or as business offices. Nez had until Sunday evening to act on the legislation. Enactment of the ban followed 13 years of work by a coalition to educate the public on the dangers of secondhand smoke. Advocates saw an opportunity to renew the push during the coronavirus pandemic while masks are required and questions remain about the long-term effects of the virus. Comments submitted to the Navajo Nation Council on the measure overwhelmingly supported it. A few cited the potential of lost revenue for the tribal gambling enterprise that unsuccessfully sought to carve out an exemption from the ban. Smoking had been prohibited at the tribe's four casinos - three in New Mexico and one east of Flagstaff -- under COVID-19 safety measures, but it wasn't permanent until Nez signed the legislation Saturday. The Tribal Council approved a ban on smoking and chewing tobacco in public places in 2008, but then-President Joe Shirley Jr. vetoed it, partially because he was concerned about gambling revenue. An override effort fell short of the votes it needed. Shirley's successor, Ben Shelly, also vetoed legislation that would have banned smoking in public places but not at the tribe's casinos until their loans were paid off. He issued an order to ban smoking within executive branch offices he oversaw. The order didn't apply broadly across the 70,000-square-kilometer reservation that extends into Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. Nicaraguans go to the polls Sunday for presidential elections dismissed as a "sham" by the international community, with all viable challengers to long-term leader Daniel Ortega locked up or in exile. As Ortega, 75, prepared to claim a fourth consecutive term -- his fifth overall -- the United States described Nicaragua as a "cautionary tale" with a regime "determined to hold on to power at any cost." "It will be quite clear that these elections will have no credibility, that they're a sham," Patrick Ventrell, the U.S. State Department's Central American Affairs director said Thursday. "We are going into a scenario where you have a dictatorship, and we'll have to respond to such." Just over three years after massive protests against his rule and a violent crackdown that claimed more than 300 lives, Ortega is assured another five-year term with his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, 70, by his side. Seven people who had any real shot at the presidency are among 39 opposition figures detained in a brutal government clampdown that started in June. Ortega, the leader of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), faces five opponents, though in name only -- all are derided as regime collaborators. The vote in Central America's poorest country will take place without international observers and with most foreign media denied access to the country. Nicaragua's last opposition daily, La Prensa, had its director thrown in prison in August, and Facebook announced this week it had closed a government-operated troll farm spreading anti-opposition messages. Amid the suppression, fear vies with apathy among Nicaragua's 4.3 million eligible voters. Voting is not mandatory in the country of 6.5 million. "There is no one to vote for. Daniel (Ortega) has it in the bag," a 46-year-old woman told AFP at her home in Masaya, 35 kilometers south of the capital Managua. She asked not to be named. "One cannot talk. You'll go to jail," she said. All sewn up A firebrand Marxist in his youth, Ortega ruled Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990, after the guerrilla ousting of US-backed dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. Returning to power in 2007, he has won reelection three times, becoming increasingly authoritarian and quashing presidential term limits. Two-thirds of respondents in a recent Cid-Gallup poll said they would have voted for an opposition candidate Sunday. The favorite was Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of Violeta Barrios de Chamorro who is the only person to have beaten Ortega in an election, in 1990. But Chamorro is under house arrest, and six other presidential hopefuls are behind bars in conditions their family members say amount to torture. The jailed opposition figures are accused of unspecified attacks on Nicaragua's "sovereignty" under a law passed by a parliament dominated by Ortega allies, who also control the judicial and electoral branches. Election authorities have banned the country's main opposition alliance, Citizens for Freedom, from contesting Sunday's vote, just like in 2016 when Ortega won unopposed. Three political parties and dozens of civic organizations are prohibited. 'A complete sham' A grouping of Nicaraguan and international NGOs this week urged the United Nations to investigate "gross human rights violations" under Ortega's rule. "Ortega will continue in power... and the repression against those who defend human rights and think differently to the regime will likely worsen," said the group that calls itself Colectivo 46/2. Apart from about 150 political opponents known to be behind bars, more than 100,000 Nicaraguans are in exile to avoid arrest -- mainly in Costa Rica, Miami and Madrid. For Ortega -- whose main allies are Venezuela, Cuba and Russia -- his jailed critics are not political prisoners but "criminals" seeking to overthrow him with US backing. 'Dictator' The wave of arrests has worsened ties with the United States and European Union, who have imposed sanctions against Ortega family members and allies. The EU's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has branded Ortega a "dictator" staging "fake" elections, and on Wednesday, the US Congress approved a law to ramp up punitive measures. In the United States, Europe and other Latin American countries, opponents of the Ortega regime are planning protests for Sunday and agitating for a boycott of the vote. In Nicaragua itself, gatherings of more than 200 people are banned, ostensibly as a coronavirus prevention measure. More than 30,000 police and military have been deployed to guard 3,000 polling stations. Polls are due to open at 1300 GMT (7:00 a.m.) and close 11 hours later. The results, predictable as they are, are expected the same day. The White House said Sunday it is confident that the courts will eventually approve President Joe Bidens mandate that U.S. businesses with 100 workers or more insist their workers either be vaccinated against the coronavirus or be frequently tested despite an initial court ruling halting the vaccination requirement. White House chief of staff Ron Klain told NBCs Meet the Press show, I'm quite confident that when this finally gets fully adjudicated, not just a temporary order, the validity of this requirement will be upheld. Klain characterized the Biden vaccination order, which affects 84 million private sector workers and is set to take effect January 4, as common sense to help end the pandemic in the United States. He said if the governments Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) can tell people to wear a hard hat on the job, to be careful on chemicals, it can put in place these simple measures to keep our workers safe. The U.S. Supreme Court last month approved a vaccination mandate covering health care workers in the northeastern state of Maine but has yet to consider a broad national mandate such as Bidens order affecting private businesses or his order requiring 4 million federal employees and contractors working for the federal government to get vaccinated by November 22. WATCH: Federal vaccination mandate Numerous Republican state governors opposed to the Democratic presidents national mandate, along with some government employee unions and individual workers, have filed lawsuits in an effort to block Bidens orders, all claiming they are an overreach of his authority. In filing a lawsuit against the Biden order affecting workers at private businesses, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the vaccine mandate a breathtaking abuse of federal power that is flatly unconstitutional. He contended that the mandate goes beyond OSHAs limited power and specific responsibilities. On Saturday, the conservative-dominated 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases in the adjoining Southern states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, temporarily blocked the Biden mandate for private businesses, saying there were "grave statutory and constitutional" issues concerning the rule. It ordered Biden administration lawyers to voice their opposition to a permanent injunction by late Monday, pending further court action. It is unclear if the appeals courts decision applies outside those states. White House aide Cedric Richmond defended the use of the OSHA authority to mandate the vaccinations, telling the Fox News Sunday show, OSHAs job is to protect workers. If it means doing something tough, thats what this president does. We think were on solid ground, Richmond said. It appears that hundreds of thousands of federal workers have been vaccinated ahead of the deadline in two weeks, but opposition to the shots has emerged at some agencies, especially those related to law enforcement and intelligence. Other lawsuits filed by workers unions and individuals that contest Bidens mandate remain to be adjudicated. There is no testing option available for government employees as there would be for workers in the private sector. The number of new coronavirus cases has been diminishing for several weeks in the U.S., but even so about 70,000 additional cases are being recorded every day. More than 193 million people in the U.S. out of its population of 333 million have been fully vaccinated. But millions of adults have for various reasons refused inoculations, curbing Bidens effort to fully control the pandemic. More than 750,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, more than in any other country, according to the governments U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three people were wounded in a knife attack on a high-speed train in southern Germany on Saturday, local police said, adding a suspect had been arrested. Officers said the danger was over and a 27-year-old man was in custody, with unconfirmed media reports saying the suspect was of Syrian origin and suffered from psychiatric issues. The motive for the attack on the passenger train, making its way from Bavaria to the northern city of Hamburg with roughly 300 people on board, was not yet clear. Local prosecutors are handling the case rather than the federal officials who would deal with suspected terrorism. The three victims were being treated in hospital, said police in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, adding that none had suffered life-threatening injuries. The ICE high-speed train was halted in the station of Seubersdorf, southeast of Nuremberg, and travel on the line was suspended. "This knife attack is horrible," Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said on Twitter. "I would like to thank everyone, especially the police and the train staff, for their brave action, which prevented something even worse from happening. "The motive for the crime is still unclear and will now be determined." The attack took place at a tense time in Germany, which faces terror threats from jihadis and right-wing extremist groups. Islamist suspects have committed several violent attacks in recent years, the deadliest being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people. The Tunisian attacker, a failed asylum seeker, was a supporter of the Islamic State jihadist group. Seehofer said earlier this year that German authorities had foiled 23 attempted attacks since 2000. "Germany and Western Europe are still in the sights of radical Islamists," he warned at the time. Since 2013, the number of Islamists considered dangerous in Germany has increased fivefold to 615, according to the interior ministry. Several attacks or attempted attacks were carried out by asylum seekers who arrived in Germany during the 2015 migration crisis. Chancellor Angela Merkel opened the country's doors to some 900,000 asylum seekers. German officials believe the attackers planned their acts alone, unlike some of the attacks in France in 2015 that were ordered by the Islamic State jihadist group. Advocates for media freedom say nations in the Southern Africa Regional Bloc, SADC, are enacting restrictive cyber laws that have a chilling effect on journalism and freedom of expression. In a hybrid forum on the state of internet regulations, Tabani Moyo, the director of Media Institute of Southern Africa, said his organization is worried about a trend toward less tolerance for journalists and dissent in the region. He said the trend began last year, after a meeting of SADC leaders where heads of state resolved to take pre-emptive measures against what they called external interference, the impact of fake news and abuse of social media. "In the wake of this resolution, we have seen a dangerous consensus towards crackdown of expression online," Moyo said. "A number of southern African countries moved with speed to come up with what they referred to as cybersecurity laws and frameworks. To us, [this is] somewhat problematic as the proposed pieces of legislation have serious chilling effect on expression, media freedom and right to privacy." The effects have been most visible in Tanzania, where the Uhuru newspaper was suspended in August for publishing what authorities called a false story saying President Samia Suluhu Hassan would not run for office in 2025. In September, Raia Mwema, a Swahili-language weekly, was suspended for 30 days for "repeatedly publishing false information and deliberate incitement." Meanwhile, Zambia's government under former president Edgar Lungu used cyber laws to block social media, on the pretext the opposition was committing crimes with its posts on Twitter and Facebook. SADC secretary Elias Mpedi Magosi in a speech read by SADC director of infrastructure Rosemary Mapolao Mokoena defended the move toward stronger internet laws. "As more people get connected to access information, it attracts more cyber criminals to our shores," Mokoena said. "SADC has already commenced the process to review and modernize the SADC cyber space legal regulatory and institutional frameworks. Misinformation being spread on the safety of 5G mobile networks risks has caused a negative risk on the ICT industry." However, Namibia's Minister of Information and Communication Technology Peya Mushelenga called on countries to allow free expression online. "Thus, it is incumbent upon all players development partners, civil society organizations, government and intergovernmental organizations to reinforce among each other in order to safeguard and enhance guarantees the full exercise of the right to information and freedom of expression both online and offline, with a particular focus on strengthening media diversity its independence, ability as well as transparency of digital platforms," Mushelenga said. Zimbabwe's Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa announced this week the government had set up a cyber team to monitor what people send and receive, a move that is being condemned by many rights groups. Travel restrictions to the U.S. put in place during the pandemic are ending (have ended) after more than a year and a half. On Monday, travelers from around the world who are vaccinated can resume flights to the U.S. VOAs Arash Arabasadi spoke with an economist who explains what this means. Tyson Wabantu, an organization pushing for the election of Saviour Kasukuwere in the next presidential poll as Zimbabwes new leader, says it is supporting attempts by a Zanu PF member, who has filed a High Court application seeking the removal of President Emmerson Mnangagwa from the powerful position of ruling party secretary. Ntokozo Msipa, spokesperson of Tryson Wabantu, told VOA Zimbabwe Service that Sybeth Musengezis court application is valid as Mnangagwa grabbed power from the late former President Robert Mugabe, who appealed in vain, for the Southern African Development Community and African Union to restore him to the highest seat of power in the country after he was toppled by the army. Msipha said, We have been looking forward for this case to be brought to court because this is what many people have been talking about over the past few years. Mnangagwa was not properly elected. He grabbed the peoples party, he grabbed our party. There are many things that were not done properly when he became the leader of the party. The court case clearly lays out all the pitfalls of his rise to power. The Central Committee, as stated in the court documents, had not power to convene a meeting and elect Mnangagwa as the new leader of the party when Mugabe was still alive. Mnangagwa was expelled from the party and government post of vice president. And so, the Central Committee did not have any power to bring him back. Its very important for such matters to be taken to court so that everything is cleared about Mnangagwas election by a Central Committee that was wrongly convened. Msipha said the ruling party was a peoples project but now its in Mnangagwas hands. This was our party as we were in the cells, districts and other structures. We never wanted a situation in which the party will be owned by an individual and his friends. It was literally grabbed by Mnangagwa and his allies for their own benefit. This court case is only the beginning of what will happen soon as there are some people in the party right now who are also questioning Mnangagwas leadership. They want him to go. To make matters worse, people dont like him. He said true Zanu PF patriots want Mnangagwa to be removed from the post of ruling party secretary so they can elect a new leader. We dont want him. He is ruining our party and he knows clearly well that the majority of Zanu PF members dont like him. In opposing documents filed by the partys administration secretary, Obert Mpofu, and Godwills Masimirembwa, a senior party official based in Harare, the respondents, inclucing Mnangagwa, claim that the court case has not legal standing as Section 87 of the countrys constitution grants the president immunity from prosecution. Masimirembwa claims that Musengezi was planted by Kasukuwere, popularly known as Tyson, in one of the districts in Harare, in an attempt to cause friction in the ruling party. According to The Standard newspaper, Masimirembwa affidavit filed in court reads in part, lt is believed, on investigation by the district coordinating committee security that reports to me as chairman of DCC 4 Harare and also acting chairman of the Harare Province, that Applicant was planted into the relevant district, without the relevant credentials for political and other reasons by the former secretary for the commissariat Saviour Kasukuwere, with whom he is allegedly related. But Musengezi claims that he is a fully accredited Zanu PF member. I have been a Zanu PF member for a very long time. He showed VOA Zimbabwe Service his ruling party membership cards indicating that he is a fully-paid Zanu PF activist. Some of the papers filed by Mpofu further state that Mnangagwa has championed development in Zimbabwe since he was elected president and therefore he cannot be removed from the post of party secretary through a court process. It cannot be sensible or convenient for this Honourable court to be invited to upset these national programmes, at the whim of some unknown figure, whose background and credentials are suspect and boarder on factional political interests According to Mnangagwas attorneys, the court case should be struck off the High Court register as judges have no authority to preside over a case involving a sitting president. It was an eventful week off for SNL. Pete Davidson took week-two host Kim Kardashian out to dinner in beautiful Staten Island. Dont knock the food in Staten Island; where do you think the Italians went after Whole Foods moved into Brooklyn? Ed Sheeran caught COVID but quickly recovered, in another example of Great Britains superior health-care system. Ego Nwodim had a delightful guest-starring role in HBOs Love Life, alongside scene-stealing Punkie Johnson. And of course, the three Please Dont Destroy boys and James Austin Johnson were featured in Vultures Comedians You Should Know and Will Know in 2021. (Not that I disagree with my colleagues, but I think we know them.) Kieran Culkin takes over as host this week. He plays the kinetic and unpredictable younger brother Roman Roy on HBOs hit series Succession. Obviously, hes hilarious on it, but the tone of SNL and Succession could not be more different. Can his sarcastic quips and demented outbursts translate to SNLs goofy fun? Way Too Accurate Satire of Fox News Cecily Strong returns as Jeanine Pirro and SNL uncorks another solid cold open. The audience was a little tepid here, and I think its because Jeanine Pirro praising Aaron Rodgers, Governor-elect Youngkin, and a parent concerned about critical race theory feels almost too much like an actual Fox News show. Prejudice is fine, but Pride is a term that has been co-opted by the gays. Then we get James Austin Johnsons incredible Trump impression. The movie was rotten, just ask the tomatoes. The audience again was a bit muted at first. But they gave James a lot of time to ingratiate himself, and his Trump thinking out loud impression will prove to be a weapon in future episodes. Macaulay Culkin Throwback Clip During his monologue, Kieran explains that not only did he briefly appear in his brother Macaulays SNL episode, he asked Kevin Nealon to pick him up. This was a very short monologue, but I think part of that is that we actually know very little about Kieran outside of Succession. He gave the obligatory This is a dream come true and was out. Most Triggering Sketch While Kieran gets triggered trying to cancel his cable, the audience is also triggered as so much of this is all too real. We can use one of your security questions: What city did your mom lose her virginity in? This is a fun sketch, ending with Bowen as Spectrum itself. May I interest you in free Disney+ to keep your service? One of SNLs solutions to dealing with the largest cast ever is having several sketches where you rotate quickly between several characters. Im pretty sure this was Melissa, Aidy, and Sarahs only appearance of the night. Sketch That Runs Out of Gas The Car Heist is a classic heist movie setup and the entire joke is Ghost cant drive a stick. And? Thats it? It always feels like a wasted opportunity when a digital sketch doesnt hit. It feels less like a sketch and more of an actual scene from some godforsaken Oceans Eleven knockoff. Dionne Warwick asks Dionne Warwick Why Shes So Perfect Im not perfect; Im just very, very good. Its a nice moment. Ego returns as the disinterested diva Dionne, quickly moving through a slew of celebrities. The only thing I dont like about this sketch is we have Punkie as Dionnes niece Brittani, in reference to Dionnes real-life niece who she claimed helped her with her tweets. But Punkie isnt given any funny lines and basically just says Hi. Are they trying to help Punkie get her SAG card? More on this later. Weekly Reminder That SNL Should Feature Bowen More Inner-monologue sketches are actually hard to pull off. Audiences can get ahead of you, and the sketch can sometimes meander while we wait for the next aside. But this is the best sketch of the night. Bowen kicks it off, and Chris, Andrew, and Kieran all heightened beautifully. Andrew is having a little bit of a breakout episode. (You guys have any plans for the summa time? Why would they? Its November.) Not sure if a line or exit was missed on the live broadcast after Tracy Morgans entrance because it doesnt feel like all the guys jumping together and yelling yay! was part of the script. Weirdest Sketch of the Night In The Jockey, Kieran Culkin rides a horse like a skateboard and sings about it? Another digital clunker. It feels like an idea that would have done better on another show. Michael Che Dating-Preference Reference of the Week Political experts say that the Republicans victory in Virginias governors race was fueled by support by white women who didnt go to college, which just so happens to be the same group I target on Tinder. Gutsiest Character of the Week Cecily Strong is Goober the clown who wants to talk about abortion and is here to try and make it fun. Abortion is a difficult subject matter (Cecily even suggests they disable the comments), but Cecily attacks the sketch with poise and conviction. Her horn not honking is a dangerous moment where a lesser performer might let the sketch fall apart, but Cecily is so committed she just keeps going. Inspired performance. Best Rap of the Week Kieran Culkin has a special surprise for Wake Up Rhode Island viewers, as hes dressed up as Turkey Tom with a rap. However, hes interrupted by a severe weather announcement that he didnt prepare for because he was busy writing his rap. This is Kierans best sketch, utilizing his bizarro energy as he continues to try to do his rap despite Cecilys objections. Punkie is yet again given too little but nails her line (The sea took them!). Best Tutorial on How to Get Back With Your Ex-Girlfriend If youre trying to get back together with your girlfriend, its probably best not to start with, Hey Ange. Its me, its John Fuck you. Johns efforts to win his ex back only go downhill from there. Please Dont Destroy is back with another video in their now-familiar SNL office, and its another hit. Whether or not it airs on the broadcast, we need a new one of these every week. I also hope we can get some more hosts guest-starring, like when Rami popped up in week three. Post-show Notes I wrote earlier that Punkies character was wasted in the Dionne Warwick sketch, as they slipped her in as a reference to the real-life Brittani. When you work in a reference like that, you really need to echo the relationship between the two people and, hello, work in a joke. Im obviously not a joke-writer at the caliber of someone who writes at SNL, but something along the lines of Are you gonna finally ask the questions I wrote for you, auntie? No. You never want to have a cast member just exist in a comedy sketch. They actually did this to Punkie in the Cars 4 sketch, where she just sat there as the sound engineer and her lines were basically rolling and on you. Lazy writing for a performer who doesnt need much to get big laughs. Keeping Score Cecily Strongs strong performances as Jeanine Pirro and Goober the Clown give her my MVP this week. Cecily is an all-around talent. She does strong impressions, can play weird, and she was excellent in the Weatherman sketch, asking Kieran to take off his turkey hat. Also, if you havent seen her in Schmigadoon!, do yourself a favor. Its a real treat to watch a performer play every comedy note with such grounded conviction. Overall, this episode was okay. I think Mens Bathroom was a high high, but the writers didnt really know what to do with Kieran. I was also hoping that this week would be the return of Kate McKinnon, and we only got one very brief Aidy appearance. SNL is starting to strain dealing with the largest cast in history. Every week Darrell Hammond announces like ten people who dont appear on the episode, except for Mikey Day, who seems to be in charge of casting. I know they want to keep as many people as possible until season 50, but this is really turning into The Island of Dr. Lorneau. If people want to leave and do other stuff, let them leave. If you announce a popular cast member who is either barely on the show or not on at all, thats not just how SNL is. Thats false advertising. Hospitals across Alabama have such a low supply of blood that the Alabama Hospital Association has deemed it a crisis. LifeSouth supplies blood to all 17 hospitals in North Alabama. Throughout the pandemic, they've been in desperate need of blood donations. Hospitals in Alabama are in critical need of blood donations Hospitals in Alabama are in critical need of blood donations Usually, once school starts ramping back up and people start getting back to normal, we see an uptick in donations," said Kami Mitchell, district community development coordinator for LifeSouth. "We havent seen that uptick this year." Mitchell said they've been in an emergency appeal since June 2020, meaning hospitals have less than two days' worth of blood supply, when they're supposed to have three to five days' worth. Mitchell said they're seeing fewer people come in each day to donate. When blood is not on our shelves, we have cancer patients that have to defer treatment," she said. "So, youre talking about loved ones who are already at a really, really critical point in their life, needing that lifesaving serum of platelets or blood or whatever theyre needing, and then being told that they cant do that because theres not enough blood on the shelves, and thats heartbreaking. She said when someone's in a car accident, they usually need about 42 units of blood. According to the American Red Cross, someone's in need of blood every 2 seconds, and each blood donation can save up to three lives. Morris Hornbuckle rolled up his sleeve Sunday. He said it's an easy way to help out a person in need. Its something I can do that doesnt cost me money, that contributes to society," said Hornbuckle. There's no better time than now to be someone's saving grace, according to Mitchell. Christmas is coming up, holidays are coming up, so what better gift can you give than to give the gift of life?" she said. Protesters and police clash on streets of Trieste. Thousands of people took to the streets of Trieste, Milan and several other Italian cities on Saturday night to protest against Italy's covid Green Pass mandate for workers. The Green Pass, a certificate proving the holder has been vaccinated, tested negative or recovered from covid-19, became obligatory for all workers in Italy on 15 October, sparking sporadic demonstrations around the country, mainly in the north. In Trieste, which has been to the forefront of protests against the pass, around 8,000 people showed up to demonstrate last night, according to the city's police headquarters. This was the second-biggest protest in the city in the last 10 years, after a rally by the No Green Pass and No Vax movements in mid-October which attracted about 15,000 people, reports newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano. Clashes broke out last night between protesters and police near the central Piazza Unita, which was cordoned off following a recent order banning protests there. Demonstrators shouted insults at Italian premier Mario Draghi and the city's centre-right mayor Roberto Dipiazza, with some throwing chairs and tables at police who responded with batons. Absent from the rally in Trieste was Stefano Puzzer, the docker and high-profile leader of the Green Pass protest group La gente come noi (People like us), who was reportedly out of town. Since the protests began in Trieste last month, the northern port city has become the covid hotspot of Italy, making international headlines. Milan In Milan about 4,000 No Green Pass protesters took to the streets last night, including some who carried a cardboard coffin draped in the Italian tricolour to mark the "funeral of freedom", as police blocked demonstrators from reaching the Darsena waterfront district. Milan protesters carry a cardboard coffin draped with the Italian flag. Photo Fanpage. There were also protests in the northern cities of Padua (where 3,000 people showed up), Turin, and Novara, where last weekend No Green Pass protesters caused outrage by dressing in the style of prisoners at Nazi death camps. What are Italy's Green Pass rules for workers? Workers who do not have the Green Pass are not permitted to enter their workplace, with every day they miss as a result regarded as "unjustified" absence. After five days off work, employees will be suspended and have their pay frozen, however nobody can be fired for not having the health certificate. Unvaccinated employees can still enter the workplace but only if they undergo a covid test every 48 hours, at their own expense, with a fixed cost of 15. Those who go to work without the health certificate risk fines of between 600 and 1,500. Details about the Green Pass can be found - in Italian - on the Certificazione Verde website while for official information about the covid-19 situation in Italy - in English - see the health ministry website. Photo credit: ANSA The consequences of moving slowly on these reforms are too great to ignore. India has already slipped on the Global Hunger Index to 101st out of 116 nations, below countries like Myanmar and Pakistan, while unemployment, particularly in the vast hinterland, is surging. Even as the economy is showing signs of a recovery with the consumption-driven festive season, it will take a lot to ease the pain felt by the most vulnerable, who are in urgent need of food, jobs and housing. Heres hoping this dengue outbreak rings alarm bells for the government. Biden and other Democratic leaders built pressure to pass this omnibus package by stalling the infrastructure bill (which the CBO had vetted, by the way) so that the two could be voted on together. This both-or-neither strategy, insisted upon by the partys progressives, was ill-judged from the outset, and after pointless, protracted delay can be judged a political failure as well. Now that the infrastructure bill has been passed, Congress neednt cut short its deliberations over the far more complicated, ambitious and still-unfinished reconciliation package. It should be cast in final form, examined by the CBO and debated in public and in detail, so that Congress and the country as a whole can see what theyre actually getting. Its all in service of providing an audience with the best experience, and for me, thats one that entertains and that makes you think as you laugh. We can have a great time engaging with really exciting, profound ideas about what it means to be an American, what it means to be in community with one another. And theres no place for me more exciting to do that personally and professionally than D.C. Each year, about 36 million people 65 and older experience a fall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About 1 in 5 of those falls causes a serious injury, such as a head injury or a broken bone usually to the wrist, arm, ankle or hip. Hip fractures alone result in hospitalization for 300,000 older Americans annually, and more than 95 percent of those fractures are due to falls. As for head injuries, falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injury. The CDC says that falls are the leading cause of not only injury among older people but also injury-related deaths, with more than 32,000 people in this age group dying each year because of a fall. Although people of any age can and do fall, risk rises with age. Still, falling is not considered an inevitable result of aging, according to the National Council on Aging. Factors that contribute to higher risk for older people include muscle weakness, balance issues, vision problems, wearing ill-fitting or slippery-soled shoes and various home hazards, from poor lighting to cluttered floors and more. In addition, medications that may cause a person to become dizzy or sleepy increase the risk for falling, and this includes medications commonly taken for high blood pressure, allergies, sleep problems, anxiety or depression. To prevent falls, health experts urge older people to have their doctor or pharmacist evaluate their medications for possible falling risks, have their vision checked annually and eyewear updated if needed, and make their home safer by keeping floors clutter free, adding grab bars in the bathroom and making sure all staircases have handrails and are well lit. Also, they are advised to regularly do exercise that will strengthen their legs and improve balance. Officials can grant a special enrollment period for individuals who want to leave their plan due to deceptive sales tactics. These include situations in which a beneficiary provides a verbal or written allegation that his or her enrollment in a MA or Part D plan was based upon misleading or incorrect information . . . [or] where a beneficiary states that he or she was enrolled into a plan without his or her knowledge, according to the Medicare Managed Care Manual. Todays Headlines The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning. Email address By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy This just became one of the most important test cases for press freedom, even if we all agree that Assange isnt the press, said Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Factually, theres a world of difference between what Assange is accused of and what professional journalists do. The tricky part is the theory on which hes being prosecuted doesnt draw that much of a legal distinction between them. One does not need to be sympathetic to Assange to be worried about a sort of precedent whereby it is not just unlawful but routinely prosecuted for third parties to publish classified information. Hindsight makes clear that these hypotheses were outrageous. But while its important to debunk the racism, sexism and homophobia driving these moral panics, its just as important to understand why they took hold. During these and countless other classroom wars, including Virginias contest this past week, schools become sites of such intense controversy precisely because they reflect larger social transformations. Seismic events such as the Great Depression, a world war and the civil rights struggle or, today, a pandemic and a major reckoning around structural inequality do change the experience of education. The resulting unease primes people, especially parents, to believe outlandish theories about the nature of these changes and what they represent, and to seize upon curricular issues as a concrete way to exert control over larger, inchoate and often unsettling social and political shifts. School issues, then, are no mere cipher for real concerns: Theyre central to contemporary political culture, in Virginia and beyond. Trump, after all, often describes his Democratic critics as his enemies, underscoring the extent to which he treats politics as tribal combat, demanding loyalty from his followers, and not necessarily as a path to policy compromises. Despite having advocated big spending on infrastructure while in the White House, Trump attacked Senate Republicans over the summer as they negotiated with Democrats for the measure that many saw as a boon for the roads, bridges and power grids in their home states. Mitch McConnell and his small group of RINOs wants nothing more than to get a deal done at any cost to prove that he can work with the Radical Left Democrats, Trump declared in a July missive from his political action committee, using a derogatory acronym for Republicans in name only. Moore resists suggestions that he is being used; the state says in its brief that Ramirez met with Moore only briefly Sept. 8, his execution date, and only because of the court thing. Ramirez in the interview said that was only because he knew he would see Moore in the death chamber, and he was using his time that day for phone calls with his family. I think the Dems pay a lot of lip service to the idea of we want new voices, we want women of color, but we dont want them if theyre not going to have the identical talking points that weve handed to them, she said. Its this very troubling and misleading use of identity politics like, Well, we got a woman up there, or We got an Asian person, but Theyre our people. Theyre going to say what we want. Its like a college brochure idea of diversity, rather than really bringing in new voices. If a request is turned down, the employee must decide whether to get vaccinated or risk losing their job. If the request is granted, the unvaccinated worker must wear a mask, socially distance at the office and be tested regularly. The administration has not yet said who will pay for those tests or where they will be administered. Even with much of the government still working from home because of the pandemic, telework is not supposed to be an approved excuse for being unvaccinated. When he was the general manager of the New York Knicks, Ernie Tapscott said he would get stopped driving home from Madison Square Garden a couple a times a year for no reason. (AP) In his Raise a Fist, Take a Knee, John Feinstein talks to Black athletes and executives about how life outside the arena or stadium isnt always easy, either. And President Biden called on the perpetrators of this terrorist attack to be held accountable. I have instructed my national security team to offer all appropriate assistance to Iraqs security forces as they investigate this attack and identify those responsible, Biden said in a statement. The United States stands firmly with the government and people of Iraq as they strive to uphold Iraqs sovereignty and independence. The military has given mixed signals. It allowed four ministers to return to their homes under house arrest, according to Hadra, the lawyer. The four included Hamza Baloul, minister of information and culture, Hashim Hasabel-Rasoul, minister of communications, Ali Gedou, minister of trade and international cooperation, and Youssef Adam, minister of youth and sports. They were among more than 100 government officials and politicians detained following the coup. MARY RUTH WAGLER The funeral for Mary Ruth Wagler was held at 10 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 13, 2021, at First Mennonite Church, with Chris Raber, Gaylon Sommers and David Lee Stoll officiating. Burial was in the church cemetery. When Tibetan refugee Pema Kyi came to Australia in 2019 she had a Bachelor of Arts degree and was passionate about finding a career in mental health and psychology. But Ms Kyi, who is fluent in Mandarin and English, found settling in Australia more challenging than she expected. When I first came here I just had to start from zero, Ms Kyi says. Tibetan refugee Pema Kyi wants to pursue a career in mental health to help other refugees. Credit:Justin McManus Even with her university degree she was unable to use her qualifications to get a job and had to re-skill to make a living. AMES Australia, a refugee and migrant settlement agency, helped Ms Kyi complete her Certificate IV in Aged Care and start studying for a diploma in mental health. Before she started work on Dopesick, says Kaitlyn Dever, she knew next to nothing about OxyContin, the synthetic opioid that made a literal fortune for the now disgraced Sackler familys pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma. Dever is 24. I was born when I guess this really started picking up in America, so I think I was maybe too young, she says. I knew the opioid epidemic existed, but I didnt know the injustice behind it all. And speaking with friends about it, I think its just not something that is talked about a lot. Kaitlyn Dever as Betsy, a young miner in remote Kentucky who doesnt know whats wrong with her when she stops taking prescribed painkillers. Credit:Antony Platt/Hulu Dopesick, adapted by Danny Strong from Beth Macys investigative Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America, tackles that information gap head-on: it deals with what is now a huge public health crisis from every angle. The ride is hectic. We swoop from the Purdue boardroom to the Kentucky district attorneys office. We zoom from a sales meeting to the surgery of a decent doctor (Michael Keaton) who is just trying to fix patients who cant afford to stop work for a day. One of those patients is Devers doggedly determined Betsy, a young woman working in the coal mines. She loves her work. She also loves Grace (Cleopatra Coleman), which is a problem in coal country and particularly a problem in her evangelical Christian home. Already under pressure, Betsy doesnt know what is wrong with her when she decides to stop taking her painkillers: the sweats, the pain, the desperate need for something she knows is somewhere in a rubbish skip, which is where she ends up in the small hours, fishing through bin bags. For the rest of the series, she will be fighting that addiction. Victorias COVID-19 outbreak has reached an inflection point, with government modelling suggesting the states cases should now start to track up, while other experts point to NSWs declining caseload as evidence something unexpected is going on. Burnet modelling, commissioned by the state government and released on October 17, predicts a dip in new cases between mid-October and mid-November, followed by a steady increase in new cases and a peak mid-December. Victoria has largely followed those forecasts so far, the states five-day average of new cases dipping from 2002 on October 18 to 1158 by November 3. Ending lockdown should give the virus the conditions it needs to spread more rapidly. But NSW has seen the opposite happen: cases have continued to fall since it reopened on October 11, the five-day average dropping from 551 to 189 on November 4. It has been incredibly challenging and distressing, Western Health intensive care director Craig French said. Patients and their families have expressed the belief that they dont have COVID, its not real to them, even though they are critically ill or somebody they love is very, very sick. Director of intensive care at Western Health, Professor Craig French. Credit:Justin McManus On Thursday afternoon, Ms Roessen was the only patient in the coronavirus ICU ward who was well enough to be interviewed when The Sunday Age visited. She was also the hospitals first patient to be admitted to the intensive care ward who had been fully vaccinated, something she is certain saved her life. She suspects it was her bad lungs weakened by a previous pulmonary embolism, which left her critically ill, when the virus invaded her body. She was taken to hospital by ambulance 10 days ago. Her husband and daughter, both infected with the virus and fully vaccinated, quickly recovered at home. If I had not been double vaccinated I would be dead. There are no two ways about it, Ms Roessen says as a nurse takes her blood pressure. It was very scary. The staff here are angels. There are no words for them. Western Health treated the most Victorians infected with COVID-19 in the state last year. But the virulent Delta variant has meant staff have treated more coronavirus patients in recent months than the whole of 2020. And there are more to come, in the order of 1100 COVID-19 patients, who could be in hospital by late December or early January, according to modelling provided by the Burnet Institute. Maria Roessen is being tended to by ICU nurse Montana McQuade. Credit:Justin McManus On Thursday, there were nine critically ill coronavirus patients in Sunshine Hospitals ICU, most aged between 40 and 60, but the youngest in their 30s. Another eight critically ill patients were at nearby Footscray Hospital, while almost 50 others filled other coronavirus wards. A nurse is at the end of each bed in the ICU, dressed in a plastic face shield, pale blue gown and fitted face-mask, carefully observing a computer screen monitoring vitals. Loading Some patients are ventilated and lying on their bellies as colourful tubes attached to them stretch out to machines humming softly nearby. Others are bare-chested on their backs, beneath a sea of monitors, their feet dangling out the end of the bed. There is a tiny resuscitation table for newborn babies in the corner of the ward following a surge in pregnant, unvaccinated women being admitted, putting them and their unborn babies in heightened danger of severe outcomes. The pressure is being felt in every corner of the hospital. Western Healths critical care outreach service manager, Kylie Fisher, is overseeing the complex daily logistics of managing other seriously ill people. This involves prioritising only the sickest people for urgent surgeries. Meanwhile, a team of intensive care physicians tend to the seriously ill outside the ICU - something that would have been almost unheard of pre-pandemic. They feel like theyve got their finger in the dike and the moment they move it, the flood could start, she said. They are still providing incredible care, but they have been very, very crucial in managing the higher acuity on a general ward. Nurses who usually work in operating theatres have been trained up and re-deployed to the COVID-19 ICU. ICU nurse Louise Watson says nothing prepared her for looking after COVID-19 patients. Credit:Justin McManus Among them is critical care nurse Louise Watson, who returned to the ICU six weeks ago. While the senior nurse has cared for countless patients with pneumonia over the years, nothing prepared her for COVID-19. It is the primal and desperate hunger for air that is etched in her mind. These people are just so severely depleted of oxygen they are literally gasping for air, she said. Loading They have such panic in their eyes. What we are having to tolerate in terms of oxygen levels that patients are experiencing is something I have never seen before. It can be any demographic, any age, if people are unvaccinated, they can get severely ill from COVID. Victorias Health Department revealed on Friday that 95 percent of those in ICU with COVID-19 were not fully vaccinated. Professor French said many had chosen not to be vaccinated due to their beliefs. These values are often shared by the patients families, making clinical conversations about life-saving treatments extremely difficult. Some families have expressed a desire to shun conventional medicine, while other families request dangerous and unproven drug treatments they have read about online. Others find it hard to comprehend how much their loved one has deteriorated on FaceTime calls after having not seen them become increasingly sicker in the ICU. ICU physiotherapists move a coronavirus patient onto their stomach. Credit:Justin McManus Irrespective of their vaccination status or beliefs about the virus, the professor at the department of critical care at the University of Melbourne said every COVID-19 patient receives the best care possible. We do not judge, we just get on with the job, he said. I am extremely proud of how hard the staff work every day. However, he said the abuse his staff have endured from the families of those severely ill with the disease, who believe the COVID-19 is a conspiracy, has taken a heavy toll. Psychologists have been called in to the ICU weekly to support healthcare workers. Loading The level of verbal assault our clinical staff have been exposed to in the last six to eight weeks is something I have never, ever experienced in my career, the intensive care physician said. The misinformation, the belief this isnt real, the absolute distress they are experiencing when their relatives are critically unwell makes it very, very difficult to have a conversation with them about how we can help them because what theyre requesting is often not consistent with the medical advice. But the gratitude of some families remains profound. One recently sent in dozens of kebabs to feed staff who were caring for their loved one. Despite the challenges, those on the frontline work tirelessly and with military precision. Late Thursday, nurses gently reassured patients as they tended to them, while a crowd of doctors gathered around the nurses station carefully examining chest X-rays. Lungs that look white as bone indicate there are virtually no air-filled spaces for the patient to breathe. This influences treatment, such as proning, which involves up to eight staff turning ventilated patients onto their stomach to open up their airways. Ms Roessen is hopeful she will be discharged next week. Others will not be so lucky. There are members of Melbournes western suburbs that are not going home to their families and that is a tragedy we all struggle with, Professor French said. These are peoples mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. Even if they do survive, theyre never going to be the same again after such a severe critical illness. A decision on whether to force a Chinese company to hand back its ownership of the Port of Darwin could be handed down in a matter of weeks, as the federal government weighs whether to make a move that will further ignite tensions with Beijing. The Department of Defence has handed its advice on security risks at the port to the government after the national security committee of cabinet ordered a review this year. A range of options for the future of the port, which was sold to Chinese government-owned Landbridge group in 2015 for $506 million, have been canvassed in recent months. The Port of Darwins 99-year lease with Chinese company Landbridge has attracted criticism since 2015. Credit:Glenn Campbell The most drastic would involve the government forcing Landbridge, owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng, to divest the strategically important asset on national security grounds under critical infrastructure laws passed in 2018. Despite headlines about the government being held hostage by the Nationals over a deal on net zero, the rural side of the Coalition has risked its self-proclaimed reputation as champions of the bush by failing to nail down their key demand just months away from a federal election. When the Nationals signed up to Prime Minister Scott Morrisons net zero climate policy, senior MPs made sure even those living beyond the black stump knew their support was conditional on securing a big payout for regional communities that rely on carbon-intensive industries like mining and manufacturing. Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce needs Prime Minister Scott Morrison to stump up the cash for a rural fund ahead of the election. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen But they ended up endorsing net zero without securing a public commitment to the rural future fund that was at the heart of their demands. Now theyre imploring Scott Morrison to commit the big bucks, in a sign theyre worried they could end up like French President Emmanuel Macron mired in a bitter dispute with Mr Morrison over a deal gone sour. FILE - Current and former Ethiopian military personnel and the public commemorate federal soldiers killed by forces loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) at a candlelight event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021. The U.N. Security Council has called for an end to the intensifying and expanding conflict in Ethiopia, and for unhindered access for humanitarian aid to tackle the world's worst hunger crisis in a decade in the war-torn Tigray region. (AP Photo/File) Retired U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Dana Bowman parachuted from a helicopter, bringing with him a large American flag as he landed on the Weatherford Christian School field Tuesday, Nov. 9 for a special ceremony in honor of Veterans Day. A former Justice Department official who aligned himself with Donald Trump after he lost the 2020 election has declined to be fully interviewed about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol The views expressed by public comments are not those of this company or its affiliated companies. Please note by clicking on "Post" you acknowledge that you have read the TERMS OF USE and the comment you are posting is in compliance with such terms. Your comments may be used on air. Be polite. Inappropriate posts or posts containing offsite links, images, GIFs, inappropriate language, or memes may be removed by the moderator. Job listings and similar posts are likely automated SPAM messages from Facebook and are not placed by WFMZ-TV. President and CEO Jason Jakubowski joins CT 21 this weekend to talk about what the need is this holiday season. To talk about this year's races and what the outcomes might mean for the future, Connecticuts Democratic Party Chair Nancy Dinardo and Republican Party Chair Ben Proto, join CT 21 this weekend. The Charing Cross Theatre has apologised after one of its security guards forcibly ejected a patron for kissing another man in a toilet. Located underneath Charing Cross train station in central London, the venue has housed a variety of star-led productions and is one of the most famous off-West End locations in the city. Performer Ciaran McCormack, who was in the venue yesterday, said on social media that he was "kicked, no sorry DRAGGED, out of Charing Cross Theatre by a member of security for being caught kissing a guy in the toilets. Oh, and right after singing my heart for the rest of the guests. Because "that behaviour between two geezers isn't accepted here".' Not me getting kicked, no sorry DRAGGED, out of @CharingCrossThr by a member of security for being caught kissing a guy in the toilets. Oh, and right after singing my heart for the rest of the guests. Because "that behaviour between two geezers isn't accepted here" Ciaran McCormack (@ciaranmc_) November 7, 2021 The event naturally drew outcry from the theatre community, with a variety of social media users describing the act as "disgusting", "absolutely grim", and "outrageous". McCormack has since said that "Apart from a lot of anger and my back being in agony I'm okay." The venue subsequently said in a statement: "The Players Bar apologises unreservedly for the incident last night. The security guard who was supplied by an outside agency acted without our knowledge or consent in a way that was contrary to the values and policies of our establishment. Indeed, two of the owners are gay themselves. "The guard was terminated following the event, as we will not tolerate such behaviour by anyone working in our establishment. We offer our most sincere apology to the individual involved, and will take steps to ensure that such an event is never repeated." WhatsOnStage will continue to investigate which security firm was hired to see what further actions are being taken. A Chicago police officer who fatally shot a 61-year-old man inside his Chicago apartment last month had faced termination five years ago on elated to a drunken off-duty encounter with police Thank you for reading the Herald-Whig You have reached our free-content limit. If you are a current subscriber, please log in to continue viewing content or purchase a subscription by clicking the Subscribe button below. Thank you for supporting independent Journalism. Willmar, MN (56201) Today Windy with a mix of clouds and sun. High around 30F. Winds NW at 25 to 35 mph. Higher wind gusts possible.. Tonight Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 17F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Winchester, VA (22601) Today Considerable cloudiness. Occasional rain showers this afternoon. High near 50F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 40%.. Tonight Cloudy with a few showers. Low near 40F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 30%. Every now and again Metis artist Jessie Pruden pinches herself to make sure it isnt just a dream. Every now and again Metis artist Jessie Pruden pinches herself to make sure it isnt just a dream. As the founder of Bead N Butter, a jewelry line that combines traditional, Metis-style beadwork with contemporary designs and colour schemes, Pruden regularly ships her hand-woven earrings to customers across Canada, and as far away as France and Australia Photos by MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS The designs usually arent sketched out ahead of time. Mostly its me seeing arrangements in my brain that I think will look cool. Luckily, most of the time they do. That, despite the fact that as recently as 18 months ago she could barely thread a needle to save her life. "Its not a lie to say that before all this Id never so much as sewn a button on a shirt," Pruden, 38, says with a chuckle, seated in the Grant Park-area abode she shares with her partner and their menagerie of four-legged friends three felines and two pooches. "On the other hand, all my aunties were beaders, my Auntie Doods was particularly talented, so I guess it was hidden deep down in my DNA somewhere." MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Jessie Prudens beaded jewelry on display in her home studio. Pruden, a restaurant server for most of her adult life, found herself hardly able to walk, never mind work, in the summer of 2019 owing to a debilitating knee injury caused by years of shlepping heavy trays of food and drinks back and forth. She enrolled in university that fall with the goal of embarking on a new career path, taking Indigenous studies together with a few womens and gender courses. COVID-19 put a wrench in that plan, however, when she was forced to attend class remotely, which for her proved less than ideal from a learning perspective, so much so that she ultimately called it a day. If those factors alone werent enough to make her throw her arms up in despair, she was also having trouble netting a pair of earrings she desperately wanted. "Theres an amazing beader in the city named Bronwyn Butterfield whose earrings would sell out as fast as she could make them, pretty much," Pruden explains, referring to the 25-year-old Cree-Metis artisan whose handiwork was featured in the Free Press last summer. "I was frustrated that I could never get a pair so in the end I decided to teach myself how to make my own." As people kept telling me they loved what I was doing, and asking why I wasnt selling them, I started thinking maybe that wasnt such a bad idea, after all," says owner Jessie Pruden. In the spring of 2020, by which point she had temporarily moved back in with her parents after undergoing knee surgery, Pruden spent a couple weeks studying the same, five how-to videos on YouTube, over and over. Convinced she was ready to give it a shot, she devoted close to 20 hours over two days sewing a pair of earrings that were meant to resemble a butterflys wings. That they ended up looking more like an octopus with its legs shooting this way and that "Lets just say I didnt understand tension and threading, yet," she says with a wink failed to discourage her. Rather, she started from scratch and gave it another shot... and another, and another until she was satisfied. In time, hers werent the only lobes boasting her designs. The moment she started posting pics of her earrings on her personal Instagram feed, her followers began badgering her for a pair of their own. I never fashioned myself an entrepreneur; before my injury I would have told you I was a restaurant lifer." Jessie Pruden "I never fashioned myself an entrepreneur; before my injury I would have told you I was a restaurant lifer," she says. "But as people kept telling me they loved what I was doing, and asking why I wasnt selling them, I started thinking maybe that wasnt such a bad idea, after all. I mean, it wasnt like I was doing much of anything else at the time." Initially, Pruden, who credits a close pal for coming up with the punny tag Bead N Butter during a group brainstorming session, offered custom designs only. Somebody would send her a photo of a sunset at their cottage, for example, and she would do her best to recreate the scene utilizing different shades of orange and red beads. One time a person asked her to make a pair of earrings mimicking her dogs brown-and-white coat. On another occasion she was tasked with shes still not sure why turning out a pair approximating Bigfoot. MIKAELA MACKENZIE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Bead N Butter owner Jessie Pruden beads in her home studio in Winnipeg. She enjoyed the challenge. Except after poring through a number of art books filled with Metis imagery gifts from her father, a retired teacher who worked hand-in-hand with the provincial government to develop a curriculum that included Indigenous perspectives she changed direction by conjuring her own styles and patterns exclusively, based partially on what she spots in her dads tomes, and partially on colour combos dancing around in her head. "People ask if I sketch things out ahead of time, and every once in a while I do, but mostly its me seeing arrangements in my brain that I think will look cool. Luckily, most of the time they do," she says, noting everything she turns out close to 25 varieties at any one time in a mix of sizes is named for friends or family members, which explains why one can choose from a pair of Brianna, Kat or Jemma earrings. Pruden, who hosts a sale on her website (www.beadnbutter.ca) every Friday beginning at 6 p.m., bills her clientele as "guys, gals and everybody in between." Non-Indigenous people concerned about cultural appropriateness have inquired whether its acceptable for them to wear her earrings, too, to which she replies, "Of course." My Instagram is very queer-friendly and I sell to people from all walks of life. To me, anybody who goes out of their way to support an Indigenous-run business is absolutely awesome. Jessie Pruden "Some have gotten called on it, having been told it wasnt OK for them to be wearing beaded jewelry and I was like, whoever said that is wrong," she says. "My Instagram is very queer-friendly and I sell to people from all walks of life. To me, anybody who goes out of their way to support an Indigenous-run business is absolutely awesome." Besides an online shop, Bead N Butter products are also available at 10 retail outlets spread evenly across the country and, as of last week, a store in Wyoming. Closer to home, you can peruse Prudens output at dconstruct jewelry, at The Forks Market. "I was a big fan of her work, being a jewelry designer myself, (and) started following her on social media before realizing we are related through marriage; small world," says Lisa Pointon-Reico, who owns dconstruct with her husband Sean. "Our store carries some other brands and her esthetic really fit our style and design. We were really wanting to promote more Indigenous artists and she was able to wholesale, so it was a win-win. She is such a lovely, super-talented person and her pieces sell very well and very quickly for us." Earlier this year Pruden was approached by representatives from the Manitoba Crafts Museum and MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Womens Art). Both organizations wanted to know if she was interested in teaching beading classes to anybody interested in the art. She readily agreed, but only after asking, "Are you sure you have the right beader?" She has also taught her brother Noel how to bead, though that was for more selfish reasons: simply put, she needed a second pair of hands to keep up with demand. Beading has given Pruden the opportunity to be her own boss. "His girlfriend Molly helps, too, which to me is just surreal," she says, running her hand through a mop of pink-tinged hair. "Like I said, I always worked for somebody else I wanted no part of managing people but now that Im my own boss, I love it. Not having to answer to anybody is the best." One more thing; if Pruden has a holiday wish for the upcoming, festive season, its to land one of those robot vacuum cleaners that are all the rage. "Oh my God, you have no idea, there are beads fricking everywhere in my workspace," she says, when asked if being a beader means forever bending down to scoop up pellets that erroneously fall to the floor. "Not just that, but any time one of our cats wanders into the room and spots a long thread with beads attached hanging down from the desk, it automatically becomes playtime, leading to an even bigger mess." david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca If you value coverage of Manitobas arts scene, help us do more. Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project. HOUSTON (AP) Investigators Sunday worked to determine how eight people died in a crush of fans at a Houston music festival, as families mourned the dead and concertgoers recounted the horror and confusion of being trapped in the crowd. A pedestrian cross Main Street in front of a sign announcing the cancellation of Astroworld on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Houston. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Travis Scott was performing Friday night. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke) HOUSTON (AP) Investigators Sunday worked to determine how eight people died in a crush of fans at a Houston music festival, as families mourned the dead and concertgoers recounted the horror and confusion of being trapped in the crowd. Authorities planned to use videos, witness interviews and a review of concert procedures to figure out what went wrong Friday night during a performance by rapper Travis Scott. The tragedy unfolded when the crowd rushed the stage, squeezing people so tightly they couldn't breathe. Billy Nasser, 24, who had traveled from Indianapolis to attend the concert, said about 15 minutes into Scotts set, things got really crazy and people began crushing one another. He said he was picking people up and trying to drag them out. Nasser said he found a concertgoer on the ground. I picked him up. People were stepping on him. People were like stomping, and I picked his head up and I looked at his eyes, and his eyes were just white, rolled back to the back of his head, he said. Flowers lie against the south fence surrounding the Astroworld festival grounds the day after several people died and scores were injured during a concert the night before at NRG Park, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke) Over the weekend, a makeshift memorial of flowers, votive candles, condolence notes and T-shirts took shape outside at NRG Park. Michael Suarez, 26, visited the growing memorial after the concert. Its very devastating. No one wants to see or hear people dying at a festival," Suarez said. "We were here to have a good time a great time and its devastating to hear someone lost their lives. Houston Police Chief Troy Finner speaks during a news conference, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Houston, after several people died and scores were injured during a music festival the night before. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke) The dead, according to friends and family members, included a 14-year-old high school student; a 16-year-old girl who loved dancing; and a 21-year-old engineering student at the University of Dayton. The youngest was 14, the oldest 27. Houston officials did not immediately release the victims' names or the cause of death, but family and friends began to name their loved ones and tell their stories Sunday. Thirteen people remained hospitalized Sunday. Their conditions were not disclosed. Over 300 people were treated at a field hospital at the concert. Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021 in Houston. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival in while Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference.(Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle via AP) City officials said they were in the early stages of investigating what caused the pandemonium at the sold-out Astroworld festival, an event founded by Scott. About 50,000 people were there. Authorities said that among other things, they will look at how the area around the stage was designed. Julio Patino, of Naperville, Illinois, who was in London on business when he got a middle-of-the-night call informing him his 21-year-old son Franco was dead, said he had a lot of questions about what happened. The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference. (Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle via AP) These concerts should be controlled," Patino said. If they dont know how to do that, they should have canceled the concert right then, when they noticed there was an overcrowd. He added: They should not wait until they see people laying down on the floor, lifeless. Steven Adelman, vice president of the industry group Event Safety Alliance, which was formed after the collapse of a stage at the Indiana State Fair in 2011 killed seven people, helped write industry guidelines widely used today. He said investigators will examine the design of the safety barriers and whether they correctly directed crowds or contributed to the crush of spectators. He said, too, that authorities will look at whether something incited the crowd besides Scott taking the stage. Festival attendants, from left, Brandon Beauval, Joshua Robinson, Andrew Diaz and Billy Nasser talk about their experiences after several people died and scores were injured during the music festival the night before, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke) Adelman said another question is whether there was enough security there, noting there is a nationwide shortage of people willing to take low-wage, part-time security gigs. Security obviously was unable to stop people. Optically, thats really bad-looking, he said. But as for what it tells us, its too early to say. Contemporary Services Corp., headquartered in Los Angeles, was responsible for security staff at the festival, according to county records in Texas. Representatives for the company which advertises online as being recognized worldwide as the pioneer, expert and only employee owned company in the crowd management field did not immediately respond to emails and phone messages seeking comment. Stacey Sarmiento places flowers at a memorial in Houston on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021 in memory of her friend, Rudy Pena, who died in a crush of people at the Astroworld music festival on Friday. (AP Photo/Robert Bumsted) Houston police and fire department officials said their investigation will include reviewing video taken by concert promoter Live Nation, as well as dozens of clips from people at the show. Officials also planned to review the events security plan and various permits issued to organizers to see whether they were properly followed. In addition, investigators planned to speak with Live Nation representatives, Scott and concertgoers. Izabella Ramirez of Texas City was celebrating her 21st birthday and said that once Scott came on stage, no one could move. A man cries at a memorial for the victims of the Astroworld music festival in Houston on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021. (AP Photo/Robert Bumsted) Everybody was squishing in, and people were trying to move themselves to the front. You couldnt even lift up your arms, Ramirez said. Ramirez said a security guard pulled her over the barricade, while her date, Jason Rodriguez, lifted her up. Everyone was yelling for different things. They were either yelling for Travis or they were yelling for help, Rodriguez said. Stacey Sarmiento holds a photo up of her posing with her friend, Rudy Pena, who died in a crush of people at the Astroworld music festival in Houston. (AP Photo/Robert Bumsted) On video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: Security, somebody help real quick. There is a long history of similar catastrophes at concerts, sporting events and even religious events. In 1979, 11 people were killed as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum to see a concert by The Who. Other past crowd catastrophes include the deaths of 97 people at a soccer match in Hillsborough Stadium in 1989 in Sheffield, England, and numerous disasters connected with the annual hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia. Experts who have studied deaths caused by crowd surges say they are often a result of too many people packed into too small a space. Also Sunday, at least two of the first of many expected lawsuits were filed on behalf of a man injured in the crush of people in state court in Houston. Attorneys for Manuel Souza sued Scott, Live Nation and others, saying they were responsible. Another lawsuit was filed on behalf of Noah Gutierrez by Ben Crump, a civil rights lawyer who has represented the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other Black people killed by police. In a tweet posted Saturday, Scott said he was absolutely devastated by what took place." He pledged to work together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need. ___ Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Randall Chase in Dover, Delaware; Kristin M. Hall in Nashville and Bob Christie in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report. ___ A previous version of this story was corrected to show Travis Scott is 30, not 29. HOUSTON (AP) The crowd at a Houston music festival suddenly surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, squeezing fans so tightly together that they could not breathe or move their arms and killing eight people in the chaos. Travis Scott performs at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) HOUSTON (AP) The crowd at a Houston music festival suddenly surged toward the stage during a performance by rapper Travis Scott, squeezing fans so tightly together that they could not breathe or move their arms and killing eight people in the chaos. The pandemonium unfolded Friday evening at Astroworld, a sold-out, two-day event in NRG Park with an estimated 50,000 people in attendance. As a timer clicked down to the start of the performance, the crowd pushed forward. As soon as he jumped out on the stage, it was like an energy took over and everything went haywire," concertgoer Niaara Goods said. "All of a sudden, your ribs are being crushed. You have someones arm in your neck. Youre trying to breathe, but you cant. Goods said she was so desperate to get out that she bit a man on the shoulder to get him to move. The dead ranged in age from 14 to 27, and 13 people were still hospitalized Saturday, Mayor Sylvester Turner said. He called the disaster a tragedy on many different levels and said it was too early to draw conclusions about what went wrong. Travis Scott performs at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) It may well be that this tragedy is the result of unpredictable events, of circumstances coming together that couldnt possibly have been avoided," said Judge Lina Hidalgo, Harris Countys top elected official. "But until we determine that, I will ask the tough questions. Experts who have studied deaths caused by crowd surges say they are often a result of density too many people packed into a small space. The crowd is often running either away from a perceived threat or toward something they want, such as a performer, before hitting a barrier. G. Keith Still, a visiting professor of crowd science at the United Kingdom's University of Suffolk, has testified as an expert witness in court cases involving crowds. He said he usually does not look at eyewitness reports in the early stages of analyzing an incident because emotions can cloud the picture, and witnesses can see only whats immediately around them. Travis Scott performs at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) Based on fire codes, the venue could have held 200,000 people, but city officials limited the attendance to 50,000, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena said. It was the crowd control at the point of the stage that was the issue, especially as the crowd began to surge toward the stage, Pena said. The deaths called to mind a 1979 concert by the Who where 11 people died as thousands of fans tried to get into Cincinnatis Riverfront Coliseum. Other past crowd catastrophes include the deaths of 97 people in an overcrowded Hillsborough Stadium in 1989 in Sheffield, England, and numerous disasters connected with the annual hajj in Saudi Arabia. Travis Scott performs at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) People in the Houston crowd reported lots of pushing and shoving during the performances leading up to Scotts set. Then when Scott took the stage, the crowd seemed to rush to the front, trying to get closer to the stage, said Nick Johnson, a high school senior from the Houston suburb of Friendswood who was at the concert. Everyone was passing out around you, and everyone was trying to help each other. But you just couldnt move. You couldnt do anything. You cant even pick your arms up, Johnson said. It just got worse and worse." Travis Scott performs at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) Johnson said fans started to crush each other, and people started screaming. He said it felt like 100 degrees in the crowd. Scott seemed to be aware that something was going on in the crowd, but he might not have understood the severity of the situation, Johnson said. On video posted to social media, Scott could be seen stopping the concert at one point and asking for aid for someone in the audience: Security, somebody help real quick. Travis Scott performs at Day 1 of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) In a tweet posted Saturday, Scott said he was absolutely devastated by what took place last night." He pledged to work "together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need. Amy Harris, a freelance photographer for The Associated Press, described an aggressive crowd atmosphere throughout the day because of the way fans were behaving pushing and rushing the stage barricades and prohibited VIP and admission areas. It was definitely the most chaotic festival environment that Ive been in, Harris said. I felt uneasy all day. The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference. (Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle via AP) Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said his department noticed attendees going down at 9:30 p.m. and immediately notified concert organizers. The event was called off 40 minutes later after discussions that included the fire department and officials with NRG Park. Finner defended the amount of time it took for the event to be canceled. You cannot just close when youve got 50,000 over 50,000 individuals, OK? Finner said. We have to worry about rioting riots when you have a group thats that young. The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference. (Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle via AP) At one point, Gerardo Abad-Garcia was pressed so tightly into the crowd that he could not move his arms off his chest. During the performance that came before Scotts, he started getting concerned for his safety. I just couldnt breathe. I was being compressed, he said. A security guard helped him and others climb a fence and get out. He described the crowd during Scott's set as a wave that was going forward and backward." He said some people tried to help those who were passed out on the ground, while other concertgoers seemed to ignore them and continued watching the show. The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival at NRG park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference. (Jamaal Ellis/Houston Chronicle via AP) Some audience members said barricades erected near the stage and to separate different sections of ticket holders prevented fans from escaping. Billy Nasser described an area created by a stage barricade as a closet that people were thrown into and the door was shut. Joshua Robinson said the barricades created an area that was just way too small and compact for the number of people there. Part of the investigation will include reviewing how the area around the stage was designed, the fire chief said. Festival goers are seen rushing into the VIP area prior to Travis Scott performing during day one of the Astroworld Music Festival at NRG Park on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Scott was performing. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP) Authorities did not disclose the causes of death, and the dead were not immediately identified. The police chief said authorities were investigating reports of suspicious activity in the crowd, including a security officer who told police that he felt a prick in his neck during the chaos and lost consciousness while being examined by first responders. He was revived by the opioid antidote Narcan. Scott, one of musics biggest young stars, founded the Astroworld Festival in 2018. The 30-year-old Houston native has been nominated for eight Grammy Awards. He has a 3-year-old daughter with Kylie Jenner, who announced in September that shes pregnant with their second child. Emergency personnel respond to the Astroworld music festival in Houston on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Travis Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference. (KTRK via AP) Drake joined Scott on-stage at the concert, which was livestreamed by Apple Music. ___ Associated Press writers Ryan Pearson in Los Angeles, Stan Choe in New York, David Sharp in Portland, Maine, and Desiree Seals in Atlanta contributed to this report. ___ This story has been corrected to show that Travis Scott is 30 years old, not 29. International relief agencies based in Winnipeg are concerned about escalating humanitarian needs as the conflict in Ethiopia worsens. International relief agencies based in Winnipeg are concerned about escalating humanitarian needs as the conflict in Ethiopia worsens. Mennonite Central Committee Canada, Canadian Lutheran World Relief and Canadian Foodgrains Bank have paused their programs and are monitoring Ethiopia because of the unpredictable situation. "Millions of people are at risk of hunger," said Tyler Braun, a program manager at Lutheran World Relief. "The food insecurity is huge." The food crisis is the result of fighting in the past year between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front, which rules that countrys northern region. The conflict has affected the food situation in Tigray and the nearby Afar and Amhara regions. Initially the conflict was confined to the north, but Trigrayan forces recently began to close in on the capital city of Addis Ababa, located in the central part of Ethiopia. It is estimated more than 100,000 have died amid reports of massacres, sexual violence and other atrocities committed by all sides. The Ethiopian government declared a state of emergency Nov. 2. Lutheran food programs in the Amhara and Tigray regions have been put on hold due to the fighting, Braun said, adding there are no Canadian staff members in the country. "We will go back when it is safe to do so," he said, adding local staff report there fear and uncertainty. "The situation is highly unpredictable," he said, noting the rebel forces are moving so quickly plans change daily. "It is difficult to know now what is safe and what isnt." Laura Kalmar of MCC said instability, closed roads and blocked communications make operating in Ethiopia difficult. "We have suspended activities in the affected areas," she said of emergency responses the organization had planned. The situation underscores the negative effect the conflict has on food security, she said. "It makes vulnerable people even more vulnerable," Kalmar said. Although MCC has no Canadian staff in the country, the situation underscores the risks faced by humanitarian organizations when fighting erupts. "We are constantly evaluating the security situation in places like Ethiopia," she said. Grant Hillier of the foodgrains bank said two food projects the organization supported in the areas affected by fighting had recently been completed. Until the situation calms down, no new projects are planned, said Hillier. Do you appreciate the extensive faith coverage by the Free Press? Become a supporter of the Religion in the News project! Your contribution of $10, $25 or more can help us keep offering trusted coverage of faith in Manitoba. Become a supporter Click here to learn more about the project. "We are taking a wait-and-see approach," he said, adding his organization has no staff in Ethiopia. "The needs are massive," he said, adding it is hard to get good information since aid organizations cant access the areas of greatest need. "We hope food aid wont end up being used as a tool in the crisis by any of the sides in the conflict." All three organizations ask Canadians to pray for an end to the conflict and to donate money to help people affected by the crisis. "Donations given now will help us when we can once again respond," said Braun. fpcity@freepress.mb.ca NEW ORLEANS (AP) A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administration's vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. FILE - Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, left, listens as Attorney General Jeff Landry, right, speaks about medicines being donated by drug companies to help the fight against COVID-19 at the Governor's Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management, April 6, 2020, in Baton Rouge, La. A federal appeals court has temporarily halted the Biden administrations vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4, or face mask requirements and weekly tests. Landry said the court action halts President Bidens administration from moving forward with his unlawful overreach. (Bill Feig/The Advocate via AP, Pool, File) NEW ORLEANS (AP) A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administration's vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by Jan. 4 or face mask requirements and weekly tests. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the action stops President Joe Biden "from moving forward with his unlawful overreach. "The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution, said a statement from Landry, a Republican. The U.S. Labor Department's top legal adviser, Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda, said the department is "confident in its legal authority to issue the emergency temporary standard on vaccination and testing. OSHA has the authority "to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them," she said. A spokesman for the Justice Department, Anthony Coley, said in a statement: The OSHA emergency temporary standard is a critical tool to keep Americas workplaces safe as we fight our way out of this pandemic. The Justice Department will vigorously defend this rule in court. Such circuit decisions normally apply to states within a district Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, in this case but Landry said the language employed by the judges gave the decision a national scope. This is a great victory for the American people out there. Never before has the federal government tried in a such a forceful way to get between the choices of an American citizen and their doctor. To me thats the heart of the entire issue, he said. At least 27 states filed lawsuits challenging the rule in several circuits, some of which were made more conservative by the judicial appointments of President Donald Trump. The Biden administration has been encouraging widespread vaccinations as the quickest way to end the pandemic that has claimed more than 750,000 lives in the United States. The administration says it is confident that the requirement, which includes penalties of nearly $14,000 per violation, will withstand legal challenges in part because its safety rules preempt state laws. The 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, said it was delaying the federal vaccine requirement because of potential grave statutory and constitutional issues raised by the plaintiffs. The government must provide an expedited reply to the motion for a permanent injunction Monday, followed by petitioners' reply on Tuesday. Lawrence Gostin, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and director of the World Health Organization's center on global health law, said it was troubling that a federal appeals court would stop or delay safety rules in a health crisis, saying no one has a right to go into a workplace unmasked, unvaxxed and untested. Unelected judges that have no scientific experience shouldnt be second-guessing health and safety professionals at OSHA, he said. TORONTO - Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week: A few customers watch a movie at a Cineplex movie theatre in Laval, Que., Friday, Feb. 26, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz TORONTO - Five things to watch for in the Canadian business world in the coming week: MEG Energy results: MEG Energy is set to release Q3 results on Monday. The Calgary-based company boosted its full-year production guidance in July, to 91,000 to 93,000 barrels per day from 86,000 to 90,000, after reporting $68 million in net profits in the second quarter on a near doubling of revenues. BoC events: The Bank of Canada is scheduled to host its annual economic conference Tuesday, focused this year on Behavioural Macroeconomics and Finance: Implications for Central Bankers." BoC governor Tiff Macklem will also be delivering closing remarks Tuesday via video conference at a joint conference of the Federal Reserve Board, the Bank of England, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Canada. Canadian Tire earnings: Canadian Tire is set to release Q3 results on Thursday. The company said in August that it purchased a 25 per cent stake in a B.C. inland port facility in an effort to bolster its supply chain amid ongoing global logistical problems related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Cineplex results: Cineplex Inc. is expected to release Q3 results on Thursday. The theatre operators lawsuit against would-be suitor Cineworld Group PLC is being closely watched by businesses across the country because the ruling could have far-reaching implications for pandemic-inspired litigation. Freshii earnings: Freshii Inc. is set to hold a Q3 earnings call on Tuesday. The Toronto-based company signed a deal in October to buy a majority stake in health and wellness product retailer Natura Market ECommerce Inc., with rights to acquire the rest of the business through the first quarter of 2025. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2021. BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) As COVID-19 ravaged Hungary in April, Budapest resident Akos Sipos received his second vaccine dose, believing he was doing the right thing for his own health and to help end the pandemic. FILE - A health worker prepares to administer Russia's Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine inside the Makati Coliseum, in Manila, Philippines on May 4, 2021. On Monday, the U.S. will implement a new air travel policy to allow in foreign citizens who have completed a course of a vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization. That leaves people in Mexico, Hungary, Russia and elsewhere who received the non-approved Russian Sputnik V vaccine or the China-produced CanSino vaccine ineligible to board U.S.-bound flights. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File) BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) As COVID-19 ravaged Hungary in April, Budapest resident Akos Sipos received his second vaccine dose, believing he was doing the right thing for his own health and to help end the pandemic. But Sipos, 46, soon discovered that the vaccine he received, Russia's Sputnik V, disqualified him from traveling to a number of other countries where it hadn't been approved. The nations include the United States, which is pushing forward with a new air travel policy that will make Sipos and many like him ineligible to enter. I thought its better to get Sputnik today than a Western vaccine at some uncertain future time," Sipos, who works as a search engine optimization specialist, said of his initial decision to receive the jab. "But I couldnt have known at that time that I wouldnt be able to travel with Sputnik. Starting Monday, the United States plans to reopen to foreign travelers who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. But there's a catch: non-immigrant adults need to have received vaccines authorized by the Food and Drug Administration or which received an emergency use listing from the World Health Organization. That leaves many hopeful travelers across the globe who have taken full courses of vaccines widely used in other parts of the world Sputnik V and the China-produced CanSino jab, in particular scrambling to get reinoculated with shots approved by U.S. authorities. Two other Chinese vaccines, Sinopharm and Sinovac, have been approved by the WHO and will thus be accepted for travel into the U.S. Mexico received nearly 12 million doses of CanSino and almost 20 million of Sputnik V after shipments began earlier this year. Residents who got the required two shots of those vaccines now are looking to top up with shots of the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson & Johnson vaccines, hoping that will make them eligible to cross the border. They screwed those of us who got this vaccine, said Rosenda Ruiz, 52, a public relations manager in Mexico City who received Sputnik V. There are lots of Mexicans who want to travel, but we cant. I am thinking of getting whatever other vaccine I can get. FILE - A Uniao Quimica pharmaceutical employee holds a vial at the company's control center for the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine in Guarulhos in the greater Sao Paulo area of Brazil, May 20, 2021. On Monday, the U.S. will implement a new air travel policy to allow in foreign citizens who have completed a course of a vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization. That leaves people in Mexico, Hungary, Russia and elsewhere who received the non-approved Russian Sputnik V vaccine or the China-produced CanSino vaccine ineligible to board U.S.-bound flights. (AP Photo/Andre Penner, File) While Sputnik V is used in around 70 countries worldwide, it has still not been approved by either the FDA or the U.N. health agency. Nearly 1 million people have received the vaccine in Hungary, a Central European country of around 10 million. Hungary was one of only two countries in the 27-member European Union to roll out the Russian vaccine. Fewer than 20,000 people received it in Slovakia. Judit Molnar, president of the Association of Hungarian Travel Agencies, says so many Hungarians being unable to travel to the United States or even to some countries in the EU which don't accept the jab has had an effect on her industry. We see that in the last few months, travelers are increasingly asking us when they can travel to America," said Molnar, who is also president of the OTP Travel agency. "These travelers are saying they really hope the situation will change and that the United States will accept the Sputnik vaccine. There are many people who would like to travel and in Hungary, many people were vaccinated with Sputnik, she said. Citizens of Russia, where use of Sputnik V is most widespread, also are seeking Western-approved shots so they can travel abroad. Faced with the prospect of being turned away from flights, Russians have booked tours to Serbia, which has authorized use of the Pfizer-BioNTech, China's Sinopharm and the AstraZeneca vaccines in addition to Sputnik V. Russia, which unveiled Sputnik V with much fanfare as the world's first registered vaccine in August 2020, criticized U.S. plans to leave the vaccine off its list of approved shots. There are exactly zero reasons for such decisions," Leonid Slutsky, chairman of the foreign relations committee in the Russian Duma, or lower house of parliament. "The effectiveness and safety of the Sputnik V vaccine has been proven not only by specialists, but also by its practical application. But the World Health Organization still is reviewing the vaccine, and months of holdups make it unclear when Sputnik V might receive an emergency use listing. Hungary's government has made bilateral agreements with 24 countries including Russia, Serbia, Mongolia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan on mutually recognizing proof of vaccination, regardless of vaccine type. Hungary's Ministry of Foreign Affairs told The Associated Press that it is open to a similar agreement with the United States, but currently there is no ongoing negotiation." Sipos, the search engine specialist, said that while he was confident in Sputnik Vs efficacy, he recently sought a Western-approved booster shot, Moderna, so he could travel where he wants. I felt deceived because they accept Sputnik in more than 60 countries in the world, but in tons of other countries they dont, he said. Silvia Morales, 38, a public high school teacher in Monterrey, Mexico, said she recently received a Moderna shot after hearing that the U.S. government wouldnt recognize her CanSino vaccine. She said she needed to have peace of mind about her level of protection against the virus. But I also love traveling to the United States," she said. ___ Marcos Martinez Chacon in Monterrey, Mexico, and Jim Heintz in Moscow, contributed to this report. ___ Follow AP stories on the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic TORONTO - The boardroom feud at Rogers Communications Inc. has highlighted shortcomings in how Canada regulates companies across the country, a number of corporate governance experts said as they reacted to a recent court decision that appeared to bring an end to the saga. TORONTO - The boardroom feud at Rogers Communications Inc. has highlighted shortcomings in how Canada regulates companies across the country, a number of corporate governance experts said as they reacted to a recent court decision that appeared to bring an end to the saga. Out-of-date rules, they argued, pose a problem at both the provincial and federal level and can allow undemocratic business practices to go unchecked. Rogers is a teachable moment for our corporate governance not keeping up with the times," said Richard Leblanc, a governance professor at Toronto's York University. He said Friday's ruling from the British Columbia Supreme Court, which found that Edward Rogers has the right as head of the controlling Rogers family trust to replace independent directors without holding a shareholder meeting, is a prime example. Rogers issued a statement on Sunday night saying it would not appeal that ruling. "The most basic tenant of shareholder democracy is to vote for directors at the annual meeting. He said British Columbia is the only province where such an action would be allowed, which also highlights the fact that Canada does not have a federal securities regulator to coordinate such rules. Key federal guidelines on corporate governance have also not been updated since 2005, making them "wholly inadequate" to cover current expectations around best practices, he said. Daniel Waeger, Canada Research Chair in corporate governance at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., said independent directors should act as an important check in corporate governance and are a factor investors consider before committing their money. He said that while a controlling shareholder could obviously replace independent directors at an annual meeting, he still found it surprising that B.C. law would allow them to be replaced "so quickly, so unceremoniously" as in the Rogers case. Thats a bit jarring, because then all of these independent directors, that just means its completely fair-weather structure in that fence," he said. Edward Rogers was able to fire the directors because of the dual-class share structure at the company founded by his father. That structure sees the family trust he chairs controlling the vast majority of voting shares, while institutions and average shareholders hold non-voting shares. The dual-class structure is something the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance has long been pushing to change. Catherine McCall, the coalition's executive director, said in a recent editorial that dual-class shares violate the principles of fairness and accountability on which capital markets depend, and that the creation of sustainable long-term value requires factoring in the interests of all corporate stakeholders. She said the coalition advocates for some kind of sunset clause on dual share structures, either making the separation dissolve after a certain amount of time or after certain events like the death of a founder. Alternatively, the coalition argues for subjecting the structure to a periodic overall shareholder vote. University of Alberta business professor Randall Morck said dual-class structures do have some uses, especially in the fast-moving high-tech world where a company founder may have specialized knowledge. He said a longer-term investment horizon also helps, but said dual-class setups become more problematic when they get handed down to a second or third generation. Then that concentrated power becomes much less defensible and often a problem," said Morck. He said other countries have ways of putting limits on dual-class structures. He cited Israel, which forces a company to combine the shares if they ever issue new ones, as well as other jurisdictions where major decisions such as corporate takeovers have to be approved by both classes of shares. Morck said the issue getting far less attention through the Rogers dispute is the use of family trusts in general, which he says are used to reduce inheritance taxes and acts as the main tax loophole for the super rich in Canada. In a world where we worry about extreme inequality, it might make sense for us to wonder kind of, does the whole idea of a family trust really make sense in a democracy thats committed to some elements of economic equality? This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2021. Companies in this story: (TSX:RCI.B) GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) John Kerry is everywhere and on the move at a fateful U.N. climate summit. FILE - President Joe Biden walks off after speaking during an event about the "Global Methane Pledge" at the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit, Nov. 2, 2021, in Glasgow, Scotland, as John Kerry, United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate is seen taking the podium, as shown on the screen. Kerry, President Barack Obama's secretary of state and a former senator, came back post-President Donald Trump to serve as Biden's climate envoy. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) John Kerry is everywhere and on the move at a fateful U.N. climate summit. President Joe Bidens envoy at the talks in Glasgow, Kerry steams from side talks with U.S. rivals China and Russia that painstakingly probe for common ground on climate to news conferences extolling progress. Kerry pops into project launches, rewarding CEOs and bankers for emissions-cutting efforts with high-level face time and praise. The lanky envoy smiles for a photo with Indigenous women from Brazil, their feather headdresses barely reaching his chin. Toward the end of the U.N. climate summit's first of two weeks, Kerrys voice grew hoarse from his mission of rallying global climate efforts that are threatening to hit a wall at home. The alternative is you dont do anything, you dont say anything" on climate, Kerry told reporters at the summit. You dont have any promises, you dont have any commitments. And youre sitting there, waiting for the deluge. He was speaking of a climate fight growing more urgent, as global warming from the burning of fossil fuel intensifies, and more fraught, as the United States' own wildly swinging seesaw politics imperil Biden's climate efforts and again threaten global momentum on the matter. With the summit underway, the U.S. House on Friday finally passed a stalled infrastructure bill that contains some important measures to cut U.S. emissions. But Bidens lagging political support, and Republican upsets in off-year elections last week, are heightening uncertainty that the U.S. administration can deliver on some of Biden's biggest climate promises. Kerry, President Barack Obama's secretary of state and a former senator, came back post-President Donald Trump to serve as Biden's climate envoy. The job has entailed apologizing for the global disruption that Trump, who mocks the science behind climate change, wreaked when he pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris climate accord, which Kerry helped to negotiate. Scientists say the ground lost during the Trump administration leaves this decade a last chance to keep the Earth from warming to more catastrophic levels. Kerry's job now is part diplomat, part cheerleader. At the Glasgow climate conference, as in the months before, Kerry negotiates to nail down every possible bit of new climate effort from countries and businesses then pushes for more. While the U.S. return to global climate negotiations has helped push allies to some deeper cuts on emissions, the world's other big polluters besides the United States China, Russia, India and others are short on emission promises, at best. FILE - Secretary of State John Kerry holds his granddaughter as he signs the Paris Agreement on climate change, April 22, 2016 at U.N. headquarters. Kerry, President Barack Obama's secretary of state and a former senator, came back post-President Donald Trump to serve as President Joe Biden's climate envoy. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) At 77, Kerry is waging only the latest of his campaigns in a decades-long personal battle to curb the fossil fuel emissions heating Earth. Kerry brings a deep knowledge of what's at stake," said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, and a veteran of climate talks. He brings long-term relationships to these talks, and the spirit of collaboration. Yet, she adds, he "gets limited by what is happening at home. If there's not a credible U.S. plan to meet the targets and phase out fossil fuels, there's only so much, only so far, he can get here," Morgan said. Conservative groups single out Kerry online, making social media memes out of his wealth at Glasgow he introduced a speaker as his neighbor on Martha's Vineyard and supposed love for jetting around the world. Kerry's intentness on diplomacy to try to push and pull coal-loving China into faster emission cuts also brings him into public contrast with Biden and some of Biden's top officials, who have become vocally critical of China. China is currently the world's top climate polluter. The U.S. is No. 2 at the moment, and the world's worst carbon polluter over time. Biden's parting words as he left the Glasgow summit this past week after joining more than 100 other world leaders here were that Chinese President Xi Jinping had made a big mistake in not attending. Theyve lost an ability to influence people around the world, Biden said. Veteran observers of global climate talks speak favorably of Kerry's quieter work as climate envoy. Thom Woodroofe, a researcher on U.S.-China climate diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said Biden's appointment of the former secretary of state made countries such as China really sit up and take notice with just how significant ... how much importance the Biden administration was going to place on diplomacy and their climate action at home. While Chinese leaders publicly scold and snub members of the Biden administration, China's own veteran climate diplomat, Xie Zhenha, told reporters at Glasgow he calculated he had talked to Kerry 23 times in Kerry's current position. When a news site ran a caricature showing an exaggeratedly chinned Kerry with one hand on the shoulder of the equally exaggerated round-faced Xie, and the other hand cupping the Earth and its future, Kerry had the cartoon framed and presented it to Xie. At the climate summit, Kerry's height makes him an easy spot among the thousands of climate advocates, government officials and reporters at the summit site, which sprawls for more than a half-mile (close to a kilometer). It's a mix of permanent and temporary structures along Glasgows River Clyde that feels like an airport terminal flanked by a military forward-operating base. Kerry appears patient and polite with the random advocates and reporters from around the world who approach him at the summit. Before the summit, climate activists carrying out a hunger strike at the White House gates filmed another Biden administration official impatiently thumbing his phone when they approached him on the need for climate action. Kerry, by contrast, went out and talked to the young climate strikers, telling them about his own environmental activism when he was young. Kerry's first cause after returning from fighting in the Vietnam War was activism for the first Earth Day, in 1970, he says. His wife, Teresa Heinz, says they met at a later Earth Day, in 1990. In 2015, his work in climate negotiations, and the trust Xie seemed to place in Obama negotiators including Kerry, helped seal a global climate deal in which more than 190 nations committed to taking action to cut climate emissions. The irreversible damage being wrought by global warming was even more obvious to all by November 2016, when Kerry made one of his last trips as Obama's secretary of state, becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official to visit Antarctica. The U.S. presidential election had just handed victory to Trump, who already had pledged to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord and would soon be rolling back U.S. climate efforts in office. Kerry crunched in boots over a frozen sea, faced off with a curious penguin and talked with U.S. scientists there. The South Pole had the purest air in the world, but it, too, was heavily polluted with coal and petroleum waste, scientists told him. The West Antarctic ice sheet was melting from below in the warming waters, breaking off and floating out to sea. It was some of the most stunning wilderness," Kerry recalled last month to The Associated Press, and it was mixed with the negative impacts of human beings. ___ Follow AP's coverage of climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate For much of the COVID-19 pandemic, the leaders of Canada's biggest cannabis companies have spouted lofty ambitions linked to a U.S. pot market they strongly believe is on the brink of federal legalization and will be their ticket to profitability. Beena Goldenberg, the CEO at Organigram Holdings Inc., is photographed at the company's offices in Toronto, Monday, Oct. 18, 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young For much of the COVID-19 pandemic, the leaders of Canada's biggest cannabis companies have spouted lofty ambitions linked to a U.S. pot market they strongly believe is on the brink of federal legalization and will be their ticket to profitability. While many have made bold predictions and signed a dizzying number of deals to help them break through south of the border, Organigram Holdings Inc. has taken a more modest approach. But don't count the New Brunswick-based cannabis company out, says its new chief executive. "(The U.S.) has to figure into everyone's game plan," said Beena Goldenberg, a food industry veteran who took the helm of Organigram on Sept. 9. "When I was in consumer packaged goods, we always looked to the U.S. There's that old 10:1 rule, which is (the U.S. is) going to be 10 times the size of Canada, so you can't ignore it." Goldenberg the only female CEO of a major publicly-traded Canadian cannabis company is still settling into the role she took over from Greg Engel, who moved to to Vancouver psychedelic startup Clairvoyant Therapeutics. Engel spent four years in Organigram's top job. He left months after a British American Tobacco subsidiary bought a 19.9 per cent stake to spur production development at the company based in Moncton, N.B. He ran Organigram conservatively and avoided much of the overbuilding that rivals Canopy Growth Corp., Tilray Inc. and Aurora Cannabis Inc. came to regret when cannabis demand fell short of expectations. Organigram hasn't been unscathed. It cut hundreds of workers in the last two years, as it tried to better align production capacity with market conditions. Its most recent quarter brought a $4-million loss, an improvement over the $89.9 million loss recorded during the same quarter last year. "Organigram, I think, has always been very careful on spending and on operating expenses," said Goldenberg. "But we probably left some sales on the table because we weren't building up the capacity and our demand grew faster than our capacity, which is why we're now spending money." Goldenberg likely won't stray from Organigram's prudent template, but will reshape operations with her experience running Hain-Celestial Canada and Canopy's Supreme Cannabis. Topping her to-do list is overseeing a $38-million investment to expand capacity and grow Organigrams Edison Cannabis Co., Trailblazer, Indi, Shred and Big Bag o Buds brands. "Our demand is outstripping our supply, so it's a problem, but it's a good problem to have," said Goldenberg. As the company catches up, ATB Capital analyst David Kideckel warns increased competition, oversupply, value brand proliferation and early production inefficiencies could strain margins, but not for long. Organigram has launched 84 new SKUs since July 2020, and plans on launching up to 20 more SKUs by the end of Q4/FY21e, he wrote in a July note. We believe that new product introduction will gradually improve the companys sales and margin outlook. Premium offerings such as Edison, Organigram's chocolate truffles and mint lozenge line, will be key as in-store shopping returns and budtender advice becomes more vital. "People, having tried the value products, are looking for something that's an experience, that's a little bit better, maybe a better flavour or aroma," Goldenberg said. But the value category can't be forgotten, said Lisa Campbell, chief executive at cannabis marketing company Mercari Agency. She's noticed premium products are less popular in Alberta and British Columbia than in Ontario, but says Organigram's value brand Shred has widespread appeal. "Shred is a product that cannabis retail stores will actually hoard," she said. "They will buy 10, 20 cases at a time, so they definitely have a really loyal following." She warns, however, that companies like Organigram should be careful about their long-term pricing. "We're seeing a lot of companies that are just selling product below cost, and it really negatively impacts the entire market," said Campbell. "It has a ripple effect and it's like a race to the bottom." That race is taking place in an increasingly consolidated market. In recent months, Tilray merged with Aphria Inc., while Canopy snatched up Wana Brands, AV Cannabis Inc. and Supreme. Hexo Corp. also got in on the action when it bought Zenabis Global Inc. and Redecan. Organigram acquired the Edibles & Infusions Corp. in April. Goldenberg thinks that pace will continue for the highly-fragmented industry, though some companies will get more intentional about purchases. Ultimately, she thinks most won't last. "Smaller players will either be gobbled up or will go away, and the bigger players will eventually get bigger," she said. "That's what happens in any market as it matures." Those that last will be closely watching the U.S., which allows medical cannabis in about 36 states and recreational use in 13, but has not deemed it permissible under federal law. Studies show broad support for decriminalizing cannabis, a view also favoured by U.S. President Joe Biden, but Goldenberg doesnt think federal legalization is on the near horizon. I don't believe legalizations coming imminently. I think it's going to take time, she said. "The market has changed so much in a year or two years, so who knows what it'll be like two years from now." This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2021. Companies in this story: (TSX:OGX, TSX:WEED, TSX:ACB, TSX:HEXO) MONTREAL - Quebec says it plans to transition to electric vehicles for all government departments and ensure all its institutional buildings become zero-emission producers over the next 19 years as it looks to speed up its shift to green energy. Quebec Environment Minister Benoit Charette announces the province's green plan during a news conference in Montreal on November 16, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson MONTREAL - Quebec says it plans to transition to electric vehicles for all government departments and ensure all its institutional buildings become zero-emission producers over the next 19 years as it looks to speed up its shift to green energy. The province previously announced plans to switch to electric cars, SUVs, vans, minivans and some heavy-duty vehicles by 2030, but today's announcement added all other vehicles to the list with a longer timeline for the full transition. Environment Minister Benoit Charette made the latest promise today at the United Nations COP26 conference in Glasgow, Scotland, saying the goal is to have the entire provincial government fleet consist of zero-emissions vehicles by 2040. Charette issued a statement saying the government is setting an example and hopes to position the province as a North American leader in the fight against climate change. Quebec also says it intends to add charging stations at government establishments and is promising to reduce 60 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from government buildings before 2030. It says close to 25 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions in Quebec come from the governmental vehicle fleet and agencies. This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 7, 2021. Glasgow, Scotland (AP) One phrase, really just a number, dominates climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland: The magic and elusive 1.5. FILE - People attend a Climate Strike demonstration in Zurich, Switzerland, Nov. 6, 2021. The overarching phrase that dominates Glasgow climate talks is simply a number: 1.5. That's the chief but elusive goal of negotiations. It's keeping warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. (Michael Buholzer/Keystone via AP, File) Glasgow, Scotland (AP) One phrase, really just a number, dominates climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland: The magic and elusive 1.5. That stands for the international goal of trying to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. Its a somewhat confusing number in some ways that wasnt a major part of negotiations just seven years ago and was a political suggestion that later proved to be incredibly important scientifically. Stopping warming at 1.5 or so can avoid or at least lessen some of the most catastrophic future climate change harms and for some people is a life-or-death matter, scientists have found in many reports. The 1.5 figure now it is the overarching objective of the Glasgow climate talks, called COP26, conference President Alok Sharma said on the first day of the conference. Then on Saturday he said the conference, which takes a break on Sunday, was still trying to keep 1.5 alive. For protesters and activists, the phrase is 1.5 to stay alive. And 1.5 is closer than it sounds. Thats because it may sound like another 1.5 degrees from now but because it is since pre-industrial times, its actually only 0.4 degrees (0.7 degrees Fahrenheit) from now. The world has warmed 1.1 degrees (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times. The issue isn't about the one year when the world first averages 1.5 more than pre-industrial times. Scientists usually mean a multi-year average of over 1.5 because temperatures while rising over the long term like on an escalator do have small jags up and down above the long-term trend, much like taking a step up or down on the escalator. But its coming fast. Scientists calculate carbon pollution the burning of fossil fuels can produce before 1.5 degrees is baked in. A report a few days ago from Global Carbon Project found that theres 420 billion tons of carbon dioxide left in that budget and this year humanity spewed 36.4 billion tons. Thats about 11 years worth left at current levels which are rising not falling the report found. To get there, scientists and the United Nations say the world needs to cut its current emissions by about half as of 2030. Thats one of the three goals the U.N. has set for success in Glasgow. Its physically possible (to limit warming to 1.5 degrees), but I think it is close to politically impossible in the real world barring miracles, Columbia University climate scientist Adam Sobel said. Of course we should not give up advocating for it. A dozen other climate scientists told The Associated Press essentially the same thing that if dramatic emission reductions start immediately the world can keep within 1.5 degrees. But they dont see signs of that happening. That 1.5 figure may be the big number now but thats not how it started. At the insistence of small island nations who said it was a matter of survival, 1.5 was put in near the end of negotiations into the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement. It is mentioned only once in the deals text. And that part lists the primary goal to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The 2-degree goal was the existing goal from 2009s failed Copenhagen conference. The goal was initially interpreted as 2 degrees or substantially lower if possible. But in a way both the 1.5 and 2 degree C thresholds are somewhat arbitrary, Stanford University climate scientist Rob Jackson said in an email. Every tenth of a degree matters! The 2 degrees was chosen because it is the warmest temperature that you can infer that the planet has ever seen in the last million years or so, University of East Anglia climate scientist Corinne LeQuere, who helped write the carbon budget study, said at the Glasgow climate talks. When the Paris agreement threw in the 1.5 figure, the United Nations tasked its Nobel Prize-winning group of scientists the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC to study on what difference there would be an Earth between 1.5 degrees of warming and 2 degrees of warming. The 2018 IPCC report found that compared to 2 degrees, stopping warming at 1.5 would mean: Fewer deaths and illnesses from heat, smog and infectious diseases. Half as many people would suffer from lack of water. Some coral reefs may survive. There's less chance for summers without sea ice in the Arctic. The West Antarctic ice sheet might not kick into irreversible melting. Seas would rise nearly 4 inches (0.1 meters) less. Half as many animals with back bones and plants would lose the majority of their habitats. There would be substantially fewer heat waves, downpours and droughts. For some people this is a life-or-death situation without a doubt, report lead author Cornell University climate scientist Natalie Mahowald said at the time. That finding that theres a massive difference to Earth with far less damage at 1.5 is the biggest climate science finding in the last six years, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Director Johan Rockstrom said in an interview at the Glasgow conference. It gets worse and worse as you exceed beyond 1.5, Rockstrom said. We have more scientific evidence than ever that we need to really aim for landing at 1.5, which is the safe climate planetary boundary. Once we pass 1.5 we enter a scientific danger zone in terms of heightened risk, Rockstrom said. In a new IPCC report in August, the world hit 1.5 in the 2030s in each of the four main carbon emissions scenarios they looked out. Even when scientists and politicians talk about 1.5 they usually talk about overshoot in which for a decade or so the temperature hits or passes 1.5, but then goes back down usually with some kind of technology that sucks carbon out of the air, Stanfords Jackson and others said. As hard as it is, negotiators cant give up on 1.5, said Canadian Member of Parliament Elizabeth May, who is at her 16th climate negotiations. If we dont hang on to 1.5 while it is technically feasible, we are almost criminal, May said. ___ Follow APs climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. It came up on my Instagram feed two weeks ago, a hoodie bearing the image of Sgt. Tommy Prince in shades of red, blue and beige similar to the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster. Under the image was the word "Ogichidaa" which is Ojibway and means warrior, a veteran; a ceremonial headman. It came up on my Instagram feed two weeks ago, a hoodie bearing the image of Sgt. Tommy Prince in shades of red, blue and beige similar to the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster. Under the image was the word "Ogichidaa" which is Ojibway and means warrior, a veteran; a ceremonial headman. The post was from a group called Helping Hand Warriors. The post outlined that the cost of the hoodie was $55, with partial proceeds going to Community Helpers Unite to help raise money to build a community kitchen in the North End. I took a screen shot of the post and sent it to my mom. Did you see this? I asked her. She had. My little sister had discovered the post before I did. She sent it to my mom and was trying to arrange to send her money to buy a whole lot of the hoodies for my family for Christmas. Manny Spence, founder of Helping Hand Warriors, models the Tommy Prince hoodie and mask they are selling to fundraise for a community kitchen. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press) "Ill do it," I told my mom. Prince, of course, is one of Canada's most decorated Indigenous war veterans; he was awarded 11 medals for his daring and courageous service in both the Second World War and Korean War. Prince, who was born in Petersfield, died homeless in 1977 at the age of 62 in Winnipeg. There were First Nations honours at his funeral, along with representatives from the provincial and federal governments and from France, Italy and the U.S. I called the number on the post, a man answered. "Uh, hi, Im calling about the Tommy Prince Hoodies" The man on the other end of the phone was immediately conversational. He spoke with an openness as though we knew each other. We shot the breeze for a few minutes before we made arrangements for me to pick my order. He told me that his name was Manny Spence and that he created the group as part of his sobriety journey. The Helping Hand Warriors, he said, goes out every Saturday to Air Canada Park right outside of the APTN building on Portage Avenue to deliver lunches to people in need. He started doing this because it was something that he needed someone to do for him not too long ago, yet another lifetime ago. Spence created the group as part of his sobriety journey. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press) The next day, day after speaking to Spence, I picked up my hoodies. I tucked all but one of them away in the closet for Christmas. I kept mine and felt a great sense of pride when I put it on. Ogichidaa. I followed up with Spence the next week. I wanted to know more about the hoodies, and his Helping Hand Warriors. I wanted to hear his story, whatever he was willing to share. When we spoke he had just returned from doing community outreach on Main Street. "I started doing things like that because its my high," he said. He'd spent many years of his life struggling with addiction. Pills, needles, cocaine and alcohol all took their hold on his life. He was an everyday user before he quit. He said he felt like a slave to the drugs. "The needle was my best friend," he said. When his father died March 10, 2018, Spence had a breakdown. The pair had spent many years of their lives detached, but prior to his fathers death they had started to get to know one another. Theyd get together and even started a tradition of going to Sunday-night Bingo. He was heavily addicted to opiates at the time. At his fathers funeral, Spence was suffering through withdrawal symptoms. Standing alongside his family as they laid their father to rest, he struggled. He explained that he wasnt there mentally and thats when he knew that he was done. He wanted to get sober. "Thats how he remembered me when he passed away. We never got a chance to reconcile the way I wanted to," Spence said. "I hope hes watching me now." Every Saturday Spence and a group of volunteers pass out about 150 bagged lunches. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press) Helping others has been a way for Spence to heal. Its core to his journey of sobriety. Last April he and his friend Sebastian created the Helping Hand Warriors. They were sitting around Spence's apartment talking about how they would reclaim their identities and give back to the community. They started handing out lunch kits the next week, and the effort has continued. Every Saturday Spence and a small group of volunteers pass out about 150 bagged lunches with sandwiches made from bread donated by the Leftovers Foundation and bologna they get at cost from Abbis Payfair at 467 Sargent Ave., as well as granola bars and bottled water. Theyve also handed out masks and other PPE to people throughout the pandemic. Spence said he started the Sgt. Tommy Prince hoodie, mask and T-shirt fundraiser as a way to raise money to help Community Helpers Unite build a community kitchen. Sebastian came up with the design and connected Spence with someone in the city who puts the images on the clothing. Spence doesnt take anything from the sale of the shirts. "(Prince) was just like the people were helping. He fell through the cracks and even stayed at the Salvation Army," Spence explained. "Its nice to have Tommys face out there; he should be on the five-dollar bill." (Prince) was just like the people were helping. He fell through the cracks and even stayed at the Salvation Army." Manny Spence Prince's grandson, my relative Buddy Prince, said he loves the attire. He said he ordered a couple of the hoodies for himself and his family. His grandfather is a great sense of pride to our family, our community and to Canada. "Its done in great taste and for a great reason," he said. "I honestly believe my grandfather would approve." You can order your own Ogichidaa hoodie by messaging Spence at Helping Hand Warriors on Facebook or Instagram. T-shirts are available for sale at Atlas Pawn Shop, 836 Main St. Monday, Nov. 8 is Aboriginal Veterans Day. On that day and every day we remember and honour the contributions of Indigenous veterans in the First and Second World Wars, as well as the Korean War. shelley.cook@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @ShelleyAcook Premier Heather Stefanson should begin to heal the rift with Indigenous people caused by Brian Pallister by explicitly denouncing his racially charged comments about colonialists meaning to do no harm, Manitoba's Grand Chief said Friday. Premier Heather Stefanson should begin to heal the rift with Indigenous people caused by Brian Pallister by explicitly denouncing his racially charged comments about colonialists meaning to do no harm, Manitoba's Grand Chief said Friday. "Racists need to be held accountable, and if you're going to do that quietly, then that's not good enough," Arlen Dumas told the Free Press in a wide-ranging interview. Dumas, who has led the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs since 2017, said Stefanson isn't as attuned to Indigenous issues as her Progressive Conservative leadership rival Shelly Glover. But the premier could take her government from butting heads in court to helping First Nations overcome colonial structures, he said. "What we need from the premier is to actually shake up the status quo," he said. New Premier Heather Stefanson should denounce Brian Pallister's racially charged comments about colonialists meaning to do no harm, says Arlen Dumas, Manitoba's Grand Chief. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press files) Stefanson was families minister from 2018 until early this year, at a time when Indigenous governments complained about being left out of the loop on foster-care reform. As minister, she announced Manitoba would end the practice of apprehending newborns, known as birth alerts. Internal data shows a steep drop in the practice, but it's still happening; First Nations say it's due to gaps in programs for at-risk parents. "The previous regime (of former premier Brian Pallister) was all about talking down to people, and not willing to move forward," Dumas said. "The previous regime was all about talking down to people, and not willing to move forward." Grand Chief Arlen Dumas Stefanson has said she wants a new relationship with Indigenous people and takes advice from a council of Indigenous elders, one of whom offered a blessing at her swearing-in ceremony Tuesday. "The discovery of unmarked graves on the sites of former residential schools has shaken our province to its core, prompting a necessary reflection on the sins of the past, and a renewed commitment to reconciliation," Stefanson said. "Our government is committed to listening and learning from First Nations leaders, elders and Indigenous families as we advance reconciliation together." Heather Stefanson says she wants a new relationship with Indigenous people and takes advice from a council of Indigenous elders. (David Lipnowski / The Canadian Press files) Yet Dumas said Stefanson seemed to have a poor grasp of Indigenous issues and didn't propose any major ideas when they met during the leadership race, which ended with her victory last Saturday. Glover is challenging the legitimacy of Stefanson's win, claiming there were voting irregularities in the election, conducted by the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba. A Court of Queen's Bench judge will hear arguments Nov. 19. Glover understands Indigenous issues: grand chief Click to Expand Manitoba Grand Chief Arlen Dumas said Premier Heather Stefanson's opponent in the recent PC leadership race, Shelly Glover, has a better grasp of Indigenous issues. Dumas sat down with both leadership candidates, and said only Glover apologized for remarks by former premier Brian Pallister that chiefs deemed to be racist. He said he got to know Glover when he was chief of the northern Pukatawagan reserve, during the Harper government. Even before Glover was appointed heritage minister in 2013, Dumas said she was quite instrumental in connecting far-flung communities with decision-makers. Shelly Glover had no actual duty or responsibility as an MP from the south here, but she made it her effort to help facilitate discussions with ministers and different levels of government with me at the time. Dylan Robertson Stefanson has refused to publicly rebuke comments Pallister made in July, claiming that colonialist settlers had good intentions, which prompted Indigenous leaders to decry the entire PC government as racist. "I think my voice has been heard behind the scenes," Stefanson said Aug. 18. "That's a cop-out," Dumas said. "An earnest denunciation of racism is not flashy; it's the right thing. It's honest, it's true." In the immediate term, the AMC says the province is doing the right thing in taking time to consult on the future of statues honouring Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria on the Legislative Building grounds that were damaged during a Canada Day demonstration following the discovery of hundreds of unmarked children's graves on former residential school sites. And the chiefs would like the province to withdraw legislation that restricts First Nations-operated gaming operations. But on a deeper level, the AMC wants an overhaul of how the province consults with Indigenous people. Stefanson could seize the momentum of being the first female premier and a national reckoning on residential schools to bring about real change, Dumas says. (Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press files) First Nations and Metis have repeatedly complained the province has left them out of the loop, and those complaints have stalled the federal review of a massive flood-channel project in the Interlake. To Dumas, it echoes themes laid out in the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry's 1991 report, which found systemic racism pervades federal and provincial bureaucracies. He argued current laws and spending rules always put First Nations at a disadvantage. "If the premier's going to listen to these career bureaucrats and people who seem to be very incentivized to maintaining the status quo, then nothing will change," he said. "If the premier's going to listen to these career bureaucrats and people who seem to be very incentivized to maintaining the status quo, then nothing will change." Grand Chief Arlen Dumas In the spring, the Free Press reported on Indigenous people leaving provincial departments and arms-length boards, which Dumas said is a symptom of a deeper problem. "Fundamentally, the bureaucracy is based on racist precedent," he said. "Anybody that we put in there will almost immediately start replicating the same (discrimination) because the system itself needs an overhaul." Despite his criticism, Dumas said Stefanson could seize the momentum of being the first female premier and a national reckoning on residential schools to bring about real change. He noted that Reconciliation Minister Alan Lagimodiere won the respect of chiefs after a shambolic first day on the job, when he claimed residential schools were started with good intentions. Dumas said he was impressed that Lagimodiere apologized, got educated and went to numerous Indigenous events. "There always an opportunity to redeem yourself, but you've got to do tangible things," he said. "It's a nice platitude to listen, but we want some action." dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca The discovery of the remains of 23-year-old Brian Laundrie in a Florida nature reserve on Oct. 20 brings an end to a terrible tragedy. A month earlier, the body of Gabby Petito, his 22-year-old fiancee, was found in Wyomings Grand Teton National Park, where the couple had been last seen at the end of August. Opinion The discovery of the remains of 23-year-old Brian Laundrie in a Florida nature reserve on Oct. 20 brings an end to a terrible tragedy. A month earlier, the body of Gabby Petito, his 22-year-old fiancee, was found in Wyomings Grand Teton National Park, where the couple had been last seen at the end of August. A Wyoming coroner determined Petito had been strangled to death. Though it has not been confirmed by the FBI and may never be it is not unreasonable to speculate that Laundrie killed her in a fit of rage and later killed himself. Petitos disappearance and the couples troubled relationship became titillating news around the world and a preoccupation on social media. A police camera video of an argument the two had in front of state troopers in mid-August, about two weeks before her death, was posted to YouTube by a Tampa Fox TV station. The media frenzy that engulfed Petito and Laundrie are related to two sociological realities: missing white woman syndrome and an enduring fascination with true crime. The term missing white woman syndrome was first referenced by the late African-American PBS news anchor Gwen Ifill. At a 2004 conference when she used the phrase, she remarked that If theres a missing white woman, we are going to cover that, every day. And, she was right. In the past 15 years, at least 10 U.S. academic and journalism studies have shown that newspaper, television and social media attention is far (far) greater when the missing person in question is a young white middle-class woman, precisely like Gabby Petito. Also in that category would be Laci Peterson, who was pregnant when she was murdered by her husband Scott in late 2002, and Natalee Holloway, who was 18 when she mysteriously went missing on a trip in Aruba in March 2005, never to be found. Similar stories about missing African-American, Indigenous and other women of colour or minority groups rarely, if ever, rate the same kind of local or national exposure. The same issue exists in Canada, where only very recently the thousands of missing and murdered Indigenous women have been the subject of a national inquiry and discussion. The lack of coverage to missing/murdered (Indigenous) women, said Ottawa researcher Kirsten Gilchrist in a 2010 academic journal article, appears to suggest that their stories are not dramatic or worthy enough to tell, that (Indigenous) womens victimization is too routine or ordinary, and/or irrelevant to (white) readers. The second factor in the Petito case is the obsession with true crime, especially stories about the fate of young and beautiful women. The genre has been wildly popular as early as the mid-1600s, amplified today by countless television shows, documentaries, series on streaming services and dozens of podcasts. As heartless as it might seem, many of us cannot get enough of these intriguing and admittedly often gruesome stories of misfortune and death. Petito was the same age as Patricia Burton Lonergan, the wealthy Manhattan cafe society party-goer and mother, who was murdered almost certainly by her estranged Toronto-born husband Wayne Lonergan on Oct. 24, 1943, also in a fit of rage (chronicled in my book Details are Unprintable). Lonergans subsequent trial was sensational mainly because his bisexuality became intertwined with the crime. For a good six months, this case actually drove the Second World War off the front pages of New York Citys newspapers. Nothing, however, compares with the media and public mania over the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh and his wife Anne in 1932. Close to 90 years later, it remains the No. 1 so-called crime of the century. Lindberghs status as an international celebrity and the horrific murder of his child occurred at a time when print journalism, radio and newsreels all came together in an explosive combination. The media stories about the death of Gabby Petito, on the other hand, will soon be a memory, except to her family and friends. The newspapers, tabloid, TV networks, websites and podcasts will eventually find another sad tale of a missing person or murder to extensively cover. Many of us will try to ignore it, but as when youre passing a bad car accident, its often hard to look away. Now & Then is a column in which historian Allan Levine puts the events of today in a historical context. WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden on Saturday hailed Congress' passage of his $1 trillion infrastructure package as a monumental step forward for the nation" after fractious fellow Democrats resolved a months-long standoff in their ranks to seal the deal. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the October jobs report from the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) WASHINGTON (AP) President Joe Biden on Saturday hailed Congress' passage of his $1 trillion infrastructure package as a "monumental step forward for the nation" after fractious fellow Democrats resolved a months-long standoff in their ranks to seal the deal. "Finally, infrastructure week," a beaming Biden told reporters. "Im so happy to say that: infrastructure week." The House passed the measure 228-206 late Friday, prompting prolonged cheers from the relieved Democratic side of the chamber. Thirteen Republicans, mostly moderates, supported the legislation while six of Democrats' farthest left members opposed it. Approval of the bill, which promises to create legions of jobs and improve broadband, water supplies and other public works, sends it to the desk of a president whose approval ratings have dropped and whose nervous party got a cold shoulder from voters in this past weeks off-year elections. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., arrives to lead Democrats in advancing President Joe Biden's $1.85 trillion-and-growing domestic policy package, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. The hard-fought social policy and climate-change legislation will still have to clear the 50-50-Senate, where revisions are likely and Biden has no votes to spare. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Democratic candidates for governor were defeated in Virginia and squeaked through in New Jersey, two blue-leaning states. Those setbacks made party leaders and moderates and liberals alike impatient to produce impactful legislation and demonstrate they know how to govern. Democrats can ill afford to seem in disarray a year before midterm elections that could give Republicans congressional control. Voters "want us to deliver," Biden said, and Friday's vote "proved we can." "On one big item, we delivered," he added. The infrastructure package is a historic investment by any measure, one that Biden compares in its breadth to the building of the interstate highway system in the last century or the transcontinental railroad the century before. He called it a "blue collar blueprint to rebuilding America." His reference to infrastructure week was a jab at his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose White House declared several times that "infrastructure week" had arrived, only for nothing to happen. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., emerges as the Congressional Progressive Caucus meets behind closed doors after the Democratic leadership abruptly postponed an expected House vote on a $1.85 trillion social and environment measure, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. The decision came Friday as infighting between progressives and moderates once again sidetracked the pillar of President Joe Biden's domestic agenda. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Simply freeing up the infrastructure measure for final congressional approval was like a burst of adrenaline for Democrats. Yet despite the win, Democrats endured a setback when they postponed a vote on a second, even larger bill until later this month. That 10-year, $1.85 trillion measure bolstering health, family and climate change programs was sidetracked after moderates demanded a cost estimate on the measure from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The postponement dashed hopes that the day would produce a double-barreled win for Biden with passage of both bills. But in an evening breakthrough brokered by Biden and House leaders, five moderates agreed to back that bill if the budget office's estimates are consistent with preliminary numbers that White House and congressional tax analysts have provided. The agreement, in which lawmakers promised to vote on the social and environment bill by the week of Nov. 15, was a significant step toward a House vote that could ultimately ship it to the Senate. Elated by the bills passage, Biden held forth with reporters for over a half hour Saturday morning, joking that his chances of getting the bill done had been written off multiple times, only for him to be able to salvage it. He said he would wait to hold a signing ceremony until lawmakers Democrats and Republicans who voted for it return to Washington after a week's recess. The president acknowledged uncertainty surrounding his larger social and environmental spending package, saying "time will tell" whether he can keep popular provisions like universal paid family leave in the final version. He wouldn't say whether he has private assurances from moderate Democrats in the House and Senate to pass the nearly $2 trillion bill, but said he was "confident" he would get the votes. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., center, flanked by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., left, and House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., speaks after a day of delays in the vote to advance President Joe Biden's domestic policy package, at the Capitol in Washington, Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Biden predicted Americans would begin to feel the impact of the infrastructure bill "probably starting within the next two to three months as we get shovels in the ground." But the full impact will probably take decades to be fully realized. He added that he would visit some ports that would benefit from the legislation in the next week, as his administration tries frantically to ease supply chain disruptions that are raising prices on consumer goods before the holidays. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said there's a pent-up demand to get going on public works. He told CNN he's already got $10 billion worth of applications for a certain program thats only got $1 billion in it. "This is not just a short term stimulus bill." Biden said the investment would be viewed in 50 years as "When America decided to win the competition of the 21st century" with a rising China. The president and first lady Jill Biden delayed plans to travel Friday evening to their house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Instead, Biden spoke to House leaders, moderates and progressives. President Joe Biden speaks about the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said Biden even called her mother in India, though it was unclear why. "This was not to bribe me this is when it was all done," Jayapal told reporters. The lawmaker said her mother told her she "just kept screaming like a little girl." In a statement, five moderates said that if the fiscal estimates on the social and environment bill raise problems, "we remain committed to working to resolve any discrepancies" to pass it. In exchange, liberals agreed to back the infrastructure measure, which they'd spent months holding hostage in an effort to press moderates to back the larger bill. The day marked a rare detente between Democrats' moderate and liberal wings that party leaders hope will continue. The rival factions had spent weeks accusing each other of jeopardizing Biden's and the party's success by overplaying their hands. But Friday night, Jayapal suggested they would work together moving forward. President Joe Biden speaks about the bipartisan infrastructure bill in the State Dinning Room of the White House, Saturday, Nov. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Democrats have struggled for months to take advantage of their control of the White House and Congress by advancing their priorities. Thats been hard, in part because of Democrats slender majorities and bitter internal divisions. "Welcome to my world," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters. "We are not a lockstep party." Democrats day turned tumultuous early after a half-dozen moderates demanded the budget office's cost estimate of the sprawling package of health, education, family and climate change initiatives before they would vote for it. Party leaders said that would take days or more. But with Fridays delayed vote and lawmakers leaving for a weeks break, those budget estimates should be ready by the time a vote is held. The infrastructure measure cleared the Senate in August with bipartisan support. As for the social and environment package, House passage would send it to the Senate, where it faces certain changes and more Democratic drama. Thats chiefly because of demands by Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona to contain the measures costs. Moderates have forced leaders to slash the roughly 2,100-page measure to about half its original $3.5 trillion size. Republicans oppose it as too expensive and damaging to the economy. The package would provide large numbers of Americans with assistance to pay for health care, raising children and caring for elderly people at home. It's got $555 billion in tax breaks for cleaner energy and electric vehicles. Democrats added recent provisions restoring a new paid family leave program and work permits for millions of immigrants. Much of the packages cost would be covered with higher taxes on wealthier Americans and large corporations. ___ Associated Press writers Cal Woodward, Lisa Mascaro, Farnoush Amiri, Kevin Freking, Aamer Madhani, Alexandra Jaffe, Mary Clare Jalonick and Brian Slodysko contributed to this report. BAGHDAD (AP) Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted his residence early Sunday and officials said he was unharmed. The attack was a major escalation amid tensions sparked by the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results. FILE - Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi poses in his office during an interview with The Associated Press in Baghdad, Iraq, Friday, July 23, 2021. The Iraqi government says Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has survived an assassination attempt with an armed drone and is unharmed. In a statement released Sunday, Nov. 7, the government said the drone tried to hit al-Kadhimis home in Baghdads heavily fortified Green Zone area. (AP Photo/Khalid Mohammed, File) BAGHDAD (AP) Iraq's Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi survived an assassination attempt with armed drones that targeted his residence early Sunday and officials said he was unharmed. The attack was a major escalation amid tensions sparked by the refusal of Iran-backed militias to accept last month's parliamentary election results. Two Iraqi officials told The Associated Press that seven of al-Kadhimi's security guards were injured in the attack with two armed drones which occurred in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone area. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to give official statements. "The rockets of treason will not shake one bit of the steadfastness and determination of the heroic security forces," the prime minister tweeted shortly after the attack. "I am fine and among my people. Thank God." In a statement, the government said the drones tried to hit al-Kadhimis home. Residents of Baghdad heard the sound of an explosion followed by gunfire from the direction of the Green Zone, which houses foreign embassies and government offices. The statement released by state-run media said the failed assassination attempt was with "an explosives-laden drone that tried to target his residence in the Green Zone." "The security forces are taking the necessary measures in connection with this failed attempt," it said. It was not clear who was behind the attack, nor did anyone immediately claim responsibility. It comes amid a stand-off between security forces and pro-Iran Shiite militias whose supporters have been camped outside the Green Zone for nearly a month after they rejected the results of Iraqs parliamentary elections in which they were the biggest losers. "The assassination attempt is a dramatic escalation, crossing a line in unprecedented fashion that may have violent reverberations," wrote Ranj Alaaldin, a nonresident fellow at Brookings Institution, in a post on Twitter. Protests turned deadly Friday when the demonstrators marched toward the Green Zone. There was an exchange of fire in which one protester affiliated with the militias was killed. Dozens of security forces were injured. Al-Khadimi ordered an investigation to determine what sparked the clashes and who violated orders not to open fire. Some of the leaders of the most powerful militia factions loyal to Iran openly blamed al-Kadhimi for Friday's clashes and the protester's death. "The blood of martyrs is to hold you accountable," said Qais al-Khazali, leader of the Asaib Ahl al-Haq militia, addressing al-Kadhimi at a funeral held for the protester. "The protesters only had one demand against fraud in elections. Responding like this (with live fire) means you are the first responsible for this fraud." The funeral was attended by leaders of the mostly Shiite Iran-backed factions who together are known as the Popular Mobilization Forces, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic. Abu Alaa al-Walae, commander of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, in a tweet apparently addressed to al-Kadhimi that did not name him told him to forget about another term. The United States, the U.N. Security Council and others have praised the Oct. 10 election, which was mostly violence-free and without major technical glitches. But following the vote, militia supporters pitched tents near the Green Zone, rejecting the election results and threatening violence unless their demands for a recount were met. The unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud have cast a shadow over the vote. The standoff with the militia supporters has also increased tensions among rival Shiite factions that could reflect on the street and threaten Iraqs newfound relative stability. The election was held months ahead of schedule in response to mass protests in late 2019, which saw tens of thousands in Baghdad and predominantly Shiite southern provinces rally against endemic corruption, poor services and unemployment. They also protested against the heavy-handed interference of neighboring Iran in Iraqs affairs through Iran-backed militias. The militias lost some popularity since the 2018 vote, when they made big election gains. Many hold them responsible for suppressing the 2019 protests, and for challenging the states authority. The biggest gains were made by influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who won the largest number of parliament seats, 73 out of 329. While he maintains good relations with Iran, al-Sadr publicly opposes external interference in Iraqs affairs. The protests appeared to be aimed at pressuring al-Sadr to ensure that Iran-aligned factions are part of the next Cabinet. As the winner, al-Sadrs bloc will seek coalition partners and name the prime minister. Video PlayerClose BEIJING, Nov. 6 (Xinhua) Throughout 2021, a special year in China's history, the schedule of Xi Jinping has been busy. Over the past months, he addressed a ceremony marking the Party's centenary, announced the realization of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, inspected Tibet, talked to astronauts working at China's first space station, attended online meetings of the United Nations, and held phone or video talks with world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden. Next week, Xi, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, will attend a high-profile Party plenum -- the sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee. A landmark document will be tabled at this important meeting -- the resolution on the major achievements and historical experience of the CPC's 100 years of endeavors. Xi Jinping delivers an important speech at a ceremony marking the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, capital of China, July 1, 2021. [Xinhua/Ju Peng] Few political parties worldwide could boast such a long history and uninterrupted period of state governance. The CPC has been China's ruling party for 72 years. Presently, Xi is the core of the CPC leadership. Before him, generations of central collective leadership had spanned the decades with Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao as chief representatives. Since being elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee in November 2012, Xi has been seen as a man of determination and action, a man of profound thoughts and feelings, a man who inherited a legacy but dares to innovate, and a man who has forward-looking vision and is committed to working tirelessly. Under his leadership, China is becoming a powerful country, and is now entering an era of strength, according to Channel News Asia. On the new journey, Xi is undoubtedly the core figure in charting the course of history. How will he lead the Party in the face of opportunities and challenges? How will he bring China back to the world's center stage? Today, the world is watching Xi just closely as nine years ago. Walking with the People In September, during an inspection of the village of Gaoxigou in northwestern Shaanxi Province, Xi stopped by farmlands to check the crops and chat with villagers working in the fields. Xi hailed the achievements of local poverty alleviation. Gaoxigou was once an impoverished village; today it is prosperous thanks to the relentless efforts of cadres and villagers. It was in 1974 in Shaanxi's Liangjiahe, about 150 km from Gaoxigou, that Xi joined the Party. He was just 15 years old when he arrived in Liangjiahe in 1969 as an "educated youth." He would spend the next seven years living in the small village on the rural Loess Plateau; at the end of a day's labor, he would return to his primitive cave house and sleep on a simple clay bed. It would take 38 years and multiple postings across various levels of the Party's hierarchy until he would be elevated to the top job. After joining the CPC, Xi became Party secretary of Liangjiahe. Shedding light on his caliber, one of his village colleagues said Xi "worked conscientiously, had many ideas and could unite the people and cadres." Recalling his time in the impoverished village, Xi said what he wanted more than anything was to make it possible for the villagers to "have meat on their plates." To improve the lives of those who called the community home, Xi initiated various projects, including wells, terraced fields, and methane-generating pits. These "simple" projects would have a significant impact on the villagers' lives, work, and attitudes. In his spare time, the young Xi devoured as many books as he could. In particular, he read Das Kapital three times; his reflections on the seminal work filled 18 notebooks. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was among the first generation of CPC central leaders. Xi Jinping often evoked the wisdom imparted to him by the elder Xi. Inspired by a much-loved school book, he decided he would carry on the revolutionary torch from a young age. In 1975, Xi was admitted to the prestigious Tsinghua University in Beijing. After graduating, he first worked at the general office of the Central Military Commission before moving to Zhengding, a county in northern Hebei Province, in 1982. Recalling the move to Zhengding, Xi said he had volunteered to work at the grassroots level among the people. He said he wanted to "love the people like he loves his parents." After Zhengding, Xi's political career took him to the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang and the metropolis of Shanghai. Wherever he went, his close ties with the people were notable. He wrote heartfelt essays commemorating his deceased friends and colleagues in Zhengding. He used his own money to help finance the medical treatment of a villager from Liangjiahe. Xi's care for the people can be seen in every aspect of his work. Zhang Hongming, one of his colleagues back in Zhejiang, still remembers Xi's attitude and work ethic when the province was hit by typhoons. "Even if nine of our ten evacuations are for nothing, we still need to do it to ensure the absolute safety of the people," Zhang said recalling Xi's instructions. Xi's people-centered philosophy explains why he ordered unwavering efforts to save people's lives at all costs during the COVID-19 epidemic, said Liu Jingbei, a professor at the China Executive Leadership Academy in Pudong, Shanghai. In 2007, Xi returned to Beijing to sit on the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and later became China's vice president. He oversaw areas including Party building, organizational work, Hong Kong and Macao affairs, and preparations for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. At the age of 59, Xi was elevated to the Party's most senior post in November 2012. About a month later, he braved the winter cold to visit poor villagers in Hebei. Sitting down with them, Xi asked about their income, and if they had sufficient food and enough quilts and coal to stay warm through the winter. Xi said his heart sank when he saw that some villagers were still struggling to make ends meet. Xi Jinping visits impoverished villagers in Luotuowan Village of Longquanguan Township, Fuping County, north China's Hebei Province, Dec. 30, 2012. [Xinhua/Lan Hongguang] Strengthening the Party The year 2021 is also the ninth year of Xi's signature anti-corruption campaign, the most extensive in Chinese history. It shows no signs of letting up. More than 20 high-level officials and executives in the financial sector have been punished or investigated this year. And in the past 30 days or so, one former ministerial-level official in the central government's law-enforcement apparatus was investigated while another was punished. When Xi was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, China was already the world's second-largest economy. Yet, it faced challenges from within. "Facts prove that if corruption is allowed to spread, it will eventually lead to the destruction of a party and the fall of a government," Xi said in a stern warning. Over the past nine years, more than 400 officials at ministerial level or above have been punished or investigated, including a former member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and two former vice chairmen of the Central Military Commission. From 2014 to 2020, over 8,300 fugitives were repatriated from more than 120 countries and regions. "In a critical time, Xi turned the tide," said a foreign media editorial. Xi has ordered efforts to "lock power in the cage of systemic checks." He also spearheaded the establishment of the National Supervisory Commission. All public sector employees came under supervision following the supervisory reform. As general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Xi has led efforts to formulate and revise around 200 intra-party regulations. He also launched five Party-wide education campaigns to firm up the ideals and convictions of Party members and ensure they act effectively and in unison. Xi also attaches great importance to intra-party democracy. Solicited comments from CPC members are now incorporated into all Party national congress reports, documents reviewed at plenary sessions, and major Party documents, decisions, and reform policies. By June this year, the number of CPC members had grown to 95 million, 10 million more than the population of Germany. Experts in China affairs say the Party has become more disciplined, pure, and powerful. Xi Jinping is enjoying greater support within the CPC now than ever, said Neil Thomas, a China observer. In 2016, the sixth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee established Xi's status as the core of the CPC Central Committee and the whole Party. Without a strong leadership core, the CPC would find it hard to unify the entire Party's will or build solidarity and unity among people of all ethnic groups. It would not be able to achieve anything or carry out any of its "great struggles with many new historical features," said Wang Junwei, a research fellow at the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee. In October 2017, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era was officially instituted at the 19th CPC National Congress. The thought was enshrined in the CPC Constitution and China's Constitution. Like Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, Xi has advanced the adaption of Marxism to the Chinese context and kept it relevant, said Xin Ming, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance). Making China Strong After the Opium War of 1840, China was gradually reduced to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. It was bullied by foreign powers and suffered from poverty and weakness. "What a humiliation! China was trampled upon at that time," Xi said when recalling that part of history. The CPC was founded in 1921 to change the situation. According to Han Qingxiang, a professor at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, the pursuit of national rejuvenation is marked by four critical milestones the Party's founding in 1921; the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949; the advent of reform and opening up in 1978; and the new era after the 18th CPC National Congress in 2012. Two weeks after Xi's election as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, he put forward "the Chinese Dream" of national rejuvenation. This October, at an event commemorating the 110th anniversary of the Revolution of 1911, Xi mentioned "rejuvenation" 25 times in his 35-minute speech, making it one of the most emphasized messages. Xi believes that rejuvenation requires both strategic design and hard work. He took the lead by being a man of action. In 2019 alone, he took part in more than 500 important events. His working itinerary covered weekends of about 30 weeks in that year. He revised each draft of major reform plans. Although Xi has little time for himself, he manages to find time for swimming. This and physical labor during his youth ensure that he has enough stamina to deal with affairs of the Party, government, and the military. More importantly, he is driven by a sense of mission. "Happiness is achieved through hard work," he said. Xi often visits farms, fishing villages, farmers' houses, small eateries, supermarkets, factory workshops, laboratories, hospitals, schools, and even inspects pigsties and toilets to obtain first-hand information of people's livelihood. Xi Jinping inspects a primary school of Laoxian Township, Pingli County of the city of Ankang, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, April 21, 2020. [Xinhua/Xie Huanchi] Zhang Mengjin, a former colleague of Xi's in Zhejiang Province, said: "Xi takes in enough knowledge day to day so it is impossible to fool him with lies or bragging. We have to be honest when reporting to him." Xi has stood the test in the face of numerous hurdles and crises over the past nine years. In early 2015, when Yemen descended into chaos, he directed the navy to evacuate hundreds of stranded Chinese nationals. When the United States initiated a trade war against China, he devised the strategy that China does not want a trade war but is not afraid of one and will fight one if necessary. He also said strengthening dialogue and cooperation is the only right choice for the two countries. "The vast Pacific Ocean has enough space for the two large countries of China and the United States," Xi said. From conducting regular patrols in the waters of Diaoyu Islands, fending off the so-called South China Sea arbitration, finding solutions to China-India border conflicts, to facilitating the return of Chinese people illegally detained overseas, Xi has spearheaded strategic and tactical planning and, if necessary, personally intervened. In 2019, when social unrest gripped Hong Kong, he directed efforts to safeguard the "one country, two systems" cause and crush attempts to instigate a "color revolution." On the eve of Lunar New Year 2020, with the COVID-19 epidemic clouding festivities, Xi had a sleepless night. The next day, he convened a Party leadership meeting to discuss the country's response. Before the meeting, Xi had made a decision to tighten restrictions on the movement of people and channels of exit in Hubei and Wuhan. Time has shown how this strict approach was the only viable option. Xi Jinping speaks with a patient and medical workers by video link at Huoshenshan Hospital in Wuhan, central China's Hubei Province, March 10, 2020. [Xinhua/Ju Peng] Xi introduced "black swan" and "gray rhino" into Party parlance. Han, the Party school professor, identified risk prevention and defusing as a major highlight of the new era. "It is indeed a huge responsibility and arduous task to govern such a big country," Xi said when answering a question from a foreign politician. "I am willing to be selfless and devote myself to China's development. I will not let the people down." Breaking New Ground of Reform When Xi took office as general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, China's strength had significantly risen after more than 30 years of reform and opening up. Yet, it was not without problems, including downward pressure on the economy, wealth disparities, environmental damage, and social tension. Reforms also encountered some resistance. A more scientific top-level approach was needed. Xi designed a Chinese model of modernization characterized by an innovative, coordinated, green, and open development path that is for everyone. Xi Jinping applauds for the personnel awarded with medals during a grand gathering to celebrate the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Dec. 18, 2018. [Xinhua/Xie Huanchi] Observers say this development vision is intended to lead socialist China out of a development trap reliant on extensive and inefficient growth at the cost of ecological damage, shifting the country to high-quality development, and avoiding situations where the rich become richer and the poor poorer. As head of the central commission for deepening overall reform, formerly a central leading group, Xi launched a series of reforms that broke new ground while furthering Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening up. Reform has reached into diverse fields, spanning land-use policies, Party building in state-owned firms, judicial procedure, family planning, fiscal and tax policies, the real estate market, science and technology, and anti-monopoly. One reform measure, above all, stands out: the modernization of institutions, which directly impacts China's long-term development and stability. Its essence is upholding and improving socialism with Chinese characteristics, and modernizing China's system and capacity for governance. At times, reforms encountered great difficulties. To address controversies and eliminate obstructions, Xi himself had to give the final say. Xi headed a group tasked with drafting the document of the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. The document centered on deepening overall reform. Officials and experts who participated in the drafting and appraisals said Xi personally conducted research and made decisions, facilitating many breakthroughs. For example, the new proposition "let the market play the decisive role in resource allocation" resulted from Xi's vital decision. "Without General Secretary Xi's determination, it would not have been possible to roll out many major reforms," said a source familiar with the process. To reverse environmental damage, Xi demanded that polluting factories address problems or face closure. He issued a 10-year ban on fishing to protect China's longest river, the Yangtze. He gave six instructions to demolish illegally constructed villas in the Qinling Mountains, home to giant pandas, snub-nosed monkeys, and many other rare wild animals. Xi Jinping learns about ecological conservation of the Qinling Mountains at Niubeiliang National Nature Reserve, northwest China's Shaanxi Province, April 20, 2020. [Xinhua/Ju Peng] For many Chinese people, environmental improvements are obvious. In 2020, the percentage of days with good air quality was 87 percent in cities at and above the prefecture level. The proportion of surface water with fairly good quality rose to 83.4 percent. As a result, 89.5 percent of Chinese people were satisfied with the environment. Reforms have made China more open. In 2013, the first pilot free trade zone was established in Shanghai. Now the number of such zones has reached 21, including the entire island of Hainan, which is roughly the size of a small European country. China's negative list for foreign investment has been further shortened. While some countries chose to erect trade barriers, China made itself host of a series of global trade and investment fairs. Xi personally initiated the China International Import Expo, one of the multiple national-level expos across the country. China also took the lead in ratifying the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. By the end of 2020, China had rolled out 2,485 reform plans in over seven years. The targets and missions set at the third plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee had been essentially accomplished as scheduled, Xi announced. From 2013 to 2020, China's GDP grew by about 6.4 percent each year on average, contributing more than 30 percent of world economic growth on average for many years in a row. China's GDP exceeded the 100-trillion-yuan threshold in 2020, or about seven-tenths of that of the United States. In 2021, China ranked 12th in the Global Innovation Index, higher than Japan, Israel, and Canada. It is the top recipient of foreign direct investment and the world's No. 1 consumer market. So far, the most impressive achievement in the new era has been the accomplishment of the "first centenary goal," namely building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, said Liu Ronggang, another research fellow at the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee. The term moderately prosperous, or "Xiaokang" in Chinese, originates from the Book of Songs of ancient China. It is an aspiration for a well-off life cherished by the Chinese people for thousands of years. The country has the world's most extensive social security system in scale and the largest middle-income group. Extreme poverty has ended, once and for all. Over the past nine years, about 100 million people have been hoisted out of extreme poverty. Xi ordered Party members and officials to be stationed at impoverished villages to carry out targeted poverty alleviation measures at the front line. Xi himself had visited every one of the country's 14 contiguous poorest areas. Eliminating extreme poverty was likened to fighting a war. Indeed, the campaign had its fallen heroes, with more than 1,800 people dying in the line of duty. Xi also comprehensively reformed the armed forces. Reiterating the principle established by Mao Zedong that "the Party commands the gun," Xi introduced a series of reforms in the military's leadership and command system, size, structure, and force composition. He demanded the military be combat-ready. He regularly inspected military bases. He boarded China's first domestically built aircraft carrier and new-generation nuclear-powered submarine. Xi Jinping boards the aircraft carrier Shandong and reviews the guard of honor at a naval port in Sanya, south China's Hainan Province, Dec. 17, 2019. [Xinhua/Li Gang] Gerd Kaminski, an Austrian legal scholar and sinologist, said that after the 18th National Congress of the CPC, Chinese characteristics became an increasingly central guiding principle in all significant issues of China's development, including its governing philosophy. In such a process, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has stood the test, said Han Qingxiang. "It effectively leads the historical course of national rejuvenation and influences the whole world." Contributing to Global Community Xi has been at the forefront of China's efforts to engage with and contribute to the global community. Before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, he had visited 69 countries in 41 tours and been the first Chinese head of state to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos. He has said that, while spending so much time on overseas visits might be deemed a "luxury," he sees it as "worthwhile." His schedule during overseas visits is usually very tight and can last until the small hours. He had even spent his birthday during an overseas tour. "Everything we Chinese communists do is to better the lives of the Chinese people, renew the Chinese nation, and promote peace and development for humanity," Xi said. Altay Atli, a scholar based in Istanbul, Turkey, noted that there is a transformation of China's participation in international affairs, whether economic or diplomatic, under Xi's leadership, and that the world is witnessing the emergence of a major country with global influence. "The world is too big, with too many challenges, to go without the voice from China being heard, without solution ideas from China being shared, without the involvement of China being needed," Xi said. In 2013, Xi raised the notion of "building a community with a shared future for humanity." When elaborating on the specifics of his vision, Xi proposed that the international community should promote partnership, security, growth, inter-civilization exchanges, and the building of a sound ecosystem, citing a proverb: "The interests to be considered should be the interests of all." A community with a shared future for humanity comes from an excellent pedigree. Political scientists have noted that the notion inherits the Marxist idea of "an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all," and the Chinese ideal of "harmony." It is the most recent proposition on foreign affairs floated by the CPC, following Mao Zedong's "Three Worlds Theory" and Deng Xiaoping's "peace and development as two main world themes." The response from the international community has been positive. When Xi presented his vision at the Palace of Nations, the United Nations Office at Geneva, in January 2017, politicians, diplomats, and celebrities across the world responded with more than 30 waves of applause in 47 minutes. Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech "Work Together to Build a Community of Shared Future for Mankind" at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland, Jan. 18, 2017. [Xinhua/Rao Aimin] Under this concept, Xi proposed a new approach to international relations based on mutually beneficial cooperation and the principle of achieving shared growth through discussion and collaboration in global governance. "What kind of international order and governance system best suits the world and best suits the people of all countries? This is something that should be decided by all countries through consultation, and not by a single country or a few countries," he said. The same principle runs through the framework for major-country relations, as advocated by Xi, which features overall stability and balanced development. On many occasions, he has stressed that if nations maintain communication and treat each other with sincerity, the "Thucydides trap" can be avoided. By 2019, 180 countries had diplomatic relations with China, a sharp increase from around 30 in the 1950s. Over the past few years, five countries in Central America and the Pacific region established or resumed diplomatic ties with China. "We have friends in every corner of the world," Xi said. When meeting with outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel via video link in October, Xi called her an old friend: "The Chinese people put a premium on friendship; we will not forget old friends and will always keep the door open for you." The same year that Xi first called on the world to jointly build a community with a shared future for humanity, he also proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By August 2021, about 172 countries and international organizations had signed more than 200 cooperation documents with China under this framework. According to a report from the World Bank, BRI projects could help lift 7.6 million people out of extreme poverty and 32 million people out of moderate poverty globally. Xi has personally visited several BRI projects, including the Piraeus Port in Greece, the Smederevo steel plant in Serbia, and the China-Belarus Industrial Park in Minsk, Belarus. Global development, however, should not come at the cost of the environment, and in 2020 Xi offered a clear signal of commitment when he told the world that China would peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. "The world should thank China for its contribution to climate change responses," said former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Xi offered China's strong support of the Paris Agreement four years ago and, without China's support, the agreement would not be the way it is now, Rudd added. Xi's commitment to offering a helping hand transcends environmental and development issues. Today, China is a vital force in addressing global and regional flashpoint issues, ranging from nuclear proliferation to pandemic response. "We need to 'join hands' with each other instead of 'letting go.' We need to 'tear down walls,' not to 'erect walls'," he said. A few months ago, when the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops triggered unrest in Afghanistan, Xi had a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and met leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization members via video link to call for support of the steady transition of Afghanistan, engage the country in dialogue, and help the Afghan people. When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, Xi called for global solidarity and cooperation. By his instruction, China provided anti-virus material for more than 150 countries and 14 international organizations and sent 37 medical teams to 34 countries. He pledged to make Chinese COVID-19 vaccines a global public good and promised that China would provide 2 billion doses of vaccines to the world this year. The country also promised to donate 100 million U.S. dollars to COVAX. Xi Jinping chairs the Extraordinary China-Africa Summit on Solidarity against COVID-19 and delivers a keynote speech in Beijing, capital of China, June 17, 2020. [Xinhua/Ding Haitao] Over the past 100 years, the world's most populous country has been on an almost unbelievable journey from a poverty-stricken nation to one where basic needs are met to its current state of moderate prosperity. Xi deemed this achievement a contribution to humanity. More than 70 percent of worldwide poverty reduction over the last 40 years was in and by China, which means it realized its poverty reduction goal from the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ten years ahead of schedule. Describing her impressions of Xi, Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, president of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, called him "a seasoned captain" whose contributions, such as advocating multilateralism, the BRI, and the notion of a community with a shared future for humanity, have been significant. Fulfilling New Missions The CPC plans to achieve national rejuvenation through a pair of goals, known as "two centenaries." During the past nine years, as the Party's most senior leader, Xi has led the country in completing the first step and chaired the design of the second step of this historic plan. First, socialist modernization should be "basically realized" by 2035, and second, China should be built into a great modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful by the middle of the 21st century, which will be around the centenary of the PRC. Supplementary road maps support these overarching goals. Most notably, Xi spearheaded the drafting of the Party leadership's proposals for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035, which were adopted in October 2020. Xi has described the CPC's past century as "a historic miracle" and expressed confidence that the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is dawning. However, he also warned that this is no time for indecision. "At this critical moment, we must not stop, hesitate or wait," Xi said. He warned that achieving national rejuvenation will be no walk in the park, and the coming tests will only become more complex. "Realizing this great dream demands a great struggle," he said. Therefore, the upcoming sixth plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee comes at a significant time, as a resolution on the major achievements and historical experience in the Party's 100-year history will be discussed. "Over its 100-year struggle, the CPC has accumulated rich experience, understood important rules, developed governance theories and earned wisdom. This great treasure should be summarized to inspire the Party's governance better," Han Qingxiang said. Over the past 100 years, the CPC has adopted just two resolutions related to historical issues, in 1945 and 1981. They analyzed the causes and drew conclusions on important historical events and figures, through which the whole Party came to a clear consensus and thus grew stronger in unity. "The Party's previous resolutions on historical issues played a profound role in building consensus and rallying strength to fulfill new missions. This is what we expect from the upcoming plenary session," said Wang Junwei, the research fellow. History has emerged as something of a buzzword for all CPC members this year. A sweeping education campaign helped cadres recognize the Party's history, and a new Museum of the CPC was inaugurated. On June 18, Xi and his colleagues toured the museum, viewing exhibits such as bonds issued by the Qing government used to pay for the war indemnity required by the unequal Treaty of Shimonoseki; the manuscript of Karl Marx's notes from Brussels; the list of the 58 CPC members when the Party was founded; the car manufactured in the PRC's early years; and the model of China's Mars rover. Each display bore vivid testimony to how the Party led China. The exhibition ended with a "time tunnel," linking all significant historical junctures from 1921 until today, leading the audience to the future. Xi once quoted Mao Zedong, saying that "after several decades, the victory of the Chinese people's democratic revolution, viewed in retrospect, will seem like only a brief prologue to a long drama. A drama begins with a prologue, but the prologue is not the climax." "History has not ended, nor can it possibly end," he said at the conference marking the 95th anniversary of the CPC's founding. "The CPC and Chinese people have every confidence in their ability to provide a Chinese solution to aid the exploration of a better social system for humanity." After concluding their exhibition tour, Xi and his colleagues took a vow in front of the Party flag, reliving a ritual undertaken by all new CPC members. "I will fight for communism for the rest of my life," Xi said, leading the oath. Xi Jinping leads other CPC and state leaders Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan to review the Party admission oath after visiting an exhibition on CPC history at the Museum of the CPC in Beijing, capital of China, June 18, 2021. [Xinhua/Li Xueren] (Source: Xinhua) Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, casts his ballot at a polling station to elect deputies to the Xicheng district people's congress, in Huairentang, Zhongnanhai electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 5, 2021. [Xinhua/Ju Peng] BEIJING, Nov. 5 (Xinhua) Chinese President Xi Jinping cast his ballot at a polling station in Beijing on Friday to elect deputies to a local people's congress. Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, cast his vote at a polling station in Huairentang, Zhongnanhai electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing to elect deputies to the Xicheng district people's congress. He stressed developing whole-process people's democracy and strengthening electoral supervision. Around 10:30 a.m. Friday, Xi arrived at the polling station, gave his elector's card to staff, and got a ballot. He cast his ballot after filling it. Noting that the election of deputies to people's congresses is an important manifestation of the running of the country by the people, Xi called for electoral integrity and an election result that is to the people's satisfaction. On Friday morning, Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, and Han Zheng cast their ballots in person, while Wang Qishan entrusted a staff member to vote on his behalf. Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao also entrusted others to vote on their behalf, respectively. Friday saw people cast their ballots at 13,448 polling stations across Beijing to elect 4,898 new deputies to the people's congresses at the district level and 11,137 deputies to the township-level people's congresses. Enditem Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, casts his ballot at a polling station to elect deputies to a local people's congress in an electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 5, 2021. [Xinhua/Rao Aimin] Li Zhanshu, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the National People's Congress Standing Committee, casts his ballot at a polling station to elect deputies to a local people's congress in an electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 5, 2021. [Xinhua/Yao Dawei] Wang Yang, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) National Committee, casts his ballot at a polling station to elect deputies to a local people's congress in an electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 5, 2021. [Xinhua/Li Tao] Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and a member of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, casts his ballot at a polling station to elect deputies to a local people's congress in an electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 5, 2021. [Xinhua/Ju Peng] Zhao Leji, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, casts his ballot at a polling station to elect deputies to a local people's congress in an electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 5, 2021. [Xinhua/Zhai Jianlan] Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, casts his ballot at a polling station to elect deputies to a local people's congress in an electoral district in Xicheng District of Beijing, capital of China, Nov. 5, 2021. [Xinhua/Rao Aimin] (Source: Xinhua) mergency personnel respond to the Astroworld music festival in Houston on Friday, Nov. 5, 2021. Several people died and numerous others were injured in what officials described as a surge of the crowd at the music festival while Travis Scott was performing. Officials declared a mass casualty incident just after 9 p.m. Friday during the festival where an estimated 50,000 people were in attendance, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Pena told reporters at a news conference. (KTRK via AP) Welsh language society celebrates first anniversary with growing numbers and live events A Welsh language partnership celebrating its first anniversary has gone from strength to strength. Coleg Cambrias branch of Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol Cangen Cymraeg Cambria has been a huge success in the last 12 months. Welsh medium students have enjoyed access to training, events, and education online during the Coronavirus pandemic. As restrictions ease, more and more activities are being held in person at college sites in Wrexham, Northop, Llysfasi and Deeside, including drop-in sessions with branch officer Haf Everiss, guest speakers and weekly society meetings, with more than 50 students of all ages attending. Haf said collaborations with organisations including Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board which held a virtual Welsh-language health and social care session seminar with learners have also proven popular. Covid-19 has brought its challenges, but we have still managed to engage with students and communities in north east Wales to promote the use of Welsh in the workplace and education, said Haf. Its been a learning curve, identifying resources we might need bilingually to take the branch forward for learners, discussing any obstacles theyve faced and how we can grow together the response has been fantastic. She added: We are starting to see numbers increase and people want to meet up and see other students in a safe, warm environment. The social aspect of the society meetings in particular has been pivotal for those learning Welsh or lacking in confidence after this period of isolation; they are made to feel supported and welcome, which is what Cangen Cymraeg Cambria is all about. Demand for Welsh-medium education has grown significantly as many employers are now experiencing the benefits of having a bilingual workforce. Llinos Roberts, Head of Corporate Communications and Welsh Language at Coleg Cambria, said the college will continue to celebrate and preserve the language for generations to come. She added: The college is committed to championing the Welsh language, providing opportunities, and delivering a first-class bilingual education for our learners. While we are working hard to help the Welsh Government reach its target of one million Welsh speakers, it is crucial the courses and programmes we deliver are relevant, adding value for participants and highlighting the importance of the Welsh language as a valuable skill in the workplace. For more information, visit www.cambria.ac.uk and follow @Cangen_Cambria on social media. Visit www.colegcymraeg.ac.uk for more on Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, or email help.cymraeg@cambria.ac.uk. COLLIERVILLE, TN (WSMV) - The grocery store involved in a Tennessee mass shooting two months ago reopened its doors for the first time on Tuesday. One person was killed, and more than a dozen others were injured when a gunman opened fire in the Collierville store in September. At least 1 dead, 12 others injured after shooting at Memphis-area Kroger At least one person was killed and 12 others injured in a shooting at Kroger in Collierville, Tennessee, Police Chief Dale Lane said Thursday afternoon. Since then, the store has been doing repairs. And focusing on comforting the victims and employees caught up in the attack. The Kroger will open on Tuesday. "We just appreciate all the customers and this community for being patient with us as we work to rebuild and to heal together," Kroger Delta Division Corporate Affairs Manager Teresa Dickerson said. Family of woman killed in Kroger shooting speaks for first time The family of the woman killed in the Collierville Kroger shooting spoke for the first time. Two weeks back, Kroger announced a mental health treatment site would be opened in the town to help the people impacted by the incident. Collierville PD: Shooting suspect asked to leave job day of shooting Police in Collierville said the suspect in the Kroger shooting had been asked to leave his job on Thursday morning, the day of the shooting that killed one person and injured 14 other people. Collierville Police Chief Dale Lane said store reopening would help restore a sense of normalcy. "I mean, it's amazing to me that we're just a little bit over a month, and we're already opening the store back up. And so very thankful to get back to some sense of normalcy for sure," Lane said. NASHVILLE (WSMV) - The two-year-old critically injured in a shooting this past Monday has died at Vanderbilt Medical Center, according to Metro Police. According to the investigation, police learned that Anthony's father, Jeffery Thorpe, was over the mother's apartment and placed his firearm on a bed. Police said the child "picked up the gun and fired it." He was struck in the head, policed said. Metro Police looking for father of 2-year-old after shooting in East Nashville Metro Police are looking for the father of a two-year-old after the child shot himself at Oakwood Flats on Monday night. "It's been so hard. It feels like a nightmare," Anthony's mother, Aaliyah Scales, said in an interview with News 4 this week. "It doesn't feel real. This has been my biggest fear, honestly. All I ever wanted to do was protect my baby." Nashville mom heartbroken as toddler gets grim prognosis after shooting NASHVILLE, Tn. (WSMV) - A heartbroken mother is sharing memories of her 2-year-old son after the little boy accidentally shot himself at a Nas However, detectives are still looking to interview Jeffery Thorpe. Police also state that Thorpe is wanted for unrelated outstanding warrants. Here is the latest Wisconsin news from The Associated Press at 3:40 a.m. CST DENVER For months, Kathy Howell heard grumbling from her fellow nurses and doctors as COVID-19 vaccines became widely available and a small number of their colleagues refused to get one. "Members of our staff were saying, 'I can't believe I work with people who won't get vaccinated,'" Howell said. "Their colleagues were not happy with them. There definitely were a lot of feelings." Those feelings may start getting even more pointed following the Biden administration's recent announcement that about 17 million healthcare workers must be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4. And experts across the country worry that forcing the nation's already-stressed 76,000 hospitals, health care clinics and nursing homes to implement vaccine mandates may push critically needed workers to quit as tensions between vaccinated and unvaccinated workers grow. Of particular concern are rural healthcare facilities already grappling with severe staffing shortages and a proportionally larger number of hesitant workers. Experts say vaccine mandates are necessary because unvaccinated healthcare workers can get patients sick. This spring, two residents of a Kentucky nursing home died after getting COVID-19, even though 90% of their fellow residents had been vaccinated. The source of the infection? Their caregivers, half of whom were unvaccinated, according to federal officials. "In short, the low vaccination rate of the healthcare workers supplied the kindling for the outbreak," concluded the Covid States Project, a multi-university group of computer scientists, public health experts and political science specialists studying how people's behavior affects virus transmission. "The question going forward is to what extent might this occur in other healthcare settings around the country." Marco Renalli, 8, of Westerville, Ohio, holds still as nurse Amy Wahl, right, administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine during a clinic for kids ages 5 to 11-year-olds on Wednesday, Nov. 3, 2021 at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. The FDA recently approved use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for use in children. David Lazer, a professor at Northeastern University in Massachusetts who helps lead the Covid States Project, said the research has raised an interesting question: "Do you as a patient have the right to demand an all-vaccinated location? Because nobody wants to go to a restaurant and get infected -- and curing people is not part of their core mission. In health care, it's particularly material to your mission." Story continues Hospitals worried about losing more staff Nancy Foster, the American Hospital Association's vice president of quality and patient safety policy, said the potential loss of staff has been a regular topic of conversation among hospital and health care administrators. The association developed best practices to share vaccine information with workers, including custodial or housekeeping staff with limited English skills. Today, about 77% of healthcare workers have been vaccinated. Healthcare workers closest to COVID-19 patients are the ones most likely to have gotten vaccinated voluntarily, and they've been butting heads with unvaccinated colleagues, Foster said. Dr. Harvey Hsu, an internal medicine doctor, has a telemedicine appointment with a patient who is having long-term issues from COVID-19, at his office at the Banner University Medical Center complex in Phoenix on Sept. 10, 2021. "They have touched that part of the elephant and are very pro-vaccine as a result," she said. "It is in some regards creating tension in the workplace, in what was already a stressed environment." Many large healthcare systems and other facilities in urban areas have already mandated vaccines, taking advantage of the fact that urban Americans were more likely to voluntarily get vaccinated than their rural counterparts. That's what happened at Howell's employer, the University of Colorado Health System, Colorado's largest: Although the state set an Oct. 31 vaccination deadline, UC Health mandated its own Oct. 1 deadline, and then fired 119 people who refused to comply with the policy. Protesters rallying against COVID-19 vaccination mandates gather in the street outside the Barclays Center before an NBA basketball game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Charlotte Hornets, Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) That decision followed months of personalized conversations with vaccine-hesitant workers, some of whom spoke English as a second language. Howell said most of the workers who received the specialized briefings ultimately got vaccinated. "We've tried to talk. We've tried to lead with facts. And there are some people who wouldn't change their minds. So we just stopped the conversation," said Howell, who leads UC Health's 8,600-person nursing department as its chief nursing executive. "We already have to be vaccinated for so many things, and it's been that way my entire career." The 119 people let go by UC Health represent about 0.5% of the system's overall workers, and Howell said the system was able to adjust to their loss relatively easily. Vaccinated workers unhappy with coworkers who won't get shot North of Colorado in Wyoming, where there are yet no vaccine mandates, voluntarily vaccinated healthcare workers are increasingly pushing hospital supervisors to force unvaccinated workers to either quit or get the shots, said Tim Thornell, president and CEO of Cheyenne Regional Health System, the state's largest healthcare system. He said he's offered $600 bonuses or time off to encourage the approximately 20% of his staff that's unvaccinated to change their minds. He said his health care system can ill afford to lose any staff, and worries what will happen if large numbers of unvaccinated workers quit. But he also worries about what will happen if vaccinated workers get so mad at their colleagues that they quit instead. "We're now crossing that bridge where we are hearing more from vaccinated staff who are thinking about leaving for a safer environment," Thornell said. Already, hospitals and other care facilities around the country have been forced to temporarily shutter certain specialized units after unvaccinated workers quit rather than comply with mandates, and rural health care experts predict the loss of even a handful of workers at small facilities will affect patient care. That's because the country's rural health care was already ailing before the pandemic began, and the grinding hours, frantic rescue efforts and ongoing deaths have already prompted workers to quit. Protesters rallying against COVID-19 vaccination mandates gather in the street outside the Barclays Center before an NBA basketball game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Charlotte Hornets, Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) About 99% of nursing homes and 96% of assisted living facilities are facing staffing shortages, and virtually all said they were having a hard time hiring. In rural areas where nursing assistants might earn only $15-16 an hour for physically hard work moving and managing patients, fast-food jobs offering the same pay are quickly becoming more attractive. Another study found the nation could be short 510,394 registered nurses by 2030 and a summer survey by the American Nurses Foundation found that the biggest reason nurses were considering quitting their jobs was a lack of staffing. "In the midst of all this you've got a severe workforce shortage, and all this dissension and disagreement is causing gaps in care," said Brock Slabach, COO of the National Rural Health Association. "You add on top the vaccine mandate and that could be a knockout punch for many rural hospitals." Vaccine mandates were 'almost inevitable' Slabach said rural healthcare workers have traditionally been less willing to get vaccinated, a reflection of the sentiments of the communities in which they live and work. Lazer of the Covid States Project said the research shows that while a minority of people are vocally opposed to vaccines and to mandates, the majority of Americans support both. He said research also shows that mandates are effective in prompting people to get vaccinated. He said it's unsurprising healthcare workers are growing increasingly agitated that a small minority of their colleagues refuse to get vaccinated until forced to. "It is ironic but not surprising that the people who don't want to do something end up doing it when they're ordered to do it," he said. "It was almost inevitable that was going to be the rough sequence of the policy movement." Back in Denver, Howell said UC Health worried about losing workers to the mandate, but it was the right decision to protect both patients and staff. She said there were also some vaccine-hesitant workers who just didn't believe administrators would follow through with consequences. "They were trying to see if we would call their bluff. We did," she said. "And a lot of them got vaccinated." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden vaccine mandate raises healthcare worker loss fears All eight of the victims have been identified in the deadly stage surge at the Astroworld Festival concert. 23-year-old Arturo Sanchez, an attendee, said his heart literally stopped as he was trampled by the crowd, and he believed he was going to die himself. Bruised and battered, Sanchez told ABC News from his hospital bed on Sunday about the panic and chaos that erupted during the opening song of rapper Travis Scott's performance. He said that as soon as Scott began to sing, the crowd surged forward, knocking him off balance and causing him to fall to the ground near the front of the stage. PHOTO: Stacey Sarmiento places flowers at a memorial in Houston, Nov. 7, 2021, in memory of her friend, Rudy Pena, who died in a crush of people at the Astroworld music festival. (Robert Bumsted/AP) "I was on the floor screaming for help and trying to reach for people's hands so they could see me and no one could see me," Sanchez said. "I just kind of accepted the fact that I was going to die and I did for a little bit. My heart stopped, apparently." Sanchez said doctors told him he suffered a heart attack and had briefly flatlined. He said he remembered a large man falling on him and sitting on his chest as he struggled to breathe and then passed out. Sanchez said a registered nurse attending the concert performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on him and helped get him to an ambulance. PHOTO: Flowers are seen outside of the canceled Astroworld festival at NRG Park, Nov. 6, 2021 in Houston, Texas. (Alex Bierens De Haan/Getty Images) "She saved my life, honestly," Sanchez said. Last victim identified The medical examiner was able to identify the last of the eight victims who died on Sunday after asking for the public's help in identifying the man. Oscar Acosta confirmed to ABC station KTRK in Houston that his son, Axel Acosta, died at Memorial Hermann Hospital. He said his son traveled from Washington to see Scott perform. Acosta identified his son after the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences released a post-mortem photo of the 6-foot-2, nearly 500-pound man, and asked the public for help in identifying him. PHOTO: The crowd watches as Travis Scott performs at Astroworld Festival, Nov. 5, 2021, in Houston. (Houston Chronicle via AP) Axel Acosta, 21, was among the concertgoers killed when throngs in the estimated crowd of 50,000 packed into NRG Park -- which is next to NRG Stadium, home of the Houston Texans NFL football team -- suddenly surged toward the stage, authorities said. Another 25 people were injured, one just 10 years old, officials said. Story continues Five other people killed were identified by either their families or the schools they attended. 'An innocent young soul' Danish Baig, 27, of Dallas was killed while trying to save his fiancee, Olivia Swingle, who had fallen and was reportedly about to be trampled by concert-goers pushing forward, his brother Basil Baig told ABC News. "He was an innocent young soul who would always put others before him," Basil Baig said in a statement. "He was a hardworking man who loved his family and took care of us. He was there in a heartbeat for anything. He always had a solution to everything." PHOTO: Danish Baig, left, and his fiancee are seen in this undated photo. (Courtesy Basil Baig) Basil Baig said in a Facebook post that he also was at the concert, promoted and organized by Live Nation, and described it as being "poorly" managed and supervised. He alleged that Scott provoked the crowd to move toward the stage. "Travis Scott and his team and everyone associated in the event should and will be held responsible," Basil Baig said in his statement to ABC News. In videos Scott posted on Instagram Saturday, he said he tried to spot people in the crowd having physical problems and paused during the show to try to get help to fans that appeared in need. "I could just never imagine the severity of the situation," Scott said in one of the videos. In a separate statement, Live Nation said, "We will continue working to provide as much information and assistance as possible to the local authorities as they investigate the situation." The youngest victim The youngest victim who died was 14-year-old John Hilgert, a freshman at Memorial High School in Houston, according to a letter the school's principal sent to parents. "Our hearts go out to the student's family and to his friends and our staff at Memorial," principal Lisa Weir wrote in the letter. "This is a terrible loss, and the entire MHS family is grieving today." One victim had passion for dance Also killed was 16-year-old Brianna Rodriguez, a junior at Heights High School in Houston, her aunt, Iris Rodriguez, told ABC News. PHOTO: Brianna Rodriguez, right, is seen with her aunt Iris in this undated photo. (Courtesy Iris Rodriguez) Iris Rodriguez said her niece had a passion for dance. "Now she's dancing her way to heaven's pearly gates," the Rodriguez family wrote on a GoFundMe page that included a series of photos of Brianna. College senior dies Franco Patino, 21, a senior at the University of Dayton in Ohio, was identified by the school as one of the concertgoers killed. PHOTO: Franco Patino is seen in this undated family photo. (Courtesy Patino Family) In a letter addressed to members of the university's campus community, the school's president, Eric Spina, said Patino was from Naperville, Illinois, and was majoring in mechanical engineering technology with a minor in human movement biomechanics. Patino was also a member of Alpha Psi Lambda, a Hispanic-interest fraternity, and the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, Spina wrote. Patino had been working in an engineering coop program in Mason, Ohio, according to Spina. 'Huge hole in our lives' The family of Jacob "Jake" E. Jurinek said in a statement Sunday that he was among those killed. Jurinek was a junior at Southern Illinois University and was majoring in art and media, his family said. PHOTO: Jacob Jurinek is seen in this undated photo. (Courtesy Jurinek Family) "We are all devastated and are left with a huge hole in our lives," said Jurinek's father, Ron Jurinek. Rodolfo Pena, 23, from Laredo, Texas, and Madison Dubiski, 23, from Cypress, Texas were also killed. Bedlam ensues The concert bedlam unfolded around 9:30 p.m. local time Friday when the "the crowd began to compress toward the front of the stage," Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena told reporters during a news conference Friday night. "That caused some panic, and it started causing some injuries," Pena said. At least 13 people injured remain hospitalized, including five under the age of 18, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters during a briefing. As of Sunday night, at least one lawsuit has been filed against Scott. PHOTO: Houston Fire Department Chief Samuel PeAa speaks at the press conference addressing the cancellation of the Astroworld festival at the Wyndham Hotel family reunification center, Nov. 6, 2021, in Houston, Texas. (Alex Bierens De Haan/Getty Images) What triggered the surge is under investigation by the Houston Police Department. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he has ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to make state resources available to support the investigation. Scott has history of issues at concerts Problems have previously occurred at other Travis Scott concerts. In 2015, the rapper was arrested on charges of inciting a crowd to jump barriers at a Lollapalooza concert in Chicago. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, according to officials. In 2017, Scott was arrested again after he invited more people to come closer to the stage, prompting fans at the Walmart Music Pavilion in Rogers, Arkansas, to breach barricades and overrun security. In that case, he also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct and paid a fine. Prior to the fatal surge at Scott's concert on Friday night, some 300 people had been treated throughout the day at the music festival by on-site medical personnel, authorities said. There were "many instances" where they had to administer Narcan, which is used to treat a narcotic overdose, said Pena, who did not have an exact number. MORE: Paris Attacks: Concertgoer Describes Chaos During Bataclan Concert Hall Siege Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said that during the pandemonium, a private security guard working at the festival was possibly injected in the neck with drugs as he was attempting to grab or restrain someone. MORE: Video Police investigating 'network' behind Manchester attack "When he was examined, he went unconscious," Finner said during a Saturday afternoon briefing. "(Medical staff) administered Narcan. He was revived, and the medical staff did notice a prick that was similar to a prick that you would get if someone was trying to inject." ABC News' Meredith Deliso, Jenna Harrison, Kendall Coughlin, Darren Reynolds and Marcus Moore contributed to this report. All 8 victims identified, cause sought in deadly Travis Scott Astroworld concert originally appeared on abcnews.go.com Former President Donald Trump waves to cheering fans as he prepares to provide commentary for a boxing event headlined by a bout between former heavyweight champ Evander Holyfield and former MMA star Vitor Belfort, Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, in Hollywood, Fla. AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell A middle school in California removed a history teacher who said Donald Trump is still president. The teacher also claimed President Joe Biden's son Hunter "was having sexual intercourse with his own niece." The teacher has expressed "deep remorse" for the remarks she made in class, the VC Star reported. A history teacher in California has been removed from her job after she told her students that Donald Trump is still president. The teacher, who has not been identified by name, also made claims about President Joe Biden's son Hunter and the COVID-19 vaccine. "Hunter Biden, for example, is doing deals with China and Ukraine where he was funneling money illegally. He also had child pornography on his laptop. He was having sexual intercourse with his own niece," the teacher, who worked for Anacapa Middle School, said on the recording, according to CBS New York. "If you have a baby in the hospital, they don't want to give it back if you're not vaccinated," the teacher said on the recording. "This is a complete power control threat." The teacher is still employed by Ventura Unified, the district that oversees Anacapa, according to district spokesperson Marieanne Quiroz. An eighth-grade student told his mother after class with the history teacher that he'd never be vaccinated against the coronavirus, CBS New York reported. Then he asked her if she knew that Trump was still president of the United States. "I mean, why? Why does that need to be said in this classroom full of children," the mother asked, according to CBS New York. "I trusted her to teach him the facts about history and she went off on this rant like a preacher on a pulpit." In a statement to Insider, a district spokesperson said the school launched an investigation into the incident after receiving the recording of the teacher on October 18. Spokesperson Quiroz told Insider the district "does not condone the non-instructionally related discussion" in the classroom. Story continues The teacher has expressed "deep remorse" for the remarks she made in class, Quiroz said. "The Ventura Unified School District will work closely with staff to ensure that this does not happen again," Quiroz added. But parents say that's not enough. The mother of the eighth-grader who now fears getting vaccinated against the coronavirus says her child and her husband have a damaged relationship because of the teacher's comments. His father questioned what the eighth-grader learned in school, and the son said he believed his teacher. "When he first got in the car and said, 'Dad, teachers know everything. She's right, dad. You're wrong.' He's damaged. He's hurt. He's scared. He doesn't trust his parents now. He thinks we lied to him," the mom told CBS New York. Read the original article on Business Insider Kevin Wagner Q: Can the government take your property without a conviction? How is that legal? Civil forfeiture is when the government seizes the money, homes and cars of people engaged in criminal activity. The money is mostly used to boost the budget of law enforcement agencies. Historically, civil forfeiture was used infrequently until it was developed as a tool in the war on drugs in the 1980s. It expanded in use to seizing the cars of intoxicated drivers, or the proceeds from activities ranging from illegal gambling to securities fraud. The reason this is legal is that, while people have constitutional rights, property does not. Taking property without a criminal conviction is possible because the government is proceeding in rem against the property and not the individual. The resultant burden for the government to seize property is lower than it would be to convict an individual. The key is whether the property is sufficiently connected to a criminal activity. People can contest the seizure but this can take time, money and a legal hearing with no guarantee that the property will be returned. There is a real benefit to this approach. Civil forfeiture allows law enforcement to act against criminal organizations by seizing their assets, even if they cannot yet proceed criminally against anyone. When used appropriately, civil forfeiture is a significant power that allows law enforcement agencies to combat organized criminal activities, especially illegal drugs, by snatching away the criminals tools and money. Criminal proceeds are turned to a good purpose by supporting police. However, the potential for abuse is quite real. Civil forfeiture incentivizes law enforcement to seize property whenever possible so as to bring in revenue. Law enforcement agencies may become dependent on the money from civil forfeiture, and pressure officers into maintaining high levels of property seizure. Smaller law enforcement agencies may be dependent on the money from seizures to operate. This creates a negative incentive for enforcement agencies to pursue cases that generate income at the expense of others. It has also led to cases where people who are not guilty of a crime have lost significant money or assets. Story continues The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized some limits on this power. In Timbs v. Indiana (2019), the Court held that the 8th Amendment, which prohibits excessive fines, applies to state civil forfeiture cases. There are also due process limitations on the power that require that people be given a minimum level of process before the government can confiscate personal property. However, that is a low bar. In a recent case, the U.S. government held a mans truck for nearly two years while he waited for a hearing. What the process must be is still a bit unclear, unless and until Congress codifies the rules with a new law. Kevin Wagner is a noted constitutional scholar and political science professor at Florida Atlantic University. The answers provided do not necessarily represent the views of the university. If you have a question about how American government and politics work, email him at kwagne15@fau.edu or reach him on Twitter @kevinwagnerphd. This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: THE CIVICS PROJECT: Can government take property without a conviction? A nasty cold hit New York City and much of the country this summer. It arrived just when life seemed good again. Or at least when life seemed like it maybe could become good again. It was that halcyon window of summer after vaccine second doses but before breakthrough and delta variant had fully entered the lexicon. Remember? When gathering on streets and in warehouses and at bars seemed like it was permissible, maybe even emotionally healthy? When, as this publication put it, New York Felt Alive Again? Oh, how young we were 20 weeks ago. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times Vaccine optimism led to celebrations; celebrations led to gatherings; and gatherings led to a bunch of us getting summer colds (not to be confused with what later was identified as the delta variant surge in the United States). Of course, nobody likes to get a cold. Well, actually, thats not entirely true: I did come across some online forums devoted to coughing and sneezing filled with people who seem to like cold symptoms. Like, they really like them. Still, I think its fair to say that the vast majority of people dont like to get a cold. It wasnt just that we had forgotten what colds felt like. Science supported the fact that some of the colds going around this past summer really were worse. There was talk of the gay cold, as some of us in the community called it, following LGBTQ Pride celebrations in June. Dr. Andrew Goodman, the site medical director for Manhattans Callen-Lorde Community Health Center, which specializes in LGBTQ health care, said that he did notice an uptick in upper respiratory infections among his patients this summer. Many were returning from gay party destinations like Fire Island and Provincetown, he said. But he emphasized that, from a medical point of view, this wasnt shocking. People were getting together and partying, and for 18 months we stayed apart, Goodman said in a Zoom interview. And so, now, these bugs are getting together and theyre partying, too. Story continues To be fair to all us complainers, having a cold right now is particularly unpleasant. Wearing a mask may help slow the spread of the common cold, but wearing one while sick is, scientifically speaking, gross. As comedian Guy Branum joked on Twitter in October: I full sneezed in a mask and it did its job, but at what cost? But sometimes worse than stewing in your own juices (sorry) is the reaction cold symptoms can provoke in other people. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that most adults in the United States contract two or three colds each year. But even though the common cold is (again, sorry) common, the coronavirus pandemic has amplified anxieties about communicable diseases. People with colds right now have experienced a variety of blowback for coughing or sneezing in public. And its not always just dirty looks from strangers on the subway. Carlie Guadagnolo-Edwards, who works in sales at a television station in Sacramento, California, was at a doctors appointment on Tuesday for a problem with her wrist. She also had a cold, which did not go over well with the doctors receptionist. The amount of suspicion that I was treated with when I had the audacity to sneeze, youd think I had insulted the receptionists mother to her face, Guadagnolo-Edwards, 27, said in a phone interview. She explained that she was fully vaccinated and that she was particularly careful about masking and socially distancing since her husband is immunocompromised, but the receptionist still kept her distance, physically and socially. Ultimately, the appointment happened as planned. According to Luna Dolezal, an associate professor of philosophy who studies the impact of shame in medicine at the University of Exeter in Britain, a situation like the one Guadagnolo-Edwards experienced is far from uncommon. Dolezal said in a Zoom interview that there is a power imbalance inherent in a medical appointment that could induce shame, but also the stigma has become just so widespread that coughing signifies something so much more than it used to. Be warned. According to Dolezals research, feeling ashamed about a medical condition can exacerbate health problems and discourage some patients from seeking treatment. But of course, none of us, including Dolezal, is immune (again, so sorry) to judging or being judged. Ive had a cold the last two weeks and every time I cough I feel compelled to say Dont worry, Ive had a PCR test, she said. To put it reductively, if you get sick right now, you may feel shame or be shamed. Its a grim prognosis. The good news is, if someone gives you a hard time for a cough or a sneeze, at least you can feel good about kvetching to your friends. There is some research that shows griping and joking can increase bonding and group identification. Lots of us will get colds and colds feel bad. Lots of us will feel guilty about having those colds indicators we may have socialized without enough distance and that will make us feel worse. But at least well have lots of people around us who we can feel bad with together. 2021 The New York Times Company Niger is facing jihadist insurgencies on its borders with Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria (file picture) Niger has declared two days of national mourning from Friday, after at least 69 people were killed in an attack by suspected Islamist insurgents. The attack happened in the country's south-west, near the border with Mali. Victims included a local mayor and the leader of a self-defence militia, the government said. A search is under way for survivors. No group has claimed responsibility for the bloodshed, which took place on Tuesday. The assailants fled across the border into Mali, reportedly taking their own dead away with them. Niger's interior ministry said a delegation led by the mayor of Banibangou had been ambushed at a village about 55km (32 miles) away, in the western Tillaberi region. In a statement, it blamed "unidentified armed bandits". The area is overrun by militants associated with a local affiliate of the so-called Islamic State group. Niger is facing jihadist insurgencies on its borders with Mali, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. More than 500 people have been killed in insurgent violence this year in the country's south-west. In March, some 137 people were killed during co-ordinated raids on three villages by suspected jihadists. More about the Islamist violence in West Africa: PARK JI-HWAN/AFP via Getty Where and why has North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns older half-brother, Kim Jong Chul, disappeared? Considering the persistent doubts about the health of Kim Jong Un and his own habit of vanishing for weeks at a timethat question assumes some urgency. If 37-year-old Kim Jong Un were to die, Jong Chul, 40, never an active contender for power, would be a prime candidate to take over. In a succession scenario, his name would surely be on the table, Greg Scarlatoui, executive director of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, told The Daily Beast. The multi-tentacle Organization and Guidance Department (OGD) of the Workers Partyof which Kim Jong Un is chairmanwould decide on a successor, leaving it to the coterie of generals and top party officials now surrounding Kim Jong Un to decide on policy. There would, said Scarlatoui, be pluses being a direct descendant of the Paektu bloodlinea reference to the Korean peninsulas highest peak where Kim Jong Il, by North Korean mystique, was born in 1941 in a log cabinand minuses, his apparent weakness compared to his brother. That said, he observed, There has always been a symbiosis between the Workers Party and the Kim family regime. Jong Chul has an honorary position in the Organization and Guidance Department, but no reporting has ever demonstrated he contributed to a political action or decision, Robert Collins, author of a book on the OGD after spending more than 30 years analyzing North Korea for the U.S. Command in Seoul, told The Daily Beast. Kim Jong-un obviously tolerates his existence as long as he stays out of the way. It was only after long-ruling Kim Jong Il deemed elder son Jong Chul too effeminate, according to Kims Japanese sushi chef, Kenji Fujimoto, that he designated younger brother Jong Un as successor roughly a year before dying in 2011. Ever since, it appears as though Jong Chul has been keeping his head down, playing his guitar with friends in ultra-secret surroundings in Pyongyang while Kim Jong Un makes unmistakably clear that hes the boss and heads will roll if anyone gets out of line. Story continues Nonetheless, the elevation of Kim Jong Chul is a very feasible scenario, Choi Jin-wook, president of the Center for Strategic and Cultural Studies in Seoul, told The Daily Beast. The Kim family are godlike figures. In North Korea the most important qualification is to be a family member. That qualification is so vital that in February 2017, Kim Jong Un ordered the assassination of his 44-year-old oldest brotherand potential rivalKim Jong Nam. Living in exile in Macau, a former Portuguese colony on the Chinese coast, Jong Nam had aroused Jong Uns paranoid fears by criticizing Kim dynastic rule. After he had checked in for a flight from the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, two young women smeared his face with what North Korean operatives had told the women, one from Vietnam, the other from Indonesia, was water, but was actually a VX chemical nerve agent concocted in Pyongyang. Kim Jong Chul, not seen publicly in Pyongyang during Kim Jong Uns rule, was last spotted in May 2015 attending an Eric Clapton concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London. A veritable Clapton groupie, he had also attended his concerts in Germany in 2006 and in Singapore in 2011. Thae Yong Ho, then North Koreas deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom, who defected to South Korea in 2016, has said he personally arranged for the visit, including two nights of Clapton shows and a luxury hotel costing more than $3,000 a night. Ko Yong Hui, Kim Jong Ils third wife or consort and mother of Kim Jong Un, Kim Jong Chul, and younger sister Kim Yo Jong, died of breast cancer in Paris in 2004. The degree to which Jong Un is repressing Jong Chul, keeping him under wraps, watched and guarded, is not clear, but Thae has said hes living quietly in Pyongyang. Did Kim Jong Uns Half-Brother Get Bumped Off for Spying for the CIA? Kim Jong Chol remains out of the political limelight and in the shadows in Pyongyang, Evans Revere, a former U.S. senior diplomat in Seoul, told The Daily Beast. He is reportedly free to play his guitars and jam with friends. In North Korea, bloodline is what counts. Without having any power, yes, Kim Jong Chul could take the titles. If Jong Chul does not make trouble, nobody hates him, Kim Tae-woo, former president of the Korea Institute for National Unification, said in an interview with The Daily Beast. But what about Kim Yo Jong, the 34-year-old younger sister? Often outspoken, she ranks second to Kim Jong Un in actual power. Yo Jong has played the role of second man, said Kim Tae-woo, but shes already notorious in South Korea for her insulting comments against South Koreas President Moon Jae-in for approving military exercises on computers with U.S. forces while looking for dialog with the North. Careful to maintain total respect for Kim Jong Un, Yo Jong, in charge of the publicity and information department of the Workers Party, was elevated in September to the real center of power, the state affairs commission. In a thoroughly male-dominated system, however, Kim Tae-woo believes her gender counts against her. Others in North Koreas inner circle, he said, would not want a woman holding the countrys top posts. Yo Jong is danger waiting to happen, said Collins. North Korean society tolerating a female leader? Not likely. That would factionalize the NK elite faster than billion dollar bribes. Revere, however, is not so sure. Never has there been a hint of excessive ambition on her part, he said. She is unfailingly deferential to Kim Jong Un in their appearances together. She also frequently speaks out on her own on key policy issueswhich suggests a high level of self-confidence and her assuredness that she can speak on behalf of her brother and the regime. Kim Yo Jong Overtakes Putin as Bidens Most Outspoken Foe In complete contrast, Kim Jong Chul has not been known to display any desire to rule anythinga record that might make him a carefully harmless choice in internecine infighting thats inevitable after Jong Uns departure from the scene. In an environment in which hundreds of officials have been annihilated on orders of Jong Un and, before him, Kim Jong Il and grandfather Kim Il Sung, survival depends on playing it safe. Kim Jong Un, besides wiping out his older half-brother, ordered the public arrest in December 2018 live on state TV of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, married to his aunt, Kim Jong Ils younger sister. Glasses askew after a beating, Jang was shown being dragged by guards into a small courtroom before he was summarily executed. Once North Koreas second highest leader under Kim Jong Il, he stood accused of corruption and numerous other crimes after having made the fatal mistake of wanting to hold real authority rather than merely advising as a humble servant. Kim Jong Un, whos got every top title from president to party chairman to chairman of the state affairs commission to commander of the armed forces, has ruthlessly consolidated power even as his health remains a matter of concern and speculation. Judging from photographs, hes shed about 20 kilograms, down from 140 kilograms, but thats still far too heavy for one whos just 5 feet 8 inches. South Koreas National Intelligence Service, aggressively supporting President Moons bid for dialog and reconciliation with North Korea, has issued statements saying that doubts about his health are groundless. The NIS has also dismissed speculation that a body double has been filling in for him on occasion and denounced as not true at all, addressing a story emblazoned last month on the front page of the American supermarket tabloid Globe that Kim Yo Jong had taken over from her brother in a coup. However, the credibility of the NIS, led by Park Jie-won, accused 20 years ago for his role in payoffs to North Korea to bring about the North-South summit in June 2000 between the late South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong Il, is open to question. Moons number one objective with regard to North Korea from the beginning of his presidency, Bruce Bennett, long-time Korea analyst at the Rand Corporation, told The Daily Beast, has been to establish a condition of peaceful coexistence. Kim Jong Uns tremendous weight loss, Bennett added, raises serious questions about whether the pictures we are seeing are of one or more of Kims doubles. In fact, We dont even know enough to dismiss what in other circumstances might be considered ridiculous suggestions. By failing to be open and with their history of using doubles, there will almost certainly be periodic speculation about problems in the North Korean leadership. Yet another issue is whether Kim Jong Chul, were he to emerge as a figurehead, could win the respect befitting the titles, however empty, that might fall to him. Kim Jong Chul would not make a very effective leaderhe certainly would not be directing the Politburo and similar meetings the way Kim Jong Un does, said Bennett. Of course, the North could use a body double of him to maintain appearance while Kim Yo Jong ruled. Kenji Fujimoto, who satiated the culinary tastes of the Kim family for years, explained in a memoir why Kim Jong Il eliminated Kim Jong Chul from the succession. The kid, Fujimoto quoted Jong Il as saying, was like a girl. Read more at The Daily Beast. Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now! Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more. Protests after death of George Floyd shifted public conversation, expectations from police. We need fixes that include mental health, other services. Voters in Minneapolis headed to the polls Tuesday for a vote with major implications on the future of policing in the city, and ultimately, the nation. Question 2 would amend the citys charter to replace the police department and create a more comprehensive Department of Public Safety. Win or lose, the winds of change are at the backs of the organizers, activists and everyday citizens who have long called for police reform and expanded community investment. Less than 18 months ago, the world watched the murder of George Floyd play out over cellphone and police body cam videos. The egregious nature of Floyds murder at the hands of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin ignited one of the largest protest movements in American history and even pushed corporations to pay closer attention to the needs of Black America. Banners displayed during the Wichita Falls rally Monday show the names of black individuals killed in recent incidents, including the first name, George Floyd. Floyd, the catalyst for protests around the country, died in police custody May 25, 2020. A Minneapolis police officer has been charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter; he was shown on cell phone video pressing his knee into Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes. Floyd had cried out, "I can't breathe." Following the lead of Minneapolis, calls for reform rang out across the country. But those calls were met with an equal amount of bad faith pushback from law enforcement lobbyists and defenders of the status quo that amount to nothing more than perpetually moving the goal post no matter how righteous, evidence-based, popular or necessary the proposal. When grassroots organizers were in the streets protesting, skeptics dared them to come up with a policy solution. When organizers called for a reallocation of funding from police into community services, skeptics said that position wasnt popular. When Minneapolis organizers collected more than 20,000 signatures to get Question 2 on the ballot, the fearmongering about getting rid of police officers began. The Yes 4 Minneapolis coalition the group that organized this ballot initiative and which I have publicly supported is pushing an investment in nonpolice responses to emergencies. The proposal means creating a department where trained professionals in mental health services, homeless outreach, social work and other community services offer wide-ranging solutions to harms. And yes, wide-ranging solutions will also include the presence of a trained police officer. Story continues Weve seen what can happen when communities come together to look for alternatives to policing to solve safety issues. Violence interruption programs, in which unarmed members of the community mediate conflicts before they turn deadly, have curbed gun violence in Baltimore, Maryland, and Richmond, California. And a video that went viral last month from Shreveport, Louisiana, shows a group of dads armed with nothing but T-shirts and cheesy jokes taking incidents of violence down to zero at a school where nearly two dozen students had been arrested for fighting. With Question 2, Minneapolis has boldly begun the push to reimagine public safety as more than just police and policing. There was heavy investment in the maintenance of the status quo a status quo in which police seem to meet critiques with slowdowns or outright refusals to respond to 911 calls. Thats not a community in partnership with police. Its a community held hostage by its police force. Signs displayed at Monday's rally in downtown Wichita Falls expressed a variety of emotions in response to the death of George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody May 25, 2020. The Wichita Falls protest was described as peaceful and respectful. No arrests were made in relation to the event. That Question 2 is on the ballot is a sign the status quo days of police violence and a lack of community accountability are coming to an end. This shift in public opinion makes police reform and robust investments in expanding public safety inevitable. Its no longer whether but when. Minneapolis organizers have given the nation a powerful blueprint to follow and given us permission to imagine a world where public safety means more than throwing obscene amounts of money toward the police budget. Maurice Mitchell is the national director of the Working Families Party. His organization's Political Action Committee has donated to Yes 4 Minneapolis. This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Win or lose, police reform ballot measure shows America is over status quo policing A year before the 2022 midterm elections, Republicans hold a clear lead on the congressional ballot as President Joe Biden's approval rating sinks to a new low of 38%. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll, taken Wednesday through Friday, found that Biden's support cratered among the independent voters who delivered his margin of victory over President Donald Trump one year ago. Biden and his party are poised for a rebound, advocates argue, after the House passed a $1.2 trillion "hard" infrastructure bill late Friday, sending the signature measure to Biden's desk for his signature. An encouraging economic report released Friday morning showed stronger-than-expected job growth. Kamala Harris: Liberals saw Harris as a unique champion. Lately, they're disappointed. What Americans want Biden to do: What's the one thing Americans want Biden to do in 2022? We asked them. That said, the survey illuminates the size of the hole Democrats need to dig out of as they look toward the elections in one year on Nov. 8, 2022 that will determine control of Congress and shape the second two years of Biden's term. At the moment, views of the president have soured. Among the findings: Nearly half of those surveyed, 46%, say Biden has done a worse job as president than they expected, including 16% of those who voted for him. Independents, by 7-1 (44%-6%), say he's done worse, not better, than they expected. Nearly two-thirds of Americans, 64%, say they don't want Biden to run for a second term in 2024. That includes 28% of Democrats. Opposition to Trump running for another term in 2024 stands at 58%, including 24% of Republicans. Vice President Kamala Harris' approval rating is 28% even worse than Biden's. The poll shows that 51% disapprove of the job she's doing. One in 5, 21%, are undecided. Americans overwhelmingly support the infrastructure bill Biden is about to sign, but they are split on the more expensive and further-reaching "Build Back Better" act being debated in Congress. Only 1 in 4 say the bill's provisions would help them and their families. If the election were today, those surveyed say, they would vote for their Republican congressional candidate over the Democratic one by 46%-38%, an advantage that would bode well for GOP hopes of gaining a majority in the House and the Senate. In a president's first midterm election, his party usually loses ground, and this time the GOP needs to flip just five seats in the House and one in the Senate to claim control. Story continues That outcome would make it even harder for Biden to pass legislation already a difficult task in a Democratic-controlled Congress and open the door to aggressive Republican oversight of his administration. Analysis: Paleologos on the Poll: Republican hold notable advantage heading into 2022 President Joe Biden awaits the bipartisan infrastructure package passed in the House. The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cellphone, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. Tony Emmi, 62, a retired health care worker from Wilmington, Delaware, who was among those surveyed, voted for Biden for president and derides Trump as "deceitful" and "malicious." But the Democrat says Biden hasn't done enough to hold his party to account and get things done. "I think this country is moving in a direction that is dangerous," Emmi says. Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say the country has gotten on the wrong track; one in five (20%) say it is headed in the right direction. That's no better than the public's uneasy view during the final weeks of the Trump administration. ' Stuff that's keeping me up at night' The infrastructure bill, which passed Friday with some bipartisan support, is backed by 2-1 (61%-32%) among those surveyed. The supporters include a third of Republicans. "We're not keeping our infrastructure updated I don't mean currently updated, I mean since 1930, some of these things have been in place," says Kathleen Loyd, 70, a retired juvenile court officer from Piedmont, in southeast Missouri. She dodges potholes when she drives and had to remodel her kitchen after a water main broke. Virginia, New Jersey elections: How Democrats lost voters, and what it means for 2022 Americans are closely divided on the "Build Back Better" act pressed by congressional Democrats. In the poll, 47% support the $1.85 trillion bill; 44% oppose it. The sweeping measure includes more than $500 billion in climate change and clean energy funding. It would establish pre-K for all 3- and 4-year-olds; extend the child tax credit for one year; expand Medicaid coverage in some states; add hearing coverage to Medicare; and finance affordable housing programs. President Biden and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi push fractious House Democrats on a revised domestic policy bill and a related bipartisan infrastructure plan. The White House and its allies haven't persuaded most Americans that the measure would benefit them, at least not yet. Those surveyed are a bit more likely to say its provisions would hurt their families rather than help them, 30%-26%. Thirty-one percent say it would not have much effect. Those findings reflect either a failure of communication by the bill's backers or a disconnect with what voters feel they most need. "Is this spending bill out of control? I don't know," says Nia Anderson, 45, a stay-at-home mother of three in Minnesota's Twin Cities. She voted for Biden and says he's doing "fine," but "I'm worried about my kids, and I'm worried about my family." She was getting ready to take her children, ages 13, 9 and 6, across town to get vaccinated against COVID-19. "That's the stuff that's keeping me up at night," she says. In the poll, Congress gets dismal ratings: 12% approve, 75% disapprove. Congressional Democrats have a 29% favorable rating; congressional Republicans 35%. Biden's job approval rating is dismal, too, at 38% approve, 59% disapprove. He has the lowest rating of any modern president at this point in his term except Trump. Studies have concluded that a president's job approval rating is one of the most powerful factors affecting midterm elections. More: Paleologos on the Poll: Republican hold notable advantage heading into 2022 The party of a president with an approval rating that has dipped below 50% often faces a blowout. In the 2017 midterms, when Trump's approval was at 37%, Republicans lost 41 House seats. In the 1994 midterms, when President Bill Clinton's approval was at 48%, Democrats lost 54. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris attend a ceremony marking the 10th anniversary dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington on Oct. 21. Last week, Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe for governor in a closely watched off-year election in Virginia. In the poll, 48% agree the outcome is a "telling sign of a Republican sweep in 2022." Thirty-nine percent say it was "one state election and doesn't have national implications." Biden loses ground with voters who backed him 2020 Biden has lost ground with voters since he won last year's election, but Trump hasn't gained it. Over the past year, two-thirds of those surveyed say, their opinion of Trump hasn't changed. Fourteen percent say their view of him has gotten better, 19% say it has gotten worse. But Trump commands more loyalty among his core supporters than Biden does. Among those who voted for Biden last year, almost 4 in 10, 39%, say they hope he doesn't run for another term; 50% hope he will run. Among those who voted for Trump last year, 1 in 4, 26%, hope he won't run again; 65% hope he will. "I thought he did a great job then, and I know he'll do a great job in the future," says Lynda Ensenat, 54, a Trump voter and independent insurance adjuster from New Orleans. "There's a whole lot going wrong in this society right now, and all the Democrat liberals that's what they're 100% for." She says Biden has "been wrong on absolutely everything he's touched." If the presidential election were today between Biden and Trump, 44% say they would vote for Trump, 40% for Biden, 11% for an unnamed third-party candidate. In the election last year, Biden beat Trump 54%-47%. Loyd, the retiree from Missouri, used to think of herself as a Democrat but voted for Trump in 2016, then left the presidential ballot blank in 2020. She's so disenchanted with politics that she has stopped watching news coverage as closely as she once did. She worries that the president isn't competent but says her Republican congressman panders to the right with a false claim that Biden didn't win the election, and she hates the name-calling that is now commonplace in politics. "I don't think anybody is talking to the average American citizen," she says. Afghanistan takes toll on Biden:Americans' harsh judgment on Afghanistan costs Biden's approval, down to 41%, according to USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll in January:Americans, braced for violence at the inauguration, see democracy damaged after Trump This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden approval sinks to new low in USA TODAY/Suffolk poll WASHINGTON The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that the House approved late Friday passed with the help of several Republicans, who faced a swift backlash Saturday from their GOP colleagues. Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York was one of 13 Republicans who voted for the bipartisan bill, which passed 228-206, with some progressive Democrats voting against it. After months of being held hostage by Progressive Democrats, the House was finally able to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Garbarino said on Twitter. Make no mistake, tonights vote was about roads, bridges, and clean water. It was about real people, and the tangible actions Congress could take to better their lives by rebuilding and revitalizing our nations crumbling infrastructure. The measure is one of President Joe Biden's key domestic priorities. On Saturday, he called passage of the bill a monumental step forward as a nation. More: 'A monumental step forward': Biden hails House passage of $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill Federal student aid: Biden's spending bill would increase student aid for low-income students: But is it enough to keep up with the cost of college? But the GOP members faced harsh criticism afterward for supporting the bill, including from fellow Republican members. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., called her colleagues RINOS" Republicans in name only. RINOS just passed this wasteful $1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill, Boebert tweeted late Friday night. Pelosi did not have the votes in her party to pass this garbage. Time to name names and hold these fake republicans accountable. More: House passes historic $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill: 5 Things podcast Rep. Mary Miller, R-Ill., added to the backlash, calling colleagues who voted for the bill spineless on Twitter. Only 3 days after voters rejected Biden's failed policies in deep blue VA & NJ, 13 spineless 'Republicans' decided to tag-team with Democrats and helped pass their $5 TRILLION socialist takeover of our country, Miller tweeted. Story continues Others chimed in as well. "I can't believe Republicans just gave the Democrats their socialism bill," Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., tweeted. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., tweeted that the Republicans who voted with Democrats "handed over their voting cards" to Pelosi to pass Biden's "Communist takeover of America via so-called infrastructure." But Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, who voted with Democrats Friday, hit back at Greene. "Infrastructure = communism is a new one. Eisenhowers interstate system should be torn up or else the commies will be able to conveniently drive! Red Dawn in real life," Kinzinger tweeted. More: Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger announces he will not seek reelection Reps. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, David B. McKinley of West Virginia, Fred Upton of Michigan, Tom Reed of New York, Chris Smith of New Jersey, Don Bacon of Nebraska, Jefferson Van Drew of New Jersey, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Don Young of Alaska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and John Katko of New York were the other Republicans who voted for the measure. Six House Democrats Reps. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Jamaal Bowman of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan voted against the bill. They had sought assurances that moderate Democrats would back Bidens $1.85 trillion Build Back Better budget bill before voting on the infrastructure bill. The infrastructure package allocates funding to modernize highways, rebuild water lines and billions for electric vehicle charging stations making it the largest transportation spending package in U.S. history. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House GOP members who voted for infrastructure bill face backlash Nov. 7CHEYENNE A 21-year veteran of the Cheyenne Police Department is the latest to announce his candidacy for Laramie County sheriff. Laramie County native Boyd Wrede said he's running because he wants to help restore respect to the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, give its law enforcement officers and other staff proper compensation and build connections between law enforcement and residents in the county. "What motivated me to do this was seeing how, over the years, the sheriff's department had kind of lost the respect that they used to have," Wrede said. "And then working firsthand on joint teams with the police department and sheriff's department ... (I saw) some of the demands that the sheriff's department required of their deputies and the way they treated those deputies that I didn't think was right," such as having to pay recertification fees out of pocket. Wrede will host a campaign event from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Airport Golf Club, 4801 Central Ave. He grew up riding and training horses, and said he understands ranching life and the priorities of people who live in rural areas. He's been married for 29 years and has two adult children who also live in Laramie County. Wrede joined the police department in 1998. He retired as a sergeant in 2018 after serving in multiple roles, including on the bomb squad, on the Mounted Patrol Unit and as a detective. He still consults with the department as a subject matter expert. Before his law enforcement service, Wrede also spent four years as a 911 operator in Laramie County. If elected sheriff, Wrede said his first priority would be to institute a structured pay scale to help attract and retain deputies. It would be a step toward showing deputies they're valued, along with regular training once or twice a month, he said. Wrede acknowledged the desire to have more deputies out in the county. But more importantly, he said, the sheriff's office needs to re-establish human connections in rural areas. Story continues "We need deputies in the county driving the county roads, learning who owns the property, learning how to read a brand, so if they see cattle on the road, they know who to call," he said. "They need to know who these landowners are they need to stop and make contact. If they see somebody moving cattle, they need to stop and just visit." Wrede said he doesn't want to second-guess decisions made by Laramie County jail staff regarding COVID-19 policies, but he still questions why the jail which typically has fewer than 400 occupants would refuse any arrestee when students in both the county's school districts have been attending class in person with hundreds of other students for more than a year and a half. This issue comes down to fear of liability, and it's the same reason the sheriff's office spends hours having arrestees with potential injuries or other health issues checked out at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wrede said, rather than by the jail's medical staff. The process uses unnecessary time and resources, because two deputies have to be with that arrestee at all times. Wrede said he wants to reduce this fear of liability among deputies and show them they're trusted so they can go out and do their jobs. "As long as you're acting in good faith and you're doing everything you can correctly, even if you get sued ... the chances of losing that are slim," he said. In a Wednesday news release announcing his candidacy, Wrede said he would "be tough on crime and work hand in hand with the district attorney's office and the courts to make sure we hold people accountable for their actions." He added that he would also work closely with local chiefs of police. "Boyd understands that the position of sheriff is not about one person, it is about mentoring the men and women of the office, as well as being visible and responsive to the people," the news release said. "It is teamwork with community, family, businesses and law enforcement." After retiring from CPD, Wrede took up training cutting horses, which he said he'd return to after serving as sheriff. "I'm not a politician, I'm not looking to pad my resume. I truly believe that I can fix the sheriff's department and the morale problems and bring back respect to that agency," Wrede said. "I don't want to do this forever I just want to go fix the injustices that I see, get (the sheriff's office) back on track." Wrede joins fellow Republicans James Barth, Don Hollingshead, Brian Kozak and Patrick Long in the race to replace long-time Sheriff Danny Glick, who is retiring at the end of 2022. Hannah Black is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's criminal justice reporter. She can be reached at hblack@wyomingnews.com or 307-633-3128. Follow her on Twitter at @hannahcblack. Columbus Dispatch photographer Mary Circelli in 2005. She was driving home from a routine Friday evening assignment on May 31, 1985 when a swirling tornado violently funneled down from the black sky. Most people would have driven as fast as they could in the other direction but Mary Circelli grabbed her camera, stepped out of the car and took photos of the tornado that was roaring through Utica. It was a moment, and an image that would define her 36-year career at the Columbus Dispatch. I had never seen anything like that," Circelli said at the time. "My hands were shaking. I kept thinking I had to hold the camera still." Circelli never stopped living fearlessly. She died of natural causes at age 77 on Friday while visiting her granddaughter in Italy. Her son Jeff Borders, who lives in Westerville, said his mother left for Italy from Columbus last Tuesday, and arrived in Rome on Wednesday. She spent two amazing days with her 19-year-old granddaughter Anna Borders, who is studying abroad. Borders said the news of his moms death was shocking because she was in good health and had posted pictures earlier that week of her most recent trip to her favorite place in the world. Didnt think Id be able to make this trip this year but here we are! Mary said when posting a photo from Rome on Instagram. Eating pizza and drinking Prosecco near the Pantheon. Dispatch photographer Mary Circelli, returning to Columbus from a Friday evening assignment in Licking County, caught this picture of a tornado roaring through the Utica, Ohio, area in 1985. My mom was very passionate about her family and friends and loved to travel, said Borders, 57. My mom was loved by so many and inspired so many. Just like her work did when she was at the Dispatch all those years. Borders said his mom got COVID in September but her symptoms were mild and she was completely recovered and healthy by the time she left for Italy. He also said she was fully vaccinated and COVID was not a factor in her death. Circelli, who was raised in New Lexington, began her career at the Dispatch as a secretary on the photo desk in 1970. She was eventually made a staff photographer where her pictures were featured in every section of the newspaper until she took a buyout in 2007. Story continues She took the buyout along with two of her closest Dispatch colleagues, long-time photographers Mike Munden and Tim Revell. The three remained close. We had lockers next to each other all the years at the Dispatch and we shared so much, Revell said. We would talk about our families and life and all of the good things and its challenges and that didnt stop. In recent years I would be driving to dinner somewhere and would just call to talk to her because I missed her. Munden said he will miss his friend but will always remember her eternal happiness and zest for life. Mary was the sweetest woman, Munden said. She was always happy. I never saw her unhappy. Borders said local funeral arrangements will be announced in the coming days. When she wasnt traveling Circelli lived in Westerville with her son, his wife, Teresa, and her grandson Jake Borders, who is 17. My mom had so many accomplishments and awards that it was hard to keep track of them all, said Borders. But I do remember that tornado photo. She was never afraid of anything. She truly lived life to the fullest. mwagner@dispatch.com @MikeWagner48 This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Beloved Dispatch photographer Mary Circelli dies in Italy As international leaders continued talks at the climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, activists gathered in Montclair's Wellmont Arts Plaza Saturday morning to rally for leaders to take action on climate change. About 150 people, some carrying signs and others toting small children bundled against the chill, listened to speeches and folk singers, and signed up to help the cause. Event organizer David Korfhage of Montclair Climate Action said that none of our leaders President Joe Biden, Gov. Murphy or the town council were doing what they needed to do on climate. "Ithaca, New York just voted to decarbonize all its buildings," Korfhage said. "Why not Montclair? Teaneck, Red Bank, East Brunswick all committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. "We need to change our system to make it more sustainable, more just and more green and let our leaders know. We need to tell the truth about what's going on, and the truth is, we are in a climate crisis." Some say state level action needed John Reichman of Empower NJ said that fixing the climate problem would have to happen on the state level, because "whatever bill comes out of D.C. won't be close to enough." Related: Feds link climate change concerns to North Jersey gas pipeline compressors The two most important action items, he said, are stopping all new fossil fuel development and setting strict targets for reducing fossil fuel use by half by the end of the decade. "New Jersey is the only progressive state in the country that hasn't adopted strict targets for reducing fossil fuels," he said. "It's going to be a tough transition, but as the old saying goes, 'When you're in a hole, stop digging. We can't wait 20 years, we can't wait 10 years, we can't wait five years. 2050 is too late. The game will be over." Zoe Leach from Lawrence Township attends a climate rally in Montclair on Saturday November 06, 2021. Others call for end to fossil fuel investments Ted Glick of DivestNJ said it's also important to push for companies, institutions and government to "stop lending money to the fossil fuel industry to pollute our air, land and water and disrupt our climate." Story continues Over the last decade, he said, almost 1,500 financial institutions that control $39 trillion in assets have divested from fossil fuels. New York State has begun this divestment in its pension funds, and support is building for New Jersey to do the same. "This campaign is gaining momentum," he said. Climate: Grants will help Meadowlands area address impacts of climate crisis He urged Montclair to adopt a resolution to divest from fossil fuels. "It is happening around the state. It is time for Montclair to take that action. This must be the year that New Jersey divests." A call for climate justice Climate justice was another theme of the rally. Christian Rodriguez of Ironbound Community Corporation said Newark residents suffer disproportionately from the ill effects of fossil fuels from transportation and industry, thanks to emissions released by thousands of trucks and airplanes traveling in the area. There are also many surrounding industries; a large garbage incinerator; two natural gas pipelines, a power plant and one of the biggest sewage treatment plants on the East Coast. Matt Smith, the New Jersey director for Food and Water Watch, said that progress on climate change is facing a new challenge he calls climate incrementalism, which has replaced climate denial. He said leaders, from Biden to Murphy, are saying the right things about the threat of climate change but failing to take action. "Biden called climate change a 'code red' but went to Glasgow and was one of four country leaders who failed to sign a treaty to prohibit the burning of coal," Smith said. "That is unacceptable. Here in New Jersey, Murphy says the greatest threat under his watch is climate change, but then he approved a new pipeline." Election: Montclair votes overwhelmingly to move to an elected Board of Education He asked attendees to write letters to Murphy asking for a moratorium on fossil fuel projects and immediate cuts to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 2030. Smith said that every week there are several major fossil fuel projects pending approval in the state. One that the group is currently fighting is an expansion of a pipeline in the Highlands, the source of drinking water for Montclair and a good part of the state. Matt Smith with Empower NJ speaks during a climate rally in Montclair on Saturday November 06, 2021. "They're putting in a toxic compressor station less than a half mile from the state's largest drinking water reservoir in order to push more fracked gas from Pennsylvania into New Jersey," he said. Anyone who wants Empower NJ's morning alerts containing action items on climate should text "no fossil fuels" to 2331, he said. Jane Bray, 8, who was at the rally with her mother and older sister Anne, seemed convinced of the importance of taking action on climate change. Asked why she was at the rally, she replied, "Because we live on earth." Julia Martin is the 2021 recipient of the New Jersey Society for Professional Journalists' David Carr award for her coverage of Montclair for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to the most important news from your local community, please subscribe or activate your digital account today. Email: jmartin@gannettnj.com Twitter: @TheWriteJulia This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Montclair NJ climate change rally: Groups rally for change Saturday Night Live did what kids would call "the most" in summing up the most controversial topics of the past week during its cold open, packing in everything from vaccine mandates to election results to Aaron Rodgers' retirement and it even included a new face, introducing James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump. Johnson joined the cold open where Cecily Strong channeled Fox News host Jeanine Pirro on the Judge Jeanine Pirro Justice Show!, immediately stealing the scene with his spot-on impression, hand gestures, and erratic Trump tangents. (He gets Dune, Game of Thrones, George Lucas, AND Star Wars in there!) "I just wanted to congratulate Glenn Youngkin and mostly myself on a tremendous victory in Virginia. Glad we did it together," Johnson's Trump said referring to the Virginia governor-elect played by Alex Moffat. When Moffat tried to remove himself from the split-screen, Johnson refused. "It's great to be, frankly, winning again!" he said. "We did it together!" SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- "Kieran Culkin" Episode 1810 -- Pictured: James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump during the "Aaron Rodgers Trump" Cold Open on Saturday, November 6, 2021 Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty James Austin Johnson as Donald Trump on 'SNL' Strong also grilled Pete Davidson's Aaron Rodgers about not getting vaccinated against Covid-19, introducing him as "an American brave enough to stand and up say, 'Screw you, science, I know Joe Rogan!'" But it was Johnson's impression that got people talking and left them praising one of the newest cast members, still in his first run of shows. The actor is no stranger to parodying Trump and gained buzz on social media for his impressions before coming to Studio 8H. Still, it's a treat to see him all dressed up and owning the moment. While fans might have felt like it would be hard to top Alec Baldwin's classic portrayal of the former President, Johnson comes as a welcome new face. Let's hope we get to see a lot more of him. Watch the full cold open below and Johnson's impression starting at 4 minutes in. Story continues Related content: Mark your calendars: Winery.ph is opening its cellars up for its largest sale of the year this November 11, 2021. The 11.11 Sale features at least 20 great wines from around the world going for discounts ranging from 30% to 61% OFF, and all of these will be sold in sixers and dozens. Plus, you can expect a few more surprises to join the ranks on the day itself! Working with over 40 of the Philippines leading importers, Winery.ph has curated the largest in-stock wine collection in the country and makes it possible for all of these wines to be available under one roof, in one easy checkout. Each year, the online wine marketplace helps importers promote wines that, despite their good quality, havent been getting the attention they deserve. Each wine in the lineup has been tasted and thoroughly vetted by the Winery.ph team to ensure that it is drinking well and that it will not disappoint in price and quality. This major sale runs for one day, and one day only. And with the holidays just around the corner, this is the perfect time to shop for thoughtful gifts to family, friends, and acquaintances alike (or just for yourself, as a reward after a rough year). Dont miss out on these amazing deals! Red Wines Winery.phs 11.11 Sale is so far confirmed to be showcasing 14 red wines: five of them from the United States, four from Spain, two from Portugal, and two from South Africa. Casual drinkers and enthusiasts alike will enjoy a good Californian red. For those looking for something powerful to go with a nice steak, theres the Murphy Goode Zinfandel 2012 and its cherry and black fruit characters with tobacco and baking spice hints; the Las Palmeras Monterey County Red Blend 2015, with savory notes of cherry and bell pepper; and the Las Palmeras Cabernet Sauvignon 2014, with its light tannins and earthy black plum and blackcurrant flavors. The Dado Red Blend 2017 switches it up with cherry, menthol, and black pepper flavors and a sweet, balanced finish to go with exciting pairings like Chinese-Style Barbecue Pork Asado. For wine collectors, there is the Atalon Paulines Cuvee Red Blend 2013, a bold Merlot and Cabernet Franc blend from Napa Valley made in the style of Bordeauxs Right-Bank wines, replete with opulent black fruit notes, firm tannins, and a long smooth finish. The red wine selection from Spain includes exciting bottles like the Ponta da Boga Mencia 2018, a great vintage exemplifying the best qualities of the Bierzo regions superstar grape with its peppery flavors of cherries, red plum, and smoke making it a great gift for adventurous types, and a good pairing with Cochinillo Asado and Rosemary Lamb Cutlets. For those who like easy drinking wines, theres the Vina Albali Merlot 2018 with its cherry flavors and hints of violet and dry herb, as well as the Vina Albali Organic Tempranillo 2018 with its red fruit notes and mild oak finish. Another great bargain is the Campo Azafran Tempranillo Syrah, a deep garnet wine with dark plum notes and savory wood smoke characters that combine to become surprisingly complex, especially for its value-for-money price point! Moving west, the selection from Portugal pleases with two unique red blends made with grapes native to the country and rarely found outside of it. The Haribon Red NV is a crowd-pleasing blend with cherry aromas, savory jerky notes, and light tannins sure to give a weeknight drinking session an excellent twist. Meanwhile, the Guadalupe Red 2018 has intense blackberry and herb fruits complemented by aromas of dark cherry and vanilla perfect for meaty dishes like Chorizo Pasta, All Meat Pizza, and Spanish Style Beef Caldereta. Representing the underrated wines of South Africa are two showings by Nederburg. Nederburg The Manor House Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 boasts a vibrant acidity, cherry and herb notes, and firm tannins to pair with Roast Pork and Barbecue Beef Brisket, while Nederburg The Manor House Shiraz 2014 shines with intense black fruit flavors and aromas framed by spices like clove, mint, and black pepper a beautiful reflection of everything that grows in the area! Price List Murphy Goode Zinfandel 2012 Sixer - 2,850 (37% OFF; 475 per bottle) Las Palmeras Monterey County Red Blend 2015 Sixer - 3,950 (37% OFF; 658 per bottle) Las Palmeras Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 Sixer - 3,950 (37% OFF; 658 per bottle) Dado Red Blend 2017 Sixer - 3,550 (37% OFF; 592 per bottle) Atalon Pauline's Cuvee Red Blend 2013 Sixer - 7,990 (36% OFF; 1,332 per bottle) Ponta da Boga Mencia 2018 Sixer - 3,890 (46% OFF; 648 per bottle) Vina Albali Merlot 2018 Sixer - 1,850 (38% OFF; 308 per bottle) Vina Albali Organic Tempranillo 2018 Sixer - 2,150 (45% OFF; 358 per bottle) Campo Azafran Tempranillo Syrah 2019 Dozen - 3,090 (39% OFF; 258 per bottle) Haribon Red NV Dozen - 2,990 (37% OFF; 249 per bottle) Guadalupe Red 2018 Sixer - 2,150 (37% OFF; 358 per bottle) Nederburg The Manor House Cabernet Sauvignon 2014 Sixer - 2,990 (54% OFF; 498 per bottle) Nederburg The Manor House Shiraz 2014 Sixer - 2,990 (54% OFF; 498 per bottle) White Wines So far, Winery.phs 11.11 Sale white wine selection represents the grapes of Spain, Portugal, and Australia. From the Spanish selection, there are three wines grown and made almost exclusively within the country. These are the Ponte da Boga Albarino 2019, which comes from the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula to reveal complex green apple, lime, and white pepper aromas, a creamy mouthfeel, and a vibrant acidity; the Ponte da Boga Godello 2019, made from a grape that almost faced extinction due to pests, but is beautifully represented in this aged vintage with citrus flavors culminating in a nutty, almond-tinged finish; and the Vina Albali Verdejo, which boasts honeydew melon and almond aromas and bright, citrusy acidity that make it an easy quaffer, especially served ice cold. The Vina Albali Chardonnay 2017 presents the worlds most popular grape with flair and will be a hit with fans of aged white wines, boasting complex aromas of candied mango and pineapple to go with its buttery apricot jam flavors with added citrus hints. Portugals Guadalupe White 2017 champions Antao Vaz and Roupeiro, grapes native to the country, and delivers a lovely richness on the palate to go with its star fruit aromas and tart lime and citrus flavors surprisingly complex for the price! Meanwhile, Penfolds Rawsons Retreat Semillon Sauvignon Blanc takes a classic blend from the Graves district of Bordeaux and brings out its clear citrus flavors with subtle honey hints and a crisp acidity; pair this one with Halabos na Hipon or a good Spaghetti Vongole! Price List Ponte da Boga Albarino 2019 Sixer - 3,890 (46% OFF; 648 per bottle) Ponte da Boga Godello 2019 Sixer - 3,890 (46% OFF; 648 per bottle) Vina Albali Organic Verdejo 2019 Sixer - 2,150 (45% OFF; 358 per bottle) Vina Albali Chardonnay 2017 Sixer - 1,850 (38% OFF; 308 per bottle) Guadalupe White 2017 Sixer - 2,150 (37% OFF; 358 per bottle) Penfolds Rawson's Retreat Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2016 Sixer - 1,850 (61% OFF; 308 per bottle) Rose Wine Currently, only one rose features in Winery.phs 11.11 lineup, but it is a crowd favorite. The beautiful Casa do Valle Rose 2019 from Portugal opens up with pronounced strawberry aromas with hints of pineapple, rose, and citrus rind. Its light body sings with fresh strawberry flavors and a crisp acid finish. This is a perfect summer sipper on its own, but is extremely food-friendly year-round, making a great match for Salmon Benedict, Kinilaw na Isda with Gata, and Spinach Quiche! Price Casa do Valle Rose 2019 - 2,050 (37% OFF; 348 per bottle) Whether youre gift shopping for loved ones or just stocking up for the holidays, these are generous deals not to be missed this 11.11 at the Philippines largest online wine shopping event. Get updates and wine drinking tips by following Winery.ph on Facebook and Instagram (@winery.ph) and for even more great deals on your favorite wines, visit www.winery.ph. Today A mix of clouds and sun. Gusty winds diminishing during the afternoon. High 83F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Tonight Partly cloudy. Low 64F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Tomorrow Partly cloudy skies during the morning hours will become overcast in the afternoon. High 83F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Our directory features more than 18 million business listings from across the entire US. However, if we're missing your business, add your business by clicking on Add Your Business. Mumbai: It has been 52 years today since the release of megastar Amitabh Bachchans first film Saat Hindustani.Taking to his Instagram handle, Bachchan took a trip down the memory lane to mark this special day. Sharing a monochrome throwback picture, he penned a nostalgic caption, also remembering the date he signed his first film."On 15th Feb 1969 signed my first film "Saat Hindustani" and it released on 7 November 1969...52 Years .. TODAY," he wrote. Fans and fellow members of the film industry flooded the post with likes and comments. "And the history of Indian cinema started its most brilliant chapter," actor Tisca Chopra commented. "Thank god for 15th Feb 1969," actor Abhishek Banerjee added. Big Bs daughter Shweta Bachchan dropped a heart eyes emoticon. Ahead on the work front, Amitabh will be seen sharing screen space with Neena Gupta in Goodbye. He is also a part of Brahmastra, co-starring Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt and has Mayday, Jhund, Good Bye and The Intern remake in his kitty. Hoshiarpur: A group of farmers protesting the central farm laws on Saturday forced five cinema halls here to stop screening Akshay Kumar-starrer "Sooryavanshi". Some of them tore posters of the movie put up outside the theatres, saying they were opposing actor Akshay Kumar for not supporting their protest. Activists of the Bharti Kisan Union (Kadian), led by the outfit's district president Swaran Dhugga, staged a demonstration and a protest march from the local Shaheed Udham Singh Park to Swaran cinema against the screening of the movie. They forced the cinema hall authorities to stop screening the movie and condemned the actor for not speaking up in support of their protest. The protesters added that they would not allow screening of his movies until the farm laws are repealed. Hundreds of farmers are encamped at Delhi borders since November last year demanding that the government repeal the three agri laws -- Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. They claim that these laws will leave them at the mercy of corporates. They are also demanding a new law to guarantee the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops. The Centre, which has held 11 rounds of talks with farmers to break the deadlock, has maintained that the new laws are pro-farmer. New Delhi: Pulling out from the Rs 4,000-crore Carlyle-led deal was a conscious choice of PNB Housing Finance as the company did not want to entangle in a protracted legal battle and lose focus on the lending business, its Managing Director and CEO Hardayal Prasad said. Last month, the company said it has decided not to proceed with the Rs 4,000-crore capital infusion deal led by Carlyle as a legal battle will not be in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders. The deal was finalised on May 31. Soon after, it mired into a controversy with regards to the valuation of the shares being offered to the investors. Subsequently, the matter reached the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) after the intervention of markets regulator Sebi. "If you look at it, there is nothing that we did wrong. We followed the policy of the Sebi, the LODR instructions, we tried to do everything. It was only a question of interpretation. "But, it was looking like a long-drawn process due to hurdles in legal approvals," Prasad told PTI in an interview. He said the split verdict of the SAT also proves that it was a matter of interpretation only as the company's contention was vindicated by one of the judges in the matter, reiterating: "I don't think we did anything wrong". Prasad added that one of the judges, the presiding officer, gave the judgment in the company's favour. "But, we are very clear that we don't want any protracted legal battle. We want to concentrate on our work and go ahead." He said a significant amount of bandwidth is utilised when you are going to do it and it would have been a slightly long-protected legal battle. "I am not in that business, we are in the business of lending, in the business of financing. What is the point in remaining distracted by these kinds of things. So, we decided that okay they are the regulator and we decided to go ahead with the pull-back (from the deal)," Prasad said. After the split verdict of the SAT in August, Sebi had approached the Supreme Court. However, the apex court dismissed Sebi's appeal in late October as it became infructuous when PNB Housing Finance said it will pull out from the deal. The company has filed an application to withdraw its appeal to the Securities Appellate Tribunal. Prasad said the company is much in the need of the desired capital and it will look for all the venues to raise money, be it through borrowings, qualified institutional placement (QIP), rights issues or preference issues. "Whether we do it through borrowings or QIP, preferential issue, rights issue, any other things that we can do, we are keeping everything open and we will see to it and at the right time, we will approach the board to permit us to raise the money," Prasad said. He added that the company will continue to look for opportunities. "We remain engaged with everybody. See how we can move forward in terms of capital raising. We require to raise the capital, despite a solid capital adequacy ratio, and the gearing position. "But, we would still like to raise capital to enable us to grow even faster than we are growing," he said. Right now, all stakeholders of the company remain supportive of the company. They know that the capital is required, they know that the company has a great, bright future, Prasad added. They have also seen that in the past nine quarters, there has been a slow and steady movement on a lot of fronts. "So, we would do it, since they are all supportive and they understand that the company requires it. We will look at all options that are there in terms of raising the money," Prasad said. State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) is the company's promoter with a 32.6 per cent holding in the company. On being asked what was PNB's opinion on pulling out from the deal, he said: "We explained to them that this is the reason and we would like to pull back from the deal. Because of the protracted legal nature, it is not taking us anywhere and it is distracting the overall focus of the business." All of them agreed that this is the right thing to do, Prasad added. Also Read: iPhone Users Alert! Apple iPhone 13 disables Face ID if you repair screen from a third-party In the second quarter ended September 2021, the company posted a net profit of Rs 235 crore, down by 25 per cent from a year ago, mainly on account of a fall in interest income and higher provisioning for bad loans. Also Read: PM Kisan Yojana: Farmers to get 10th installment on December 15, check how to register Live TV #mute Seoul: Global streaming giant Netflix is considering giving an additional reward to the Korean producers of 'Squid Game', the platform's biggest-ever original show, a senior official of the company was quoted as saying. Dean Garfield, vice-president of public policy at Netflix, said his company is in talks with 'Squid Game' production crews, including director Hwang Dong-hyuk, over special bonuses, Representative Kim Yeung-shik told reporters. The Netflix official made the remark during a meeting with Representative Kim while visiting Seoul for meetings with South Korean officials from the information service authorities and national assembly, including Kim Hyun, who's the vice-chairperson of the Korea Communications Commission. It was the first comment by a Netflix official on the controversial issue, reports Yonhap News Agency. Netflix came into the spotlight since the phenomenal success of 'Squid Game' spiked a controversy in South Korea over the streamer's monopoly of the entire intellectual property of Korean-language shows the company invests in with no additional reward to local creators. Korean-language thriller 'Squid Game', released in September, became the most popular Netflix original show in any language, attracting more than 140 million households over the first four weeks of release. According to US news outlets, Netflix spent $21 million on 'Squid Game', but enjoyed an estimated $900 million in profit from an increase in subscribers and rise in stock prices. But director Hwang and crew members, who had reportedly agreed to a fixed 10 percent margin to the total production cost, have had no additional income and incentives in accordance with the show's global success. Garfield also said that Netflix is seeking other alternative ways to iron out disputes with South Korean telecommunications companies and regulators over the cost of using the local network. The streamer, which refused to pay for the use of the network, lost a lawsuit against local internet service provider SK Broadband Co. in June. The South Korean government has been increasing pressure on Netflix to pay the network usage fees. South Korean President Moon Jae-in said last month that global platforms should meet their responsibilities commensurate with their size and ordered the government to review the dispute involving Netflix. Dwarka: A fisherman from Maharashtra was killed and a crew member injured on Sunday in alleged firing by Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) personnel near international maritime boundary line in the Arabian sea off Gujarat coast. The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has confirmed the firing incident which resulted in death of one person while one person was injured. One of the seven crew members on the boat sustained a minor injury in the firing incident. The incident occurred around 4 PM on Saturday, a police official was quoted by PTI. "A fisherman from Thane in Maharashtra, who was on a fishing boat 'Jalpari,' was killed after the PMSA personnel opened fire on him and other crew members on Saturday evening," Devbhumi Dwarka Superintendent of Police Sunil Joshi told PTI. The body of fisherman Sridhar Ramesh Chamre (32) was brought to Okha port and an FIR was filed by Porbandar Navi Bandar police, as they have jurisdiction over any incident beyond 12 nautical miles in the Arabian Sea. "Chamre was on the fishing boat 'Jalpari', which had sailed from Okha on October 25 with seven crew members, five of whom were from Gujarat and two from Maharashtra," Joshi said. The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) in a statement said: "The case is under investigation at present by police authorities and crew are being interviewed jointly. Details can be shared only after completion of the investigation." When asked about Pakistan's claim of arresting six "occupants" of the boat, the ICG responded: "Arrests not confirmed." Live TV New Delhi: An Indian fisherman was allegedly killed while another sustained minor injuries in a firing incident by Pakistan Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) trooper near international maritime boundary line in the Arabian sea off Gujarat coast. The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has confirmed the firing incident which occurred around 4 PM on Saturday. The fisherman identified as Sridhar Ramesh Chamre, 32, from Maharashtra was killed and a crew member of fishing boat 'Jalpari' was injured in the alleged firing incident. There were six others in the boat who have since been rescued. Chamre's body was brought to Okha port while the injured fisherman is being treated at hospital in Okha, Gujarat. Devbhumi Dwarka Superintendent of Police Sunil Joshi told PTI that a fisherman aboard a boat was killed by Pakistani maritime officers. "A fisherman from Thane in Maharashtra, who was on a fishing boat 'Jalpari,' was killed after the PMSA personnel opened fire on him and other crew members on Saturday evening," he was quoted as saying. The ship has sailed from Okha on October 25 with seven crew members, five are from Gujarat and two from Maharashtra. An FIR in the matter has been filed by Porbandar Navi Bandar police, as they have jurisdiction over any incident that occurs beyond 12 nautical miles in the Arabian Sea. The matter is under investigation and more details are awaited. Meanwhile, sources told Zee Media that India has taken "serious note of the incident" and that India will be strongly raise the matter with Islamabad. Sources pointed that the firing by Pakistan was "unprovoked" and investigation is underway on the development. The recent incident has raised tensions in India, Pakistan relations after the latter rejected India's invite to attend National Security Advisor-level meet on Aghanistan crisis. Though, this is not a singular incident, PMSA had attacked Indian fishing boats in April 2020. Back then, the Ministry of External Affairs termed the incident a "deplorable and unprofessional act". Live TV Kheda: More than 25 vehicles were completely gutted after a major fire broke out on the premises of Kheda Town Police Station in the Kheda district on Saturday night. According to reports, at least 25 vehicles, including bikes, autorickshaws and cars, have been gutted in the incident. Gujarat: More than 25 vehicles including bikes, autorickshaws and cars gutted in a fire on the premises of Kheda Town Police Station in Kheda district tonight pic.twitter.com/t6NSopQILk ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 More details regarding the incident are awaited. In another incident, five labourers died after entering the tank of an effluent treatment plant (ETP) at the Tutson pharma company in Khatraj in Gandhinagar on Saturday afternoon. As per the authorities, it seems that all of them died due to electrocution. "Prima-facie it seems that all the five labourers who entered the tank died of electrocution. The exact reason will be known only after we receive the post-mortem reports," Kuldeep Arya, Collector, Gandhinagar, said. "From the information we have received so far, the company had drained out the chemical inside the ETP tank and the little bit remaining was being extracted through a pump. It was during this process that the tragedy occurred. The district officials from the Directorate of Industrial Safety & Health (DISH) have sent me the initial inquiry report and we will investigate the matter and take the necessary actions. All the five labourers had entered the ETP tank without any safety gear, so that amounts to violation of rules. We are also consulting forensic experts," added Arya. According to some sources, one of the five labourers died of asphyxiation after entering the ETP tank for cleaning purposes as there was chemical mixed water in it. The other four labourers entered the tank to rescue him. The deceased labourers have been identified as Vinay Kumar, Ram Prakash Gupta, Devendra Kumar, Anish Kumar and Rajan Kumar. New Delhi: One police personnel sustained bullet injuries while two others were injured in Gayas Tanakuppa area where the stone-pelting incident took place during the immersion of idol of Goddess Laxmi on Saturday (November 6, 2021). The incident broke out in Gaya after police personnel asked the organisers of Laxmi Puja to stop playing loud music during immersion of the idol yesterday. As per the police officials, a Station House Officer (SHO) sustained a bullet injury and two Special Armed Police (SAP) jawans were injured in stone pelting. ALSO READ | Punjab Police to start night domination operations along Indo-Pak border to prevent smuggling of arms, ammunition "SHO Ajay Kumar sustained bullet injury in his left leg and out of danger now. We have identified the accused and will take strict action against them," said Gaya Senior Superintendent of Police Aditya Kumar. Live TV New Delhi: After Kanpur, now Uttar Pradeshs Kannauj district has registered the first case of Zika virus. The mosquito-borne disease was reported in a 45-year-old male who was staying at Shivrajpur village of Kanpur, Chief Medical Officer Dr Vinod Kumar said on Saturday (November 6). "After the Zika-positive man complained of fever, the doctors took his sample on November 3. The health department got alert as soon as he tested positive," Kumar told ANI. Further, he said that the samples of 19 people who came in contact with the patient have been taken for examination. Kanpur had reported its first case of Zika virus after a 57-year-old warrant officer in the Indian Air Force (IAF) was diagnosed with the infection in late October. With 13 new cases of Zika virus reported in Kanpur on Saturday, the total caseload has climbed to 79. Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday held a high-level meeting releasing detailed guidelines on COVID-19 vaccination, the spread of Zika virus in the state and other issues. In view of the spike in Zika virus cases in Kanpur, Adityanath directed the officials to speed up sanitisation work. "Infection of Zika virus is spreading rapidly in Kanpur. Considering the seriousness, special caution is required," he said. The Delhi government is also on alert and monitoring the developments in Kanpur which has reported several cases of Zika virus in the last two weeks, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said. Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that transmits through the bite of an infected Aedes species of mosquito, which bites during the day. The symptoms of this disease are mild fever, rashes, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or a headache. (With agency inputs) Live TV New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Arvind Sharma on Sunday issued a clarification that his "eye gouged out, hand chopped off" remarks were for "anti-social elements" who he claimed had held BJP workers hostage at Rohtak`s Kiloi Shiv Temple. Sharme said that he was issuing a warning to the above-mentioned elements for targetting former Haryana Minister Manish Grover. Sharma further alleged that the "anti-social" elements present at the temple targetted BJP leader Manish Grover by saying that he was responsible for MP Deepender Hooda`s defeat in Haryana. "There were more than 300 BJP workers were present at the temple and they were held hostage for 9 hours. There were 7- 8 drunk people who hurled abuses at the BJP leaders present at the temple. They were taken out of the temple. They collected a mob by contacting people through phones and social media outside the temple. I gave warning to the anti-social elements, they targetted Manish Grover by saying that this is the man who has led to the defeat of Deepender Hooda and forced them to apologize," Sharma told ANI. Sharma`s clarification comes after he threatened Congress and Haryana MP Deepender Hooda on Saturday a day after BJP leader Manish Grover and other party leaders were allegedly kept hostage for seven hours at the Shiv temple in Rohtak and said, "Congress and Deepender Hooda should listen that if anyone dares to look towards Manish Grover (BJP leader) then we`ll take their eyes out. If they put hands on him then their hands will be chopped off." Earlier on Friday, locals of Rohtak`s Kiloi village released former Haryana minister Grover and other party leaders who were allegedly kept hostage for seven hours in the Shiv temple. About two dozen leaders and workers, including Grover, and several others who came to watch Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s programme in Kedarnath live at the Kiloi`s Shiv Temple, were allegedly taken hostage by farmers and villagers. Meanwhile, responding to a question on the Haryana government`s law providing 75 per cent reservation to locals in private jobs to come into force from January 2022, Sharma said, "Haryana youth has welcomed this decision as more opportunities would be created through this. The youth of Haryana is extremely talented in every field. I think they should be given preference". New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party`s crucial National Executive meeting, which is expected to deliberate on the outcome of recent bypolls and chalk out a strategy for the upcoming assembly elections in five states, began in the national capital on Sunday. The BJP's national executive meeting, which is normally held once in three months according to the party's constitution, is being held for the first time since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic last year. The crucial meeting is taking place at the NDMC Convention Centre in New Delhi with top BJP leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief JP Nadda, and Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal among others attending it. The party's national office-bearers, its national executive members from the national capital and several Union ministers will be physically present in the meeting, while the chief ministers of states where the party is in power and national executive members from these states will virtually attend the meeting. Prime Minister Narendra Modi attends BJP National Executive Committee meeting in Delhi pic.twitter.com/Fvy5sY0aTI ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 The PM earlier arrived at the NDMC Centre for the National Executive meeting. Delhi | BJP's National Executive Committee meeting gets underway at NDMC Convention Centre pic.twitter.com/7v4P94PUMB ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 He was soon followed by Union Ministers Rajnath Singh, Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari and Piyush Goyal. Earlier, Union Ministers Anurag Singh Thakur, Hardeep Puri, former Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav, Union Minister of State Vijay Kumar Singh also arrived at the venue. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was also spotted at the meeting venue. Delhi | Home minister Amit Shah and Union minister Piyush Goyal arrive at the NDMC Convention Centre to take part in BJP national executive meeting pic.twitter.com/8EtMlQEze2 ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 BJP veterans LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi are also attending the BJP National Executive Committee meeting virtually. The BJP national executive will deliberate upon the upcoming assembly elections in five states, and a resolution will also be passed in the meeting, according to the agenda of the meeting. The meeting will begin with the inaugural address by BJP president Nadda, and Prime Minister Modi will address the valedictory session. At the NDMC Convention Centre - the meeting venue, musicians from across the country played traditional instruments to greet those attending the meet. The meeting is being attended by 124 party members of which some leaders will attend through video conferencing. The seven states slated to go for Assembly elections in the year 2022 are Goa, Manipur, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. During the meeting, all "important" issues will be taken up for deliberations. The party is also likely to laud the central government for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the vaccination drive, and hail Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his development initiatives and successful foreign visits. The robust revival in economic activities with the record GST collection last month following a slump due to the pandemic is also likely to come up for deliberation at the meeting. However, it is the recent bypoll results in three Lok Sabha and 29 assembly seats spread across 13 states and a Union Territory that may weigh on the minds of the party leadership as it meets for the first time in a physical meeting following the pandemic's outbreak last year. Live TV New Delhi: Zydus Cadila's three-dose Covid vaccine ZyCoV-D is set to be included in the national anti-coronavirus inoculation programme this month with the Centre placing a purchase order with the Ahmedabad-based firm for one crore doses, official sources said on Sunday. The Union Health Ministry is learnt to have given the go ahead to initiate the preparatory work for the introduction of the indigenously developed world's first DNA-based Covid jab, which in all probability will be given to adults initially under the country's vaccination drive, sources in the know of developments said. ZyCoV-D is the first vaccine cleared by India's drug regulator for inoculation of those aged 12 years and above. "The Centre has already placed a purchase order with Zydus Cadila for supply of one crore doses of ZyCoV-D, each costing around Rs 358 excluding taxes, at the earliest. This price includes the cost of a disposable painless jet applicator which has to be used for administering each dose," an official source said. "The vaccine in all probability will be given to adults initially because of limited production capacity," the source said. Zydus Cadila is in a position to provide one crore doses of ZyCoV-D per month, company officials are learnt to have conveyed to the ministry. For administering to adults, frontline workers and vaccinators will be provided a brief training for using the needle-free pharma jet application in actual field settings. The three doses of ZyCoV-D are to be administered 28 days apart, with each dose comprising a shot in both arms. ZyCoV-D received emergency use authorisation from the drug regulator on August 20. Meanwhile, a comprehensive programme for paediatric immunisation including developing a priority list of comorbidities is being worked out by the NTAGI (National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation) for the launch of ZyCoV-D and Covaxin. As for the emergency use approval for Bharat Biotech's Covaxin in the 2 to 18 years age group by the Drugs Controller General of India, it is under expert opinion and evaluation, official sources said. The Subject Expert Committee (SEC) on COVID-19 of the Central Drug Authority on October 12 had recommended granting emergency use authorisation to Covaxin for children and adolescents in the 2 to 18 years age group with certain conditions. At present, every citizen who is 18 years or above is eligible for the vaccination drive. Live TV Chandigarh: Haryana BKU (Chaduni) chief Gurnam Singh Chaduni said farmers from the state will march to Parliament on November 26 if the Samyukta Kisan Morcha approves the decision taken in this regard in Rohtak on Sunday (November 7). The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) is an umbrella body of 40 farmer unions spearheading the agitation against the Centre's three farm laws. A meeting of various farmers' outfits from the state was held in Rohtak, Chaduni told reporters later. Giving details about the decisions taken at the meeting, he said, On November 26, which is also the Constitution Day, we decided in the meeting to march to Parliament. On November 9, we will keep this decision before a meeting of the SKM. If they approve it, then we will go. Chaduni said in the meeting at Rohtak, it has been demanded that a case be registered against BJP MP Arvind Sharma over his controversial remarks. Attacking the Congress over some of his party leaders being held up in Rohtak on Friday (November 5), the BJP MP from Rohtak had on Saturday (November 6) allegedly threatened that "eye will be gouged out and hand chopped off" if anybody tries to target former Haryana minister Manish Grover. A resolution was passed in the meeting condemning his remarks and it was decided that a case be registered against the MP, said Chaduni. Chaduni also alleged that several farmers who are protesting against the Centre's farm laws are receiving summons in various cases slapped against them in Haryana. In many cases, farmers are getting summons. It was decided in the meeting that no one should respond to these summons. When a decision about the (farmers') agitation will be taken, it will be decided accordingly what has to be done in this regard (about summons), he said. Earlier, BKU leader Rakesh Tikait had said that the farmers' protest will be intensified if the farm laws are not repealed by November 26. Hundreds of farmers are encamped at Delhi borders since November last year are demanding that the government repeal the three agri laws -- Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; Farmers' (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020. They claim that these laws will leave them at the mercy of corporates. They are also demanding a new law to guarantee the minimum support price (MSP) for their crops. The Centre, which has held 11 rounds of talks with farmers to break the deadlock, has maintained that the new laws are pro-farmer. Live TV New Delhi: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday (November 7, 2021) stated that India saw 10,853 new COVID-19 infections in the last 24 hours and that the active caseload has now hit the lowest in 260 days. The Health Ministry further said that the active infections, currently at 1,44,845, now account for less than 1% of the total cases. The country also recorded 526 coronavirus-related deaths and 12,432 recoveries in the last 24 hours. With this, the total number of recoveries registered across India has increased to 3.37 crore and the death toll is at 4,60,791. COVID19 | India reports 10,853 new cases, 526 deaths and 12,432 recoveries in the last 24 hours; Active caseload at 1,44,845 Total vaccination: 1,08,21,66,365 pic.twitter.com/AyCgodvACu ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 India has so far conducted more than 61 crore tests to detect the virus and the daily positivity rate presently stands at 1.18%, while the weekly positivity rate is at 1.28%. On the other hand, over 108.21 crore vaccine doses have been administered to date under the nationwide vaccination drive. The Ministry informed that more than 15.77 crore balance and unutilized vaccine doses are still available with the States and UTs to be administered. #HarGharDastak , https://t.co/G8lFgQbCHR Dr Mansukh Mandaviya (@mansukhmandviya) November 7, 2021 Meanwhile, AIIMS Doctor and Epidemiologist Dr Sanjay K Rai has said that a new COVID-19 wave is 'unlikely' if a large population has already been already infected by the virus. He was responding to the World Health Organization`s (WHO) warning of a massive wave in Europe and Central Asia. "When large populations get infected, massive waves of the virus are unlikely. Natural infections lead to natural immunity which leads to a decline in the number of cases. Vaccinations also reduce disease severity and deaths. It will happen in Russia and Central Asia. A wave of infections is going on there, but this will reduce by February. This happened everywhere, including in India. A large amount of the population was infected, then cases started to decline rapidly. Whenever the cases rise rapidly, they decline quickly too," Dr Sanjay K Rai said. He, however, said it was likely that the regions could touch the mark of 5,00,000 deaths by February and even vaccinations would not bring the rising deaths to a sudden halt. (With agency inputs) Live TV New Delhi: India will be strongly raising up with Islamabad the killing of Indian fisherman off the coast of Gujarat, said sources. Pakistani Maritime Security Agency (PMSA) on Saturday (November 6) opened fire on an Indian boat, killing one fisherman and injuring another. The injured fisherman is being treated at hospital in Okha, Gujarat. The deceased fisherman was reportedly from Maharashtras Thane. Sources told Zee Media that India has taken "serious note of the incident" and will be raising the matter with Islamabad diplomatically. Sources pointed that the firing by Pakistan was "unprovoked" and investigation is underway on the development. The current incident comes even as India, Pakistan relations remain tensed. New Delhi has reached out to Pakistan for an Afghanistan conference at National security advisor which will take place later this week but the invite was rejected by Islamabad. Recently Pakistan also withdrew overflight clearance for Srinagar-Sharjah flight. While Pakistani authorities had granted overflight clearance to Go First flights to operate the Srinagar - Sharjah sector on 23rd, 24th, 26th and 28th of October 2021, the country had put clearance for the same flight on hold for the period from 31 October to 30 November 2021. In the past as well, PMSA has been involved in attacking Indian fishing boats. April 2020 saw the agency attacking Indian fishing boats. Back then, the Ministry of External Affairs termed the incident a "deplorable and unprofessional act". Live TV Hyderabad: I am warning BJP at the Centre. I am warning Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay. I will cut your tongue. Put me in jail and see the consequences. Touch me and see, a rattled Telangana Chief Minister Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR) came out all guns firing at an impromptu presser at his residence-cum-office in Hyderabad on Sunday evening. Known to be very temperamental, KCR was in a full combative mood during the entire one hour plus duration he spoke. The trigger was Telangana BJP president Bandi Sanjay telling the farmers of the state to go for paddy in the forthcoming rabi season whereas the ruling TRS government is telling the farmers not to go for paddy (boiled rice) in this particular season because the Centre has refused to buy it and instead go for alternate crops like cotton. Flaunting various correspondence papers between the state and the Centre, KCR looked clearly frustrated, repeatedly accusing the Centre, and particularly union cabinet minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, of not buying paddy while the state BJP leadership is telling the farmers to go for paddy. Clearly, the BJP, for its cheap political gains, is misleading the farmers of the state. The state BJP president Bandi Sanjay doesn't know a thing and is talking irresponsibly and personally attacking me. I kept quiet till now. But henceforth I am warning we will cut his tongue, KCR said expressing his anger. But why is KCR so angry? It is clearly evident that the recent heavy loss in Huzurabad by-election did not go down well with him. The Huzurabad bypoll was a prestige battle between KCR and his former protege Etala Rajender, who was removed from cabinet and TRS for reasons not clear even now. Etala joined BJP and backed by its top brass and with his own ground support defeated TRS nominee Gellu Srinivas comfortably by more than 23,000 votes. This election was a straight battle between the TRS and the BJP and more so between KCR and Etala Rajender. The BJP with its impressive electoral victories in Telangana is becoming a concern for TRS politically. Just because they won Huzurabad doesn't mean anything. In 2018 assembly elections this same BJP lost deposits in 107 constituencies,'' KCR said. KCR even declared support for farmers protests in north India. Yes. Now we will support them in their demand to withdraw farm laws, he declared. On the question of reducing VAT on fuel prices, KCR shot back angrily, Why should we do when we did not raise any single paise VAT. The Centre should immediately withdraw cess on fuel because it is raising fuel prices even when international crude oil prices are down. Going by his tone and tenor, the political fireworks are likely to be continued between the TRS and the BJP. Live TV NEW DELHI: Bharatiya Janata Party chief JP Nadda and top party leaders on Sunday felicitated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking the "bold decision" of lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic. They also lauded the Prime Minister for ably tackling the ensuing economic challenges during the pandemic. Addressing the inaugural address of the first national executive committee after the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, JP Nadda said, "Decision to impose the lockdown was a taken by PM Modi and within three months after the lockdown, all essential facilities were made available to people across the country. The methodology applied to fight Covid has three Ts- Track, Test and Treat." Praising PM Modi, the BJP chief pointed out that the PM led from the front to take on the COVID-19 pandemic. "WHO applauded PM Modi for the leadership provided in the process by not only addressing the Covid challenges but also in showing the world how best to tackle the economic challenges that arose," Nadda said. BJP national executive meeting at Delhi | PM Modi was felicitated by BJP President JP Nadda and party's former national presidents for achieving the 100 crore COVID19 vaccination target pic.twitter.com/mK6C3YBWQD ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 The BJP chief also praised the party for having increased the vote share in the recently concluded polls. "From general to the panchayats polls, the vote share of the BJP has increased. In fact, in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP has and is performing exceedingly well," Nadda pointed out. The BJP chief also stated that PM Modi is the only leader who has ensured the prosperity of farmers in the country by introducing progressive policies and laws for the upliftment of the farmers in India. Nadda also listed policies implemented by the Centre in the health and agriculture sectors. "Neither the world nor the country imagined that India will come out with its own vaccine for COVID-19," added the party chief. When Covid came no one in the world knew how to handle it. Modi Ji constituted a task force for vaccines, and today we can see the result. Within 9 months, 1 billion doses were inoculated. WHO also approved made in India vaccine 'Covaxin': Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan pic.twitter.com/YcG8H7PjLF ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 He also mentioned that India in a very short time made the Covid vaccines and also have managed to get 100 crores vaccination done. The BJP president also called on the party workers to ensure that people receive their second COVID-19 vaccine doses. Nadda hailed various central government policy initiatives from the abrogation of Article 370 and various peace agreements in Assam and Tripura. Nadda said this while addressing the national executive committee meeting in national capital with PM Narendra Modi, and several Cabinet Ministers and Chief Ministers in presence. Many other senior leaders including, LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, have joined the meeting virtually from their respective states. Live TV Srinagar: A policeman was shot dead by terrorists in the Batamaloo area of the city on Sunday, officials said. He was identified as Constable Tausif Ahmad, they said. "At about 8 pm, terrorists fired upon JKP Constable Tausif Ahmad near his residence at SD Colony, Batamaloo," the officials added. They said the cop was critically injured and was taken to the SMHS hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead. The area has been cordoned off, and a hunt has been launched to nab the attackers, the officials added. Meanwhile, the National Conference (NC) condemned the attack. Unequivocally condemn the cowardly & dastardly attack on 29-year-old policeman in Batmaloo, Srinagar in which he lost his life. No words of condemnation would be enough! May Allah grant him a place in Jannat. Our hearts go out to his family and friends at this time of grief, the party tweeted. Live TV Kolkata: The TMC on Sunday (November 7) urged the Centre to extend its free ration scheme under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) for another six months amid reports that the programme might be discontinued after November 30. The scheme was launched in March last year, after the COVID-19 pandemic struck, leaving lakhs of people in distress. Veteran TMC MP Sougata Roy told reporters that he would soon write to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking an extension of the scheme. "Poor people of this country, still reeling under the devastating impact of the pandemic, will be hit hard if the scheme is discontinued," he pointed out. The Centre had on Friday (November 5) said that there was no proposal at present to continue PMGKAY, given the recovery in the economy and good disposal of foodgrain under the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS). Roy further said that the state government will continue to provide ration to people free of cost. "Those grappling with economic crisis in the midst of the rising fuel prices will need assistance from the state as well as the Centre. If the Union government discontinues the scheme, it will add to their woes," the TMC MP stated. He hoped the central government will reconsider its plans. "I will be writing to PM Narendra Modi soon to request him to continue the scheme for another six months," the Dumdum MP said on the sidelines of a function here. At another event in the city, Left Front Chairman and veteran CPI(M) leader Biman Bose also put forth the same demand. "We know that this country has enough foodgrain for distribution among the poor. And running the scheme for an extended period of time should not be a problem," Bose added. Live TV New Delhi: A few days are left to apply for watchmen posts in Punjab invited by the Food Corporation of India (FCI). Interested candidates can fill the application form on the FCI website at fci-punjab-watch-ward.in. The last date to apply for the watchmen vacancies is November 10, 2021. The recruitment drive will fill 860 vacancies of watchmen in depots and offices across Punjab. FCI recruitment 2021: Vacancy details Out of the total posts, 345 vacancies are for the Unreserved Category, 86 vacancies will be filled from the EWS category, 180 vacancies from the OBC category, and 249 vacancies from the SC category. FCI recruitment 2021: Application fees Candidates have to pay Rs 250 as application fee. FCI recruitment 2021: Educational requirements Candidates should have passed 8th ( Middle) standard. The erstwhile Ex-Contractual Security Guards should have passed the 5th Standard. FCI recruitment 2021: How to apply Visit the official website at fci-punjab-watch-ward.in. Candidates will be required to fill the application form in two parts. First, fill the online application form. In the second part, upload the photographs, signature and pay the application fee. Live TV Mumbai: According to reports, Shah Rukh Khan's son Aryan Khan who was arrested in a drugs case on October 3 and released on bail on October 29 was asked to appear before the NCB SIT team on Sunday (November 7). However, citing ill-health the star kid skipped the visit. As per our sources, NCB's SIT Chief DDG Operation Sanjay Singh is coming back to Delhi tomorrow (November 8), but his team of 13 members will stay in Mumbai. Aryan was called today (November 7) between 6 to 8 pm to record his statement before the SIT but he did not come due to ill health. On Monday (November 8), NCB DDG and chief vigilance officer Gyaneshwar Singh will fly to Mumbai via an Air India flight with his team. The team is expected to reach Mumbai by 9 am and is set to investigate the charges on NCB zonal director Sameer Wankhede. Till now Gyaneshwar Singh's team has collected statements from 12 people including NCB officials On Monday (November 8), the vigilance team will summon Pooja Dadlani, Prabhakar Sail and Aryan khan for questioning. The team may also do a spot visit. New Delhi: Rapper Travis Scott has issued a statement after the tragedy at his Astroworld festival in Houston, which left eight people dead and many injured on Friday night. Scott took to his Twitter handle to offer his condolences to the families of the people who lost their lives. He wrote, "I'm absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival." "Houston PD has my total support as they continue to look into the tragic loss of life. I am committed to working together with the Houston community to heal and support the families in need," he added. "Thank you to Houston PD, Fire Department and NRG Park for their immediate response and support. Love You All," the rapper concluded. Scott also took to his Instagram Stories to speak about the issue at length. The 29-year-old rapper told his fans that he is hoping to reach the victims' families. "I just want to send out prayers to the ones that was lost last night. We're actually working right now to identify the families to assist them through this tough time," he said. "My fans really mean the world to me, and I always want to leave them with a positive experience," he added. The star said that he prioritized the safety of his fans at the festival: "Any time I can make out anything that's going on, I'd stop the show and help them get the help they need, you know? I could never imagine this situation." Scott added that he and his team have "been working closely with everyone to get to the bottom of this -- City of Houston HPD, fire department -- everyone, to help us figure this out" and told fans to contact authorities with any information. "Everybody continue to keep your prayers," he said. "I mean, I'm honestly just devastated and I could never imagine anything like this happening. I'm going to do everything I can to keep you guys updated and keep you guys informed of what's going on. Love you all," Scott signed off. As per People magazine, Scott, who was arrested in 2017 for allegedly inciting a riot during a concert in Arkansas and later pled guilty to disorderly conduct, faced accusations from festival-goers on Saturday who claimed he continued to perform even after seeing distraught and injured fans in the audience. One festivalgoer, David McGilver, told the outlet that he was "upset" with Scott for not stopping the concert sooner. "I still can hear this in my head -- I remember me being on the ground and the music stopping and I could hear [Travis] say, 'Y'all know what y'all came here for.' And you can hear everybody screaming out for help. And then the music just plays back again," McGilver said. However, a source close to the musician told People magazine that Scott was unaware of the magnitude of the situation. "The lights were shining in his eyes and he couldn't see what was happening," the source said. "He thought someone had just passed out, which happens during concerts." Scott is "in absolute pieces" and is a "mess about what happened. He's incredibly upset about everything and horrified," the source added. About 30 minutes into his set (which was streamed live on Apple Music), Scott briefly paused the show when he noticed an ambulance driving through the crowd. Later, he stopped his performance again and asked security to "jump in real quick" and help "somebody passed out right here." Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner confirmed at a news conference on Saturday that eight people -- ranging in age from 14 to 27 -- died, while hundreds of other festival-goers reported injuries at NRG Park. 50,000 fans attended the show, which led to a surge during Scott's performance at the festival outside NRG Park. At a press conference following the concert, Houston fire chief Samuel Pena clarified the timeline. He said that the crowd began surging forward at 9 pm, as there was panic involving people running for safety. At that point, Scott paused his set several times to ask security to help out fans, and members of the fire department were sent into the dense crowd to rescue the injured. New Delhi: Actor Sonam Kapoor and her husband Anand Ahuja never leave a chance to express their love for each other publically.The former on Sunday shared a delightful picture with her husband from the Diwali celebrations at their London home. Taking to her Instagram handle, Sonam shared three pictures featuring her with Anand from the Diwali celebrations at the couple`s London home. The duo could be seen twinning in an ivory coloured ensemble. Addressing her husband as her `whole universe`, Sonam captioned the post as, "My whole universe and everything that matters the most. I love you @anandahuja #everydayphenomenal #diwali." Soon after the pictures were shared on the photo-sharing platform, they accumulated thousands of hearts and comments from the fans and fellow celebrity followers. Anand also replied to her `jaan` by saying, "sooo cute my Jaan! ... I told you though in that first pic my one eye is closed. My one eye blinks faster than the other I think." Whereas, Sonam`s younger sister Rhea took offence with Sonam calling only Anand her `whole universe`. "Whole universe? I take offence," she wrote in the comments section adding quirky emoticons. Sonam tied the knot with the Bhaane label owner on May 8, 2018, in an Anand Karaj ceremony, later followed by a star-studded reception. They celebrated their third wedding anniversary earlier this year. Meanwhile, on the work front, Sonam will be seen in `Blind`. She was last seen in the 2019 release `The Zoya Factor`. She also had a cameo role in Anil Kapoor and Anurag Kashyap`s `AK vs AK`, which had released on Netflix last year. New Delhi: Kylie Jenner, who is currently expecting her second baby with Travis Scott, has spoken up following a mass casualty event at Scott's Astroworld festival in Houston, which left eight people dead and many injured on Friday night. Taking to her Instagram Story, the beauty mogul issued a statement in which she expressed her reaction to the tragic event. "Travis and I are broken and devastated. My thoughts and prayers are with all who lost their lives, were injured or affected in any way by yesterday's events. And also for Travis who I know cares deeply for his fans and the Houston community," she wrote. Further, she clarified that they weren't aware of the incident until after the show. "I want to make it clear we weren't aware of any fatalities until the news came out after the show and in no world would have continued filming or performing. I am sending my deepest condolences to all the families during this difficult time and will be praying for the healing of everyone who has been impacted," she added. As per People Magazine, Kylie too was present at the Astroworld festival. A source revealed that the expectant mother and her sister, Kendall Jenner, were both okay and did not get injured in the incident at NRG Park. Kylie's 3-year-old daughter Stormi Webster, whom she shares with Scott, was also in attendance at the event. "Everyone is shocked and upset. Kylie and Kendall were in the audience, but they are not injured," the insider said. "Travis won't be performing tonight. The concert is cancelled," the source added. Early on Saturday morning, Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena provided details regarding the incident in a press conference. "We had at least eight confirmed fatalities tonight. Eight confirmed fatalities and we had scores of individuals that were injured here at this event. We had an attendance of approximately 50,000 to the Travis Scott Astroworld Festival event," Chief Pena said. "What we do know is that at approximately 9 o'clock, 9:15, the crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage and that caused some panic and it started causing some injuries. People began to fall out, become unconscious, and it created additional panic," he continued. Chief Pena noted that 17 individuals were transported to hospitals. "12 of those patients were transported by Houston Fire Department ambulances, five were transported by Harris County emergency services, 11 of those that were transported were in cardiac arrest," he said. "We won't know the cause of death of the eight that are confirmed until the medical examiner has completed his investigation, but we are in the process. The Houston Police Department is sending units out to the hospitals to identify these patients, these fatalities," Chief Pena added. A reunification centre for event attendees has also since been set up at the Wyndham Houston Hotel. Scott, 29, and Jenner are currently expecting their second baby together. Jenner confirmed her pregnancy news in September. New Delhi: An Aadhaar card comes with a unique 12-digit number assigned to each citizen by the Government of India, and it is required for identification everywhere. Almost every official dealing with government and private businesses requires an Aadhaar card, from opening a bank account to obtaining benefits from social service initiatives to applying for a job. But what if you misplaced your Aadhaar card and can't recall your Aadhaar number (UID)? Don't be concerned! You may still get your Aadhaar number online. The only prerequisite is that your phone number be registered with UIDAI and linked to your Aadhaar card. In addition, your cell phone number must be active and capable of receiving SMS messages. Here's how to retrieve your lost Aadhaar card number online: 1. To begin, navigate to the UIDAI site at https://resident.uidai.gov.in/ on your browser. 2.Scroll down to the 'Aadhaar Services' section. 3. Select the 'Recover Lost or Forgotten EID/UID' tab. 4. This will take you to the following screen, where you must select 'Aadhaar No (UID)'. 5. Enter your personal information, such as your name, registered mobile number, or email address. 6.Insert Captcha on the page. 7. Click 'Send OTP,' and a six-digit OTP will be sent to your phone number or email address. 8. On the portal, enter the six-digit OTP. How to get your Aadhaar card e-copy online Your Aadhaar number will be emailed to the phone number or email address you provided during registration. You can also print an e-copy of your 12-digit Aadhaar number after you receive it. You'll need to go back to the UIDAI portal and select 'Download Aadhaar' from the 'Get Aadhaar' section. You can enter your Aadhar number and the appropriate Captcha information, and you will receive an OTP, identical to the previous process. Then, on the next page, tick the 'Terms & Conditions' checkbox and click'submit.' It will ask you to choose between a registered and unregistered mobile phone number. Once you've chosen the first option, you'll be prompted to input your Aadhaar number as well as the Captcha code. Payment is required to download your e-copy of Aadhaar. Your Aadhaar card will be delivered to you when you have made a successful payment. You're probably wondering what happens if your phone number or email address isn't linked to your Aadhaar card. Then you're out of luck and won't be able to resolve the issue via the internet. The solution, though, is very much there; you just have to do it offline. You must go to a Permanent Aadhaar Enrolment centre near you. Live TV #mute NEW DELHI: In a major boost to consumers, Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Sunday said that the state government has decided to cut petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 per litre and Rs 5 per litre, respectively. "We have decided to decrease petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 per litre and Rs 5 per litre, respectively, to be effective from midnight today," Charanjit Singh Channi was quoted as saying by news agency ANI. We have decided to decrease petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 per litre and Rs 5 per litre, respectively, to be effective from midnight today: Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi pic.twitter.com/Q3PP1scPeo ANI (@ANI) November 7, 2021 The new prices will come into effect from midnight today, he added. Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Singh Badal had earlier urged the Charanjit Singh Channi-led Congress government to reduce VAT rate on petrol and diesel to provide relief to the consumers. The announcement from CM Channi came days after the Centre slashed excise duty on petrol and diesel by Rs 5 and Rs 10 per litre respectively, a move aimed at offering relief to consumers by lowering pump rates and easing prices of daily staples for the common man. Reducing the excise duty, the Union government urged the states to commensurately reduce VAT on petrol and diesel to give relief to consumers. The reduction, however, varied in other states in accordance with the level of VAT levied. States with higher VAT will see a slightly higher reduction in pump prices. The higher passthrough is because of an incremental decrease in state levy as VAT is charged after excise duty and dealer commission. Several states, including UP, Haryana, Gujarat, Goa, Manipur, Tripra, had also announced a reduction in VAT on the fuels on Thursday, making them cheaper by Rs 10-12 per litre. Live TV New Delhi: Bengali actor Prosenjit Chatterjee aka Bumba Da gets trolled after he wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after food delivery application Swiggy failed to deliver his order. In his letter, Prosenjit sought the intervention of the politicians as to what would happen if someone is depending on these food apps for their dinner? The Praktan actor took to his Twitter account on Saturday (November 6) to issue his open letter - sharing his bad experience with Swiggy - to PM and CM. Respected Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Respected Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Festive greetings. Hope you are keeping well. I want to draw your attention to an issue I have recently faced. On 3rd November, I placed an order on food delivery app Swiggy. After some time, the status of the order changed to delivered but I never received the food. After raising the issue with Swiggy, they refunded me the money since the order was prepaid, wrote the actor. He further added, However, I wanted to draw your attention because I feel anybody can face this issue. What if someone relies on a food app to get food delivered for their guests and the food never arrives? What if someone is depending on these food apps for their dinner? Will they stay hungry? There can be many such situations. Thus, I felt it was necessary to talk about it. Regards, Prosenjit Chatterjee. Twitterati had a meme fest after reading the actors letter. Yes please, organize a protest regarding this grave issue, commented one user, while another wrote, Shame to those who are mocking you for tagging cm and PM . I further want to say that this is not national problem but an international one. @UN should take note. Another sarcastic comment read, You forgot to tag the President of United States, PM of Russia and China's Chairman. Is that much so serious issue to tag PM & WB cm pic.twitter.com/XmiTLvu3zU Prakash_EG (@Prakash_MBfan) November 6, 2021 Yes please, organize a protest regarding this grave issue Why I am an Atheist (@why_atheist) November 6, 2021 Shame to those who are mocking you for tagging cm and PM . I further want to say that this is not national problem but an international one . @UN should take note . Subham (@subhsays) November 6, 2021 Please find Mamata Di's reply to "Bumba" pic.twitter.com/AywjcdmBYs Mark (@marcferns) November 6, 2021 On the work front, Prosenjit will next be seen in Srijit Mukherjis Kakababur Portyaborton, which is scheduled for Christmas release. New Delhi: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is debating whether he should sell 10% of his shares in the electric vehicle (EV) company on Twitter, despite calls in Washington to raise taxes on billionaires like him. Some Democrats have proposed that billionaires pay taxes when the value of the stocks they own rises, even if they don't sell any. It's known as "unrealized gains," and Musk, who has a net worth of around $300 billion, has a lot of them. Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock, he tweeted Saturday afternoon. Do you support this? Out of a total of 876,189 votes, 54 percent responded yes by 5:40 p.m. Eastern time, a little more than two hours after Musk's initial tweet. Musk's fortune is largely made up of Tesla stock, which does not pay him a salary in cash. I only have stock, thus the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock, he tweeted. Musk, noted for his witty tweets, stated that he will "abide by the results of this vote." Live TV #mute New Delhi: According to an inquiry into the security precautions put in place by the tech giant for its latest range of phones, the iPhone 13 disables Face ID if the screen is replaced by a third-party repair shop. The analysis, conducted by prominent DIY and repair YouTube channel iFixit, discovered that the Face ID function will not operate if the repair is performed without using Apple-approved tools. "This unprecedented lockdown is unique to Apple. Its totally new in the iPhone 13, and hard to understand as a security measure, given that the Face ID illuminator is entirely separate from the screen," writes iFixit's Kevin Purdy. Third-party repair businesses have already chastised Apple, accusing the Cupertino-based company of making it difficult to repair their devices on purpose. "It is likely the strongest case yet for right to repair laws. And its all because of a chip about the size of a Tic-Tac, tucked into the bottom of a screen," Purdy said. Customers' freedom to have their gadgets repaired where they wish is at the centre of the "Right to Repair" movement led by third-party repair companies. Apple does not want to relax its grip on the repair business, both for security reasons and as a money stream. Consumers are concerned about the copy-cat effect. Samsung has already made it more difficult to fix its devices. If repair businesses want to work on Apple devices in the future, they must join Apple's network, which has been chastised for placing demands on shops in return for Apple-certified tools. Live TV #mute New Delhi: OnePlus has announced the release of a new Pac-Man-edition product, although the specifics are still unknown. The company suggests that the new product will be "coming soon" in India in a cryptic post shared across its social media accounts. According to Max Jambor, a well-known leakster, OnePlus is preparing to release a Pac-Man edition of the OnePlus Nord 2. According to a separate rumour, the OnePlus Nord 2 Pac-Man edition will use a Snapdragon 778G SoC rather than MediaTek's Dimensity 1200 SoC, which is geared for low-cost flagships and premium mid-range handsets. Despite the fact that the MediaTek Dimensity 1200 has a higher Geekbench CPU score, the Snapdragon 778G is still a powerful 6nm chipset capable of handling gaming and everyday duties. The OnePlus Nord 2 is currently available in India for Rs 27,999 and comes in three colour options: Blue Haze, Grey Sierra, and Green Woods. The Nord 2 Pac-Man Edition may have a different price because it is supposed to be a limited-edition phone with a different chipset. The 6.43-inch Full-HD+ AMOLED display on the Dimensity 1200-powered OnePlus Nord 2 boasts a 90Hz refresh rate. A 50MP primary camera and a 32MP selfie and video calling camera are housed in the OnePlus Nord 2 5G's triple camera arrangement on the back. Dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v5.2, an in-display fingerprint sensor, face unlock, and 5G are among the other interesting features on the OnePlus Nord 2 5G. It has a 4,500mAh battery and a USB Type-C connection that allows 65W fast charging. Apart from the chipset, it's unknown whether the OnePlus Nord 2 Pac-Man edition will have any additional alterations. This isn't the first time the company has introduced a limited-edition smartphone. OnePlus gained notoriety earlier this year when it released a McLaren Edition smartphone at the end of the year. In India, the business just released a Harry Potter-themed OnePlus Watch. Live TV #mute New Delhi: WhatsApp is continuously attempting to improve its platform by adding new features. XDA Developers reported in October that the Meta-owned messaging service was developing a new feature dubbed WhatsApp Communities. Now, WABetaInfo has confirmed that such a feature is in the works at the corporation, as well as providing additional specifics. According to the blog site, WhatsApp Communities will be a searchable WhatsApp group in which group managers would have more authority. In addition, a single community can contain several groups, all of which are protected by end-to-end encryption. Community admins will be allowed to send messages in this group chat, and they will be able to group some groups linked to the community, according to the blog site. One of the most significant differences between Communities and WhatsApp groups is that a Community will provide admins with tools to help them better manage all of their groups. The specific nature of these characteristics is unknown at this time. Community administrators will also be able to invite others to join their community. They will be able to manually add new members or use a "Community Invite Link" to do so. They will also be able to use QR codes to invite and add new members to their WhatsApp Communities. Another significant distinction between WhatsApp communities and WhatsApp groups is that when a new user joins a community, they will not necessarily be allowed to send messages to all of the community's groups right away. It's possible that group administrators will select how members of the community communicate with one another. The pictures of the WhatsApp feature posted by the blog site show that WhatsApp would change the community symbol to enable users distinguish between a WhatsApp group and a WhatsApp community. To identify the community from a group chat, the community icons will be square with rounded corners, and the group icons will be round, just like the individual chat icons. All said and done, the WhatsApp Community feature is still under development and there is no word on when this feature will arrive on the companys Android or iOS-based apps. Live TV #mute Kanpur: Ten more people, including three Indian Air Force personnel, tested positive for Zika virus in Kanpur on Sunday, taking the total number of cases to 89, District Magistrate Vishak G Ayyar said. On Saturday, 13 people had tested positive for Zika virus. "Out of the 89 infected people, 55 are men and 34 are women. Among these, 23 are those below 21 years of age. Of the total infected persons, 12 are Indian Air Force personnel. This includes 11 men and one woman," the district magistrate said. Also read: UP reports 80 cases of Zika virus; know symptoms, treatment & other details Health teams had collected blood samples of 525 people on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and were sent to the virology lab of the King George's Medical University in Lucknow and the National Institute of Virology in Pune for testing. "Of this, 23 samples tested positive for Zika virus," the district magistrate added. Ayyar also said that health teams have collected samples of 525 people who were in close contact with the infected persons and living in the radius of 3 km of Indian Air Force station hangars for testing. The first case of the virus was reported in the city on October 23 when a warrant officer of the IAF tested positive for the infection. So far, a total of 3,283 samples were collected from the city and sent to the virology lab of KGMU in Lucknow and NIV in Pune for testing. Zika is a mosquito-borne virus and hence, getting rid of mosquitoes is the safe way out, the district magistrate said. To check the spread of the disease, health teams are undertaking sanitisation programmes, including anti-larvae spraying and identifying fever patients, screening seriously ill people and pregnant women. Health officials have been asked to step up surveillance and ensure door-to-door sampling and testing for Zika virus. "We advise the local people not to panic regarding the sudden spurt in Zika virus cases," Ayyar said. A high alert has been sounded in the periphery of hangars of the IAF station, another official said. Live TV New Delhi: While most of us live for the next adventure, some of them are just not worth the risk. A video depicting the latter has left netizens enraged. A hair-raising video of a tourists encounter with a lion apparently filmed at Serengeti National Park in Tanzania got the internet talking. The 23-second clip was shared by YouTube account Maasai Sightings last year. The video shows a tourist on a safari, petting a lion through an open window of a vehicle. When another arm reaches to pet the big cat, the lion faces the window, jumps up and roars as the tourists inside the vehicle can be heard panicking at the turn of events. The post shared by Maasai Sightings reads, A tourist in Serengeti decided to touch a male lion and almost got her face ripped off. This is a very dumb thing to do and you could easily get yourself killed or banned from a national park by doing this. Watch the video here: The video has over 11 lakh views on YouTube. Many viewers were left furious at the tourists and admonished them for their actions. While one user replied sarcastically, The lion was very polite, actually another user commented, I feel like the tour guides should have autonomy over the tourists. Dumb actions warrants equally dumb repercussions. "You! Get out and walk back." Another comment read, Lions are freaking strong... that window wouldnt hold Mufasa back if he wanted to get in. While a fourth user chided, "I mean, less than a second and this guy could've had a faceful of claws. Go pet your house kitty... feels much the same. House kitty can also tear your face off." New Delhi: Humans have a great advantage of having hands, unlike other mammals whose forelimbs are also used in walking. You might be wondering what is so great about having two hands but we tell you that it is the most underrated fact as you can perform various tasks that other mammals can never. For instance, you can scratch your back with your hands which a quadruped cannot do. Yes! It is the most underrated pleasure and you can confirm it when you see this bear scratching its back with the help of a pole and feeling relaxed. Watch: People all over social media acknowledge the relief we get by scratching an itch at the right spot and loving the video of the bear scratching its back with the help of a pole. The video has garnered over 1 lakh likes. ALSO WATCH: Cute parrot plays peekaboo with traffic camera in viral video, leaves netizens in splits- Watch Washington: The United States is developing a powerful laser weapon capable of blasting missiles and drones after China`s latest "nuclear-capable hypersonic missile" test. Last month, Boeing and General Atomics Electromagnetics Systems (GA-DMS) was awarded a US Army contract to develop a 300kW-class solid-state "Distributed Gain High Energy Laser Weapon System." The delivery of the weapon will be a 300 kW-class distributed gain laser with an integrated Boeing beam director, according to the statement released on October 25. "The high power, compact laser weapon subsystem prototype that GA-EMS will deliver under this contract will produce a lethal output greater than anything fielded to date," said Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS." This technology represents a leap-ahead capability for air and missile defence that is necessary to support the Army`s modernization efforts and defeat next-generation threats in a multi-domain battlespace. "The partnership combines both companies` expertise in Directed Energy to deliver best-in-class, combat-ready protection for the warfighter with unmatched speed, performance, safety and affordability, the statement added. This comes after media reports the last month stated that China carried out its first-ever hypersonic missile test which took US intelligence by surprise. Multiple reports stated that China carried out a test in the month of August. According to the reports, the missile flew through low-orbit space before cruising toward its target. It missed the target but the test is said to show "astounding progress" by China on hypersonic missile technology that "caught US intelligence by surprise". The US and Russia have also been working on hypersonic missiles. Such weapons fly at five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre during flight, making them harder to track. China had described reports of the first-ever test of a "nuclear-capable hypersonic missile" as a routine experiment to test the technology of spacecraft reusability. Responding to a question during a presser, China`s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian had said that Bejing conducted "a routine spacecraft experiment to test the technology of spacecraft reusability." Later this month, a new Pentagon report revealed that China is constructing the infrastructure necessary to support its nuclear expansion over the next decade. The Pentagon`s report titled "Military and Security Developments Involving the People`s Republic of China (PRC) 2021", said that "the accelerating pace of the PRC`s nuclear expansion may enable the PRC to have up to 700 deliverable nuclear warheads by 2027.The PRC likely intends to have at least 1,000 warheads by 2030, exceeding the pace and size the DoD projected in 2020." China is investing in, and expanding, the number of its land-, sea-, and air-based nuclear delivery platforms and constructing the infrastructure necessary to support this major expansion of its nuclear forces, according to the report which was released on Wednesday. China has possibly already established a nascent "nuclear triad" with the development of a nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile (ALBM) and improvement of its ground and sea-based nuclear capabilities, the report read. Live TV Vienna: A 57-year-old man stabbed a 10-year-old boy with a kitchen knife in a department store in Munich on Saturday evening, German police told the news agency dpa. Approximately 50 officers responded to the scene at a TK Maxx department store in Munich, the broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk reported. The child was wounded on his neck and shoulder. He was transported to a hospital and police said his injuries are severe but not life-threatening. According to Bayerischer Rundfunk, there is no known connection between the man and the child. The suspect was arrested at the scene and is being investigated for attempted homicide. A man in New York was reported to be in a grave condition at a hospital after police he burst into flames due to the taser used on him, authorities told local media. The man was taken to the Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, where he is in critical condition. According to report by newsweek.com, Jason Jones, 29, walked into the police department at Catskill village and got into a confrontation with the officers. Chief Dave Darling said that officers deployed a taser to subdue the man, who had just doused himself with hand sanitizer, and the man then burst into flames. Darling said the officers were familiar with the man from previous encounters. I think they were afraid he was going to hurt himself, and thats what started it. There are still details that were trying to develop, he was quoted by the Times-Union. Law enforcement officers in the know of the incident told the newspaper that the man had started taking off his clothes in the police station and doused himself with the flammable substance in front of officers before he was tasered. The police chief described the situation as horrible and said it was under investigation by the Greene County district attorneys office. Darling said that his officers are not equipped with body cameras but that there are video cameras in the police station. An attorney for Jones' family also declined to discuss the details of the case with the newspaper. Live TV Islamabad: The Pakistan Hindu Council will organise a grand function on Monday to celebrate Diwali at a century-old temple in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which was vandalised and set on fire by a mob led by a radical Islamist party last year, a media report said on Sunday. Pakistan's Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmad has been invited by the Council to celebrate the festival of lights at the Teri Temple in Karak, the Dawn newspaper reported. The grand function to celebrate Diwali is being organised by the Pakistan Hindu Council (PHC), which will also host a large number of pilgrims from the Sindh and Balochistan provinces. PHC patron-in-chief and member of the National Assembly Dr Ramesh Kumar Vankwani said that the presence of senior officials during the celebration would give a strong message to the miscreants that their nefarious designs would be foiled, the report said. To provide facilities to those arriving from Sindh and Balochistan to participate in the annual fair at Teri, the Council has requested the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) to provide boarding and lodging facilities to around 1,500 pilgrims at Hassanabdal. The pilgrims have started arriving at Hassanabdal from where they will proceed to the Teri area of Karak on Monday and return the same day. The shrine is associated with a saint, Shri Param Hans Ji Maharaj, in Karak district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where the temple was established in 1920. However, it was vandalised by a mob led by a local cleric belonging to the Jamiat Ulema Islam-Fazl last year. On the orders of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, the temple was restored. The apex court also ordered the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government in October 2021 to recover Rs 33 million (USD 1,94,161) from the culprits involved in vandalising the century-old shrine. In December last year, over 1,000 people led by some local clerics belonging to the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) instigated the villagers to demolish the temple and as a result, people led by local seminary students attacked the temple. The Supreme Court was informed that 109 people involved in the incident had been arrested. Earlier in 1997, the shrine was first attacked and severely damaged, and the PHC head Vankwani had approached the apex court in 2015 seeking help to restore the holy place and restart the annual pilgrimage to the place. At that time, local clerics were creating hurdles to holding a religious congregation for the Hindus, while the followers of Shri Paramhans Ji tried to build the temple at the place but it was not allowed, Vankwani had told Dawn. After the Supreme Court issued directives to the provincial government to restore and preserve the Teri temple, the Pakistan Hindu Council started holding the annual fair in 2015. Since the temple is being managed by the local Hindu families, it comes administratively under the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province government and not under the ETPB control, according to the report. Hindus form the biggest minority community in Pakistan. According to official estimates, 75 lakh Hindus live in Pakistan. However, according to the community, over 90 lakh Hindus are living in the country. The majority of Pakistan's Hindu population is settled in Sindh province where they share culture, traditions and language with Muslim residents. They often complain of harassment by extremists. Live TV